MORLEY, LEWIS (1925-2013)

“Lewis Morley: Photographer Of The Sixties” (1989)
exhibition lithograph
76 x 50cm (image)
Signed lower left
*Lewis Morley Estate
*private collection, Sydney
 
Morley is a famous, influential British Photographer and Artist. He was best known for his artistic, surrealist portraits of actors, models and artists. His photo of model Christine Keeler is one of the most iconic fashion & political photography moments of the 20th century. He was a significant British mid-century artist, in a new wave of contemporary artists emerging in the 1960s alongside David Hockney, Peter Blake & R.B. Kitaj. In 1961, Christine Keeler was an unknown, 19yo British model & showgirl, when she was embroiled in a high profile sex scandal with John Profumo, the British Secretary of State for War, & Soviet naval attaché Eugene Ivanov. Pressure from Fleet Street forced Profumo’s resignation, drove Stephen Ward to suicide, Keeler was imprisoned, - the Government was brought into chaos & disrepute; a precursor to the Bill Clinton/Monica Lewinsky scandal. Morley photographed Keeler in his studio above The Establishment at the behest of Peter Cook as publicity shots for a future film, Profumo Scandal, which was not released in the UK. As Morley has noted: “My own driving force has always been more emotional than intellectual and so the Sixties was also my period in that sex became the great leveller."