Bailey: Vision and Sound

Bailey: Vision and Sound is a celebration of David Bailey's portraits of legendary musicians over the past six decades. With photographs that trace movements of jazz, the rumbling ascension of rock and roll, punk, Britpop, hip-hop, and more, the exhibition explores Bailey's influential role in cultivating the image of music mediated through his lens.

Having seized early on the zeitgeist of a new age, Bailey's photography ushered in fresh energy, a shifting style, and a new attitude in culture. Against a striking white background, his subjects often appear close-up and personal, cropped and in motion. Long recognised for his radical eye, his interests have extended beyond fashion into other creative fields, naturally gravitating toward musicians and other creatives, photographing them in the process.

Bailey's expansive practice stems from being at once an outsider and insider, as interested in documenting moments behind the music as the people before him. Among the exhibition's highlights is a unique screenprint painting of John Lennon and Paul McCartney, an as-yet-unseen portrait of the American jazz trumpeter and composer Dizzy Gillespie, alongside other iconic works portraying Mick Jagger, The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Patti Smith, Dr Dre, and many more. We also see out-takes from photographic sessions he conducted for various record covers - capturing all their vitality with all his stunning clarity, which has informed the visual culture of music; his images become embedded into their history.