MORE ABOUT David Bailey

David Bailey started working with fashion photographer, John French as his assistant in 1959. He left soon after to strike out his own career as a photographer and published his first portrait of Somerset Maugham for ‘Today’ magazine in 1960. Apart from his highly personal approach to photography he is also notable as a representative of a significant change in the attitude to the glossier aspects of the art which took place in the 1960s. Discarding the rigid rules of a previous generation of portrait and fashion photographers, he channelled the energy of London’s newly informal street culture into his work. London was the center of a new culture and lifestyle "the swinging London" and David Bailey himself was one of the front figures.

Bailey was the driving force in fashion, music and lifestyle and his photographs both revolutionized fashion photography and drew the eyes of the outside world towards England.

He saw trends and tendencies on the street before others discovered them. He borrowed the attitude of fashion and the poses of the male pop stars to his fashion photographs.

When pop culture literally exploded in the 60's, David Bailey was and still is ”Mr Cool”

His portraits documented the personalities of the period and made them icons of their time. In 1965 he published David Bailey’s Box of Pin-Ups which is now seen as defining an era and shaped the future of photography. Although his association with Vogue categorized him as a fashion photographer, his interest extends far beyond that, and his more personally orientated work includes landscape, reportage and nudes. His approach to photography was strongly influenced by the cinema. In Sweden, David Bailey is best known as Swinging London's own rebellious court photographer.

Bailey’s career has been varied, and in the early 60s he began to direct the first of hundreds of commercials. He has been recognized internationally for his skills as a filmmaker, and won a Emmy for directing the “Sophisticated Lady” commercial for the American Cancer Society in 1990. Also the D&AD black pencil (Gold Award) amongst many other top awards for directing commercials. Bailey has exhibited worldwide, the first of his landmark exhibitions in 1971 at the National Portrait Gallery, London featuring alongside the works by David Hockney and Gerald Scarfe in the exhibition SNAP! Internationally renowned, Bailey has produced some of the most famous photographic portraits of the last six decades. He is constantly experimenting with new equipment, materials, and techniques.

He has travelled extensively, and although best known for his fashion and portraiture, his interests are varied, extending beyond photography to TV commercials, film, painting and sculpture