New York: High Life / Low Life

by Dafydd Jones (Photographer)

Overview

• Reveals the story of New York as the nineties unfolded

• Captures the city at its most extravagant and its most vulnerable

• Features Donald and Ivana Trump, Michael Milken, Johnny Depp, Robert Mapplethorpe and more

• Follow-up to the critically acclaimed Oxford: The Last Hurrah and England: The Last Hurrah

‘In England, I'd become too well-known as a Tatler photographer. It was wonderful to be invisible again.' At the end of the 1980s, society photographer Dafydd Jones began a new life in New York. He had been hired by Vanity Fair to attend the most talked-about parties in the city and soon found himself descending into a world of human tableaux, ladies who lunch, princesses in powder rooms and dachshunds scrapping over canapés. Camera at the ready, Jones quickly filled the society pages of the illustrious magazine, snapping the likes of Leona Helmsley, Donald Trump, Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell and Imelda Marcos as they celebrated, mourned and unravelled in the bright lights. During the day, he captured the city streets and the ordinary citizens grounded in the real world. In these pages, the author of England: The Last Hurrah reveals the story of New York, the highs and the lows, as the '90s unfolded in front of his expert lens. ‘Mr. Jones goes about his business with cheery zest and a wicked eye.' – New York Times, 1993

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781788842556
Publisher:	ACC Art Books
Publication date:	04/15/2024
Series:	Dafydd Jones
Pages:	120
Product dimensions:	9.30(w) x 7.80(h) x 0.70(d)

Editorial Reviews

"Working the city’s social scene with his Leica M4-2 and Starblitz flashgun, Jones chronicled the era’s mystique and couture, its pomp, big budgets and big personalities."

Financial Times

"New York: High Life/Low Life might be small in scale, but it packs a time-travelling sucker punch."

The World of Interiors - Mitchell Owens

"Compared with today's cyborgian beauty standards and levels of PR polish among high-profile people, the images feel refreshingly intriguing and human."

The Guardian - Hannah Marriott

"Jones has every right to be considered alongside Yousuf Karsh and Henri Carter-Bresson. Detached, ironic, with a great feel also for the street scenes of the poor. He should have been at Jay Gatsby's parties."

The Field

"The location may have changed, but the essence of Jones's artistry remains. His images are a testament to life's most luminous moments, wherever they may unfold."

Air Magazine

"Dafydd Jones's photography conjures a lost era of 1990s New York."

A Rabbit's Foot - Zoe Whitfield

"Dark, glamorous and hedonistic...captures New York in the 1990s."

Wallpaper* - Hannah Silver

"...one of the most brilliant observers of the English upper bourgeoisie..."

Vanity Fair France - Maxime Jacob

"His New York book... captures a time and a place better than just about any published folio."

Airmail Graydon Carter

"The decade turned out to be the swan song for Manhattan's high society, the term used to define the most powerful and privileged folks in town, a latter-day version of the coterie tagged "The 400" in HBO's The Gilded Age... And no one captured their glamour, antics, excesses and guiltlessly indulgent ways better than Jones."

Artful Living Magazine

Dafydd Jones photo featured in the Photo London Editor's Choice

Musée Magazine

"The New York book is an evocative historical document, brimming with nostalgia and menace."

The Guardian

"The renowned photographer, known for his images of debauchery at Oxford University, has released a new book of his time among East Coast socialites."

The Times UK

"On 120 pages Dafydd thus reveals the story of New York, of the ups and downs and falls, a story about the incredible nineties that happened unfolded before his expert lens."

Elle Slovenia

"Dark, glamorous and hedonistic...captures New York in the 1990s."

Wallpaper*

"Party Like It’s 1989: In the 1980s and ’90s, Dafydd Jones’s party shots captured Manhattan’s rich and powerful."

New York Times Instagram

New York: High Life / Low Life was featued on Airmail's 'Coffee-Table Books of 2024'.

Airmail

"Jones has every right to be considered alongside Yousuf Karsh and Henri Carter-Bresson. Detached, ironic, with a great feel also for the street scenes of the poor. He should have been at Jay Gatsby's parties."

The Field UK

"Dafydd Jones’s photography conjures a lost era of 1990s New York."

A Rabbit's Foot

"Party Like It’s 1989: In the 1980s and ’90s, Dafydd Jones’s party shots captured Manhattan’s rich and powerful."

New York Times

"From growing up in Carmarthen to traveling the world photographing the rich and famous, Dafydd Jones is one of Britain's leading society photographers. While working for magazines such as Tatler, Vanity Fair and the New Yorker his best known work includes early photos of politicians such as Boris Johnson and David Cameron and also celebrities of New York society such as Donald Trump and his family at parties and social events."

BBC Wales

"After photographing Oxford and London’s royal and preppy upper class, Dafydd Jones set his sights on a new playground: New York City. His new book, a follow-up to the critically acclaimed Oxford: The Last Hurrah and England: The Last Hurrah, is New York: High Life, Low Life (ACC Art Books)."

The Eye of Photography

"New York in the 90's: when Dafydd Jones was the best party photographer in the world"

Vanity Fair France

"His New York book... captures a time and a place better than just about any published folio."

Graydon Carter

"In his new book, the photographer Dafydd Jones captures a bygone New York, an era of new and old money, La Grenouille and Le Cirque."

Air Mail

"Jones worked his magic at Vanity Fair during a heady time in the chronicle that is Manhattan, and for our present delectation, he and his camera seem to have attended every debutante ball, book signing, boldface charity softball game, memorial service and magazine launch worth the RSVP."

The World of Interiors

"The photographs in the book transcend from party pictures to historical documents."

Amateur Photographer

"Heaven help you if Dafydd Jones fixes you in his viewfinder. Mr. Jones, a Welshman who photographs for The New York Observer, specializes in deliciously cruel pictures of the social elite at play...Mr. Jones goes about his business with cheery zest and a wicked eye" - an interview from 1993, referencing work that will appear in Dafydd Jones' new book due for release in April 2024.

Art in Review

"Dachshunds, debutantes and Donald Trump: capturing the glitzy, bizarre world of 80s high society."

The Guardian on Saturday Magazine

"British photographer Dafydd Jones documented New York's upper class in the 1990s. His photo book "High Life, Low Life" is a testimony to a time lost in dreams."

Die Welt Germany