TERENCE DONOVAN
Overview
Terence Donovan (1936 – 1996) was one of the foremost photographers of his generation, with a career spanning almost 40 years. He came to prominence in London as part of a postwar renaissance in art, design and music, representing a new force in fashion and, later, advertising and portrait photography. Donovan operated at the heart of London’s swinging sixties, both as participant in and observer of the world he so brilliantly and incisively captured with his camera. Gifted with an unerring eye for the iconic as well as the transformative, Donovan was a master of his craft, a technical genius who pushed the limits of what was possible with a camera.
Born into a working class family in East London, Donovan was fascinated by photography and printmaking from an early age. His professional photographic life started at the age of 11 with an apprenticeship at the London School of Photo-Engraving. He left at 15 to become a photographer’s assistant before opening his own studio in 1959, at the age of twenty two. He was immediately sought after by a range of clients, including leading advertising agencies and fashion and lifestyle magazines of the time, such as Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar and Elle (France).
Part of a working class influx into the previously rarefied worlds of fashion, media and the arts, Donovan’s iconoclastic and sometimes irreverent photography established a new visual language rooted in the world he knew best – the streets of London’s East End. Taking his models to bomb-ravaged waste grounds or balancing them off industrial building sites, his gritty and noir-ish style was more like reportage than fashion photography.
Donovan worked for some of the most progressive magazines of the time including Queen, Town and London Life and his images became emblematic of the era. He both documented and helped create the much-mythologised culture of 1960s London, and was amongst the first wave of celebrity photographers, socialising with, as well as photographing, the actors, musicians, designers and models who came to represent the decade.
Featured Exhibitions
Sophia Loren, 1963. Taken On The Set Of Anthony Mann’s ‘The Fall Of The Roman Empire’
Sophia Loren, 1963.Taken On The Set Of Anthony Mann’s ‘The Fall Of The Roman Empire’
Liese Deniz, Model picture, 24 November 1959
Vintage Silver Gelatin Print
Celia Hammond, Beauty shoot for Queen magazine, 12 September 1963
Vintage Silver Gelatin Print
From a fashion story for British Vogue,10 January 1977
Vintage Silver Gelatin Print
Karen Jensen, Fashion shoot for Queen magazine, 4 March 1965
Vintage Silver Gelatin Print
Georgia Gold, Fashion shoot for Queen magazine, 26 May 1964
Vintage Silver Gelatin Print
Tim Davies and Celia Hammond, Ireland, Fashion shoot for Town magazine, 27 August to 2 September 1962
Vintage Silver Gelatin Print
Yvonne Nightingale, Advertising shoot for Vidal Sassoon, 18 March 1959
Unique Vintage Silver Gelatin Contact Print, 6 x 6 cm
These unique vintage contact prints, are small photographs made by laying the negative directly onto the surface of the light sensitive paper. Terence Donovan meticulously reviewed his contact sheets, indicating his selected frames by piercing them with a pen or marking them with a chinagraph pencil. He discarded the contact prints of the frames he did not want used, keeping only those that he felt good enough to print or publish. Many also tell the story of their history – they bear crop marks, printing instructions or layout comments. These small, original contact prints of single frames (some more than sixty years old) were kept with his negatives and remain in his archive. As well as being beautiful objects in their own right, they provide an important insight into Terence Donovan’s working process and give us vital information about which shots he felt were most successful from the many hundreds of thousands of photographs taken.
Nancy Egerton, Advertising shoot for Robert Edel, 25 May 1959
Unique Vintage Silver Gelatin Contact Print, 6.5 x 6 cm
Clemence Bettany, Model Test, London, 9 February 1959
Unique Vintage Silver Gelatin Contact Print, 6 x 6 cm
Michael Donovan, Experimental shot, 4 March 1959
Unique Vintage Silver Gelatin Contact Print, 6 x 6 cm
Michael Donovan, Experimental shot, 4 March 1959
Unique Vintage Silver Gelatin Contact Print, 6 x 6 cm
Paulene Stone, Advertising shoot for George Newnes, 25 March 1959
Unique Vintage Silver Gelatin Contact Print, 6 x 6.2 cm
Miss Allan and children, Advertising shoot for George Newnes, 3 April 1959
Unique Vintage Silver Gelatin Contact Print, 6 x 6 cm
Liz Cruft and Peter Anthony, Advertising shoot, 30 April 1959
Unique Vintage Silver Gelatin Contact Print, 6.5 x 6 cm
“Strippers” From A Photo Essay for “About Town magazine”, July 1961
The Lay About Life: From a photo essay for Man About Town magazine, December 1960
Writer Laura Del Rivo photographed at Chepstow Villas in Notting Hill, 10 October 1960
The Lay About Life: From a photo essay for Man About Town magazine, December 1960
Writers Laura Del Rivo, Cressida Lindsay, Mark Hyatt and Michael Millett photographed at Chepstow Villas in Notting Hill, 10 October 1960
The Lay About Life: From a photo essay for Man About Town magazine, December 1960
Chepstow Villas in Notting Hill, 10 October 1960