Never-before-seen David Bailey portraits unveiled

BRITISH photographer David Bailey’s glittering career is taking centre stage in a new exhibition featuring some never-before-seen portraits.

Kate Moss, in a never-before-seen David Bailey portrait. Picture: David Bailey/PA

Pictures of rock legend Sir Mick Jagger, model Jerry Hall and Blur frontman Damon Albarn are among the 250 images included in Bailey’s Stardust at the National Portrait Gallery in London.

There is a new picture of supermodel Kate Moss, as well as entire rooms dedicated to his wife Catherine Bailey and rock legends the Rolling Stones.

Exhibits also focus on Bailey’s travels in Australia, Delhi and the Naga Hills in India, as well as icons from the worlds of fashion and the arts, and people of the East End of London.

The exhibition includes selections from two of his most acclaimed bodies of work: Box of Pin-Ups, which helped define the 1960s through studies of key figures, and Bailey’s Democracy, in which those visiting his studio were asked if they would agree to be photographed naked.

Bailey established himself at Vogue magazine in the early 1960s and captured portraits of The Beatles, Jagger and the notorious Kray twins, before going on to become one of the world’s most acclaimed fashion photographers.

Gallery director Sandy Nairne said: “Bailey’s Stardust is a very special event. It offers an exceptional opportunity to enjoy the widest range of the mercurial portraits created by David Bailey, one of the world’s greatest image-makers.”

Bailey, who grew up in the East End of London, made his name as one of a group of young photographers who documented the Swinging Sixties in the capital and rubbed shoulders with the stars of the day.

His relationship with model Jean Shrimpton recently inspired a television drama, We’ll Take Manhattan, with Aneurin Barnard playing Bailey and former Doctor Who star Karen Gillan playing Shrimpton.