Stars, the new exhibition of work by renowned British photographer Terry O’Neill at Fotografiska New York, is a rhapsodic celebration of celebrity beauty and style during the closing days of the analogue photography era.
This latest show of O’Neill’s work is a transcendent time machine that transports viewers to the days when photographers could themselves become rock stars if they possessed the drive, talent and skill to derive fine art from the rarified and insular world of top-tier celebrity. O’Neill is one who certainly did.
The show, which runs through Sept. 16 at Fotografiska’s 281 Park Ave. South location in Manhattan, features a wealth of O’Neill’s iconic images of the stars – Brigitte Bardot, Mick Jagger, Audrey Hepburn, Frank Sinatra, David Bowie, The Beatles, Elton John, Spike Lee, Pelé, Amy Winehouse, the list goes on.
More than a year in the making, Stars forced Fotografiska curators to examine hundreds of thousands of images from O’Neill’s archive, arriving eventually at a group of pictures that capture at once the photographer’s ample gifts and the freewheeling times that allowed them to flourish.
But these are hardly publicity stills, in each O’Neill captures his subject’s fleeting and ethereal essence and demonstrates that celebrity photography is about much more than access. Eschewing the studio, O’Neill preferred to take his photographic practice to the stars, capturing them at home, on stage, on the set, or on the street.
His shots of The Beatles, for example, capture both the youthful optimism of the band as its star was ascending at an unprecedented pace and the unpredictable, propitious ethos of the time. In one photograph, shot in the backyard of Abbey Road Studios in London during the recording of “She Loves You” on July 1, 1963, O’Neill captures the four Beatles as one entity, but also as individuals: the playful John, thoughtful Paul, stoic George and goofy Ringo.
Or consider another classically framed O’Neill photograph in which Sinatra arrives poolside with a determined and humorless entourage of handlers during the filming of The Lady in Cement in 1968. In this one, O’Neill allows Sinatra to transcend his board chairmanship to become a military general, marshaling his troops for their latest mission.
While many of O’Neill’s photographs capture the subjects in all their mythic glory, some go in the opposite direction, removing the luster of stardom to expose something about the people beneath. Such is the case with a shot of Sean Connery, during his James Bond era, reading Life Magazine in a bathtub, or another of Tom Jones during the height of his fame and sex appeal sitting clumsily in his kid’s way too small go cart.
A nice touch added by the Fotografiska team: There are several reproductions of O’Neill’s contact sheets, giving viewers a glimpse into his process and allowing a rare view of the outtakes. These documents also remind us that analogue photography as an art form was miles removed from today’s practice: Not only were photographers, heaven forfend, required to manually set exposures and focus their cameras, they were also limited by logistics in the very numbers of exposures that could be made during a shoot.
There are quite a few interesting celebrity pairings in the mix. Some are obvious like a 1977 Star Wars era shot of Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher as brother and sister Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia. The princess is captured frozen in fear, while Skywalker wears an expression of quiet confidence as he defiantly thrusts his lightsaber toward the camera.
Then there is the 1974 shot of Elizabeth Taylor mothering a thin white duke era Bowie. In this shot, Bowie appears frail and needy as the two embrace and Taylor feeds him a drag from a cigarette. Similarly, in a 1986 on-stage shot, Chuck Berry casts a knowing, fatherly eye toward Keith Richards who returns a look of admiration and respect.
The exhibit includes dozens of other examples of O’Neill’s iconic photography, including his famous 1971 shot of French actress Brigitte Bardot smoking a cigar on the set of the movie “Les Petroleuses” a.k.a. “The Legend of Frenchie King.”
And no collection of O’Neill’s work would be complete without what is possibly his best known shot, that of actress Faye Dunaway, who O’Neill would later marry, slumped in a deck chair poolside at the Beverly Hills Hotel at 6 a.m. on the morning after she won the Best Actress Oscar for Network. The golden oscar statue is on a table in front of her and newspapers are scattered about.
If you can see yourself in that pose, Fotografiska has you covered. They’ve set up a mock up of the shot you can step into to reenact the pose and snap your own version.
O’Neill originally had hoped to become a jazz drummer, but settled for a job in the technical photography unit of British Overseas Airways Corp. (There’s actually a picture of him sitting at Ringo Star’s drum kit during one of his shoots of the group.)
You know how in photography and other arts, there is often a single moment that makes an artist’s career. Well, O’Neill’s came at Heathrow airport in the early 60s when he snapped a picture of a man sleeping in the terminal surrounded by a group of African chieftains dressed in full tribal gear. The man turned out to be British Foreign Secretary Rab Butler. He sold the picture for £25 to Daily Sketch.
The photo did a 1960s version of going viral and O’neill was hired by the newspaper. Its photo editor Len Franklin told O’neill: “We think youth is on the rise in England and it’s going to change the world. We want you to photograph that.” He did, and a career was launched.
