Norman Parkinson | Reviews
The Times
THE ARCHIVE IMAGES YOU NEED TO SEE FROM THE FATHER OF FASHION PHOTOGRAPHY, NORMAN PARKINSON | by LS Hilton | July 2019
Princess Anne isn’t necessarily the first person who leaps to mind when thinking of definitive fashion images. Yet Norman Parkinson’s 19th-birthday portrait of the Princess Royal captures an open-shirted Amazon riding a horse, hair streaming, as she gallops towards the future. The year was 1969, the culmination of the decade when feminism and the pill revolutionised the world for women. Parkinson captures the princess as a young woman of her time — fresh-faced, confident, modern.
The Telegraph
Norman Parkinson: the photographer who made fashion glam | by Lucy Davies | February 2016
Over the half-century he was taking photographs, Norman Parkinson produced some of the most memorable fashion images and portraits of our time. The British photographer, who died in 1990 aged 76, was one of Vogue’s star contributors, and enjoyed a relationship with the magazine that lasted four decades.
The Independent
Profile: Norman Parkinson | by Matilda Battersby | November 2011
Norman Parkinson is generally recognised as the man who fathered a new age of stylish storytelling in fashion photography. He blasted the rather stuffy and staid traditions of the 1930s photography, for which, he once said: “All the girls had their knees bolted together”.
Read the full 'Profile: Norman Parkinson' in The Independent here
Financial Times
Norman Parkinson: legend behind a lens | by Nicola Roberts | March 2013
Norman Parkinson was one of the great British fashion and portrait photographers of the 20th century. His career began in 1931, when at 18 he was apprenticed to a firm of royal photographers in New Bond Street, and ended with his death in 1990.
Read the full 'Norman Parkinson: legend behind a lens' in the Financial Times article here
The Guardian
Pre Fab: Norman Parkinson's early Beatles portraits | December 2018
The fashion photographer captured the Beatles at Abbey Road in September 1963, as they recorded their second LP With the Beatles.
Norman Parkinson was invited to photograph the Beatles by Jeremy Banks, an associate editor at Queen magazine, the principal outlet for Parkinson’s fashion photography after he had jumped ship from Vogue in 1959. The Beatles: London, 1963 by Norman Parkinson is published by ACC Art Books.
See the full 'Pre Fab: Norman Parkinson's early Beatles portraits' in The Guardian article here
Vogue
London Calling: Happy Birthday, Norman Parkinson | by Sarah Mower | April 2013
It’s the centenary of the birthday of the great, attenuated British photographer Norman Parkinson (1913–1990), who stood six foot five inches in his stocking feet and who, with his astonishing eye for elegance, humanity, and humor captured the sort of photographs that could make electricity jolt up your arms as you turned the pages of Vogue. Actually, looking at the pictures now surfacing in the cornucopia of Parkinson-related events starting this week in anticipation of his centennial—his birthday was April 21—I’m finding myself overcome with emotion: It dawned on me only yesterday that it was the experience of seeing a Parkinson photograph as a child that changed my life.
Read the full 'London Calling: Happy Birthday, Norman Parkinson' in Vogue here
AnOther Magazine
Norman Parkinson in Ten Quotes | by Mhairi Graham | November 2014
Norman Parkinson, or ‘Parks’ as his closer circle knew him, is the grandfather of British fashion photography. With a career spanning 56 years, he pioneered a new fashion narrative that offered a refreshingly fanciful take on clothing. The six-foot-five photographer became one of Britain’s greatest exports, with an imaginative flair for colour and dream-like compositions that blended humour and elegance, all with a quintessentially British charm.
"The camera can be the most deadly weapon since the assassin's bullet. Or it can be the lotion of the heart."
Read the 'Norman Parkinson in Ten Quotes' in Another Magazine article here10 Magazine
10's to do: Flick through the pages of 'Always in Fashion' by Norman Parkinson | by Jessie Bond
Jerry Hall with a phone tucked into her swimming cap. Audrey Hepburn’s over-the-shoulder gaze in front of a wall of pink roses. Wenda Pankinson riding an ostrich. As far as iconic fashion imagery of 20th century goes, Norman Parkinson is the name that comes up the most, rivaled only by Richard Avedon. The volume of Parkinson’s archive is incredibly extensive – his works span across six decades and star the movers and shakers that marked those years in pop culture. Way before the worlds of celebrity and fashion became part of one big conversation, the British lensman was breezily crossing between the two, creating a fantasy of his own which makes his images look as modern today as they did first time round. This notion is most evident when flicking through the pages of Always in Fashion, Norman Parkinson’s latest monograph published this Autumn by ACC Art Books.
Read the full '10's to do: Flick through the pages of 'Always in Fashion'' in 10 Magazine here
BBC Centenary exhibition for Sir Norman Parkinson
Celebrated London photographer Sir Norman Parkinson started taking pictures before WWII and continued right up until his death in 1990.
He captured some of the most beautiful magazine models of the 20th century as well as global stars like Elizabeth Taylor and The Beatles.
The National Theatre in February 2013 put on an exhibition in its foyer to celebrate the centenary of his birth.
Pictures courtesy of Corbis/© Norman Parkinson Ltd/Courtesy Norman Parkinson Archive.
