Terry O'Neill
dal 25/4/2011 al 28/5/2011
Segnalato da
25/4/2011
Terry O'Neill
Rosphoto State Russian Center for Photography, St. Petersburg
and His Shining Stars. A reportage and portrait photographer
Audrey Hepburn and Brigitte Bardot, Romy Schneider and Sharon Tate, Elvis Presley and The Beatles, Sean Connery and Orwon Wells in the famous master's photographs. "Destiny caught up with Terry O'Neill in the late fifties. Back then, every day promised a new discovery, whether it was the new standard of beauty represented by pencil-thin Twiggy or the first Bond girl, Ursula Andress, in a tiny white bikini. In 1959, O'Neill was taking shots of touching partings and reunions at Heathrow Airport for British Airways when by chance he photographed a man sleeping on the floor. That man turned out to be the British Home Secretary. A few days later, the Daily Sketch hired O'Neill to photograph a strange quartet fated to become legends, the Beatles. The results so impressed the editor that he asked the twenty-year-old photographer to find another up-and-coming musical collective for the front page of the next issue: Terry brought in his friends from the Rolling Stones. Terry O'Neill thus became the most successful, in-demand chronicler of hip London, avoiding the fate of a paparazzo: the stars were not shy about suffering, thinking, laughing, and crying in the crosshairs of his camera. He was first and foremost their friend, and only second the best reportage and portrait photographer in the country. The son of poor Irish immigrants, O'Neil became no less of a celebrity than the heroes and heroines of his portraits: along with them, he tirelessly composed the dazzling picture that was the cultural revolution of the sixties.