Extraordinary Black And White Portraits Of ’60s and ’70s Celebrities Taken By David Bailey

Mick Jagger, 1964

After having been fashion photographer, John French’s, assistant, David Bailey begins the 1960s with a contract with Vogue and rapidly becomes a leading figure of the Swinging London scene, chronicling the unrestricted existences of models and musicians.

Although he admits being fascinated by the Renaissance art and the painter, Caravaggio, the British photographer favors minimalist, mostly black and white frontal depictions of his sitters. With images that clearly evoke the sex, drugs and rock n’roll spirit of the decade, David Bailey also finds women he loved in his celebrity pack, from model Jean Shrimpton to Catherine Deneuve but also Anjelica Huston and Penelope Tree.

The photographer continues to mischievously capture contemporary figures such as Kate Moss who has become an illustrious successor of the Swinging Sixties, always revealing a certain kind of eccentricity in them, even when he portrays the Queen Elisabeth II whom we have so rarely seen smile so frankly.

h/t: vintag.es

Andy Warhol, 1965

John Lennon 1965

John Lennon and Paul McCartney, 1965

Julie Christie, 1969

Leslie Caron, 1965

Margaret Thatcher, 1975

Marianne Faithfull, 1964

Mia Farrow, 1967

Michael Caine, 1964

Jean Shrimpton, 1965

The Rolling Stones, 1964

Rudolf Nureyev, 1965

Sue Murray, 1967

Tania Mallet, 1964

Nicole de la Marge, 1967

Catherine Deneuve, 1965

Man Ray, 1968

Paul McCartney, 1965

Jean Shrimpton, 1969

Jeanne Moreau, 1964

Alice Cooper, 1972

April Ashley, 1961

Andy Warhol and Penelope Tree, 1960s

David Hockney, 1969

Jean Luc Godard, 1968

Brigitte Bardot, 1967

Twiggy, 1960s

Anna Karina, 1965

Françoise Dorleac, 1965

Yoko Ono and John Lennon, 1971

Jane Holzer, 1965

Sue Murray, 1968

Jean Shrimpton, 1964