Darren Lyons: Confronting horse image at gallery raises eyebrows
A year after opening a gallery in Sydney’s Paddington, flamboyant paparazzo Darren Lyons has raised more than a few eyebrows with a confronting image of a $10 million racehorse.
Confidential
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A year after opening a gallery in Sydney’s Paddington, flamboyant paparazzo Darren Lyons has raised more than a few eyebrows with a confronting image of a $10 million racehorse.
The photographer set tongues wagging after he hung the controversial new image titled ‘Worship everything and more will appear’ in the shop front window of the Lyons Gallery.
Confidential was contacted by a neighbour of the Glenmore Road address concerned about the confronting nature of the image, which shows a black horse with its genitalia visible.
When contacted, Lyons would not divulge details of the horse other than to say it is a prominent racehorse worth more than $10 million owned by a prestigious trainer and racing family.
The image was shot by fashion photographer Nick Samartis and has a price tag of $7700.
“It is an amazing piece of an incredible animal captured in time and I just love raw images of life,” Lyons told Confidential.
“I love the image and how majestic these animals are, it is just stunning. It doesn’t getting any more raw and real than this. It is a champion racehorse being a racehorse.
“The only celebrity I’ve seen go close to this well hung is Sean Connery.”
The colourfully-controversial photographer opened the luxury Sydney gallery last year with its top ticket item a $380,000 portrait of the Queen
Lyons, known to many as Mr Paparazzi, earned his millions trading images of celebrities and the British royals but returned to Australia a few years back when he became mayor of Geelong.
The gallery features exclusive prints from the world’s top photographers and artists including Helmut Newton, Terry O’Neill, Andy Warhol, Brian Duffy and Lord Snowden.
They include shots of iconic figures such as Twiggy, David Bowie, Brigitte Bardot, Audrey Hepburn, Faye Dunaway, Elton John, Marilyn Monroe and Mick Jagger.
Emerging artists feature too, with an original spray-painted stencil from Van Donna titled Everybody Needs Somebody To Love that Prince Harry bought for wife-to-be Meghan Markle.