Photographer Bill Cunningham: 1929 - 2016

Date
27 June 2016

For 40 years Bill Cunningham was a constant fixture in the fashion industry, photography and the city of New York. He was a man who captured fashion on the street as an anthropological document of perpetual social change. His work explored the fluidity of trends and personal expression in fashion and material culture, which he dutifully and artfully captured on reel after reel of 35mm film. Cunningham died on Saturday in Manhattan aged 87, having been hospitalised after a stroke.

He himself was notable for his own characteristic garb, easily recognised cycling around the city in his cornflower blue workman’s jacket and 35mm Pentax camera strapped around his shoulder.

Bill Cunningham’s choice of subject was insightful and purposefully illuminating, actively seeking to journal contemporary culture and changing societal attitudes.

He photographed everything from casual passersby to New York’s gay pride parades in their early days, voguers strutting through downtown New York and the now-renowned but then-obscure parties of Fire Island Pines. He covered the fashion of guests and donators at AIDS benefits as thoroughly as he did the exhibits on the runways of New York Fashion Week. Bill Cunningham’s photography helped normalise contentious issues at the time in the mass media, treated with a respectful curiosity.

He famously dropped out of Harvard University to pursue a career in women’s hat design, before becoming a writer for the Chicago Tribune. During this time he found an interest and immense flair in photography, soon garnering the attention of The New York Times and then the public imagination. His unposed candid photo of Greta Garbo – whom he had photographed for her style having not recognised her at the time – is cited as the image that launched his career, but his work has always been so much more broad and more important than that.

The popular, and famed, The New York Times feature On The Street was born from his photography, and nurtured over the years by his constant and considerable contributions, preferring personal style and expressions of identity in the characters of the city rather than ostentatious celebrity.

Back in 2012 we covered his career and the release of an uplifting documentary film about his life and work.

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About the Author

Jamie Green

Jamie joined It’s Nice That back in May 2016 as an editorial assistant. And, after a seven-year sojourn away planning advertising campaigns for the likes of The LEGO Group and Converse, he came back to look after New Business & Partnerships here at It’s Nice That. Get in touch with him to discuss new business opportunities, and how we can work together on creative partnerships, insights, experiences or advertising.

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