David Bailey
The photographer of the London sixties, from Jean Shrimpton to the Krays.
David Bailey was born in Leytonstone in 1938, left school barely able to read because of undiagnosed dyslexia, and was on contract at British Vogue by 1960. What followed defined how the decade looks to everyone who was not there: Jean Shrimpton in New York, the 1965 Box of Pin-Ups with Mick Jagger, Michael Caine, David Hockney and the Kray twins, and a way of shooting fashion that stripped out the props and the pretence. He was the model for the photographer in Antonioni's Blow-Up. He has published steadily for sixty years, moved between fashion, portraiture, reportage and painting, and was knighted for services to photography.
A very large body of work with correspondingly variable editions: the famous images exist in several formats and sizes made at different dates, and the edition size is not something that can be assumed from the picture. Vintage gelatin silver prints from the period are a different proposition from the large pigment prints issued later, and both are collected. Signature is usually in ink, on the recto or the verso, alongside an edition number and often a studio stamp. Provenance from the publisher or a named gallery does real work here.
If you own a work by David Bailey
Send photographs and whatever paperwork came with it. The first question is what the work actually is — edition or unique, when, and in what condition — because everything else follows from the answer. A valuation costs nothing and commits you to nothing.
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