Twiggy – at David Steen’s Home, Surrey
Lesley Lawson (born 19 September 1949) is an English model, actress, and singer widely known by the nickname Twiggy. She was a British cultural icon and a prominent teenage model in swinging sixties London
Twiggy was initially known for her thin build (thus her nickname) and her androgynous look consisting of big eyes, long eyelashes, and short hair. In 1966, she was named “The Face of 1966” by the Daily Express and voted British Woman of the Year. By 1967, she had modelled in France, Japan, and the US, and had landed on the covers of Vogue and The Tatler. Her fame had spread worldwide
1967
Limited Edition David Steen Estate Print
Limited Edition: All prints are limited editions, no further prints are produced once sold
Paper size - 24 x 18 " / 61 x 46 cm
Limited to 50 only this size
All prints are bespoke and printed to order
stamped and numbered by the Estate
Copyright: © David Steen / The David Steen Archive
David Steen’s introduction to photography was as a 15-year-old school leaver joining Picture Post where he had the good luck to be taken under the wing of the legendary Bert Hardy as an assistant. It was the ultimate training ground in photojournalism, and the launch pad for his career.
David’s reunion with Picture Post after doing his National Service (as special photographer based in Eygpt, covering the major trouble zones) was short-lived. The magazine was losing ground and closed. He moved to Fleet Street, first to a bright new Mirror title, Woman’s Sunday Mirror, where incidentally he picked up First Prize in Encyclopaedia Britannica’s Best Pictures of the Year Award for his sequence of ‘Birth of a Baby’, the progress of a young woman delivering her own baby under hypnosis.
He was 21, the youngest ever to be awarded this prize. There followed time as a staff photographer with The Daily Mail; Fleet Street was the hub of the world. Then on to freelancing…Queen magazine, Nova, the Sunday Times Magazine, international magazines around the world, over the years covering projects as diverse as riots in Harlem to a film set in Acapulco, a battered wives’ refuge to the Queen and family at Sandringham: the hopeless, the homeless, the glitterati. Trained on the maxim ‘every picture tells a story’ he has focused on film stars, actors, criminals, politicians, prime ministers and countless men, women and children going about their everyday lives.
David Steen believes himself to be lucky. He thinks lucky; luck is being in the right place at the right time, having the luck to have a loving family and enduring friends and winning a three-year battle against cancer.
Asked by aspiring photographers for his best advice, his stock reply is: ‘Get up early.’
David Steen † 1936 – 2015
Tags: 6os, sixties, twiggy, english, model, singer, actress, actor, fashion, icon, swinging sixties, lesley lawson, british, london