Terry O'Neill

Terry O’Neill (1938–2019) was a British photographer renowned for capturing the world’s biggest stars in intimate and candid moments. His career began at Heathrow Airport, where a chance photograph of Home Secretary Rab Butler led to a job with The Daily Sketch in 1959.

O’Neill quickly became known for his ability to capture unstaged, spontaneous images of 1960s icons like The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and David Bowie. His most celebrated work includes portraits of Elton John, compiled in the 2008 book Eltonography. He also photographed political figures such as Winston Churchill, Margaret Thatcher, and Nelson Mandela, and members of the Royal Family.

O’Neill was also renowned for photographing actors and behind-the-scenes moments on movie sets. His most famous series features his then-wife, actress Faye Dunaway, taken the morning after her Academy Award win for Network in 1977. The iconic images, showing Dunaway poolside at the Beverly Hills Hotel with her Oscar, exude intimacy and a keen sense of composition. These photographs, published in both color and black-and-white, are now part of the permanent collection at the National Portrait Gallery in London.

O’Neill’s work has been exhibited globally, including a retrospective with Sotheby’s in London and at Fotografiska Museum in Stockholm and New York. He received the Royal Photographic Society’s Centenary Medal in 2011 for his outstanding contributions to photography. In 2019, shortly before his passing, he was awarded a CBE for his services to photography.