EXHIBITION REVIEW: BAILEY’S PARADE—TO SEE IS TO BELIEVE
Jean Shrimpton, overpainting circa 2010s, Courtesy Sothebys’s ⒸDavid Bailey
Written by Megan May Walsh
Edited by Jana Massoud
Renowned fashion and portrait photographer David Bailey collaborates with Sothbey’s to exhibit some of his most iconic works from the 1960s and late 2000s. Rising to fame by making stars of models Jean Shrimpton and Penelope Tree, Bailey now holds the prestigious title of one of the pioneers of contemporary photography. Capturing emblematic images of legends such as The Rolling Stones, the Kray twins, and Kate Moss, Bailey trailblazed his way into a genre of his own. His stunning and simple predominantly black and white photos of culture’s most provocative and talented phenomena creates a portrait of society’s greatest celebrities.
Portraits carry an essence of permanence, resisting the wrinkles of time and casting into existence an air of immortality. Bailey’s portraits capture a moment in time and paste the image onto pop culture’s timeline to be forever remembered. Bailey first wielded his power of immortalizing society’s icons with the help of Terrence Donovan and Brian Duffy in the creation of the ‘Swinging London’ of the 1960s—a youth driven cultural revolution.
Bailey understood the power of an image. He understood the imaginative effect of encountering an image that depicted the wondrous possibilities of fashion, modernism, and hedonism. He understood that witnessing such a possibility in an image can seamlessly carry into a possibility for reality. ‘To see is to believe’ caught fire, breathing life into a cultural revolution inspired by the images of Terence Stamp, The Beatles, Mick Jagger, Jean Shrimptom, PJ Proby, Cecil Beaton, Rudolf Nureyev, Andy Warhol, and the Kray twins.
Jane Birkin 1969, Courtesy Sothebys’s ⒸDavid Bailey
Blending the beauty standards of fashion photographers with London’s wild and emerging street culture, Bailey brought the robust fervor of the youth and working class to the professional realm of fashion. Allowing artists and celebrities to inform new fashion trends and cultural shifts, Bailey proudly abandons the rules of generations of fashion photographers. He showcases the beauty found in culture’s trailblazers—striking and freedom-seeking.
Bailey began his photography career in 1959 working as a photographic assistant at the John French studio before his position as photographer for John Cole’s Studio Five in 1960, and later at British Vogue. Bailey’s work has been exhibited all around the world including the National Portrait Gallery, the Victoria and Albert Museum, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. His portraits of figures like Jack Nicholson and Jean-Michel Basquiat in the 1980s, Catherine Bailey in the 1990s, Kate Moss and the Queen in the 2010s, his painted revisit of these images, and his series of color photographs of flowers and skulls have all come together for the first time ever in this exhibition.
Michael Caine 1965, Courtesy Sothebys’s ⒸDavid Bailey
Bailey’s Parade: Photographs by David Bailey, a selling exhibition, will be on display at Sotheby’s March 9th to April 22nd. Located at 1334 York Ave, New York, Sotheby’s is the world’s largest marketplace for art. For more information on David Bailey’s exhibition, please visit Sotheby’s website here.
Photo Editor: Chris Zarcadoolas
