Kusum Kanguru in Nepal. Photo: Doug Scott

Kusum Kanguru in Nepal. Photo: Doug Scott

One of the first Britons to summit Everest will stage an exhibition of his black and white photography at a prestigious London venue.

Doug Scott’s monochrome work will go on display at D Contemporary Gallery, with all sales proceeds going to a charity that helps the people of Nepal’s mountainous regions.

Scott, who with Dougal Haston made the ascent of the world’s highest mountain via the South-West Face in 1975 said he was pleasantly surprised to be asked to put together the exhibition at the Mayfair gallery.

Organisers said: “Not only is Doug Scott a renowned mountaineer, he is also a remarkable photographer.

“His body of photographic work is notable for the way it captures the beauty of the world’s highest mountains and most remote views. The quality of this work has now been recognised by the art world and in a groundbreaking exhibition Doug will, for the first time be exhibiting in black and white, with several images in wall-filling scale.”

Doug Scott said: “I must say, it’s been a very pleasant surprise to be asked to exhibit in Mayfair.

“I’ve always felt that black and white photography exhibited a timeless quality, communicating the essence of texture, shadow and light of the mountains. Because of my lecturing and books I’ve tended to focus on colour imagery so this fresh approach to exhibiting is very exciting.”

Profit from all sales of the work will go to Community Action Nepal, the charity founded in 1998 by Scott which, in the intervening years, has set up 50 community welfare projects reaching 250,000 people.

This includes the support of 14 schools and 19 rural health posts. CAN has also built, in conjunction with the International Porter Protection Group, three porter rescue shelters in the Khumbu Valley in the Everest region.

All these projects were affected, and in many cases destroyed, during the 2015 Nepalese earthquakes. Doug Scott is now actively securing funding to rebuild with the final target of £2m now in reaching distance.

Mara Elves, curator of D Contemporary, said: “At D Contemporary we focus on art that shows the world in a fresh light.

“The medium and scale of this exhibition delivers a profound perspective on the world’s great mountains – surely its most spectacular landscape. Through the use of black and white, Doug’s photography communicates both the starkness and the subtlety of the mountain landscape, capturing the grain of rock, glittering crystals of ice and the infinite horizon under an ever changing sky.”

The exhibition will run from 1 December to 6 January at D Contemporary, 23 Grafton St, Mayfair, London W1S 4EY.

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