Terry O'Neill - Photographs London Wednesday, November 2, 2011 | Phillips

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  • Provenance

    Acquired directly from the artist

  • Literature

    Sunday Times Magazine, 27 September 1998, cover

  • Catalogue Essay

    “Raquel was a friend and I was shooting her for Esquire Magazine in the US in 1970. At the time she was being crucified by feminists for the sexist roles that had come her way in movies like One Million Years BC and it gave me the idea for this cover shoot. But it proved too controversial and it lay unpublished in my archive for nearly 30 years until The Sunday Times Magazine ran a retrospective of my work in 1998 and put it on the cover. It’s still controversial to this day - my galleries have had problems showing it, not just complaints but threats too.”
    Terry O’Neill

  • Artist Biography

    Terry O'Neill

    British • 1938 - 2019

    Terry O'Neill (1938-2019) was a British photographer who documented the great legends of pop culture throughout a career spanning over fifty years. His list of subjects includes The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, the British Royal family, Nelson Mandela, Winston Churchill, Jean Shrimpton, Catherine Deneuve, Brigitte Bardot and Orson Welles, among others.

    In the 1960s, O’Neill used a 35mm film camera, a novelty for the time which offered a distinctly candid and more casual approach to photography. With the 35mm, O'Neill was able to create photographs discreetly, candidly and spontaneously, with less distance between him and his subjects. In 1963, his first ever photograph was published, a now classic image of The Beatles while they were recording their debut studio album, Please, Please Me, shot in the yard in the back of Abbey Studios. The iconic photographs O'Neill took of legends such as The Rolling Stones, David Bowie and Elton John helped establish a visual language for their larger-than-life personas early in the artists' careers.  According to O'Neill, "No one had ever photographed a pop group before so I could get away with anything. I just did what I thought a pop group should look like."  

    On photographing his famous sitters, O’Neill affirmed "You must like the people, that’s the key to any job." 

    View More Works

52

Raquel Welch, Los Angeles

1970
Lambda print, printed later and flush-mounted.
91.5 x 91.5 cm (36 x 36 in).
Signed and numbered 1/50 in ink in the margin.

Estimate
£5,000 - 7,000 ♠†

Sold for £19,375

Photographs

3 November 2011
London