It’s a Wonderful world

Tim Walker, the only photographer of his generation who has managed to show us the world through an unworldly mindset, allowing us to dream, is on display at the Victoria & Albert Museum, until the 8 th of March. Tim Walker: Wonderful Things invites visitors into his fantastical imagination, through the largest exhibition of Walker’s pictures to date (100), celebrating his extraordinary contribution to image making over the last 25 years. Portraits of people such as Edie Campbell and Alexander McQueen, as well as David Attenborough, Peter Blake and David Hockney, Cate Blanchett, Björk, Timothée Chalamet, Beth Ditto, Daniel Day-Lewis, Claire Foy, Saoirse Ronan and Solange Knowles, his muses Tilda Swinton and Lindsay Kemp, and artist Grayson Perry, showcase the brilliant way that Walker approaches his subjects: “When I take someone’s portrait, I do a lot of research about them. I ask myself, ‘Who is this person, what do they represent and believe in?’ Portraiture is about exploring someone’s identity and that’s a very tender, vulnerable thing. The portrait is a handshake, the embrace, the agreement where we meet halfway along a collaborative path”, he says.

It’s a Wonderful world

Tim Walker, the only photographer of his generation who has managed to show us the world through an unworldly mindset, allowing us to dream, is on display at the Victoria & Albert Museum, until the 8 th of March. Tim Walker: Wonderful Things invites visitors into his fantastical imagination, through the largest exhibition of Walker’s pictures to date (100), celebrating his extraordinary contribution to image making over the last 25 years. Portraits of people such as Edie Campbell and Alexander McQueen, as well as David Attenborough, Peter Blake and David Hockney, Cate Blanchett, Björk, Timothée Chalamet, Beth Ditto, Daniel Day-Lewis, Claire Foy, Saoirse Ronan and Solange Knowles, his muses Tilda Swinton and Lindsay Kemp, and artist Grayson Perry, showcase the brilliant way that Walker approaches his subjects: “When I take someone’s portrait, I do a lot of research about them. I ask myself, ‘Who is this person, what do they represent and believe in?’ Portraiture is about exploring someone’s identity and that’s a very tender, vulnerable thing. The portrait is a handshake, the embrace, the agreement where we meet halfway along a collaborative path”, he says.

It’s a Wonderful world

Tim Walker, the only photographer of his generation who has managed to show us the world through an unworldly mindset, allowing us to dream, is on display at the Victoria & Albert Museum, until the 8 th of March. Tim Walker: Wonderful Things invites visitors into his fantastical imagination, through the largest exhibition of Walker’s pictures to date (100), celebrating his extraordinary contribution to image making over the last 25 years. Portraits of people such as Edie Campbell and Alexander McQueen, as well as David Attenborough, Peter Blake and David Hockney, Cate Blanchett, Björk, Timothée Chalamet, Beth Ditto, Daniel Day-Lewis, Claire Foy, Saoirse Ronan and Solange Knowles, his muses Tilda Swinton and Lindsay Kemp, and artist Grayson Perry, showcase the brilliant way that Walker approaches his subjects: “When I take someone’s portrait, I do a lot of research about them. I ask myself, ‘Who is this person, what do they represent and believe in?’ Portraiture is about exploring someone’s identity and that’s a very tender, vulnerable thing. The portrait is a handshake, the embrace, the agreement where we meet halfway along a collaborative path”, he says.

But the exhibition does not just function as a retrospective; it exposes the deep connection between the artist and the museum itself, through the inspirational role that the V&A’s collection plays in his process. At the heart of the exhibition are 10 major new photographic projects, directly inspired by treasures in the V&A’s vast and eclectic collection that he scoured of over 2.3m objects, from illuminated Medieval manuscripts and stained glass, to the possessions of poet Edith Sitwell, a 65-metre-long photograph of the Bayeux Tapestry and an Alexander McQueen dress from his seminal 2009 collection, The Horn of Plenty. Separated into 10 specially designed rooms, each photograph is presented alongside the objects that inspired Walker’s image. Encompassing Walker’s photographs and the V&A objects that inspired them, short films, photographic sets and props, scrapbooks and sketches, the exhibition takes visitors on a unique journey through Walker’s enchanted world. The 49-year-old British photographer, who at a very young age became Richard Avedon’s assistant, is testament to his own work. “If we have so many terrible things,” he says. “We need wonderful things, too.”

But the exhibition does not just function as a retrospective; it exposes the deep connection between the artist and the museum itself, through the inspirational role that the V&A’s collection plays in his process. At the heart of the exhibition are 10 major new photographic projects, directly inspired by treasures in the V&A’s vast and eclectic collection that he scoured of over 2.3m objects, from illuminated Medieval manuscripts and stained glass, to the possessions of poet Edith Sitwell, a 65-metre-long photograph of the Bayeux Tapestry and an Alexander McQueen dress from his seminal 2009 collection, The Horn of Plenty. Separated into 10 specially designed rooms, each photograph is presented alongside the objects that inspired Walker’s image. Encompassing Walker’s photographs and the V&A objects that inspired them, short films, photographic sets and props, scrapbooks and sketches, the exhibition takes visitors on a unique journey through Walker’s enchanted world. The 49-year-old British photographer, who at a very young age became Richard Avedon’s assistant, is testament to his own work. “If we have so many terrible things,” he says. “We need wonderful things, too.”

But the exhibition does not just function as a retrospective; it exposes the deep connection between the artist and the museum itself, through the inspirational role that the V&A’s collection plays in his process. At the heart of the exhibition are 10 major new photographic projects, directly inspired by treasures in the V&A’s vast and eclectic collection that he scoured of over 2.3m objects, from illuminated Medieval manuscripts and stained glass, to the possessions of poet Edith Sitwell, a 65-metre-long photograph of the Bayeux Tapestry and an Alexander McQueen dress from his seminal 2009 collection, The Horn of Plenty. Separated into 10 specially designed rooms, each photograph is presented alongside the objects that inspired Walker’s image. Encompassing Walker’s photographs and the V&A objects that inspired them, short films, photographic sets and props, scrapbooks and sketches, the exhibition takes visitors on a unique journey through Walker’s enchanted world. The 49-year-old British photographer, who at a very young age became Richard Avedon’s assistant, is testament to his own work. “If we have so many terrible things,” he says. “We need wonderful things, too.”

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