Detail
David Montgomery is the author of some of the most iconic images of the Sixties. Born in the USA (Brooklyn, 8 February 1937), his dream was to become a musician, but he realized he did not have enough talent to turn his passion into his profession. He decided, therefore, to devote himself to photography and, after learning the craft with legendary Alexey Brodovitch, he became assistant to Lester Bookbinder, whom he followed to England. Here he fell in love with the flat light filtering through London smog, so different from and softer than the harsh and cold brightness of his native New York City. Hence his choice, at the beginning of the Sixties, to permanently live in London. It was not difficult to fall in love with the British capital at a time when it had just become Swinging London. Photographic studios, King’s Road and Kensington, the newsroom of Queen magazine, San Lorenzo restaurant, the new English cinema, Jean Shrimpton, miniskirts and music: a single energy, bold and creative, was flowing through all this, heralding a free and gentle revolution.
In this environment, photographers played a key role, and David Montgomery occupied a prominent position among them. His cultural distance, his being an American-born citizen living in London enabled him to confront the Island’s mythical figures with a humility that was matched only by his confidence. As if he were there quite by chance and could afford not to put too much weight in the vagaries of Mick Jagger, who would even refuse to look at the camera.
What do Sean Connery, Rod Stewart, the Queen Mother, David Hockney, The Rolling Stones as portrayed by David Montgomery have in common? They look like what they are: wonderfully, freakishly or sophisticatedly British. No other image shows us the great Peter O’Toole looking at us like this, as if from behind a snobby fog wall, distancing himself from us with all the inaccessibility of his British insularity.
During a recent interview on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the most famous silver-screen tribute to Swinging London, the legendary Blow-Up by Michelangelo Antonioni, one of the actresses who worked in the film, English model Jill Kennington, recalled it had been in Montgomery’s studio, during a photoshoot for Queen, that she had first met the director.
‘Other two girls were there. We were introduced to Antonioni and were told he would just watch while Montgomery was shooting. When I eventually saw the film, I realised he must have been greatly inspired by that photoshoot.’
He has worked for Nova, The Sunday Times, Rolling Stone, and British Vogue. He has portrayed the British Royal Family – Elizabeth II, the Queen Mother, Prince Andrew, and Prince Harry –, politicians such as Margaret Thatcher, Bill Clinton, Pierre Trudeau, and King Hussein of Jordan, artists like Andy Warhol, Lucian Freud, David Hockney, Francis Bacon, Howard Hodgkin, and Gilbert & George, musicians such as Diana Ross & The Supremes, Mick Jagger, The Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, Eurythmics, Eric Clapton, Sir Paul McCartney, The Clash, and U2; models Jean Shrimpton and Twiggy; actors and actresses the likes of Monica Vitti, Sophia Loren, Omar Sharif, Pierce Brosnan, Clint Eastwood, and Sean Connery; directors such as Alfred Hitchcock; athletes such as Muhammad Ali. And this is just to mention but a few of the several names that appear in his enormous archive.
He is the only photographer who dared lecture Mick Jagger, light a fire behind Jimi Hendrix in order to portray him and definitely the only one who stumbled upon a condom lying on the floor of 10 Downing Street while waiting to immortalize Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.
Today David Montgomery is a cheerful, passionate and very active eighty-year-old lad dressed in rock ‘n’ roll style, who believes there is always something interesting to shoot.
Start Date
Location
Venezia
