Brian Duffy, one of the most dynamic and inventive photographers of the 1960s, made up 'The Black Trinity' with friendly rivals Terence Donovan and David Bailey.
This trio were amongst a group who kept bumping into each other at the same clubs in London's West End districts of Soho and Mayfair - a heady mix of actors, pop stars and "jelly men", criminals who used gelignite to blow safes. It didn't seem strange that photographers like Bailey and Duffy could take pictures of the Beatles and the Krays.
They snapped the celebrities of the day - pop stars, actresses and models. The Lennons, the Caines, and the Twiggys were captured in black and white, frozen for posterity in prints.
After more than a twenty years at the cutting edge of photography, Duffy vanished from the London scene as rumours spread that he had burned his negatives.
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Ever the anarchist, Duffy had indeed begun this destructive, yet cathartic procedure one afternoon in 1979 thankfully not all the negatives were destroyed.
Now, forty years on, and after three years of painstakingly archiving the surviving images, Brian Duffy will display his photographs for the first time at the Chris Beetles gallery on Ryder Street in Mayfair / St James's between Wednesday, 14th October and Saturday,
7th November.
The exhibition - an extraordinary body of work that powerfully documents the vibrancy of London in the 'Swinging 60s' - features 60 virtually unseen portraits, fashion photographs, and personal pictures by a man who, with his two friends, revolutionised the
photography business.
If you visit the exhibition pop in to the nearby Abracadabra Russian Restaurant on Jermyn Street for some lunch in London. The nearest tube stations are Green Park and Piccadilly Circus.
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