subscribe 0330 333 1113 I http://www.amateurphotographer.co.uk I 1 June 2019 29
norman parkinson
Jamaica Blue and
Beautiful. Jerry Hall.
British Vogue (cover),
M a y 1975Wenda [Rogerson] in 1947 through
to the mid ’50s. Then he adapted
to the ’60s and ’70s and so on and
produced a lot more great work,
discovering models like Iman and
Jerry Hall and so on. So he did have
a very important part to play, but it’s
very hard to stand back and say
where in the top 10 or top 20
photographers he stands.SF: What’s next for you in terms
of working on the Norman
Parkinson archive?
TP: I’m definitely in there for the
long run. We’re going to do a series
of decade books. The overview
[Always in Fashion] is out first and
then we’re doing each decade. So
the first decade will be the ’60s,
looking at his 1960s work in more
depth. Then we’ll do ’50s, ’40s, ’30s
and ’70s as subsequent books and,
hopefully, there’ll be a lovely box set
at the end. That’s going to take a few
years to do, so I hope I have time to
finish all of that work.SF: What are your memories of
meeting and working with
Norman Parkinson?
TP: I have some fantastic
memories. It was an amazing
opportunity in my life to meet him.
He used to have a little minivan
and we used to drive around
London. He’d park on yellow lines
and we’d go to greasy spoon cafés;
it was sort of fun. You could do
things then that you couldn’t do
now. He introduced me to all sorts
of interesting people. We went to
New York when they had a big
show at Sotheby’s and so on. I got
taken to Studio 54 and stayed at
these posh hotels where you’d see
Nastassja Kinski in the corridor
(laughs), things like that.SF: What was Parkinson like
when he wasn’t being a
photographer?
TP: A lot of people had different
views about him but I always got on
really well with him, and he was
always extremely pleasant to me,
which was a very good thing.
So I really liked him.Terence Pepper OBE was
Curator of Photographs
at the National Portrait
Gallery from 1978 to 2014.
In 2002 he was awarded
an OBE for his services to
photography and art. He
works as senior special advisor on photographs for the
NPG, among other freelance photo-curating projects.matching blue satin
capes designed
by Hardy Amies.
Commissioned by
the Queen Mother to
celebrate her 80th
birthday, August 1980