Today’s fascination for celebrities dates back from decades, as celeb snapper Terry O’Neill shows in his new retrospective exhibition, Terry O’Neill ‘Behind the Scenes’, currently showing at the Getty Images Gallery in Shepherd’s Bush’s Westfield shopping centre.
And aside from his photographic skills, O’Neill can proud himself of his AAA credentials which gave him one-to-one exclusivity with some of our (erstwhile but timeless) dearest stars in the most intimate, as in humanised, contexts possible, whether on a film set, in rehearsal or other site-specific locations. We bet his contact book/mobile phone is super valuable, almost golden, telling by the two-dozen-portrait-strong portfolio on display: here we’ve got cinematic dinosaurs (The Mitchums, the Newmans, the Quinns, the Hoffmans, etc…), musical prophets (The Stones, The Beatles, Springsteen) and music hall gods (Frank and Sammy), as well as onscreen beauties Faye Dunaway and Brigitte Bardot, and the only truly current subject in Amy Winehouse . All shots, most of them in black and white retain a genuinely iconic quality about them, with O’Neill’s technique purposely (or not) taking the back seat to focus on each subject’s character (a bit like the ’90s supermodels shadowing the clothes they were supposed to model…): all intentionally celebrities like O’Neill’s collection book title hints.
So, if you’re into visually digging deep into the tabloid fillers of back in the day, ‘Behind The Scenes’ is the place for you to be and see.
Behind The Scenes opened on July 7th and will run until August 3rd.
