I did my degree in photography at the end of the 60’s – yes the Swinging Sixties when all eyes were on London, the capital of cool.
I was doing the coolest degree in the coolest country.
And the King of Cool, the man who had just stepped out of the fridge, was Bailey.

Mick Jagger by Bailey

The name Bailey was synonymous with cool and if you wanted to be cool yourself you had him take your picture.
For fifty years he has been working this trick and he’s still the man you go to.
(although there is that bloke Rankin lurking in the wings with his own brand of smoke and mirrors).
I really should have written this post ages ago when I visited the Great Man’s one man show, “Stardust”, at the National Portrait Gallery when everything was fresh in my mind but as is often the way I left it on the mental shelf and there it has sat … festering.
At the time all us young photographers aspired to be Bailey – jet set lifestyle, beautiful women in your bed, the adulation of the masses, and the money.
He showed us the faces of fame. All the stars that glittered.
Beautiful darling, absolutely gorgeous.
But walking around the exhibition, surrounded by a mass of worshippers at the altar to 60s glam, I couldn’t help but feel a bit empty – I was looking at the Emperor’s new clothes.
Amongst the “oohing” and “ahhhing”, I gritted my teeth and plodded on.
I have become cynical. I just felt “mehh”.  So what.
The pictures are all competent and remind me of those exciting times but it’s the faces and what they represented that mean something to me.
Certainly they are “iconic”, but of course they are.
These images were of the most famous people around at the most exciting time and they were published everywhere – of course they are “iconic”. They are symbols of the age.
But are they ART ?
Are they even great photographs ?

I had a look at what some of the art critics have said about his exhibition,
The Daily Telegraph’s Alistair Sooke was suitably star struck commenting on the pictures:
“David Hockney wears bug-eyed sunglasses and spreads his jacket behind him so that it forms a triangular silhouette like a cape: he looks like a masked Sixties superhero about to soar off – which, in a sense, is exactly what he was.“
I felt a need to retch at this point but continued …
“Somehow, in these deceptively simple prints, Bailey was able to produce subtle effects by playing with dramatic contrasts between light and dark as well as strong compositional shapes, such as Hockney’s jacket. As a result, there was no question that these people, as seen through his lens, had something that most of us don’t: they were cool”.

Hmmmm !!!

So I turned to Jonathan Jones in the Guardian:

“The trouble is, dynamism and colour and vibrancy and really great subjects are not enough to give a picture poignancy, meaning or depth. Bailey is inexhaustibly shallow”.

“This exhibition goes down as easily as a colour supplement, but has about the same claim to be art.”

Ah now that’s more like it !

How did Bailey compare to the other fashionable names of the period: Newton, Avedon, Parkinson, Penn  and so many others ?
In my opinion ?
Merely as an also ran !

I know I’m going to be pilloried for this.
Labelled as “sour grapes”.
Never made any money with his photography and has the nerve to criticise a truly successful photographer.
So be it.
But just a parting thought…
Given that David Bailey had the keys to the 20th Century’s biggest toy box, is that really the best he could come up with ?

Bailey Exhibition (pic by Me !)