Jill Furmanovsky

Jill Furmanovsky is one of the UK’s best known and respected music photographers.

The artists photographed in her 40+ year career include many of the biggest names in rock music: Pink Floyd, Bob Marley, Eric Clapton, Blondie, The Police, Led Zeppelin, The Pretenders, Bob Dylan, and Oasis are but a few.

She has also directed videos for Oasis and The Pretenders

Furmanovsky emigrated from Zimbabwe (known then as Rhodesia)  to London in 1965, and when she was 11 years old she became a member of the Beatles fan-club and an ‘Apple scruff’ – one of the teenagers that hung around outside Abbey Road hoping to catch sight of the Fab Four. Her first rock shot was of Paul McCartney standing outside his house with two of her school friends taken on a Kodak Instamatic

Furmanovsky graduated from Central St Martins School of Art and Design in 1974 (Graphic Design) and went on to become the official photographer at the Rainbow Theatre, a significant venue for rock performances in the 1970s, where her career began.

In 1998 Jill founded RockArchive, by making Charlie Watts, for which she won the “Jane Bown Portrait Award”. “Jill has always been in demand because she is so undemanding. For years she has won the trust of her subjects with her disarming kindness, capturing the essences of everyone from Pink Floyd and the Police to punks and New Romantic peacocks.

Apart from winning the Observer Portrait Award with her marvellous 1992 study of Charlie Watts, she created superb images we all know of Chic, B.B. King, Joy Division and Oasis.” Barney Hoskyns