Samuel Beckett by Jane Bown, 1976
"Although he was of the select company of those who, echoing Sophocles, would prefer not to have been born, he would do everything he could to ease a friend's suffering."
- John Montague
"Although he was of the select company of those who, echoing Sophocles, would prefer not to have been born, he would do everything he could to ease a friend's suffering."
- John Montague
Orson Welles by Jane Bown, 1951
"Orson Welles hails a cab like God and tips like a Jesuit."
- Jackie Gleason
"Orson Welles hails a cab like God and tips like a Jesuit."
- Jackie Gleason
David Hockney by Jane Bown, 1966
"It does not diminish Mr. Hockney’s greatness that his intelligence, gifts and omnivorous curiosity are propelled by an inherently sunny disposition."
- Roberta Smith
"It does not diminish Mr. Hockney’s greatness that his intelligence, gifts and omnivorous curiosity are propelled by an inherently sunny disposition."
- Roberta Smith
Simone Signoret by Jane Bown
gelatin silver print, 1966
@NPGLondon
"I got old the way women who aren't actresses grow old, the way the woman in the butcher shop does or a university professor or a prostitute."
gelatin silver print, 1966
@NPGLondon
"I got old the way women who aren't actresses grow old, the way the woman in the butcher shop does or a university professor or a prostitute."
@NPGLondon Hermione Gingold by Jane Bown
bromide print, 1969
@NPGLondon
"I suppose I shall drop dead in the theatre, to a full house, I hope."
bromide print, 1969
@NPGLondon
"I suppose I shall drop dead in the theatre, to a full house, I hope."
@NPGLondon Stevie Smith by Jane Bown
gelatin silver print, 1969
@NPGLondon
"That feeling of the uncanny - the universe rhyming in a minor key, the recurring bad dream - is the undercurrent of almost all of Stevie Smith’s poems, although a few of them are festooned by joy."
- Cynthia Zarin
gelatin silver print, 1969
@NPGLondon
"That feeling of the uncanny - the universe rhyming in a minor key, the recurring bad dream - is the undercurrent of almost all of Stevie Smith’s poems, although a few of them are festooned by joy."
- Cynthia Zarin
@NPGLondon Jane Bown's very first commission when she joined the Observer in 1949 was to take a portrait of Bertrand Russell. "I was terrified, I don’t think I even knew who he was. But the light was good..."
@NPGLondon A self-portrait by Jane Bown, c. 1986
"If we are to assess the best of her photojournalism it is to Cartier-Bresson that we must turn to find her soulmate."
- Germaine Greer
"If we are to assess the best of her photojournalism it is to Cartier-Bresson that we must turn to find her soulmate."
- Germaine Greer
@NPGLondon Jane Bown by Eamonn McCabe, 2006
"Nobody has taken so many wonderful photographs of so many great faces with such little fuss as Jane Bown... She hated being photographed too. I was lucky she trusted me, but she watched me like a hawk when I photographed her at 80."
"Nobody has taken so many wonderful photographs of so many great faces with such little fuss as Jane Bown... She hated being photographed too. I was lucky she trusted me, but she watched me like a hawk when I photographed her at 80."
