Trieste, at Magazzino delle Idee, photographer Terry O'Neill chronicles international Stars

Erpac Ente Regionale per il Patrimonio Culturale, in collaboration with Iconic Images of London, presents at the Magazzino delle Idee in Trieste the exhibition STARS, Photographic Portraits by Terry O’Neill. The exhibition, curated by Cristina Carrillo de Albornoz, traces more than 50 years of the photographer’s career through 65 color and black-and-white images in his most famous shots.

Born in London in 1938, O’Neill witnessed the cultural and social effervescence of 1960s London dubbed "Swinging London." A portrait artist with a unique and unmistakable style, using a 35 mm camera and an unprecedented approach to the subjects he photographed, Terry O’Neill immortalized the great movie legends of the last six decades, the best-known pop and rock groups that dominated the music scene of the 1960s and 1970s, to the most famous faces of 20th-century cinema, politics, and sports, and many leading figures in the fashion world.

Terry O’Neill’s photographic career began by accident. "I was a jazz percussionist and wanted to move to America. To be able to move to the United States as a musician, I joined the photography department of British Airways,“ he recalls. ”I had to photograph people at the entrance of the London airport and capture the emotions of various encounters." Hence his good fortune. O’Neill photographed a man in a suit asleep amid a group of Africans in tribal dress. The man portrayed turned out to be British Foreign Minister Rab Butler. The image was bought by the newspapers, marking a decisive turning point in his career and thus making him "the guy with the 35mm Leica."

O’Neill was the first to portray pop and rock stars; his are, for example, the first photographs of the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, and the shots that helped launch various artistic careers, such as those of Elton John and David Bowie. Other stars of Terry O’Neill’s photos were the great actors of the 1970s and 1980s, one of Hollywood’s golden eras. Stars such as Audrey Hepburn, Liz Taylor, Raquel Welch, Clint Eastwood, Paul Newman, Groucho Marx, Ava Gardner, Steve McQueen, and Faye Dunaway were indeed part of the photographer’s usual circle of acquaintances. However, the person most photographed during O’Neill’s artistic parabola was singer Frank Sinatra, whose personal photographer he was for 30 years. Also immortalized by his lens were such politicians as Winston Churchill, Nelson Mandela, as well as former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Since the 1990s, O’Neill has accepted only special assignments, such as portraits of Queen Elizabeth II of England or photo shoots for Nelson Mandela’s 90th birthday, Pele and for the James Bond saga.

The exhibition proposed in the retrospective dedicated to the great British photographer at the Warehouse of Ideas is divided into six thematic sections: "Top Models,“ ”Politicians, Sovereigns and Sportsmen,“ ”TheSixties,“ ”The Seventies,“ ”Hollywood and the Eighties,“ and ”Pop and Rock Stars," which give visitors an insight into his approach to photographic portraiture through a style capable of showing the subject in an intimate and natural way in perfect tune with the spirit of youth.

The exhibition was originally scheduled to close Feb. 17, but has been extended until March 3. To learn more you can visit the official website of the Idea Warehouse.

Trieste, at Magazzino delle Idee, photographer Terry O'Neill chronicles international Stars

Warning: the translation into English of the original Italian article was created using automatic tools. We undertake to review all articles, but we do not guarantee the total absence of inaccuracies in the translation due to the program. You can find the original by clicking on the ITA button. If you find any mistake,please contact us.