Snobbery and sex appeal: the remarkable lives of Sargent's ‘dollar princesses'
Now, on the centenary of Sargent's death, a fascinating subsection of his work is going on display at Kenwood House in London. Heiress: Sargent's American Portraits is the first exhibition to focus on his paintings and sketches of
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
BBC News
2 minutes ago
- BBC News
I didn't go to uni - now I work as a celebrity photographer
As thousands of students across the UK open their exam results, many are getting ready for the next big step: university. But that path isn't for everyone - and it doesn't have to News spoke to four former pupils who chose a different route and still landed their dream working with animals at Chester Zoo to photographing Harry Styles on tour, their stories show that skipping university doesn't mean missing out on success. 'Don't rush it' When 29-year-old Lloyd Wakefield was growing up in Stockport, he didn't imagine his future behind a camera, and certainly not on tour with one of the biggest pop stars in the world."Up until college, my only goal was to be a footballer," he says."I'm not the most academic. I didn't click with any lessons outside of PE. I'm a hands-on person."When football didn't work out, he took a job at Aldi. "It took me two years to adjust, to find any kind of direction or purpose outside of football," he "caught a bug" for photography through a friend's film camera, spending their days off going out and taking photos himself through YouTube and lots of trial and error, Lloyd began messaging agencies and chasing opportunities. That led him to a backstage gig at Fashion Week, and eventually to photographing Harry Styles' Love On Tour. "If you told me when I was working in Aldi that I'd be in the music world, on a tour, it was so polar opposite of where I thought I was going to be." His work at Love On Tour landed him the title of favourite tour photographer at the 2023 iHeartRadio Awards. He has also worked with other celebrities and brands such as Dua Lipa, EA, UFC and Arsenal Lloyd runs Lloyd's Workshop, a creative community for young photographers without connections or formal advice for other young creatives is to take their time."There's no shame in getting a normal job," he says. "Use it to fund your passion. Don't rush it."Looking back, he says choosing not to go to university was the right call for him. "I learned way more by just kind of putting myself in those situations on set. The benefits vastly outweigh the negatives." 'Just go for it' Frazer Walsh's journey to working with lions didn't begin in a lab or lecture hall - it started with a job advert he spotted by chance."I applied for three different universities but I didn't want to go - it was just because I felt I had no other option," he says."Then I saw a Chester zookeeping apprenticeship listed and thought: 'Oh my god, that's my dream, it's something I've always wanted to do.'"The 21-year-old, from Widnes in Cheshire, was "obsessed" with animals from a young age, he says, driving his mum "insane" with his love of David he had no idea how to turn that into a career."You don't really hear of many zookeepers, or if you do, you don't really know how they got into that position in the first place," he says. Now a qualified keeper, Frazer is thriving."About a year into the apprenticeship, I was finally able to work with the lions by myself. They're your responsibility then, you're looking after them, and you take a lot of pride in it."That is something that I'll always keep with me."Frazer's advice to school leavers is similar to Lloyd's."Just don't rush it, because it's your life, isn't it?" he says. "A job like this is really once in a lifetime, so just go for it." 'It's okay not to have it all figured out' For south Londoner Thaliqua Smith, film-making was always the dream, but going to university to get there just didn't feel right."I just felt like school should be done," she says."They were saying the only way for me to get into [directing and producing] was to go and do further studies. But it just wasn't something that I was particularly interested in."After her dad suggested she look into an apprenticeship, Thaliqua found the Channel 4 production training scheme."It just sounded really cool," she says. "I thought, 'Wow, this is great. I'm working, I'm learning for a year. I'm earning money for a year in a field that would be amazing.'"Thaliqua was one of just 10 people selected for the first year of the scheme. From day one, she says she knew she was in the right place. Now 25, she's worked on shows like The Apprentice, Naked Attraction, and Rich Flavours with Big Zuu and AJ Tracey. She's filmed abroad in Spain and New York and has moved up to the role of assistant producer."I didn't travel much as a kid, so to be flown to amazing places, staying in beautiful hotels, meeting insanely cool people - it's a dream come true."Now she says she's passionate about spreading the word. "Apprenticeships are amazing, [but] I had to dig through Google to find mine. They should be promoted way more."Her advice is to "not let anyone convince you you can't do something". "It's OK to not have it all figured out," she says."Even people who act like they've got it figured out probably don't." Turning a hobby into a career Faye Husband's school years were far from typical. Diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome, as well as Pots - a condition which causes dizziness - and hypermobility, she struggled with attendance and anxiety."I had a lot of time off and it was hard managing being off and then coming back to school and teachers and friends not understanding," the 19-year-old eventually left mainstream school and was homeschooled before joining a support unit called Strive. "That literally gave me my GCSEs - I probably wouldn't have managed them if I wasn't there," she going to college and earning A-levels in criminology and psychology, Faye still wasn't sure about university. That's when her parents suggested turning a hobby into a career. "I'd done my own nails for years and my mum and dad said, 'Why don't you do a course and do it for other people?'" Working from a converted garage at home in Redcar, she now runs her business Phaze Nails which is often booked up to a month in self-employed has given Faye the room to thrive despite her health struggles."I've met so many nice people and made really strong friendships from it," she says."That's usually stuff I don't get the opportunity to do, because I don't go out a lot."Faye says young people should not put too much pressure on themselves."Be kind to yourself," she says. "Don't rush yourself into doing something that you're not ready to do."
The Guardian
2 minutes ago
- The Guardian
TV tonight: invaluable VJ Day accounts by surviving veterans
9pm, BBC Two 'We used to be called the forgotten army – and it was. They hardly mentioned Burma.' In Europe, the second world war may have ended in May 1945, but Japan wouldn't surrender until August (celebrated in London, above). This invaluable documentary hears first-hand accounts from surviving veterans – most of them more than 100 years old – including former prisoners of war, soldiers who fought in Europe and were deployed to India and east Asia, and a woman who worked at Bletchley Park. Hollie Richardson 8pm, Channel 4 This slightly baffling series from the Amazing Spaces host features homeowners choosing to overhaul the inside or the outside of their properties (but, er, Channel 4 will revamp both anyway). First up are Gemma and Scott, who have £90,000 to spend, but differing ideas of how to spend it. Hannah J Davies 8pm, BBC Four The Mayuyama family are expert antique restorers who piece together shattered ceramics – and rarely share their secrets. But in the final episode of this peek into the world of Koji Mayuyama, AKA the 'God Hand', we see his small team travel to London to help fix one piece. HR 9pm, BBC One It may not have the same grip on the country as The Traitors – and can often feel like watching a bunch of headless chickens shouting out names of cities (despite them claiming to be 'really smart, honestly!') – but this travel game is still good fun. New contestants have shaken things up; now, Rob Brydon is making them get to know each other a little better to identify the group's biggest threats. HR 9pm, ITV1 Tensions rise and tempers fray as the guests continue to search for the hidden £250,000 without drawing suspicion. As one highly quotable couple (no spoilers) reasonably surmise: 'If we keep the case too long, they're going to know we're real bad buggers …' Ali Catterall 9pm, Sky Documentaries 'The police were more worried about knocking somebody off a bicycle than they [were] about selling drugs.' A colourful three-part documentary series that speaks to those who were inside Amsterdam's rise to becoming the drug capital of Europe between the 70s and early 00s, including 'the Godmother', Thea Moear. HR Uefa Super Cup football: PSG v Tottenham Hotspur 7pm (8pm kick-off), TNT Sports 1. The Champions League winners play the Europa League winners in Udine, Italy.
The Guardian
2 minutes ago
- The Guardian
The Lost Boys get loose: Jack Holden on rebooting Peter Pan and The Line of Beauty
The room is hot, sticky and covered in trampled confetti. A mashup of noughties bangers impels our bodies to move. As Club Nvrlnd draws to a close, the audience doesn't want to get off the stage, our throats scratchy from screaming along. 'I'm singing along to every word, every night,' grins the show's writer, Jack Holden, bounding over after having just had a boogie on the platform. We are all glistening with sweat and nostalgia, this show's giddy delirium impossible to resist. Over the next few months, the spotlight is sticking to Holden. A powerhouse of a performer and a deft, emotive writer, the 35-year-old's jukebox-nightclub musical already has audiences at the Edinburgh fringe lining up in the street. His adaptation of Alan Hollinghurst's queer classic novel The Line of Beauty, meanwhile, is soon to be staged at the Almeida in London, and the true-crime thriller Kenrex, that he co-wrote and stars in, is returning for a London run. 'I'm an optimist,' he says, smiling bashfully over coffee earlier in the day. 'I say yes to things then work out how to do them.' Proving his muscle as an actor in War Horse and comedy series Ten Percent, Holden showed his strength as a writer with Cruise, an electronically scored story of a survivor of the Aids crisis blended with his time volunteering at LGBTQ+ listening service Switchboard. Seeing the Olivier-nominated show, producer David Adkin and director Steve Kunis approached Holden with another challenge: to write the book for a musical transposing the familiar story of Peter Pan into a noughties nightclub. 'I'm a Peter Pan myself,' Holden admits. 'Afraid of growing up, trying to create musical, euphoric, hedonistic neverlands of my own. With Club Nvrlnd, I've been able to realise it in my purest, most silly, unashamed way.' In this hazy, fairy-dust-fuelled world we, the lost boys, join Peter (a petulant Thomas Grant) on the eve of his 30th birthday. Having peaked in high school, he's now refusing to grow up. RuPaul's Drag Race's Le Fil shines as our compere Tiger Lily while a rival club owner, a glimmering, bare-chested Hook (Matthew Gent), tries to sabotage Nvrlnd. 'It's absolute chaos,' Holden grins. 'I think we found our audience last night. They are young and ready to dance.' Music pulsates through all of Holden's work. For Kenrex, his thriller co-written with Ed Stamboulian, he has continued his collaboration with The Little Unsaid's John Patrick Elliot, who scored Cruise. The show has been seven years in the making. 'We've cooked it low and slow,' Holden says. 'It's not a cost-effective process.' But it has given them time to find the right form for what began as an experiment, asking whether it was possible to stage a true-crime podcast. They had workshopped the show with a cast of 10 when lockdown hit. 'We realised, in true-crime radio, you hear voices in sequence,' he reasons, 'so it could be coming from one voice.' Holden now plays every part. To watch his performance over the course of Kenrex is to see a shapeshifter in action. With Elliot's music and clever tech, Holden rolls through the roster of distinct characters who, in 1981, finally decide to take justice into their own hands. Holden found inspiration in Andrew Scott's one-man show Vanya, which revealed the power in taking time to transition between characters. 'Kenrex is an exercise in stillness,' he says. 'It's a tightrope walk every night.' Holden's theatrical exploration of the 80s continues with The Line of Beauty, which he is adapting for Rupert Goold's last season at the Almeida. His version streamlines the text to focus on the four young men as they navigate the decade's societal shifts with varying levels of privilege. 'It's about how much has changed,' says Holden, 'but also how much of that entrenched class structure and snobbery is absolutely the same.' The story also returns his focus to the Aids crisis. 'I have fictional arguments in my head about why I'm doing another play about [this topic],' he says. 'But then I argue back and go: how many war movies have been made?' Born in 1990, Holden questions his place to write about the 80s, but he sees its long shadow snaking through his life, with the homophobic legislation Section 28 only repealed when he was a teenager. 'Older gay friends who remember before the Aids crisis say everyone was just having a wild time,' he says ruefully. 'Then Aids came along and instilled so much terror.' Now, with the ready availability of the drug PrEP, Holden hopes the debilitating weight of that fear is finally lifting. 'It's a bit of a sexual renaissance,' he laughs. Freedom is starting to unfurl again. The looseness of bodies. The embrace of a wild night out. The unadulterated fun that Club Nvrlnd encourages. Holden smiles. 'The best drama always happens on the dancefloor.' Club Nvrlnd is at Assembly Checkpoint, Edinburgh, until 24 August; The Line of Beauty is at the Almeida, London, 21 October-29 November; Kenrex is at the Other Palace, London, from 3 December-1 February.
