Heavy honour: Taschen collector’s edition of David Bailey photography is 33kg, and US$2,970
- Portraits of The Beatles, Queen Elizabeth, Yves Saint Laurent, Salvador Dali, and Bill Gates among 300 in limited-edition book on show at Art Basel Hong Kong
- British portrait and fashion photographer is only the seventh person to have a sumo-sized Taschen edition devoted to his work
The latest book of British portrait and fashion photographer David Bailey’s work is an art installation in itself. Measuring 50cm by 70cm and weighing approximately 33kg, the sumo-sized tome is published by Taschen.
The book, of which only 3,000 numbered and signed copies are available, is a collector’s edition the publisher bills as “[the] culmination of an incredible career [and] the result of two years’ worth of research into his personal archives”.
It features portraits of some 300 subjects taken by Bailey from the 1950s to the 2010s, including the Beatles, Queen Elizabeth, Salvador Dali, Bill Gates and Yves Saint Laurent.
Peter Leong, Taschen’s general manager in Asia, says the company has published only six other such books, one of them on the work of British painter David Hockney.
Each copy of David Bailey comes with a book stand designed by Marc Newson and a set of four book jackets, featuring Beatles John Lennon and Paul McCartney, British model Jean Shrimpton, Mick Jagger, and Andy Warhol. The book costs £2,250 (US$2,970), but HK$25,000 in Hong Kong.