Thursday 21 January 2010

A photographic tribute to a glamorous life, at bake-a-boo

From the 24th of February until the 8th of march, at bake-a-boo we will be hosting an exhibition 'Years of Romance' - a photographic tribute to a glamorous life. A collection of remastered and digitally enhanced photographs taken from the glamorous life of the actor Ballard Berkeley. The images cover the period 1920-1939 and include publicity photographs for the theatre and cinema. Hosting this exhibition is particulary special to me as Ballard Berkeley was my grandfather. My father recently dug out several old photographs of Ballard for a documentary 'Fawtly Towers re-opened' which aired in 2009. He then digitally enhanced and restored several of the photographs and has now compiled this exhibition. Seeing these photographs has allowed me to learn so much about my grandfather's acting career and life, as I was very young when he died and I only really knew him as 'the major' in Fawtly Towers, it has been lovely to experience some of his other chararcters through these photographs. I hope that you will enjoy the photographs in the shop during this time.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

This is wonderful!!!!! I cannot wait to see them xxx

claire montgomerie said...

fabulous! I saw that documentary - was your dad in it too...I recall hearing about your grandfather, but can't remember who talked about him - was it Cleese? how lovely, can't wait to see the pics!

Francesca said...

oh how lovely zo. i hope to be able to stop by and take a look when it's on. x

boo said...

Vicky - they will still be there when you come up, so you will see.

Claire - you will defo see the pics too when you come around, yes my dad was in that documentary briefly, Cleese talked about him too and described him as 'the perfect English gentleman'

Fran, come by anytime xx