Alastair Thain (born 1961) is a German-born photographer. His portraits were published in 1991 as ''Skin Deep'', and many are held in the collection of the

National Portrait Gallery, London The National Portrait Gallery (NPG) is an art gallery in London that houses a collection of portraits of historically important and famous British people. When it opened in 1856, it was arguably the first national public gallery in the world th ...

. With

Tom Stoddart Thomas Stoddart (28 November 1953 – 17 November 2021) was a British photojournalist. He covered the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Lebanese Civil War, the siege of Sarajevo and the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Life and career Stoddart was born in ...

, he made work about the

Siege of Sarajevo The siege of Sarajevo () was a prolonged military blockade of Sarajevo, the capital of Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, during the ethnically charged Bosnian War. After it was initially besieged by Serbian forces of the Yugoslav People's Arm ...

, which was exhibited at the

Royal Festival Hall The Royal Festival Hall is a 2,700-seat concert, dance and talks venue within Southbank Centre in London, England. It is situated on the South Bank of the River Thames, not far from Hungerford Bridge, in the London Borough of Lambeth. It is a G ...

in London and published as a book.

Early life and education

Thain was born in

Düsseldorf Düsseldorf is the capital city of North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state of Germany. It is the second-largest city in the state after Cologne and the List of cities in Germany with more than 100,000 inhabitants, seventh-largest city ...

, Germany and studied at the

London College of Printing The London College of Communication is a constituent college of the University of the Arts London. Its origins are in education for the printing and retail industries; it now specialises in media-related subjects including advertising, animation ...

Publications

*''Skin Deep: The Portraits of Alastair Thain''. Viking, 1991. . With an essay by Jane Withers. *''Edge of Madness: Sarajevo, a city and its people under siege''. London: Royal Festival Hall, 1997. With

Exhibitions

Solo exhibitions or with one other person

*''Edge of Madness – Sarajevo a City and Its People Under Siege'',

, London, 1997. With Tom Stoddart. *''Marines: Portraits by Alastair Thain'', externally,

Imperial War Museum North Imperial War Museum North (sometimes referred to as IWM North) is a museum in the Trafford, Metropolitan Borough of Trafford in Greater Manchester, England. One of five branches of the Imperial War Museum, it explores the impact of modern confl ...

, Manchester, 2009

Group exhibitions

*''How We Are: Photographing Britain,''

Tate Britain Tate Britain, known from 1897 to 1932 as the National Gallery of British Art and from 1932 to 2000 as the Tate Gallery, is an art museum on Millbank in the City of Westminster in London, England. It is part of the Tate network of galleries in En ...

, London, 2007. Co-curated by

Susan Bright Susan Bright is a British writer and curator of photography, specializing in how photography is made, disseminated and interpreted. She has curated exhibitions internationally at institutions including Tate Britain, National Portrait Gallery in L ...

and

Val Williams Val Williams is a British curator and author who has become an authority on British photography. She is the Professor of the History and Culture of Photography at the London College of Communication, part of the University of the Arts London, an ...

Collections

Thain's work is held in the following permanent collection: *

: 23 portrait prints (as of 30 November 2021)

References

21st-century German photographers 20th-century German photographers People from Düsseldorf Alumni of the London College of Printing Living people 1961 births German portrait photographers {{Photographer-stub