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David Bailey's box of pin-ups

Photograph
1965 (printed and published)
Artist/Maker
Place of origin

David Bailey rose to fame as a fashion photographer in the early 1960s, his photographs. He published 'David Bailey's box of pin-ups' in 1965 as a loose portfolio of 36 portraits of the mainly-male fashionable elite that, as the cover description states, 'belong to Bailey's own world of fashion, pop music and the Ad Lib [nightclub]'. Each portrait is accompanied by notes by Francis Wyndham.
Surprisingly, only four of the pin-ups are women, all of whom are models. As the notes explain, 'in the age of Mick Jagger, it is the boys who are the pin-ups'. Here, the hair dresser Vidal 'Scissors' Sassoon, then in his early '30s, is photographed, the high contrast image picking out the hands with which he created such influential hair styles as the assymetric 'Bob' cut.
The portraits constitute a celebration of the growing celebrity culture of the Sixties, and many of them have become the definitive images of key figures of cultural life in London during the Swinging Sixties.

Object details

Categories
Object type
Titles
  • David Bailey's box of pin-ups (assigned by artist)
  • Vidal Sassoon (assigned by artist)
Materials and techniques
Half-tone print
Brief description
Vidal Sassoon, half-tone print from 'David Bailey's box of pin-ups', by David Bailey, published 1965
Physical description
Black and white half-tone print of a young man in a suit with black tie against a grey backdrop. The high contrast picks out the white of his shirt and his large, splayed hands.
Dimensions
  • Width: 32cm
  • Height: 37cm
Style
Marks and inscriptions
  • Vidal Sassoon (Printed; Reverse, top left)
  • Text about Vidal Sassoon (Printed; Reverse; Wyndham, Francis)
Credit line
Given by Mark Haworth-Booth
Object history
David Bailey rose to fame as a fashion photographer in the early 1960s, his photographs. He published 'David Bailey's box of pin-ups' in 1965 as a loose portfolio of 36 portraits of the mainly-male fashionable elite that, as the cover description states, 'belong to Bailey's own world of fashion, pop music and the Ad Lib [nightclub]'. Surprisingly, only four of the pin-ups are women, all of whom are models. As the notes explain, 'in the age of Mick Jagger, it is the boys who are the pin-ups'.
The portraits constitute a celebration of the growing celebrity culture of the Sixties, and many of them have become the definitive images of key figures of cultural life in London during the Swinging Sixties.
Subject depicted
Summary
David Bailey rose to fame as a fashion photographer in the early 1960s, his photographs. He published 'David Bailey's box of pin-ups' in 1965 as a loose portfolio of 36 portraits of the mainly-male fashionable elite that, as the cover description states, 'belong to Bailey's own world of fashion, pop music and the Ad Lib [nightclub]'. Each portrait is accompanied by notes by Francis Wyndham.
Surprisingly, only four of the pin-ups are women, all of whom are models. As the notes explain, 'in the age of Mick Jagger, it is the boys who are the pin-ups'. Here, the hair dresser Vidal 'Scissors' Sassoon, then in his early '30s, is photographed, the high contrast image picking out the hands with which he created such influential hair styles as the assymetric 'Bob' cut.
The portraits constitute a celebration of the growing celebrity culture of the Sixties, and many of them have become the definitive images of key figures of cultural life in London during the Swinging Sixties.
Bibliographic reference
David Bailey's box of pin-ups, published by Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1964
Collection
Accession number
E.2047:3-2004

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Record createdFebruary 10, 2004
Record URL
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