A STAR NEEDS A SPIN ? BAILEY CREATES BOOK COVER

A STAR NEEDS A SPIN – BAILEY CREATES BOOK COVER

Sponsored by HUGO BOSS 

Spring Season 2014 sponsored by Herbert Smith Freehills 

The cover of Bailey’s Stardust published by the National Portrait Gallery, London 

A striking artwork by Damien Hirst is part of the front cover of David Bailey’s new book, Bailey’s Stardust, which will accompany the photographer’s exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, opening in February. 

A team effort based on an idea by Bailey, the cover design incorporates a reproduction of one of Hirst’s ‘spin paintings’, which the artist has described as ‘childish … in the positive sense of the word’. David Bailey says of the Hirst painting: ‘Damien was generous in letting me use one of his great spin paintings to create the front cover for my new book – Bailey’s Stardust.’ 

The fully illustrated hardback book, the cover of which is revealed today, is being published to coincide with a major exhibition of the work of David Bailey at the National Portrait Gallery, London from 6 February until 1 June 2014. The title Bailey’s Stardust reflects the notion that regardless of who we are in life we are all made from, and ultimately return to, ‘stardust’. The book, like the exhibition, contains portraits of a wide range of sitters – from the glamorous to the impoverished, the famous and the anonymous – and, through images of skulls and pregnancy, powerful meditations on birth and death. Designed by Bailey himself and available for £45, Bailey’s Stardust includes more than 250 colour and tritone portraits, some previously unseen, an essay by the art critic and writer Tim Marlow and an illustrated chronology. 

Also announced today is a second book, Bailey Exposed. Published by the National Portrait Gallery on 5th December 2013 and priced at £9.99, this beautifully produced gift book features the celebrated British photographer’s personal observations on life, death, women, style, fashion, sex, class, the movies, the Sixties and photography. Drawing on numerous interviews and illustrated with many iconic photographs as well as unseen behind-the-scenes images from Bailey’s private archive, this book explores the man behind the camera. 

The book also includes the reflections of some of the illustrious figures Bailey has worked with over the years, among them Anjelica Huston, Paul Smith, Jerry Hall, Catherine Deneuve, Mary Quant, Kenneth Williams, Jean Shrimpton, Diana Vreeland and Cecil Beaton, who provide fascinating insights into the experience of being the focus of Bailey’s lens. 

BAILEY’S BOX OF POSTCARDS 

A beautifully presented box of postcards will also be published to tie in with the exhibition: 36 cards featuring a broad range of Bailey’s portraits in a sturdy pull-drawer giftbox, priced £14.95. Both books and the box of postcards can be ordered online at www.npg.org.uk/shop 

THE EXHIBITION: BAILEY’S STARDUST 

The exhibition will be one of the National Portrait Gallery’s largest ever devoted to photography, occupying most of its ground floor. 

One of the world’s most distinguished and distinctive photographers, David Bailey has made an outstanding contribution to the visual arts, creating consistently imaginative and thought-provoking portraits. As well as including new work, Bailey’s Stardust contains a wide variety of Bailey’s photographs from his career to date. The portraits have been personally selected by Bailey from the subjects and groups that he has captured over five decades: actors, writers, musicians, politicians, filmmakers, models, artists and people encountered on his travels; many of them famous, some unknown, all of them memorable. 

The book and the exhibition include sections devoted to Bailey’s travels in Australia, Delhi and the Naga Hills, as well as icons from the worlds of fashion and the arts, and people of the East End of London. There will be selections from Bailey’s Box of Pin-Ups, which helped define the 1960s through arresting studies of fashionable cultural figures of the day, and Bailey’s Democracy, a fascinating series of nude portraits of a variety of people who visited his studio over a four-year period.   

Powerful portraits of the Rolling Stones and Catherine Bailey contrast with remarkable documentary photographs from the photographer’s 1974 expedition to Papua New Guinea and moving images of those devastated by the famine in east Africa taken in support of the Band Aid charity in 1985.   

David Bailey’s many publications include Eye (2009), Is that So Kid (2008), NY JS DB 62 (2007), Bailey’s Democracy (2005), Locations – The 1970s Archive (2003), Chasing Rainbows (2001), Archive One – The 1960s (1999) and Box of Pin-Ups (1964). 

BAILEY’S STARDUST 

Sponsored by HUGO BOSS 

National Portrait Gallery, London (6 February – 1 June 2014), www.npg.org.uk 

National Portrait Gallery, St Martin’s Place WC2H 0HE, opening hours Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Saturday, Sunday: 10am – 6pm (Gallery closure commences at 5.50pm) 

Late Opening: Thursday, Friday: 10am – 9pm  (Gallery closure commences at 8.50pm) 

Nearest Underground: Leicester Square/Charing Cross General information: 0207 306 0055  Recorded information: 020 7312 2463   

Website/Tickets: www.npg.org.uk