Johnny recreates magazine cover

A photograph of Johnny Vegas recreating Demi Moore’s famous Vanity Fair cover has gone on display for the first time.

In the photograph, by Karl J. Kaul, Vegas holds his sizeable stomach with one hand and his chest with the other, int the same way the pregnant actress did in the iconic 1991 shot. He has even copied her jewellery.

The picture forms part of a new display of comedians’ images at the National Portrait Gallery in London.

On show for the first time portraits of Jimmy Carr, Mitchell and Webb, Omid Djalili and Matt Lucas – all recently acquired by the gallery.

However, the free exhibition is not just of modern comedians, but charts 70 years of famous funnymen, and the occasional woman.

Comedians: From the 1940s to Now, includes Kenneth Horne, Eric Sykes, Tony Hancock, Sid James, Morecambe and Wise, Catherine Tate, Russell Brand and Ricky Gervais

Work by celebrated photographers such as Cecil Beaton and Annie Leibovitz, will be shown alongside portraits by less well-known photographers such as Bob Collins who documented the rise of radio and television performers in the Fifties, Lewis Morley who became the ‘official’ photographer of the satire boom of the 1960s, and Trevor Leighton, who surveyed ‘alternative’ British comedians in 1999.

Alongside the display, which runs until January 8, a number of comics will give alternative gallery talks, including Thom Tuck of the Penny Dreadfuls on October 27, new comedians Richard Rogers (September 29) and Javier Costales (December 1) and Jessica Knappett from Lady Garden and the current Inbetweeners movie (December 15).

Paul Merton has also recorded this video introduction to the display:

Here are some of the images on display:

Benny Hill in 1968

Les Dawson in the Eighties

Victoria Wood, 1994

Matt Lucas, 2009

Omid Djalili, 2004

Published: 22 Sep 2011