Exhibition reveals stories of London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games

Rebecca Adlington, Tom Daley, Jess Ennis, Vitoria Pendleton, Zaha Hadid, Ken Livingstone and Tessa Jowell are among those featured in an exhibition of striking new photographic portraits which show an intriguing new side to key figures in the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

Part of the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad, Road to 2012: Setting Out (20 July–26 September 2010) - opening at the National Portrait Gallery today – shows Britain’s medal hopefuls and those behind the bid and delivery of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, in a way they haven’t been seen before.

The National Portrait Gallery/BT Road to 2012 Project celebrates those who are collectively making the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games happen. BT, the official communications services partner for the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games is the Project partner, enabling the Gallery not only to create the portraits but also to share them with the public through the annual exhibitions, a website and community projects between now and 2012 as part of the Cultural Olympiad. The project website www.npg.org.uk/roadto2012 - where visitors can contribute their own inspirational photos - is launched today and has new interviews with sitters, behind-the-scenes shots and East London perspectives.

As the two-year countdown to the Olympic and Paralympic Games begins, and thanks to funding from BT, the Gallery is unveiling 30 portraits, the first from a total of 100 commissions which will be displayed at the Gallery each summer over the next three years. For the first time, the National Portrait Gallery has commissioned portraits and video interviews with some of the sitters and behind-the-scenes photographs of the shoots which reveal the journey to the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

Among the first 30 commissioned portraits on show in Road to 2012: Setting Out are world champion heptathlete Jessica Ennis, the UK’s first individual world diving champion Tom Daley, Double Olympic Gold medal-winning swimmer Rebecca Adlington and one of only two UK athletes to compete at both Winter and Summer Paralympic Games, BT Ambassador Nathan Stephens who lost both legs at the age of nine, when playing on railway tracks - he now aims to be the UK’s greatest Paralympian thrower.

World renowned architect Zaha Hadid is pictured beside her Aquatics Centre during construction and key people behind the bid for the London Games such as Tessa Jowell and Ken Livingstone are shown alongside unsung behind-the-scenes heroes such as Steve Deeble, Antonn Russek, Dave Skerritt and Clare Staveley, engineers working on soil cleaning, a key part of the sustainability promise for the Olympic Park.

Road to 2012: Setting Out features the work of photographers Brian Griffin and Bettina von Zwehl. Griffin photographed the visionary figures who conceived and won the bid for London as well as those responsible for designing, building and delivering the Olympic Park. Von Zwehl’s photographs include athletes aspiring to be selected for Team GB for the first time, World Champions, and Olympic and Paralympic medallists.

Brian Griffin (b.1948) is recognised for his groundbreaking depiction of work. He established an international reputation through his portraits of the workers who built Broadgate in the City of London in the 1980s. It was reinforced in 2007 when London and Continental Railways commissioned him to document the management and workforce who built High Speed 1, the UK’s first high-speed railway, and the largest construction project in British history.

German-born Bettina von Zwehl (b.1971) began making portraits as a student at the Royal College of Art. She adopted the nineteenth-century studio methodology that she had first encountered as photographer’s assistant in Rome, working on 10" x 8" film with a large-plate camera. This slow, quiet process and the descriptive power of the format give her images an extraordinary intensity. Since graduating in 1999 von Zwehl’s work has been collected and exhibited internationally. Her first monograph was published in 2007.

For more information contact: Neil Evans at nevans@npg.org.uk

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