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 performing as Ziggy Stardust at Newcastle City Hall in January 1973.
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 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
This print is based on a photograph from the Hunky Dory photo session shot in 1971.
David Bowie and photographer Geoff MacCormack backstage on the set of The Man Who Fell to earth.
'I just love the attitude of this shot, and the fact that you can't tell it is from a live performance.' David Bowie performing live in 1983
in 1997 prior to his first ever gig in Mexico City David Bowie explores the local cultural sites including the 'Pyramids of Teotihuacan'
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.
David Bowie in front of a Diego Rivera mural whilst visiting the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City in October 1997
David Bowie on the video shoot for 'Loving the Alien' at Meantime Studios, London in March 1985
K2' I designed and hand coloured the album artwork for David Bowie's Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars.
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 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.
Kwest' I designed and hand coloured the album artwork for David Bowie's Ziggy Stardust and The Spiders From Mars.
The Aladdin Sane image was digitally remastered to a black and white negative format by Chris Duffy in 2012
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.
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.
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
Bowie had just had his hair styled and dyed Red Hot Red by hairdresser Susie Fussey and transforms into Ziggy Stardust.
This was a really special performance as it was Bowie's first since announcing his retirement a couple of months before.
Newcastle City Hall, 1973, Ian Dickson eludes security to take this photograph of David Bowie performing as the legendary Ziggy Stardust
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
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
This print is based on a photograph from the Hunky Dory photo session shot in 1971
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
Performing as part of The Hype, David Bowie onstage at the Roundhouse in July 1970
This print is based on a photograph from the Hunky Dory photo session shot in 1971.
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
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Bob Dylan shot while recording his 5th studio album in Studio A, Columbia Recording Studios in New York City 1965.
"At the time of shooting this assignment,, Blur were one of many 'indie' bands. Little did we know how successful they would be."
Robert Plant & Jimmy Page performing in New York City in 1977, their eleventh & final concert tour of North America by the English rock band
Pink Floyd are currently getting set for the 'Their Mortal Remains' exhibition at the V&A - Check out our range of images for sale.
Jimi Hendrix was an American rock guitarist, singer, songwriter & arguably the greatest instrumentalist in the history of rock music.
Guns N' Roses is an American hard rock band formed in 1985. Their music is a fusion of punk rock, blues rock, heavy metal & hard rock.
Blondie, an American rock band founded by Debbie Harry & Chris Stein was a pioneer in the American new wave & punk scenes of the 1970s.
Album covers can define a band almost as much as the music itself. Now you can put this great art on your wall as well as your turntable
Pink Floyd's sublime music of hope and despair, touches all nationalities and is as meaningful today as it was when conceived.
All our traditonal darkroom prints are hand printed from the original negative by a master printer to give them a crafted and unique feel
Celebrating the work of the late Don Hunstein who documented many of the 20th Century’s most important musicians.
