National Portrait Gallery – Armistice Centenary: Veterans and Remembrance
5 November 2018 – 6 January 2019
This display marks the centenary of the end of the First World War. Armistice Day commemorates the agreement of 11 November 1918 between the Allies and the German Empire the cessation of hostilities in the Western Front.
Photographer Giles Price embarked on a series of portraits of First World War veterans in 2004. The project was timely as just twenty-three of the almost nine million British military personnel who had served in the war were still living, all of whom were aged over 100. On display are four of the twelve poignant portraits Price made.
Price was drawn to the veterans as subjects through his own military background. He joined the Royal Marines in 1990 at the aged of sixteen serving in Northern Iraq toward the end of the first Gulf War. Sustaining injuries Price was discharged with a war pension just ahead of his twenty-first birthday. His photographic snapshot diary made in Iraq (now in the collection of the Imperial War museum) motivated his studies and, subsequently a career in photography.
