BEING THERE Artwork 1968 ~ 1990
In this retrospective, the Coningsby Gallery showed four decades of photographer Michael Bennett’s rich & varied early work.
The Family: (1975, in the collection of V&A Museum), wry, intimate portrait of Bennett’s own family.
People Doing Things: (1977 ~ present day): chronicles the most mundane details of everyday life.
1970’s America: impressions of the the east and west coasts in evocative monochrome.
Pier Closing Time: ill-fated but later celebrated lament for neglected coastal North Wales. (1979).
October 2023
The Family: (1975, in the collection of V&A Museum), wry, intimate portrait of Bennett’s own family.
People Doing Things: (1977 ~ present day): chronicles the most mundane details of everyday life.
1970’s America: impressions of the the east and west coasts in evocative monochrome.
Pier Closing Time: ill-fated but later celebrated lament for neglected coastal North Wales. (1979).
October 2023
Robert Mapplethorpe
Cover for The Listener, 1990. Mapplethorpe was an American photographer, best known for celebrity portraits, male and female nudes, self-portraits and still-life. His most controversial works documented and examined the gay male BDSM subculture of New York City in the late 1960s and early 1970s. This cover appeared at a time when the Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati, which had shown his work, was charged with obscenity.
Lloyds & Hong Kong Bank special issue
Photomontage illustration created for the Architects' Journal in 1986, an appraisal of the work of architects Richard Rodgers (Lloyd's of London, upper right) and Norman Foster (Hong Kong & Shanghai Bank, upper left). The cities' disadvantaged areas appear bottom left and right, contrasting with the wealth represented by the two bank buildings.
Central Park West, Evening, 1977
Open-air opera was playing in the park below.
Le Corbusier Special
Photomontage for The Architects'. Journal, 1987. The illustration featured a number of the architect's motifs mixed onto his portrait.
The Innocent
Illustration for a review of Ian McEwan's The Innocent in Sunday Times Books, May 1990
Illustration for a review of Ian McEwan's The Innocent in Sunday Times Books, May 1990
Takeaway America
For the pilot issue of Desire magazine, 1981. Created by a collective of journalists, artists & designers, Desire was intended to be a general interest publication for critical-thinking young Londoners, but failed to launch.
Banned by The New Statesman
1982 Illustration using images from a Victorian mining machinery catalogue, on the subject of industrial policy, commissioned then banned by The New Statesman, on the grounds that it was "sexist".
Sir George Martin: Portrait & photomontage for The Independent, 1990
For Danny Danziger's weekly column for The Indeoendent Best Of Times, Worst Of Times. In the collection of The National Portrait Gallery, London.
"Coup De Foudre"
Publicity picture incorporating a stock image for a show by performance artist Geraldine Pilgrim. Photographed without permission on the London Underground, 1991.
The Gandhis
For New Society, Rajiv Gandhi and Indira Gandhi on an imagined traffic police patrol in India. 1981.
James Ellroy, 1990
James Ellroy, an American crime fiction writer, known for the novels The Black Dahlia (1987), The Big Nowhere (1988), L.A. Confidential (1990), White Jazz (1992), American Tabloid (1995), The Cold Six Thousand (2001), and Blood's a Rover (2009). Portrait and photomontage for Danny Danziger's Best Of Times, Worst Of Times Independent newspaper column.
The Thatcher Look, 1982
Former Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was given an image makeover and photo session prior to her election in 1979. The name of the photoshoot was "The Thatcher Look".
Homage to John Heartfiled
Margaret Thatcher in the style of John Heartfield. Active in the Dada movement, Heartfield was a 20th-century German visual artist who pioneered the use of art as a political weapon. For The Listener.
The Independent, 1989
An illustration to Angela Lambert's op-ed piece on the tenth anniversary of Magaret Thatcher's acession to power.
Manners Maketh Man, 1978
For New Society magazine..
The Listener Proms cover, 1988
Published by the BBC, closed in 1991, The Listener published a special Proms issue each year. This one featured Bernard Haitink.
Carter & Turkey, 1980
A cover for The New Statesman. Jimmy Carter was US President between 1977 and 1981. The article questioned the United States' expansionist policy towards Turkey.
Big Brother
For Computing magazine, 1982
Things That Go Bump In The Night, 1980
A cover for New Society magazine to accompany an article about belief in poltergeists. Modelled by my Uncle Cyril, in his own bed, with props found around the house.
Bombing Begins In Five Minutes, 1984
An illustration for New Society magazine which refers to an off-the-record joke by former US president Ronald Reagan during the Cold War.
"Well, they said anything could happen." - Smirnoff vodka ad, 1980
A parody of a 1980s series of ads for Smirnoff vodka, all of which showed fantasy scenes behind an "anything could happen" caption. Leader of the Soviet Union in 1980 was Leonoid Brezhnev (centre), reputedly a heavy drinker. An illustration for New Society magazine.