Terence Donovan Fashion

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Art / Books, Nov 12, 2012 - Photography - 240 pages

 'Flawless' — New York Journal of Books

'Superb' — Observer
'Stylish' — Sunday Telegraph, 'Favourite Books of the Year'
'The story of fashion photography in the UK' — Herald

Terence Donovan was one of the foremost photographers of his generation – among the greatest Britain has ever produced. He came to prominence in London as part of a postwar renaissance in art, fashion, graphic design and photography. His working-class background and outlook helped change the face of British fashion photography and made him a major figure of London's Swinging Sixties. A star in his own right, he was equally at home with celebrities and royalty as well as the ordinary girl on the street, whose mannerisms informed his photographs.

Gifted with an unerring eye for the iconic image, Donovan was also master of his craft, a technical genius who strove to push the limits of what was possible. And yet despite his fame and status, there has never been a publication devoted solely to his fashion work. Terence Donovan Fashion is the first time his fashion pictures have been collected together in book form.

Arranged chronologically, from the gritty monochromatic 1960s and 1970s to the vibrant and colourful 1980s and 1990s, the book reveals how constant invention and experimentation set Donovan apart from his contemporaries and influenced generations to come.

The pictures have been selected by his wife Diana Donovan and the former art director of Nova magazine and Pentagram partner David Hillman, who worked closely with Donovan for over a decade. With a text by the photographic historian Robin Muir, and a foreword by Grace Coddington, creative director of American Vogue, Terence Donovan Fashion is a landmark in the history of fashion photography.

 

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About the author (2012)

 Terence Donovan (1936–96) is regarded as one of the foremost photographers of his generation. Along with David Bailey and Brian Duffy, he captured and helped create the Swinging London of the 1960s. From the beginning of that decade until his death more than thirty years later, he shot regularly for magazines such as VogueElle and Harper's Bazaar. He also directed many TV commercials, the 1973 movie Yellow Dog, and a number of pop promos, including the iconic video for Robert Palmer's song 'Addicted to Love'.

Diana Donovan was married to Terence Donovan from 1970 until his death in 1996. She supervised major exhibitions of his work at the Museum of London in 1999 and Chris Beetles Gallery in London in 2007. She and David Hillman together published a retrospective of his work, Terence Donovan, in 2000. She now owns and manages the Terence Donovan Archive. She is a former chairman of English National Ballet School, and board member of the English National Ballet, and is currently a trustee of the Photographers' Gallery and the Gurkha Welfare Trust.


David Hillman is a British editorial design icon. Former designer of the Sunday Times Magazine, he art directed Nova magazine through its most successful period at the end of the 1960s and early 1970s, before becoming a partner at the celebrated Pentagram agency. In the 1980s, he redesigned the Guardian, establishing that newspaper's position at the forefront of UK publishing design. Alongside this award-winning work for newspapers and magazines, he has had a distinguished career spanning product and exhibition design, corporate identities and logos, and books.


Robin Muir is the former picture editor for British Vogue and is contributing editor to both British

and Russian Vogues. He is author and co-author of numerous books on the history of photography,

including Under the Influence: John Deakin, Photography and the Lure of Soho (2014), David Bailey: Chasing Rainbows (2001), A Maverick Eye: The Street Photography of John Deakin (2002), Norman Parkinson: Portraits in Fashion (2004), Unseen Vogue: The Secret History of Fashion Photography (2004), People In Vogue: A Century of Portrait Photography (2005), and In Camera: Snowdon and the World of British Art (2007). He has curated exhibitions for the National Portrait Gallery and the Victoria & Albert Museum, both London, the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh and the Yale Center for British Art, New Haven.


Grace Coddington has been a force in fashion for fifty years, as a model and a creative director. After nineteen years as photo editor with British Vogue, she moved to New York to work for Calvin Klein. In July 1988, she joined Anna Wintour at American Vogue, where she remains the magazine's creative director. Her long-awaited memoir was published in November 2012.

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