About Us

O’NEILL CLASSICS is a unique collection of iconic photographs taken by Desmond O’Neill, an eminent photographer renowned for photographing the jet set and high society, travelling the World and capturing his subjects. He started his career working for the Press in Manchester. During World War II he notably filmed the British D-Day landings on Sword beach where he was shot and wounded but able to bring the first footage of the landings back to the UK. After The War Desmond worked for leading publications including Tatler and Queen magazines and in his later years Hello! magazine and during this time he established his name as the foremost social photographer of the period and built his extensive archive of images. Desmond died in 2003 and left a library of hundreds of thousands of images many of which are known internationally and instantly recognisable. Amongst the collection there are tens of thousands of photographs that have been hidden for up to 70 years, notable amongst these is the collection of motor racing images from Goodwood and Silverstone dating from the early 1950’s to mid 1960’s which have only been shown since the start of 2017. In addition there are also 16 photographs in the National Portrait Gallery featuring subjects such as Ian Fleming and Maria Callas. The archive is now owned and managed by his son Dominic O’Neill and daughter in law Maria O’Neill. Dominic followed in his father’s footsteps and is also a leading professional photographer in his own right.