Capturing the Moment: Photographs by Reg Wilson

Worcester City Art Gallery and Museum 23rd February to 5th April 2008

It runs in the Family - Ray Cooney and Windsor Davies

Reg Wilson is one of Britain’s finest and most prolific theatre photographers. From c. 1960 he tirelessly recorded four decades of the performing arts in all their richness and variety, capturing the great and the good on stage or in the studio.

Checkmate - Royal Ballet - Darcey Bussell

To celebrate Reg Wilson’s 70th birthday, the V&A Theatre Collection has collaborated with him on this touring exhibition of photographs he has chosen from his archive.

Images are grouped by subject, e.g. Theatre and Musicals, Ballet and Dance, Opera and Music, and can be enjoyed as part of a sequence of as unique moments in time. Some are well-known classics, while others have never been seen until now.

"If I have learnt anything, it is that life forms no logical patterns. It is haphazard and full of beauties which I try to catch as they fly by, for who knows whether any of them will ever return?"   

Margot Fonteyn

Born in London in 1937, Reg Wilson grew up as a teenager in the 1950s. On leaving school he trained in photography at Regent Street Polytechnic. After National Service he landed the job of assistant to leading theatre photographer Houston Rogers. Going freelance as a theatre photographer in the early 1960s, Reg Wilson rose to the top of his profession, renowned both for his brilliant camera technique and his printing skills in the darkroom. 

Before he retired in 1999 he photographed more than 2,600 mainstream productions of drama, opera, dance and music in the UK as well as a host of stars ranging from Maria Callas and Laurence Olivier to Margot Fonteyn, Rudolf Nureyev, Dame Edna and The Beatles. Widely reproduced in books, magazines, record sleeves, dust jackets and posters, many of Reg Wilson’s images are classics.  One of his most celebrated photographs is of Princess Diana and Wayne Sleep dancing on stage at Covent Garden.

For further information contact:
Angie Bishop, Visitor Services Manager on 01905 25371

Worcester City Art Gallery and Museum
Foregate Street, Worcester, WR1 1DT
Tel: 01905 25371  e-mail artgalleryandmuseum@worcester.gov.uk