Image: Atlas Gallery, London
Atlas Gallery in London is in the final stretch of 'Terence Donovan: Full Frame, Photographs & Paintings', an exhibition that brings together work spanning more than three decades of Terence Donovan’s career. According to the gallery, the show runs until 14 September 2024 and is the first solo exhibition of Donovan at Atlas since the gallery began representing the archive in 2023.
The presentation ranges from 1959 to 1995 and is framed as a survey of Donovan’s 40-year practice. Atlas describes Donovan as a photographer who came to prominence in London amid the postwar renaissance in art, design and music, and whose work helped define a new force in fashion photography before extending into advertising and portraiture. The exhibition includes iconic glamour images, fashion and advertising pictures, photo-essays documenting life in 1960s London, personal projects and nudes.
The gallery has highlighted a mix of print types across the display, including signed lifetime and vintage prints, unique contact prints and numbered silver gelatin estate prints. Also shown are abstract black-and-white paintings, which Atlas says are inspired by Japanese calligraphy and are being exhibited alongside Donovan’s photographs for the first time. The original exhibition listing also notes signed vintage prints, contact prints and abstract paintings among the material on view.
Donovan’s name is closely associated with fashion photography and magazine work, and the works listed by Atlas underline that history. Images such as 'Twiggy, Wearing an ensemble by Mary Quant, 3 June 1966', 'Celia Hammond, Queen Magazine, 12 September 1963', 'Jimi Hendrix, 1967' and 'Naomi Campbell, A Shining New Season for British Evenings’ Hat by Stephen Jones, British Elle, September 1988' appear among the selected works, alongside advertising imagery and contact print portraits. The exhibition also includes material identified as part of 'The Lay About Life', 'Glances' and other personal or editorial projects.
Atlas’s website says the exhibition opened on 23 May 2024, with exhibition dates listed as 24 May to 14 September 2024, and an opening event held on 23 May from 6 to 8 pm. The gallery is located at 49 Dorset Street in Marylebone, Central London, where it regularly focuses on fine art photography and stages several exhibitions each year.
The gallery’s wider programme around the same period includes other photography projects and a scheduled summer closure from 10 to 16 August, but 'Terence Donovan: Full Frame, Photographs & Paintings' remains on view through mid-September. Atlas says the exhibition offers collectors and visitors a chance to see rare lifetime and vintage material together with less frequently displayed paintings from Donovan’s archive.
