All power to Tim Walker, for Fairyland: Love and Legends, his dynamic new photography show celebrating the UK’s queer spirit, society and endurance, currently on London’s National Portrait Gallery.

Fairyland: Love and Legends explores largely British queer lives through a lens of identity, love, fantasy and community. Walker is perhaps best known for his fashion photography work for the likes of Vogue, Vanity Fair, W and ID. His trademark style is a whimsical take on childhood fairytales and adventures. For this show, he has applied this style to his heroes, a fabulous selection of pioneering queer activists, legends, HIV treatment specialists, change-makers and cultural icons. The resulting collection of about 250 portraits shot over the past five years is a remarkable tale of British queer history, led by its trailblazers.

Born in 1970, on the same day as the UK´s first gay rights protest, Walker had an idyllic early childhood immersed in a self-created world of fairyland and make-believe. Fairies ruled supreme in his world until schoolboy bullies used the word ´fairy´ to taunt the gentle young child. The UK in the late 1970s and 80s was a brutal place for queer kids like Walker growing up. Walker had no choice but to retreat into his fantasy world, in turn feeding his young mind with the ingredients to become a very creative photographer as he came of age. Fairyland: Love and Legends is thus named so Walker and the rest of us queers can get full ownership of the erstwhile insult thrown at us.

And ownership is the right word for this show. There is so much power and self-acceptance on display – the perfect antidote to the current tough landscape for many LGBTQ+ people around the real world.

The show begins with a series of portraits of queer trailblazers – those who initiated the first gay rights campaigns in the 1970s, shaping the world we live in now through a combination of fight, bravery and persistence. These portraits of the ´queeristocracy´ are styled like those 16th-century portraits by Hans Holbein the Younger and Hillard, who memorialized key members of the Tudor aristocracy for generations to follow.

We move on to change-makers from the present day. Whilst great inroads for LGBTQ+ rights have been made in the UK and elsewhere over the past 25 years, being gay is still illegal and punishable by imprisonment or even death in 65 countries around the world.

Notable portraits in these first two areas include those of Angela Mason, who led Stonewall UK from 1992 – 2002, and the activists Peter Tatchell and Angela Eagle. There’s also a beautiful portrait of the photographer Sunil Gupta, who started documenting queer life in the 1970s. A strong, yet relaxed image of Graham McKerrow, one of the founders of the Capital Gay weekly newspaper in 1981, is also a standout.

We move on to areas featuring trans activists, the Rebel Dykes community group and legendary British queer creatives such as Isaac Julien, Alan Hollinghurst and Sir Ian McKellen. My favorite image of the show is in this section, a beautiful portrait of the playwright Alan Bennett, at home with his partner Rupert Thomas.

The show evolves into an area featuring icons who have survived decades in the public eye, from the depths of the AIDS crisis to now, producing work that has shaped queer culture. A gentle image of Jimmy Somerville stands out here. A poignant image of an empty hospital bed, lit only by a string of fairy lights, is a tribute to those we have lost along the way to AIDS.

The next part of the show is where Walker really cuts loose with his imagination. A combination of camp, spectacle and fairy dust is sprinkled over his subjects with fabulous results. Peacocking and showing off are fully encouraged. David Hoyle, Christeene, Maggi Hambling, Tilda Swinton, Jean Paul Gaultier, Paul O Grady and Julian Clary, amongst many others, all rise to the occasion here. Sexy portraits of  Ben Wishaw and a completely naked Harry Styles add a frisson to the room before we enter a final ´party´ room of queer fantasy, humour and erotica, all important ingredients in the fight for human rights. After all, we are more likely to convince our detractors in life if we can make them smile, imagine or get horny.

This is an excellent show – complete, faultless, poignant, fun and powerful. Unsung heroes are given equal billing to media superstars and all ages, races, genders and body types are celebrated. This perfectly inclusive show is for all queer generations and our allies. I’d give it 10/5 if I could. Unmissable.

https://www.npg.org.uk/whatson/exhibitions/2026/tim-walkers-fairyland-love-and-legends

On at London’s National Portrait Gallery until 7th February.