Barry Taylor, who was managing director of Olympus Optical Co (UK) from 1977 until 1999, has died aged 87 years. During his career at Olympus Barry was behind a series of memorable advertising campaigns, the establishment of Olympus’s London photography galleries, and through Olympus supported photography more widely across Britain.
In 1975 Japan’s Olympus Optical Company took over an existing distributor – David Williams (Cine Equipment) Ltd and from 1 July 1975 it became the first Japanese manufacturer to distribute its own range in the United Kingdom. Headhunted from Polaroid, Barry became interim managing director and was the first managing director of Olympus Optical Co (UK) Ltd – later Olympus Cameras – when it became the first wholly owned subsidiary of a Japanese parent company in 1977. The firm moved from Glasshouse Yard to the familiar Honduras Street address. For the next twenty-two years Olympus, under Taylor, put itself in the public consciousness through a series of popular television and press campaigns, and partnerships including the London Marathon in 1993 and JPS Lotus.
Taylor and Ian Dickens, his marketing director, established Olympus as the leading photographic brand in the UK. Part of this was down to a series of memorable TV campaigns from 1977-1991, the most famous being for the Olympus Trip camera and featuring David Bailey and a range of celebrities including Michael Elphick, Eric Idle and James Hunt. Bailey appeared in over ten television commercials, and the phrase “David Bailey? Who’s he?” still resonates amongst a certain generation.
In addition to Bailey, Olympus forged relationships with many of the leading photographers and photojournalists of the 1970s and 1980s. They included Terence Donovan, Terry Fincher, Duffy, Patrick Lichfield, Lord Snowdon, Lord Lichfield, Barry Lategan, John Swannell, Don McCullin, Jane Bown, Mirella Ricciardi, Eric Hosking, Don Morley, and Bob Carlos-Clarke. Celebrities such as Peter Sellers were also brought to promote the Olympus OM camera range.
In many ways Olympus was ahead of its time when it established a photographic gallery, under the direction of Geoff Ash, in the colonnade next to London’s Ritz Hotel in 1979. The RPS’s Photographic Journal noted it brought a welcome addition to London’s limited gallery scene. It proved so popular that a larger gallery space in Princes Street, off Regent Street, London, under curator Martin Harrison, was opened in 1983 with the two spaces running concurrently for a period. Exhibitions had a five-year waiting list and featured the likes of Elliot Erwitt, Helmut Newton, Bruce Weber and Jacque Henri Lartigue. Today such brand-building spaces are more common.
Another project that Barry supported was the Olympus/Royal Photographic Society commemorative blue plaque scheme for photographers which was announced in 1995. Dickens notes: ‘Bailey had pushed English Heritage to put one of their plaques on the London house once owned by Roger Fenton and it eventually happened - the first for a photographer. We all agreed there should be many more, but the application process was very slow. As such, we came up with our own scheme in conjunction with the RPS. The plaques were blue and hexagonal in shape and we commissioned ten, each of which were unveiled by notable folk.’
The ten Olympus plaques commemorated: Julia Margaret Cameron, Henry Peach Robinson, Eadweard Muybridge, Samuel Bourne, James Craig Annan, Anna Atkins, Angus McBean, Lee Miller, Edward Chambré Hardman, and Alvin Langdon Coburn. Olympus, with Westminster City Council, supported a plaque for Terence Donovan in 1999.
Olympus was also instrumental in saving Dimbola by purchasing the house when it looked like it would be demolished, and it remained committed to the project for many years. The house opened to the public in 1994. Olympus also supported various other causes including The Photographers’ Gallery appeal and the RPS’s National Centre of Photography appeal.
Barry was awarded a Royal Photographic Society Fenton medal and honorary membership in 1993 for his distinguished commitment to photography and the photographic industry. At the time of his award the British Journal of Photography’s (28 October 1993) Hector Crome commented ‘Olympus is fortunate indeed to posses such a charming, urbane and gracious gentleman to front its UK operations’
Dickens noted ‘working closely with Barry was a real privilege as the medium of photography was our focus’ and on the occasion of the Ritz gallery opening the RPS’s Journal noted that Olympus had ‘an almost unequalled record when it comes to supporting good photography’. Much of the credit for this belonged to Barry who recognised the wider value of supporting photography, building a brand and raising public awareness to grow sales.
He leaves a wife, Wendy, and three children to whom BPH sends its condolences.
Dr Michael Pritchard
POSTSCRIPT: Dr Brian Hinton MBE, Executive Chair, Julia Margaret Cameron Trust writes...
"I think it is only right to say that without Barry's support both personally and at Olympus the very existence of Dimbola as a flourishing museum and arts centre, with photography at its heart would not have been made certain. Barry was a wam and approachable man, while no one was in any doubt about his business acumen and drive. I could see the obvious affection and respect from the likes of Bailey, Lichfield, Lategan et al He reassured a very shy Mary McCartney at Dimbola when we showed her Sadlers Wells project, and she blossomed in his presence.
We miss him dearly, both as a benefactor and a friend, and want to mark his life in some way in house, in a permanent way.
The photographic world will not see his like again."
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With thanks to Ian Dickens, former Olympus Cameras marketing director 1979-2000.
See nine of Olympus’s Bailey television advertisements here : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YnU91RWv8hkIm
Images: (Top:) Barry Taylor, at the 1985 British Grand Prix at Silverstone. Olympus was the co-sponsor of the JPS Lotus team; (middle:) two examples of Olympus celebrity advertising from 1976 with Peter Sellers and Patrick, Lord Lichfield; (Lower:) Blue plaque CC Simon Harriyott.
