08.02.11
Terry O'Neill: 50 years at the top
COPYRIGHT TERRY O’NEILL
Chris Beetles Fine Photographs presents Terry O'Neill: 50 years at the top.
23 March – 23 April 2011
Celebrating half a century of his iconic photographs, Including new and unseen prints from the 1960s.
It was 50 years ago that Terry O’Neill first picked up a camera, and began an astonishing career. First becoming a key photographer in London’s heady 1960s cultural milieu, he went on to capture most major stars of stage and screen, and has helped to define our very notion of ‘celebrity’. His famous photographs of Brigitte Bardot smoking a cigar, Frank Sinatra with his bodyguards sauntering down the Miami boardwalk and Faye Dunaway the morning after her Oscar win have become iconic images that have made Terry one of the world’s most popular and collectible photographers.
Terry’s work forms a visual Who’s Who of cinema, rock and pop music, theatre and fashion over five decades. His sitters include Bardot, Sinatra, Dunaway, Michael Caine, Audrey Hepburn, Paul Newman, Lee Marvin, Elizabeth Taylor, Catherine Deneuve, The Rolling Stones and The Beatles, and his photographs offer an intimate insight into their lives, both private and public.
The exhibition will be a mix of exquisite small vintage prints and striking large modern prints that O’Neill has created from his original negatives. Many have never been seen before, having been discovered only in the last few months during extensive research of his archive.
Key unseen images include very early Bond films when O’Neill was able to shoot candidly and without hindrance or boundaries: they include Sean Connery as Bond, off duty with the showgirls of Las Vegas Honor Blackman in a provocative Pussy Galore shoot that was never published, The forgotten Bond, David Niven, being blown up on the set of Casino Royale (1967) The Rolling Stones outside London’s Donmar Warehouse theatre (1963) Peter O’Toole and Audrey Hepburn kissing in How to Steal A Million (1966), Goldie Hawn during the filming of There’s a Girl in My Soup (1970).
As O’Neill said, "The Sixties was an incredible time. Young people took over, creating their own cultural landscape on stage, in music, fashion and on the film set. I was lucky. Seriously lucky. I was in the right place at the right time. But I never realized then that we were remaking the world in our own image – or that mine would become such a testament to the time. And the freedom I was given, on film sets, backstage and just rubbing shoulders with my mates who became these icons, simply isn’t allowed to photographers today. Now image is everything; the stars are brands and their managements control access and publication so we never get to see them as they really are at work rest or play.
CHRIS BEETLES FINE PHOTOGRAPHS
3-5 Swallow Street
London W1B 4DE
www.chrisbeetlesfinephotographs.com
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