LONDON, UK.- The Barbican Art Gallery presents Tina Barney: The Europeans, through May 2, 2005. Welcome to the homes of the rich and beautiful. Tina Barney’s insightful photographs give a fascinating glimpse into a private world of these modern Europeans.

Barney began her career taking photographs of family life, her own social circle in New York and on holiday in Rhode Island. However, for much of the last decade she has turned her attention across the Atlantic. This exhibition, which is Barney’s first solo exhibition in the UK, is also the first time photographs from the completed series The Europeans have been presented. These mesmerising images capture the essence of different nationalities across Europe and the subtleties of gesture and expression. Arranged by country, the almost life-size photographs, with their heightened colour and carefully composed compositions, combine the presence of historical portraiture with the spontaneity of a family snapshot.

Underlined with a delicate sense of enquiry, Barney’s work is very much part of the American tradition of social and personal documentary-style photography that extends from Walker Evans’ work of the 1930s to Nan Goldin today.