Double Exposure: David Bailey & Mary McCartney

London, United Kingdom, May 2024 – Claridge’s ArtSpace, located in the heart of Mayfair, is delighted to announce Double Exposure: David Bailey & Mary McCartney, a new photography exhibition bringing the works of these two major British photographers into direct dialogue for the first time in this unique John Pawson designed space. Curated by Brandei Estes, this exhibition spans photographs from the 1960s to the present day – showcasing a mutual interest in reinventing portraiture alongside interconnected aesthetic concerns and a shared sensibility. This marks the first occasion for Bailey to show with another photographer in London.

Over the course of more than half a century, iconic British photographer and director David Bailey has created some of the most notable fashion images in the medium, a prolific and tireless image-maker. Celebrated worldwide for his inimitable, charged portraits, this exhibition includes images of celebrities of a halcyon bygone era, where glamour was still unattainable and distant.

Many of the portraits included in Double Exposure also reveal Bailey’s signature informal, playful side: a portrait of Jean Shrimpton, her face painted by David Hockney; Miles Davis, sticking his tongue out at the camera; a joy-filled portrait of Jerry Hall, sitting on table, head thrown back with laughter, resting her high-heeled shoe in Helmut Newton’s hand. These photographs speak not only of Bailey’s intimate connection with his subjects and artistic milieu, but his ability to disarm and charm even the most idolised with the camera.

These works are brought into a taut, incisive conversation with Mary McCartney, known for her poetic, enigmatic portraits, and evocative, emotional narratives. Diaristic and intimate, McCartney’s photographs share with Bailey an ability to strip away the superfluous in her images in concise and suggestive compositions.

Mirroring Bailey’s portraits of the celebrities of his era, McCartney has also captured her peers, the icons of her generation. A triptych of Kate Moss posturing and posing; a young and perfect Milla Jovovich, and a whimsical imagining of Harry Styles are among the portraits included in Double Exposure. Like Bailey, McCartney draws out an innate sense of theatricality in these world-famous figures, delighting in the performativity of photography – and evoking an atmosphere of fun.

Moving between stillness and solitude to motion and flamboyance, McCartney also creates vignettes that bring attention to the overlooked moments in the everyday – a ballet dancer caught during downtime, a woman flagging down a taxi, lovers legs entangled late at night at a club, Joni Mitchell smoking a cigarette. McCartney’s particular tempo, like Bailey’s, derives from a sense of poised beauty and happenstance, where anything and anyone could be a subject.

Unfolding like a conversation between two friends, Double Exposure: David Bailey & Mary McCartney is an exhilarating pairing of two major epoch-defining British artists.

Double Exposure: David Bailey & Mary McCartney

Open 14 May - 19 July 2024

Claridge’s ArtSpace Café Brook’s Mews

London, W1K 4DY

Monday - Friday: 8am – 6pm Saturday & Sunday: 10am – 5pm

And by appointment: info@thewickculture.com, +44 7717 733891

ENDS

For more information please contact

Katy Wickremesinghe katy@ktwlondon.com | +447717733891 Veronika Kailich veronika@ktwlondon.com | +447849738605

Notes to editors

Claridge’s ArtSpace is an art gallery unveiled at the legendary hotel in the heart of Mayfair in 2021. This space, designed by John Pawson, is accessed by the Claridge’s ArtSpace Café on the restored hotel façade on Brook’s Mews. Claridge’s invites its long-standing friends and gallerists within the art world to stage rotating exhibitions and shows, and has approachability at its core, with free access to all.

David Bailey CBE is a world-renowned photographer and director, known for his fashion, advertising and portrait photography. Active since the 1960s, he has revolutionized the genre with his informal and spontaneous signature style. His vivid documents of London in the 1960s helped define the city for the world and have charted shifting social values and rapidly changing street culture. Bailey has gone on to receive the title of Commander of the Order of the British Empire from Queen Elizabeth II, and in 2016 a Lifetime Achievement award from the International Center of Photography in New York. The artist’s

photographs are held in the collections of the National Portrait Gallery and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. Bailey currently lives and works in London, United Kingdom.

Mary McCartney is an internationally acclaimed photographer, filmmaker, and sustainable food pioneer with a passion for storytelling. As a portrait and fine art photographer, McCartney has exhibited worldwide, and is held in major private and public permanent collections including the Victoria and Albert Museum, London; the National Portrait Gallery, London; The Royal Academy, London; and the Fondation d’entreprise Hermès, Paris. In 2015 was invited by Buckingham Palace to take the official photograph to mark Queen Elizabeth II becoming the longest reigning Monarch.

Brandei Estes is the former Head of Photographs in Europe, Middle East, and Asia at Sotheby’s, where she was instrumental in the growth of the Photographs sales in Europe and further afield. Estes is regularly a judge and nominator for numerous international photography awards including the Prix Pictet and the Louis Roederer Photography Prize for Sustainability and served for five years as the Chair for the advisory committee of The Photographers’ Gallery TPG Contemporaries. Estes lectures throughout the year on collecting photographs and the photography market for public and private institutions, museums, galleries and fairs in the UK and continental Europe.