Legendary photographer Brian Duffy has died following a long illness with lung disease.
©Brain Duffy
As one of the ‘Black Trinity’ (a moniker awarded to Duffy, Bailey & Donovan by Vogue photographer Norman Parkinson) Duffy was not only a pioneering force in fashion photography from the late 1950′s onwards but also a technical innovator who developed many of the practices now employed in modern photography.
Famed for his bad temper and mood swings and perhaps the only man in the industry with the ability to shout down his famously rancorous friend David Bailey, Duffy is actually remembered by those who knew him as a witty and humorous man, happy to impart his wisdom on those willing to listen. His best known work spanned 3 decades, a number of styles and was responsible (alongside Bailey & Donovan) for revolutionising fashion photography by taking it out of the salon and adding a sense of reality 30 years before Corinne Day, David Sims et al redeveloped the look in the early 1990′s.
During his career Duffy worked with all the top fashion magazines and models of the day, as well as a number of high profile commercial clients. His portraits of David Bowie for the Aladdin Sane album and his partnership with Allen Jones for Pirelli being particularly memorable despite his dissatisfaction at having to hand over his work to a 3rd party “to scribble on”.
Later in his career he became a highly sought after advertising photographer developing the modern commercial/art style for clients such as Benson & Hedges, a visual language which is now de rigueur among blue chip brands but was then highly original and technically advanced. However, his frustration with commercial work led to perhaps the most famous photographic melt-down of all time when in 1979, after being told his studio was “out of toilet paper” he realised he was no longer a young pioneer photographer but the head of a large and growing business. His next move (and final significant act as a photographer) was to burn most of his negatives in front of the studio. Precise accounts of the scenario vary, with reports of the local council stopping him because of the smoke and David Bailey failing to stop him as he passed by, on the way to his own studio.
In later life Duffy became a furniture restorer but his legacy remains; a high profile retrospective of his work was held at the Chris Beetles Gallery in London in 2009 and a BBC documentary titled The Man Who Shot the 60′s is due to be re-broadcast on Saturday 12 June on BBC 4, we highly recommend you watch it.
All text courtesy of 125 magazine
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