David Koppel

Ken Russell and girls arrive at his film London 1991 25 x 17 inch colour print

1991

David Koppel served his photographic apprenticeship in the rough-and-tumble world of the Fleet Street paparazzi in 1980’s London when his skills captured the very essence of the Me Decade that gave birth to the celebrity culture of today. Koppel’s classic photographs of Frank Sinatra, Marlon Brando, Jack Nicholson, the Rolling Stones, David Bowie, Paul McCartney, Eric Clapton the Royal Family appeared in every major newspaper and magazine and marked him out as that rarity amongst press photographers: the artist with a camera. Building on the reputation gained through the photographs for the book Still Waters, his black-and-white portraits of ordinary people now rank among the many famous names in his portfolio. Koppel also went one better and in 2002 bought the St Giles St Gallery , bringing the best of local and international contemporary art and photography to Norwich, including the works of Sir Peter Blake, Terry O’Neill, David Bailey, Maggie Hambling, Storm Thorgersson, Tim Woolcock and Colin Kent with international shows such as the $11 Million Picture Show ( the most expensive piece of Beatles memorabilia to ever go on sale) and The Unseen Beatles by Frank Herrmann, along with CREAM: the best of The Sunday Times Photographers. His own photographic work had already been recognised with an exhibition of “Pap Art” – now a Koppel trademark – in Zurich and a glowing write-up in the Sunday Times magazine. This led him to experimenting with digital images of his photographs on canavs. His collaborative work with the artist John Kiki in this medium has produced several exhibitions and continues to generate interest both here in the UK and abroad, with shows in London, Norwich and Zurich. Continuing to experiment and explore collage, under the umbrella of Pap Art, Koppel started to re-master old ‘celebrity’ works , merging them with memorabilia collected over many years, connected with his work as a jobbing photographer for the press.