1913 - 1990
“I like to make people look as good as they’d like to look, and with luck, a shade better.”
Norman Parkinson
Parkinson’s career began in 1931 and went on to span a remarkable seven decades, bringing him worldwide recognition as a pioneer of fashion photography. Famous for his iconic sense of style and glamour, Parkinson’s unexpected and unique approach brought a freshness to the sometimes staid genres of fashion and portrait photography.
Heralded as one of the true innovators in his field, he pushed the boundaries of the day by bringing the model out of the stuffy, rigid studio environment and into a more dynamic outdoor setting. He set models against daring backdrops, such as the gritty working-class districts of London and he shot them only in natural light, pioneering ‘action realism’, a photographic style that persists today.
“All the girls had their knees bolted together” Parkinson said, recalling the work of fashionable photographers of the 30s like Cecil Beaton and Edward Steichen. He worked for publications including: Vogue Magazine, Queen, Life, Town & Country and Harper’s Bazaar.
Norman Parkinson was the predecessor of the likes of Brian Duffy, Terence Donovan and David Bailey, all who shunned his elegance for their own flavour of photography in the 1960s, but who owed much of their success to the trail that Parkinson had blazed before them. There is no question that he remains a seminal influence on subsequent generations of fashion photographers.
Many of his celebrated images keep inspiring artists around the world. His wife Wenda, bizarrely but elegantly posing on top of an ostrich in South Africa for Vogue Magazine, and the happy young couple, with brief-cases in hand, on East River Drive running towards the camera with the New York skyline as their backdrop are just two examples of his stunning body of work.
Parkinson was famed for capturing many of the greatest icons of the 20th century as well as some of the world’s most beautiful women. Including Audrey Hepburn, Wenda Parkinson, Montgomery Clift, Ava Gardener, Lisa Fonssagrives (later Mrs Irving Penn), Vivien Leigh, Apollonia van Ravenstein, Raquel Welch, Jean Seberg, Iman & Jerry Hall.
Parkinson died on location in Malaysia in 1990 leaving behind a groundbreaking legacy and will continue to inspire for generations to come. Elliott Gallery is proud to hold Vintage, Later Signed and Estate Prints available by Norman Parkinson.
“Photography is a collaborative process – like dance – and Norman Parkinson was like Fred Astaire.” Iman
