If you’ve seen a photographic portrait of an important female figure of the 1970s, there’s a good chance Veronica Moon took it. She was one of the most active and in-demand British photographers of the late 1970s and early 1980s. This is the section of the exhibition where you’ll see her really hitting her stride. She was part of the movement taking photography to a more naturalistic style: you can look at the work of Antony Armstrong-Jones (later Lord Snowdon) and Annie Liebovitz for photographers pioneering a similar approach.

This portrait of Alison Steadman in her role as Beverly in Mike Leigh’s play Abigail’s Party was Moon’s first cover shot, taken for the May 1977 issue of British magazine This Month, which ran from 1962 to 1986. Leonie Barratt, who introduced Moon’s work to the magazine, wrote her famous ‘Dear John’ column for it from 1966 to 1981.

Alongside this portrait you’ll see the magazine in which the Steadman profile appeared, and Moon’s ticket to the press night, as well as the contact sheet from which this photograph was selected. Note how Moon has taken very few shots in which Steadman is looking at the camera.

Moon took this photograph at the first night of Abigail’s Party at the Hampstead Theatre in April 1977. She photographs Steadman next to the stage door. The actor’s face is in profile, head tilting slightly downward, face calm and still – the opposite of the character she plays. There’s a smudge of makeup under one eye and she has let down her hair. The twilight lends a slightly flattened quality to the image, and the brickwork behind the actor makes the calmness and clearness of her face seem almost eerie. This is a good example of what was by then Moon’s signature style: unguarded, subject seemingly unaware of the camera, natural light doing most of the work.

You’ll find a selection of her portraits in this section of the exhibition. Some are photographs commissioned by national newspapers and magazines. Others are from private collections – Moon often photographed friends and fellow members of the women’s groups to which she belonged. She also took portraits of well-known activists and feminists, which they used as publicity shots.

Moon was sometimes criticised because she also photographed women who did not identify as feminists, and men. As the women’s movement has broadened in scope, the idea of men being automatically excluded from identifying as feminists seems arcane; however, in the 1970s, men were often perceived by feminists as enemy figures who couldn’t possibly understand what women were up against. Men were, by definition, part of the problem.

In 1977:

• It was a year since Susie Orbach and Luise Eichenbaum set up the Women’s Therapy Centre in London