The original celebrity photographer

As one of the very first society photographers, EO Hoppé captured images of everyone who was anyone in the arts and in politics between the two world wars, on both sides of the Atlantic.

His name may be less widely known than those of the great postwar photojournalists of the next generation, but Hoppé's work is about to enjoy renewed attention thanks to the first major exhibition of his work in more than 30 years at the National Portrait Gallery.

The collection will include almost 150 images, many of which have not been displayed publicly before.

The Munich-born Emil Otto Hoppé first took up photography in London and in 1907 was awarded a Fellowship of the Royal Photographic Society.

Considered the prototypical celebrity photographer, his talents were able to attract the likes of George V, Benito Mussolini, David Lloyd George and George Bernard Shaw. Come the 1920s and 1930s, he began to expand from his formal, indoor work to document life on Britain's streets.

Hoppé Portraits opens at the National Portrait Gallery, London, on 17 February