Clare Freestone

Career summary

I joined the Photographs department of the National Portrait Gallery in 2000 as Assistant Curator. Some of the displays that I curated as such include Seizing an Instant: Photographs by Roger Mayne (2004), John Gay: Portraits in Print (2006), Private View: British Pop and the 60s Art Scene (2007) and Jazz in London: Photographs by Walter Hanlon (2008). In 2009 I was appointed Associate Curator for the exhibition and publication Ida Kar: Bohemian Photographer (2011). I studied BA Hons Fine Art at Wimbledon School of Art (1994-8), writing my dissertation on the work of Alberto Giacometti and Germaine Richier and the concerns of Existentialism.

Areas of interest / research

Whilst at the National Portrait Gallery I have developed my interest in post-war photography and culture. The research that I undertook for the exhibition of the work of Ida Kar, a photographer of Armenian origin, portraying artists and writers in London and Paris in the 1950s and 1960s, led to a specific interest in this period and milieu.

Details of books/publications relating to your work on British portraiture

Ida Kar: Bohemian Photographer (NPG, 2011), Ida Kar: Portraits of F.N. Souza (Grosvenor Vadhera, 2011).