Duffy

ISBN 978 1 85149 657 0 £45.00/$85.00

When the photographer Brian Duffy died in May 2010, he was widely acclaimed as a driving force behind the English avant-garde of young photographers who defined the visual style of the Swinging Sixties. In 1980 Duffy felt that he had said all he needed to say in photography and, in a moment of madness, decided to burn all of his work.

Fortunately, he was stopped before everything was destroyed. This first publication of Duffy’s work presents a wealth of imagery from the genius that was Duffy. £45.00/$85.00

Antique Collectors’ Club, Sandy Lane, Old Martlesham, Woodbridge, Suffolk IP12 4SD, UK Tel: 01394 389950 Fax: 01394 389999 Email: info@antique-acc.com or ACC Distribution, 6 West 18th Street, Suite 4B, New York, NY 10011, USA Tel: 212 645 1111 Fax: 212 989 3205 Email: sales@antiquecc.com www.antiquecollectorsclub.com Designed by Webb & Webb Design Limited

Chris Duffy is the eldest son of legendary sixties British photographer Brian Duffy and a photographer in his own right. From an early age it was inevitable that photography would have a huge influence on his life and working for Duffy in the seventies gave Chris a unique insight into his father’s ‘process’. Chris started collating Duffy’s archive in 2006. The photographs in this book reveal for the first time ever Duffy’s rediscovered oeuvre.

ISBN 978 1 85149 657 0

Contents Taking Nothing For Granted…

5

On Duffy…

9

On Getting Started…

13

On Changing the Face of Photography…

17

On Vogue…

21

On French Elle…

25

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission of the publisher.

On Pirelli and Bowie…

29

British Library cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

On Selling Out…

33

Frocks

37

Money

93

Faces

115

© 2011 Duffy Archive Taking Nothing For Granted © 2011 Philippe Garner On Duffy © 2011 Emma Baxter-Wright World copyright reserved ISBN 978 1 85149 657 0 978 1 85149 658 7 (limited edition)

Antique Collectors’ Club www.antiquecollectorsclub.com Sandy Lane, Old Martlesham, Woodbridge, Suffolk IP12 4SD, UK Tel: 01394 389950 Fax: 01394 389999 Email: info@antique-acc.com or ACC Distribution, 6 West 18th Street, Suite 4B, New York, NY 10011, USA Tel: 212 645 1111 Fax: 212 989 3205 Email: sales@antiquecc.com Published by ACC Editions, a division of Antique Collectors’ Club, Woodbridge, England Designed by Webb & Webb Design Limited, London Printed and bound in England by Empress Litho Limited, on FSC certified paper Chris Duffy: The Duffy Archive Ltd. www.duffyphotographer.com The publisher would like to thank Condé Nast Publications Ltd and acknowledges that the following images appear © The Condé Nast Publications Ltd pages 16 ,20, 38, 39, 41, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 56, 58, 60, 61, 65, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75 Special thanks to Edith Mandron, French Elle magazine, Lagardère Group

Snail & Eye, 1957

Contents Taking Nothing For Granted…

5

On Duffy…

9

On Getting Started…

13

On Changing the Face of Photography…

17

On Vogue…

21

On French Elle…

25

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission of the publisher.

On Pirelli and Bowie…

29

British Library cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

On Selling Out…

33

Frocks

37

Money

93

Faces

115

© 2011 Duffy Archive Taking Nothing For Granted © 2011 Philippe Garner On Duffy © 2011 Emma Baxter-Wright World copyright reserved ISBN 978 1 85149 657 0 978 1 85149 658 7 (limited edition)

Antique Collectors’ Club www.antiquecollectorsclub.com Sandy Lane, Old Martlesham, Woodbridge, Suffolk IP12 4SD, UK Tel: 01394 389950 Fax: 01394 389999 Email: info@antique-acc.com or ACC Distribution, 6 West 18th Street, Suite 4B, New York, NY 10011, USA Tel: 212 645 1111 Fax: 212 989 3205 Email: sales@antiquecc.com Published by ACC Editions, a division of Antique Collectors’ Club, Woodbridge, England Designed by Webb & Webb Design Limited, London Printed and bound in England by Empress Litho Limited, on FSC certified paper Chris Duffy: The Duffy Archive Ltd. www.duffyphotographer.com The publisher would like to thank Condé Nast Publications Ltd and acknowledges that the following images appear © The Condé Nast Publications Ltd pages 16 ,20, 38, 39, 41, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 56, 58, 60, 61, 65, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75 Special thanks to Edith Mandron, French Elle magazine, Lagardère Group

Snail & Eye, 1957

I’ve got very mixed feelings about analysis. The photographer knows sod all about what he’s doing – they have no insight, it’s drivel when they start talking about it and explaining it.

6

Duffy’s career rode the crest of a wave at that crucial moment in the post-war explosion of consumerism in Britain when all the ancillary visual mechanisms that drove the machines of commerce were reaching a new, dynamic sophistication, invigorated by the role-model of America, yet uniquely British in its inflections. Duffy made his career in an exciting new media world of art directors and ad-men, designers, editors and taste-makers. He relished the challenge of constraints that gave him a framework and deadlines against which to pit his wits. He thrived on the adrenalin of delivering creativity under constant pressure, and understood that his task was to ensure that the imaginations of his audience would be constantly stimulated. His aesthetic sensibility seemed innate; his technical skills were carefully honed. Duffy loved women – his most frequent subjects – and enjoyed capturing their allure, in fashion, beauty, portrait or other contexts, be it through elaborate contrivance or the capture of a fleeting gesture or expression.

Exacting of himself and of others, his career gave him endless opportunity to experiment; until, one day, he had the sense that there was nothing more to explore, and that every possibility photography might allow him had been probed to the limit. So what does a man like Duffy do when he feels that there is nothing left for him to give to or take from his chosen medium? He walks away and immerses himself, with equal energy, in another, quite different adventure.

Philippe Garner

I’ve got very mixed feelings about analysis. The photographer knows sod all about what he’s doing – they have no insight, it’s drivel when they start talking about it and explaining it.

6

Duffy’s career rode the crest of a wave at that crucial moment in the post-war explosion of consumerism in Britain when all the ancillary visual mechanisms that drove the machines of commerce were reaching a new, dynamic sophistication, invigorated by the role-model of America, yet uniquely British in its inflections. Duffy made his career in an exciting new media world of art directors and ad-men, designers, editors and taste-makers. He relished the challenge of constraints that gave him a framework and deadlines against which to pit his wits. He thrived on the adrenalin of delivering creativity under constant pressure, and understood that his task was to ensure that the imaginations of his audience would be constantly stimulated. His aesthetic sensibility seemed innate; his technical skills were carefully honed. Duffy loved women – his most frequent subjects – and enjoyed capturing their allure, in fashion, beauty, portrait or other contexts, be it through elaborate contrivance or the capture of a fleeting gesture or expression.

Exacting of himself and of others, his career gave him endless opportunity to experiment; until, one day, he had the sense that there was nothing more to explore, and that every possibility photography might allow him had been probed to the limit. So what does a man like Duffy do when he feels that there is nothing left for him to give to or take from his chosen medium? He walks away and immerses himself, with equal energy, in another, quite different adventure.

Philippe Garner

On Changing the Face of Photography…

The ’60s was an immense watershed of change in everything. Whether one was absolutely conscious of it at the time I’m not sure. Retrospectively you claim you were, but it’s just the way it was. The ’60s actually started in 1956/57, that was the emergence. It’s a bit like cancer, you don’t get cancer of the lungs from the first cigarette you smoke, and the ’60s were like that; they started in the mid ’50s and were dead by ’66. There were lots of people who had chips on their shoulders, of which I guess I was one. People who were not prepared to ‘take it’ any more, whatever ‘taking it’ actually was. Most people in the ’50s were pretty deferential to everybody, and were prepared to keep a civil tongue up the rectum of society and the system. There were obviously some people like myself, Terry, a whole clique of people who were not deferential, and said “No!” “Why?” “What?” “Who told you so!” “Go on make me!” The sort of chippy oiks, like me and Bailey, and hundreds of others who were not prepared to roll over. There was a breakdown of society, not a lot of aggression, just people questioning everything, and wanting to change things – people like Vidal who was a genius hairdresser and thought there was another way of doing things, and a bloke called Teasy-Weasy who was incredibly talented, dress designers like Mary Quant, and painters like Hockney and Kitaj – it was an era of extraordinary creativity. Books like Lady Chatterley’s Lover, late night drinking clubs, homosexuality, all these things were changing the way we were. It was the beginning of what I call “Attitude”.

Before us, I think photographers were probably all a bit camper.

Parkinson and Beaton were both very civilised and urbane men, and they both had their modus operandi taking their wonderful pictures, but if you look at pictures from the early ’50s the models all look as if no one likes them. Most of the photographers of that period, Parkinson, John French, Dickie Dormer, had a slightly effeminate approach, and that was the way they got through. The way to be a successful photographer was to be tall, thin and camp – you were seen to be inside the tent, and we were not. I’m not saying they were all homosexuals but a lot of them were. Trevor used

16

Vogue, Jean Shrimpton, Edgware Road, 1960

17

On Changing the Face of Photography…

The ’60s was an immense watershed of change in everything. Whether one was absolutely conscious of it at the time I’m not sure. Retrospectively you claim you were, but it’s just the way it was. The ’60s actually started in 1956/57, that was the emergence. It’s a bit like cancer, you don’t get cancer of the lungs from the first cigarette you smoke, and the ’60s were like that; they started in the mid ’50s and were dead by ’66. There were lots of people who had chips on their shoulders, of which I guess I was one. People who were not prepared to ‘take it’ any more, whatever ‘taking it’ actually was. Most people in the ’50s were pretty deferential to everybody, and were prepared to keep a civil tongue up the rectum of society and the system. There were obviously some people like myself, Terry, a whole clique of people who were not deferential, and said “No!” “Why?” “What?” “Who told you so!” “Go on make me!” The sort of chippy oiks, like me and Bailey, and hundreds of others who were not prepared to roll over. There was a breakdown of society, not a lot of aggression, just people questioning everything, and wanting to change things – people like Vidal who was a genius hairdresser and thought there was another way of doing things, and a bloke called Teasy-Weasy who was incredibly talented, dress designers like Mary Quant, and painters like Hockney and Kitaj – it was an era of extraordinary creativity. Books like Lady Chatterley’s Lover, late night drinking clubs, homosexuality, all these things were changing the way we were. It was the beginning of what I call “Attitude”.

Before us, I think photographers were probably all a bit camper.

Parkinson and Beaton were both very civilised and urbane men, and they both had their modus operandi taking their wonderful pictures, but if you look at pictures from the early ’50s the models all look as if no one likes them. Most of the photographers of that period, Parkinson, John French, Dickie Dormer, had a slightly effeminate approach, and that was the way they got through. The way to be a successful photographer was to be tall, thin and camp – you were seen to be inside the tent, and we were not. I’m not saying they were all homosexuals but a lot of them were. Trevor used

16

Vogue, Jean Shrimpton, Edgware Road, 1960

17

On French Elle…

I went over to Paris and worked for Elle in 1961, while I was still at Vogue, and I fell in love with them, hatefully of course. The French are the most dreadful people on earth, well the Parisians, and I must have had some masochistic attraction to them, they were like a drug to me, and I just adored working for them. You never got anything right as far as they were concerned. As soon as you did something, there was a dreadful, long, intellectual discussion, always a long pause, and a scratching of the head. They were never negative to the point of putting you down, some people look for negativity, but the Frogs always looked for the positive.

If all the photographs were out of focus the Brits would think “Oh God, he doesn’t know what he’s doing?”, whereas the Frogs would think “Mmm, that’s interesting. I wonder if this is an attempt to express visual perception in a different way?” And then of course they’d say, “Well it could be a broken camera!” But that’s the difference.

I got on with the French because they would ask interesting questions. In England nobody asked anything, you did your job and went home. It wasn’t in the English psyche. I’m biased about Elle, biased about the people who worked on it, and the way they did things – you’d go in there and the whole bloody place was alive with energy. The Art Director was a Swiss genius called Peter Knapp, who took about three and a half seconds to look at my snaps and said “Yes, yes, when can you start?” and he introduced me to the boss lady, who was a fabulous woman called Hélène Lazareff, this tiny, petite, very attractive woman, who had been an anthropologist, and discovered Bardot, and now ran the magazine with her husband Pierre. I think Knapp, who was really a painter, got involved with Elle because of this incredible woman. Between them they brought the magazine in fifty-two times a year, there were two teams of designers who worked under Knapp and who took it in turns to produce the issue, and week after week after week they allowed me to go for it in a way that the Brits would never have allowed. I think my best work was for Elle, no doubt about it. If you ever had a technical idea and they didn’t understand it, they’d just encourage you to do it. If I said, “I’ve got a great

24

French Elle, South of France, 1963

25

On French Elle…

I went over to Paris and worked for Elle in 1961, while I was still at Vogue, and I fell in love with them, hatefully of course. The French are the most dreadful people on earth, well the Parisians, and I must have had some masochistic attraction to them, they were like a drug to me, and I just adored working for them. You never got anything right as far as they were concerned. As soon as you did something, there was a dreadful, long, intellectual discussion, always a long pause, and a scratching of the head. They were never negative to the point of putting you down, some people look for negativity, but the Frogs always looked for the positive.

If all the photographs were out of focus the Brits would think “Oh God, he doesn’t know what he’s doing?”, whereas the Frogs would think “Mmm, that’s interesting. I wonder if this is an attempt to express visual perception in a different way?” And then of course they’d say, “Well it could be a broken camera!” But that’s the difference.

I got on with the French because they would ask interesting questions. In England nobody asked anything, you did your job and went home. It wasn’t in the English psyche. I’m biased about Elle, biased about the people who worked on it, and the way they did things – you’d go in there and the whole bloody place was alive with energy. The Art Director was a Swiss genius called Peter Knapp, who took about three and a half seconds to look at my snaps and said “Yes, yes, when can you start?” and he introduced me to the boss lady, who was a fabulous woman called Hélène Lazareff, this tiny, petite, very attractive woman, who had been an anthropologist, and discovered Bardot, and now ran the magazine with her husband Pierre. I think Knapp, who was really a painter, got involved with Elle because of this incredible woman. Between them they brought the magazine in fifty-two times a year, there were two teams of designers who worked under Knapp and who took it in turns to produce the issue, and week after week after week they allowed me to go for it in a way that the Brits would never have allowed. I think my best work was for Elle, no doubt about it. If you ever had a technical idea and they didn’t understand it, they’d just encourage you to do it. If I said, “I’ve got a great

24

French Elle, South of France, 1963

25

On Selling Out… The problem with the people in advertising – you know that old saying “Couldn’t run a piss up in a brewery”. I started doing advertising, because Vogue photographers didn’t do advertising. You didn’t make any money doing editorial and you just supported the editorial work through the commercial work. I had to work because my overheads were so enormous. Name me one other photographer at that time who was married and had four kids to support? I’d do anything – 99 per cent of my work was crap, putting cream on baby’s bums and rubbing it on, scrubbing shiny teeth with toothpaste, rubbing something in the hair, and in the end you just get caught up in this ‘You’ve got to go to work’ shit. If I didn’t have those overheads, and didn’t do commercial work I could have lived a different life, just done editorial and eeked out a living. Bailey never did commercial work, he didn’t have to because he was only interested in himself, the girls he lived with earned their own money, and so it was a totally different situation.

You need a lot of bottle to diversify. I did a lot of advertising, and most of the people I met had no idea what to sell, other than their own conceit. The people who were giving me work, knew fuck all about decoding a photograph, they were twatheads who were commissioning me. You had Art Directors who had never been into an art gallery, never mind using the word Art, and crackpot terms like ‘The Creative Floor’.

Well most creativity that was done on ‘The Creative Floor’ in my period was guys buying motoring magazines trying to work out what fiddles to do, or what car they would get. You had these terrific salesmen called Account Directors, and more energy was spent on crazy things like giving awards, than actual advertising. I didn’t like the people, and I didn’t like me, because of them. I thought it was all fraudulent, fifth-rate designers and third-rate thinkers.

Looking at the advertising I did for Benson & Hedges, they are all absolutely straight snaps. There was no doctoring; they are all unretouched photographs, no secrets. I modified a lot of my cameras, had esoteric lenses, built lights and different things. The first one I did

32

Konica advertisement, 1965

33

On Selling Out… The problem with the people in advertising – you know that old saying “Couldn’t run a piss up in a brewery”. I started doing advertising, because Vogue photographers didn’t do advertising. You didn’t make any money doing editorial and you just supported the editorial work through the commercial work. I had to work because my overheads were so enormous. Name me one other photographer at that time who was married and had four kids to support? I’d do anything – 99 per cent of my work was crap, putting cream on baby’s bums and rubbing it on, scrubbing shiny teeth with toothpaste, rubbing something in the hair, and in the end you just get caught up in this ‘You’ve got to go to work’ shit. If I didn’t have those overheads, and didn’t do commercial work I could have lived a different life, just done editorial and eeked out a living. Bailey never did commercial work, he didn’t have to because he was only interested in himself, the girls he lived with earned their own money, and so it was a totally different situation.

You need a lot of bottle to diversify. I did a lot of advertising, and most of the people I met had no idea what to sell, other than their own conceit. The people who were giving me work, knew fuck all about decoding a photograph, they were twatheads who were commissioning me. You had Art Directors who had never been into an art gallery, never mind using the word Art, and crackpot terms like ‘The Creative Floor’.

Well most creativity that was done on ‘The Creative Floor’ in my period was guys buying motoring magazines trying to work out what fiddles to do, or what car they would get. You had these terrific salesmen called Account Directors, and more energy was spent on crazy things like giving awards, than actual advertising. I didn’t like the people, and I didn’t like me, because of them. I thought it was all fraudulent, fifth-rate designers and third-rate thinkers.

Looking at the advertising I did for Benson & Hedges, they are all absolutely straight snaps. There was no doctoring; they are all unretouched photographs, no secrets. I modified a lot of my cameras, had esoteric lenses, built lights and different things. The first one I did

32

Konica advertisement, 1965

33

38

Vogue, St Paul’s, London, 1959

Vogue, Florence, Italy, 1962

39

38

Vogue, St Paul’s, London, 1959

Vogue, Florence, Italy, 1962

39

108

Benson & Hedges advertisements, Matchbox and Ring, 1977

Benson & Hedges advertisements, Mouse Hole and Birdcage, 1977

109

108

Benson & Hedges advertisements, Matchbox and Ring, 1977

Benson & Hedges advertisements, Mouse Hole and Birdcage, 1977

109

134

Colin Millward, David Bailey and Bob Marchant, 1975

Black Sabbath, 1973

135

134

Colin Millward, David Bailey and Bob Marchant, 1975

Black Sabbath, 1973

135

176

Jean Shrimpton, 1963 opposite David Shilling, 1977

177

176

Jean Shrimpton, 1963 opposite David Shilling, 1977

177

ISBN 978 1 85149 657 0 £45.00/$85.00

When the photographer Brian Duffy died in May 2010, he was widely acclaimed as a driving force behind the English avant-garde of young photographers who defined the visual style of the Swinging Sixties. In 1980 Duffy felt that he had said all he needed to say in photography and, in a moment of madness, decided to burn all of his work.

Fortunately, he was stopped before everything was destroyed. This first publication of Duffy’s work presents a wealth of imagery from the genius that was Duffy. £45.00/$85.00

Antique Collectors’ Club, Sandy Lane, Old Martlesham, Woodbridge, Suffolk IP12 4SD, UK Tel: 01394 389950 Fax: 01394 389999 Email: info@antique-acc.com or ACC Distribution, 6 West 18th Street, Suite 4B, New York, NY 10011, USA Tel: 212 645 1111 Fax: 212 989 3205 Email: sales@antiquecc.com www.antiquecollectorsclub.com Designed by Webb & Webb Design Limited

Chris Duffy is the eldest son of legendary sixties British photographer Brian Duffy and a photographer in his own right. From an early age it was inevitable that photography would have a huge influence on his life and working for Duffy in the seventies gave Chris a unique insight into his father’s ‘process’. Chris started collating Duffy’s archive in 2006. The photographs in this book reveal for the first time ever Duffy’s rediscovered oeuvre.

ISBN 978 1 85149 657 0