David Newell-Smith: the art of the newspaper photographer
Photojournalist David Newell-Smith, who has died at the age of 80, joined the staff of the Observer in 1964. For two decades, his work graced the pages of the paper and its magazine. Here is a small selection from the files housed in the GNM Archive.
• Read a tribute to David Newell-Smith by Greg Whitmore, the Observer’s picture editor
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Twiggy photographed in 1966
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Student demonstrations in Paris, 11 April 1968.This image featured in the gallery celebrating seven decades of classic photography from the Observer
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The Cavern Club, Liverpool, October 1964
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Street fighting in the Gorbals in Glasgow, 18 May 1968
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The Aberfan disaster rescue attempt, 22 October 1966
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Aberfan, 22 October 1966
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Marcel Duchamp exhibition at the Tate Gallery in London, June 1966
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This photograph, showing victorious Israeli troops in Bethlehem, which they had captured from Jordan at the end of the six-day war, was used on the front page of the paper on 11 June 1967
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The Rolling Stones performing in Hyde Park, 5 July 1969
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Abandoned cars on Walworth Road in London, May 1966. The Observer reported on the burden of a million wrecks littering the roadsides of Britain
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Artist Bridget Riley, May 1964
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The scene at a union office in Ensign Street in Whitechapel, east London in May 1966 as members of the National Union of Seamen, including ship’s laundry workers, collect their £3 strike money. Seamen were striking at the time to reduce the working week from 56 hours to 40
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Students waiting outside a school in central Tehran in 1979. You can see more from Newell-Smith’s trip to the capital of Iran here
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A crush of commuters at Charing Cross railway station in London, circa 1965. The scene was the result of a ‘go-slow’ by Southern Region railwaymen demanding a £3 3s per week bonus
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A letter from the Observer’s picture editor Bryn Campbell to David Newell-Smith, and a portrait of the photographer taken by his wife
Photograph: Sonya Newell-Smith
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A cutting from the Observer magazine, 17 November 1968, showing Jean-Luc Godard and the Rolling Stones. The originals are now lost
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Anti-Vietnam war demonstrators run past Downing Street, London, 27 October 1968
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Recently knighted footballer Sir Stanley Matthews runs on to the pitch at the Victoria Ground for his final appearance for Stoke City on 6 February 1965. He was 50 years and five days old when he turned out against Fulham. Stoke won the match 3–1
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Mick Jagger photographed in 1964
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Bruce Reynolds, the mastermind behind the Great Train Robbery, is lead from Linslade Magistrates Court in Bedfordshire, 9 November 1968. Reynolds was arrested at his villa in Torquay five years after the crime
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Bob Marley photographed for the Observer magazine, 17 April 1977
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Judy Garland with her fiance Mickey Deans arriving from New York in to London’s Heathrow airport, 28 December 1968. The couple married on 15 March 1969. On 22 June 1969, Deans was to discover Garland dead in their rented Chelsea mews house
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Survivors of the battle of the Somme on 2 July 1966 at a reunion in France marking 50 years since the beginning of the battle
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A man on a bench in George Square, Glasgow on New Year’s Eve, 1966. You can see more of David and Sonya Newell-Smith’s street photography on their website
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Politician Enoch Powell waiting for questions after a Birmingham speech organised by the anti-EU Get Britain Out Campaign. The photograph was used in the Observer on 24 February 1974
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The Monty Python team photographed for the 12 October 1969 issue of the Observer magazine
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The Gorbals, Glasgow, 18 May 1968.All photographs © David Newell-Smith for the Observer
