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Norman Parkinson (1913-1990)

Norman Parkinson (1917-199)

Norman Parkinson was born in London on 21 April 1913, the son of a wealthy barrister. He was educated at Westminster School, and began a career in photography with an apprenticeship to the society photographers, Speight and Sons, in 1931. In 1934, he established his own studio on Dover Street, London, and began to make his name photographing portraits.

Parkinson’s fame grew once he began working for 'Harper’s Bazaar' (from the mid 1930s) and 'Vogue' (from around 1945). Inspired by the work of Hungarian photographer, Martin Munkácsi, who photographed his models in the open air, Parkinson specialised in a joyful, kinetic brand of fashion photography. His models were often outside, playing golf, riding in speedboats, jumping and even, in one famous case, riding an ostrich. To add to the glamour, many of Parkinson’s shoots were set abroad, often in Africa or the Caribbean – he even moved to live in Tobago in 1963. This lent his work an exotic, jet-set appeal that was very popular in Britain, particularly during the austere 1950s.

Parkinson, like Cecil Beaton, was able to keep working through several distinct periods of fashion. Both his ability as a photographer, and his thirst for fame and glamour, kept his career going into the 1980s – by which time he had become something of a British national treasure. He died in Singapore on 14 February 1990.

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