Capturing rock music's biggest names for years

Lucy Bell Gallery is proud to present 30/30/30 a major exhibition of the work of Jill Furmanovsky.

Jill Furmanovsky is one of the UK’s best known and respected music photographers, artists photographed in her 40+ year career include many of the biggest names in rock music: Pink Floyd, Bob Marley, Eric Clapton, Blondie, The Police, Led Zeppelin, The Pretenders, Bob Dylan, and Oasis are but a few. She has also directed videos for Oasis and The Pretenders.

Furmanovsky emigrated from Zimbabwe (known then as Rhodesia) to London in 1965, and when she was 11 years old she became a member of the Beatles fan-club and an ‘Apple scruff’ – one of the teenagers that hung around outside Abbey Road hoping to catch sight of the Fab Four.

Furmanovsky graduated from Central School of Art and Design in 1974 (Graphic Design) and went on to become the official photographer at the Rainbow Theatre, a significant venue for rock performances in the 1970s, where her career began.

30/30/30 is so named because in 1998 Jill Furmanovsky founded RockArchive by making available 30 of her best images representing her 30 years as a rock photographer in an edition of 30 darkroom prints.

ALthough Jill’s career is now more than four decades in, some of her most celebrated images were taken within the 30 year mark, including her portrait of Charlie Watts, for which she won the Jane Bown Portrait Award.

Ex NME, Meloday Maker and Guardian journalist Barney Hoskyns said:

“Jill has always been in demand because she is so undemanding.

“For years she has won the trust of her subjects with her disarming kindness, capturing the essences of everyone from Pink Floyd and the Police to punks and New Romantic peacocks. Apart from winning the Observer Portrait Award with her marvellous 1992 study of Charlie Watts, she created superb images we all know of Chic, B.B. King, Joy Division and Oasis.”

Furmanovsky’s book The Moment’ 25 Years of Rock Photography (1995) is a seminal work in the genre. Her subsequent book, Oasis – Was There Then ‘ A Photographic Journey’ (1997) followed a ground-breaking exhibition of the same name that toured in the UK and Ireland. Accompanying the 30/30/30 exhibition in Gallery 2, is a selection of portraits from RockArchive (a photographers collective), which was founded by Jill Furmanovsky in 1998, as a way to promote the best of music photography with her fellow music photographers. Works by Sheila Rock, Don Hunstein, Dave Hogan, David Corio, Bob Gruen, Tony Mottram, and Ed Sirs.

Works from the collective will be available for sale, as affordable collectors’ editions, ranging from £200- £900.