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. Together, they 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.
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 dancer and choreographer Rudolf Nureyev became an instant celebrity when he defected from the Soviet Union in 1961. From 1962-1967 he was a regular guest artist at the Royal Ballet in London. With his sexual charisma, panther-like grace, and blazing dramatic presence he electrified audiences and inspired a new generation of male dancers.