The relationship – both professional and romantic – between photographer David Bailey and the model and muse Jean Shrimpton is one of the most defining collaborations of the swinging 60s. The couple met in 1960 when Bailey cast Shrimpton for a bridal shoot in Vogue after he spotted her in an advertisement for Cheerios. ‘What attracted me to her was that she genuinely didn’t care how she looked,’ Bailey later told a reporter for the magazine. ‘She honestly never understood what all the fuss was about.’
The farmer’s daughter was not a natural choice for the Vogue of the time – its legendary fashion editor Lady Clare Rendelsham preferred to feature aristocrats – but before long, a series of groundbreaking shoots made both photographer and model into stars. Bailey’s photographs trended away from overly staged poses and clichéd sets; instead, his slice-of-life approach captured Shrimpton – who soon became known as ‘The Shrimp’ – with intriguing, confrontational expressions in realistic, occasionally gritty settings. ‘In a way she was the cheapest model in the world – you only needed to shoot half a roll of film and then you had it,’ Bailey has said. Over the course of their four-year love affair, they lived in a London basement alongside two dogs and 24 finches. They broke up in 1964 due to Bailey’s wandering eye; Shrimpton soon took up with the actor Terence Stamp. (We’ll Take Manhattan, a BBC4 film, revisits this period.)
The striking portrait that hangs in Arlington was taken in 1965 and originally published in Bailey’s groundbreaking book Box of Pin-Ups. Today, Shrimpton lingers near our piano, almost like she’s inviting us to come on in – and perhaps loosen up, just a little bit.
