DAVID BAILEY

The artist's photographic style is epitomised by his sense of minimalism, stark contrast, and striking movement. His fashion photography revolutionised the culture by capturing his models amidst the experiences of the metropolitan and free use of 35mm film. His iconic portraits are known for their high definition and contrast; often setting his subjects against white, he removes the nuances and traditions of background and often closely cropped, portraying his sitters with incisive clarity.

David Bailey was born in London in 1938. His childhood shaped his early experiences in the East End during the Blitz of WWII. Having left school at fifteen, he was conscripted to the Royal Air Force in 1956. Whilst posted in Singapore, he bought his first camera and was inspired to be a photographer after seeing Cartier Bresson's photograph, 'Kashmir'. Bailey started working with fashion photographer John French as his assistant in 1959. He left soon after to strike out his career as a photographer and published his first portrait of Somerset Maugham for '_Today' _magazine in 1960. 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. In 1965 he published _David Bailey's Box of Pin-Ups, _which is now seen as defining an era and shaping the future of photography.

Books of his photographs include Box of Pin-ups (1964), Goodbye Baby & Amen: A Sarabande for the Sixties (1969), Another Image: Papua New Guinea (1975), David Bailey's Trouble and Strife (1980), David Bailey, London NWI: Urban Landscapes (1982), Imagine (1985), David Bailey: If We Shadows (1992), David Bailey's Rock and Roll Heroes (1997), David Bailey: Chasing Rainbows (2001), Eye (2009), followed by Bailey's East End in 2014. David Bailey: Bailey Exposed (2014) features observations by Bailey, interviews with a number of his subjects, and photographs. Taschen published the self-titled book David Bailey in 2019; this limited edition Sumo book presents a retrospective of this artist's photographs, reflecting the culmination of an incredible career and two years' worth of research into his personal archives. In 2020, the artist released his autobiography, Look Again.

Bailey has exhibited worldwide, with the first of his landmark exhibitions in 1971 at the National Portrait Gallery, London, featured alongside the works by David Hockney and Gerald Scarfe in the exhibition SNAP! Other exhibitions have been held at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London (1983), International Center of Photography, New York (1984), Birth of Cool, Moderna Museet, Stockholm (2000), and Bailey's Stardust, National Portrait Gallery, London (2014), which travelled through 2015 to Padiglione d'Arte Contemporanea, Milan, and Scottish National Gallery in Edinburgh. Bailey's work is held in private and public collections, including the National Portrait Gallery in London, Victoria and Albert Museum, and Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

Courtesy Dellasposa Gallery