David Bowie (born David Robert Jones: 8 January 1947 – 10 January 2016) was an English rock singer, songwriter and actor. He was a figure in popular music for over five decades, regarded by critics and musicians as an innovator, particularly for his work in the 1970s. His career was marked by reinvention and visual presentation, his music and stagecraft significantly influencing popular music. During his lifetime, his record sales, estimated at 140 million worldwide, made him one of the world's best-selling music artists. In the UK, he was awarded nine platinum album certifications, eleven gold and eight silver, releasing eleven number-one albums. In the US, he received five platinum and seven gold certifications. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996.
David Bowie studied art, music and design, including layout and typesetting. After Terry Burns, his half-brother, introduced him to modern jazz, his enthusiasm for players like Charles Mingus and John Coltrane led his mother to give him a plastic alto saxophone in 1961; he was soon receiving lessons from a local musician.
Bowie, as a musician, performer and song-writer defied convention completely, he continually re-invented himself and his art at breakneck speed and illogical disjointedness. It seemed as though time was always at a premium. With complete disregard for music style loyalty or so called integrity, he often combined the most unlikely forms of music with angst ridden end-of- millennium subject matter, presenting the rock world with it's first truly post-modernist star. After living each legendary character to the utmost, he deconstructed that which made him singular, then a new element would arise to confound and entice the masses who thought they had just figured out his latest incarnation.
On 10 January 2016, two days after his 69th birthday and the release of the album Blackstar, David Bowie died from liver cancer in his New York City apartment. He had been diagnosed 18 months earlier but had not made the news of his illness public. The Belgian theatre director Ivo van Hove, who had worked with the singer on his Off-Broadway musical Lazarus, explained that Bowie was unable to attend rehearsals due to the progression of the disease. He noted that Bowie had kept working during the illness.
Aladdin Sane is the one image that has defined David Bowie and is nicknamed the 'Mona Lisa of Pop' - Shot by Duffy in his London studio.
David Bowie in front of a Diego Rivera mural whilst visiting the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City in October 1997
David Bowie performing as Ziggy Stardust at Newcastle City Hall in January 1973.
Iconic Mick Rock photograph of David Bowie during the 'Saxophone' Session in London 1973
Terry Pastor's photograph of David Bowie from the 'Hunky Dory' album cover photo session.
David Bowie and photographer Geoff MacCormack backstage on the set of The Man Who Fell to earth.
David Bowie on the video shoot for 'Loving the Alien' at Meantime Studios, London in March 1985
On the video shoot for 'Loving the Alien', the opening track from Bowie's 'Tonight' album
David Bowie at his flat in Beckenham in 1969. This photograph was used as the cover to 'Lover To The Dawn', a 10-song acoustic demo tape.
in 1997 prior to his first ever gig in Mexico City David Bowie explores the local cultural sites including the 'Pyramids of Teotihuacan'
Official contact sheet print from the acclaimed Duffy archive of David Bowie in his Scary Monsters Pierrot costume in 1980.
David Bowie performing onstage at the Falkoner Centre, Copenhagen, Denmark in April 1976 on his Isolar-1976 Tour.
The Aladdin Sane image was digitally remastered to a black and white negative format by Chris Duffy in 2012
Contact sheet from the Scary Monsters photo shoot taken during the last of Duffy's 'Five Sessions' with David Bowie
The Thin White Duke onstage during his Isolar-1976 Tour in Copenhagen in 1976
Although originally taken in black and white, this image has the feel of an early 1940s movie star, hence the sepia finish I settled upon.
David chose this image from The Man Who Fell To Earth (1975) for publicity posters in the late seventies.
David Bowie at press conference for his single 'Lets Dance' at the Savoy Hotel in London. It was the fifteenth studio album by Bowie.
Signed limited edition fine art cassette print by Horace Panter of David Bowie's 'Heroes'
Terry Pastor shot & hand coloured the photo for the album artwork on David Bowie's iconic album.
In 1990 David Bowie poses at a photocall for his 'Sound & Vision' Tour at the Rainbow Theatre not Heddon Street as the K.West sign suggests
David Bowie photographed with a mask at Frida Kahlo's house and museum in Mexico City in October 1997
David Bowie wearing a black scarf on a photo shoot by Mick Rock in New York in 2002
David Bowie at home, smoking in bed in his apartment on Foxgrove Road, Beckenham in July 1969, the morning after the first moon landing.
Terry Pastor photographed & hand coloured the album artwork for Bowie's Spiders from Mars album.
David Bowie photographed whilst filming the 1976 sci-fi film The Man Who Fell To Earth.
David Bowie photographed looking out over the May Day Parade on Red Square, Moscow, 1973
He's playing up to my camera to keep himself amused in-between takes. It's as if he is saying: "And you are?"
David Bowie listening to a playback of 'Station to Station’ at Cherokee Studio, Los Angeles.
This was the site of the detonation of the first atomic bomb in 1945, an eerie and desolate place.
Official Duffy photograph of David Bowie sitting with a Scottie Dog during a pre-production meeting for the Scary Monsters photo shoot
We drank cheap Riesling and beer (Peeva) with a bunch of soldiers we'd met the night before. They were friendly and inquisitive.
David Bowie in Ziggy makeup in 1973. This shot was taken at the Hammersmith Odeon before the last show of the tour.
I took advantage of the free time and the sublime New Mexico light and picked up my Nikon. This image of David is one of my favourites.
David Bowie performing to an audience of twenty at the Beckenham Arts Lab, UK at the start of his career in 1969
David Bowie looking into a mirror at Haddon Hall, Beckenham in March 1972 during an interview for Club International magazine.
David Bowie performs “Rebel Rebel” on the TV program TopPop in Hilversum, Netherlands in February 1974
Contact sheet of David Bowie images taken during an interview in London, 1972. One of the images was used on the cover of Melody Maker
David Bowie performing live at Wembley Arena, London on the A Reality Tour in November 2003
Limited edition print of Morgan Howell's original painting of the cover of David Bowie's 'Rebel Rebel' vinyl single
This was a really special performance in October 1973 as it was Bowie's first since announcing his retirement a couple of months before.
David Bowie captured at Coventry Theatre on the Humble Pie Tour in October 1969
David Bowie backstage at TopPop TV in the Netherlands whilst promoting Heroes in October 1977
Newcastle City Hall, 1973, Ian Dickson eludes security to take this photograph of David Bowie performing as the legendary Ziggy Stardust
David Bowie performing live at Earls Court, London on May 14th, 1973
Alec Byrne shot of David Bowie at Paddington Green, London in September 1969
David Bowie performing Rebel Rebel at TopPop television studios in the Netherlands in 1974.
David Bowie onstage holding a human skull on the Serious Moonlight Tour in 1983
David Bowie performing at Newcastle City Hall, UK on the Ziggy Stardust Tour in June 1973
David Bowie at his home Haddon Hall, Beckenham, Kent, UK, 1972
Taken at Freida Kahlo’s Museum known as the ‘Blue House’, in Mexico City a few days before David Bowie's first ever concert in Mexico, 1997
David Bowie and Mick Ronson eating lunch on a train to Aberdeen in 1973 heading to the first gig of David Bowie's final Ziggy Stardust Tour
Photographer Terry Pastor's 'pink' variation of Bowie from the Hunky Dory album cover photo session.
Taken from the Scary Monsters album cover shoot by Duffy in 1980, 'the most beautiful clown in the circus' - David Bowie
David Bowie onstage at his first and only ever concert in Mexico in July 1997
David Bowie captured by Mick Rock whilst applying make-up in Scotland in 1973
Performing as part of The Hype, David Bowie onstage at the Roundhouse in July 1970
Photographer Terry Pastor shot & hand coloured the photo artwork for Bowie's Hunky Dory album.
Alternative shot taken from the Aladdin Sane 'photo shoot in 1973, known as 'Eyes Open' - this image was rediscovered in the archive in 2011
This print is based on a photograph from the Hunky Dory photo session shot in 1971.
David Bowie wearing a two piece quilted suit designed by Freddie Burretti for the 1972 Ziggy Stardust tour.
David Bowie, Lou Reed & Iggy Pop during a press conference at the Dorchester Hotel, London in July 1972
This hand coloured print is based on a photograph by Terry Pastor from the Hunky Dory photo session.
David Bowie photographed by Mick Rock at Haddon Hall Beckenham in March 1972,
David Bowie praying by window in Scotland in 1973 taken by legendary music photographer Mick Rock
Sex Pistols on the set for the 'Pretty Vacant' video shoot at the ITN Studios, London in June 1977
Angus Young, from AC/DC, captured in a small street outside a press meeting in Copenhagen in 1977
Shooting promotional films for the singles Rain & Paperback Writer at Chiswick Park Gardens in May 1966
This photo session was for No.1 Magazine (long since extinct) on a Eurythmics press day, they’d been doing interviews all day.
Lou Reed was one of music's most influential icons. His music defied all definitions of genre & left a legacy that has inspired generations
Critics have called The Smiths the most important alternative rock band to emerge from the British independent music scene of the 1980s.
The Who are an English rock band that formed in 1964 & are considered one of the most influential rock bands of the 20th century.
Madness are an English band from Camden Town, London & one of the most prominent bands of the late 70s & early 80s 2 Tone ska revival.
Our contact sheet collection is a rare opportunity to look back at the hidden moments surrounding some of rocks most iconic images.
Jill Furmanovsky is one of the greatest ever rock & roll photographers with a huge archive of iconic shots of the world's best music artists
We are all still reeling from the tragic loss of David Bowie. Here is a wonderful tribute from one of our photographers, Mark Mawston.
The USA has given us many of the world's greatest music artists - we celebrate the best of the best
