Five vintage press photographs, 1960s

λArtist's Resale Right
∍UK/EU consumer notice

Price Realised GBP 2,016

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GBP 300 - GBP 500

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Pattie Boyd

Five vintage press photographs, 1960s

Price Realised GBP 2,016

Five vintage gelatin silver press prints of Pattie Boyd, 1960s, comprising three by Michael Boys, one by Antony Norris, and one by Jean-Claude Volpeliere, each with stamped photographer's credit verso, each additionally signed in pencil by Pattie Boyd verso
the largest approx 14¹⁄₂ x 11 in. (36.8 x 27.9 cm.)

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This lot is offered by Christie Manson & Woods Ltd

Brought to you by

Adrian Hume-SayerDirector, Specialist

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Lot Essay

The photograph of Pattie Boyd by Antony Norris is notable as one of the shots from Pattie's first ever modelling shoot, which took place after she was spotted working in Elizabeth Arden. In her 2007 autobiography Wonderful Today, Pattie recalls: Imagine my excitement when a client came into the salon one day and asked if I had ever thought of being a model. I said, “No, but I certainly could.” Sadly, I can’t remember her name, but she worked for a fashion magazine called Honey, and invited me to come to her office in Farringdon Road, just around the corner from Fleet Street, the following Monday. When I arrived she had arranged for her in-house photographer, Anthony Norris, to take test shots of me. He had set up some lights in a little studio and she gave me a couple of outfits to wear - I remember a beret, and having to look sultry smoking a Gitanes. They were black-and-white, moody shots, with a bit of a Parisian feel.

Once she had seen the results, my fairy godmother phoned Cherry Marshall, who then ran one of the top model agencies, and said she was sending me to her. Anthony Norris went with me and told Cherry he thought she should take me on. Cherry was delightful and said I didn’t need training to walk like a model - I already did. Finding an agency was easy; finding a job was the hard part. Every day I would go out with a list of photographers’ names and addresses and trudge around with my portfolio, hoping they would like what they saw in it and use me on a job. And if one did, I would try very hard to get him to give me some prints at a low rate so that I could add them to my portfolio. I must have traveled on every bus and tube in London, and when I was out of money I walked. I was lucky. The trekking around worked, and soon my diary was full of jobs. Modeling was fun. I loved trying on clothes and fiddling with my hair and makeup. We had to do it ourselves - there were no hairstylists or makeup artists and certainly no chauffeur-driven cars to ferry us around. We were not celebrities in the way that today’s top models are.

One of my best friends was a model called Marie-Lise Volpeliere-Pierrot. Her brother, the gorgeous Jean-Claude, had introduced us. I had met him in the King’s Road where I had been doing a modeling job with a girl called Sonia Dean... Jean-Claude and I became friends. And for a little while I fondly imagined he was my boyfriend. He took some wonderful photographs of me and introduced me to all sorts of people... Most of the people I hung out with were photographers, rock ’n’ rollers without the music. I worked with some, people like Michael Boys, Brian Duffy, Terry Donovan, Barry Latigan, John French, David Bailey, and Maurice Engles, and others I knew as friends... I was doing a lot of work for Michael at the time and remember going to Portugal with him for a shoot. It was January and he thought it would be warmer by the sea in Portugal than it was in England. It was freezing. They had to revive me with brandy and by the end of the day I was feeling no pain.