“In 1963, Mrs Kennedy came to London for a visit with her sister, Princess Lee Radziwill, who lived there. I read the daily press bulletin from Buckingham Palace and saw they were expected for lunch with the Queen. I ran from outside Princess Radziwill’s home to Buckingham Palace and took this photograph as their limousine was about to turn into the gate. Recently when I showed the photograph to a close friend of Mrs Kennedy’s he immediately said, "That was taken before 1963", And when I asked how he knew, he replied simply, “Because Jackie never smiled that way again after 1963.”
~ Harry Benson
“The children have been a wonderful gift to me and I’m thankful to have once again seen our world through their eyes. They restore my faith in the family’s future”
~ Jacqueline Kennedy
It’s hard to know who is the more iconic woman of the 20th Century, Jacqueline Kennedy or Queen Elizabeth. They have one thing in common, they have both been photographed by Harry Benson.
It is just staggering the range of people he has photographed with his usual fierce intelligence and sense of the moment.
