Archive

Martin Amis and Friends

The novelist’s former fiancée celebrates his 60th birthday with an intimate photo exhibit at London’s National Portrait Gallery.

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Angela Gorgas, 1977
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"When we first met, in 1977, Martin was living in a small flat in Kensington Gardens Square. The nickname that we had for it was ‘The Sock’ due to its small size and bachelor feel.

Angela Gorgas, 1977
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Photographed in front of a 17th-century Belgian tapestry in his London flat. At the time, Zamoyski, an historian, was writing his first book, a biography of Chopin.

Angela Gorgas, 1977
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Amis with his mother, Hilary, at her home in Ronda, Spain. "Hilly" was the first wife of Kingsley Amis and in his final years, she and her third husband, Lord Kilmarnock, returned to England to share a house with Kingsley.

Angela Gorgas, 1978
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The late Welsh-born photographer was the subject of a retrospective exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery in 2006. Photographed in Flemings Hall, Suffolk.

Angela Gorgas, 1977
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Best known for his screenplay for The Killing Fields (1984) and as the writer and director of Withnail and I (1987).

Angela Gorgas, 1975
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Scottish novelist whose works include, A Case of Knives (1988), Little Stranger (1989) and Debatable Land (1994). Her memoir What to Look for in Winter will be published this year.

Angela Gorgas, 1977
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Amis with journalist Christopher Hitchens and poet James Fenton. The group met while working at the New Statesman together during the 1970s.

Angela Gorgas, 1980
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Booker Prize-winning novelist, whose best-known works include Enduring Love (1997), Amsterdam (1998), and Atonement (2001). At the time this photograph was taken, McEwan had recently published The Cement Garden.

Angela Gorgas, 1980
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Kingsley Amis, the Booker Prize-winning author of such works as Lucky Jim (1954) and The Old Devils (1986) and father of Martin, pictured with the late Pat Kavanagh, who was the wife of Julian Barnes and served as Martin Amis' literary agent from 1972–95.

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Photographed at Sacre-Coeur against the Paris skyline, winter 1980.

Angela Gorgas, 1980