02.03.10
Norman Parkinson: Defining 'The Look'
© After Van Dongen, 1959, Norman Parkinson Archive
Norman Parkinson's photographs helped define the look of British fashion and culture for over 40 years. His wit, style and innovative methods ensured him a place at the forefront of international photography - as influential and as imitated as Irving Penn, Richard Avedon, Cecil Beaton, and the other great figures of his era.
The Chris Beetles Gallery is delighted to announce a major new selling exhibition of over 50 prints, mostly vintage, to open this May. The show has been curated in conjunction with both the Norman Parkinson Archive and the archive of Angela Williams, Parkinson's assistant during the early 1960s. Thanks to this unique collaboration, it will be one of the most comprehensive exhibitions of Norman Parkinson's photographs since his retrospective exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery in 1981.
About two thirds of the exhibition will be devoted to fashion photography, for which Norman Parkinson is best known. He is celebrated as one of the first fashion photographers to take models outside the studio, and in turn remove the stuffiness that had become associated with the genre. Freed of such traditional constraints, his images sparkle with a delightful, playful glamour, as his models live out the jet-set dream. From the streets of New York and the plains of Africa, to the tropical beaches of the Caribbean, Parkinson's exotic shoots embodied an irresistible lifestyle that appealed to advertisers, editors and public alike, and which was far removed from the drab realities of post-war Britain.
Portraiture was another of Parkinson's fortes, one for which he was less known but equally brilliant. We will show a large group of portraits that includes The Beatles, Ian Fleming, Margot Fonteyn, John Huston, Augustus John, Wyndham Lewis, Henry Moore, Cliff Richard and more.
The show will also feature a number of advertising shots, including images from his famous 'Getaway' series taken for National Benzole in 1963. This was a landmark campaign that saw sex, fast cars, and glamorous life-styles used to sell everyday goods to the masses, capturing the new, free-spirited zeitgeist.
www.chrisbeetles.com
Chris Beetles Ltd.
8-10 Ryder Street
London
SW1Y 6QB
020 7839 7551
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