Rex Features
Encyclopedia
Rex Features Ltd. is a British photographic press agency
and photo library, based in London, UK
. It supplies a daily service of news, celebrity, features, and stock photos
to newspapers, magazines, TV, book publishing
, web and all other media in the UK
and in more than 35 countries worldwide.
In addition to a daily news and entertainment feed, relied upon by newspapers and magazines worldwide, the Press Agency produces a constant stream of new features, comprising ready-made packages of pictures and words, on an extremely wide range of topics, as well as lifestyle, travel, wildlife and other creative and stock imagery.
REX represents many major picture sources including the leading UK celeb-society photographers Richard Young
and Dave Fisher, the French agency Sipa Press, top US celebrity agency Startraks and Berliner, film stills archives The Everett Collection and Snap Photo Library, The Associated Newspapers
archive (Daily Mail
, Mail on Sunday, Evening Standard
), television stills libraries including the ITV Archive and the Fremantle Media
TV archive, many ITV “reality” and talent shows such as Britain’s Got Talent, Dancing On Ice
, The X Factor
, I’m A Celebrity - Get Me Out Of Here, plus hundreds of freelance photographers and agencies around the world.
Rex’s website allows professional users access to more than 5,000,000 images, with more than 3000 new images added every day. While its daily production is fully digital, Rex’s service is backed by a physical archive stretching back to the early days of photography and containing about 15 million images encompassing a vast range of subjects.
of Az Est, Hungary's leading newspaper group based in Budapest, while Elizabeth's father, Heinrich (Henry) Guttmann, was a prominent journalist and book author writing on industry and other topics for German newspapers and magazines. His particular personal interest was in the history of photography
. To illustrate his articles, Guttmann amassed a large collection of photographs, illustrations and engravings which was later acquired by the groundbreaking Picture Post
magazine to form the nucleus of its own picture library; some of a subsequent collection is now contained in the Rex Features picture library. Guttmann, a Jew and a communist sympathiser, realising the threat posed by the rise of the Nazis, left Germany in 1925 with his baby daughter, for Paris where he continued working until 1931. After a brief return to Germany to tidy up his affairs, he settled in London.
Frank travelled to Britain in 1938 to study at Cambridge, but WWII interrupted his plans and he served in the British Army
for the duration of the war. After demobilization he went into the import-export business. The teenage Elizabeth had meanwhile been working for the Free French resistance
organization at its HQ in London. After the war she began helping her father to "package" his feature article
s, trading as
Rex Features, and after she and Frank married in 1948 they merged their respective skills to establish Rex as a full-fledged photo agency.
In early 1954 the couple were asked by a small Paris news agency to sell its pictures in the UK, and so Rex Features as an international agency
was born. Elizabeth ran the business in the front room of the family house in northwest London, while Frank went out to sell to the newspapers and magazines whose offices were then still concentrated in and around Fleet Street
in central London
. Word of Rex’s efficient and reliable service quickly spread; by the 1960s, Rex represented a growing roster of photographers including the renowned showbiz photographer Dezo Hoffmann
, and was providing a regular supply of features, news and celebrity pictures to the press in Britain and overseas.
. Later there was a move to Gough Square, just off Fleet Street, and again to nearby East Harding Street where in February 1979 a small fire started by an electrical fault caused extensive smoke damage to the company’s stock and equipment. Despite rumours in the press industry that Rex was “finished”, the company continued doing business as usual during the nine months it took to hand-clean or replace many thousands of filing envelopes, millions of B/W prints and colour slides, and other equipment and documents. In November 1979 the company moved into offices in Vine Hill.
In 1981 Rex raised its profile dramatically with its coverage of the wedding of Prince Charles
and Lady Diana Spencer
. Its fast and comprehensive service beat many more widely known agencies into the pages of newspapers and magazines around the world. Picture editors came to rely on Rex for deadline material of all types, particularly of Royalty and celebrities, as well as for its multi-faceted photo library.
and Richard Burton
smooching at his 50th birthday party; the first picture of Prince Charles holding hands
with Camilla Parker
Bowles; the first pictures of Mick Jagger
together with Luciana Morad and their son Lucas; world exclusive pictures of Hitler’s deputy Rudolf Hess
in his coffin; coverage of the world’s first arm transplant operation; pictures transmitted back from Mt. Everest
of the discovery of the mummified remains of mountaineer George Mallory
; photos of a baby’s corpse dumped in a street gutter
in a Chinese city, which caused an international outcry.
In 2008 Rex Features acquired the prestigious Los Angeles-based Berliner Group of photographic companies, with the aim of strengthening Rex’s presence in the USA and guaranteeing a reliable supply of high-quality celebrity portraiture and coverage of “red carpet” events from the US.
Over the past 57 years Rex Features has established itself as one of the leading sources of editorial photography, with contributors and sales agents throughout the world. Its website is frequently cited by leading newspaper and magazine editors as “the best in the business” for clarity and ease of use. The company now owns a substantial building in London's historic Clerkenwell district, where it employs around 80 staff looking after the interests of its hundreds of photographers and many thousands of clients.
Rex also has offices in New York and Los Angeles.
On Monday 26 April 2010, Mike Selby of Rex Features announced Getty Images' intention to acquire the Rex group of companies. Following a decision by the OFT (Office of Fair Trading) on Thursday 8 July 2010, to refer the proposed merger to the Competition Commission (formerly Monopolies Commission) for further scrutiny, after some UK media companies expressed fears that since Rex is the market leader in the UK the merged entity could be unfairly influential in the market, the deal was called off, and Rex Features continues as an independent company.
Dezo Hoffmann Archive
Pic Photos (Harry Myers) library
(Represented)
Richard Young
archive
News agency
A news agency is an organization of journalists established to supply news reports to news organizations: newspapers, magazines, and radio and television broadcasters. Such an agency may also be referred to as a wire service, newswire or news service.-History:The oldest news agency is Agence...
and photo library, based in London, UK
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
. It supplies a daily service of news, celebrity, features, and stock photos
Stock photography
Stock photography is the supply of photographs licensed for specific uses. It is used to fulfill the needs of creative assignments instead of hiring a photographer. Today, stock images can be presented in searchable online databases. They can be purchased and delivered online...
to newspapers, magazines, TV, book publishing
Publishing
Publishing is the process of production and dissemination of literature or information—the activity of making information available to the general public...
, web and all other media in the UK
Media of the United Kingdom
Media of the United Kingdom consist of several different types of communications media: television, radio, newspapers, magazines, and Internet-based Web sites. The UK also has a strong music industry. The UK has a diverse range of providers, the most prominent being principle public service...
and in more than 35 countries worldwide.
Rex Features Ltd -- Company profile
Rex was founded in 1954 by husband-and-wife team Frank Selby (b. Salusinszky Ferenc, Budapest, Jan 12, 1918) and Elizabeth Selby (b. Elisabeth Guttmann, Berlin, Apr 1, 1925). The couple retired as joint Managing Directors in 2008, but continue to take an interest in the firm.In addition to a daily news and entertainment feed, relied upon by newspapers and magazines worldwide, the Press Agency produces a constant stream of new features, comprising ready-made packages of pictures and words, on an extremely wide range of topics, as well as lifestyle, travel, wildlife and other creative and stock imagery.
REX represents many major picture sources including the leading UK celeb-society photographers Richard Young
Richard Young (photographer)
Richard Young is an English society and celebrity photographer. His photography career started in 1974 and since then, he has photographed personalities such as Princess Diana of Wales, Elizabeth Taylor, and Mick Jagger.-Early life:...
and Dave Fisher, the French agency Sipa Press, top US celebrity agency Startraks and Berliner, film stills archives The Everett Collection and Snap Photo Library, The Associated Newspapers
Associated Newspapers
Associated Newspapers is a large national newspaper publisher in the UK, which is a subsidiary of the Daily Mail and General Trust. The group was established in 1905 and is currently based at Northcliffe House in Kensington...
archive (Daily Mail
Daily Mail
The Daily Mail is a British daily middle-market tabloid newspaper owned by the Daily Mail and General Trust. First published in 1896 by Lord Northcliffe, it is the United Kingdom's second biggest-selling daily newspaper after The Sun. Its sister paper The Mail on Sunday was launched in 1982...
, Mail on Sunday, Evening Standard
Evening Standard
The Evening Standard, now styled the London Evening Standard, is a free local daily newspaper, published Monday–Friday in tabloid format in London. It is the dominant regional evening paper for London and the surrounding area, with coverage of national and international news and City of London...
), television stills libraries including the ITV Archive and the Fremantle Media
FremantleMedia
FremantleMedia, Ltd. is the content and production division of Bertelsmann's RTL Group, Europe's second largest TV, radio, and production company...
TV archive, many ITV “reality” and talent shows such as Britain’s Got Talent, Dancing On Ice
Dancing on Ice
Dancing on Ice is a British television show co-hosted by Christine Bleakley and Philip Schofield, in which celebrities and their professional partners figure skate in front of a panel of judges. The format, devised by LWT and Granada Television, has been a prime-time hit in eight different...
, The X Factor
The X Factor (UK)
The X Factor is a British television music competition to find new singing talent. Created by Simon Cowell, it began in September 2004 and is contested by aspiring singers drawn from public auditions. It is the originator of the international X Factor franchise. The seven series of the show to date...
, I’m A Celebrity - Get Me Out Of Here, plus hundreds of freelance photographers and agencies around the world.
Rex’s website allows professional users access to more than 5,000,000 images, with more than 3000 new images added every day. While its daily production is fully digital, Rex’s service is backed by a physical archive stretching back to the early days of photography and containing about 15 million images encompassing a vast range of subjects.
Origins and early years
Both Frank and Elizabeth are from Hungarian roots, and journalism ran in both families—Frank's father Imre Salusinszky was editor-in-chiefEditing
Editing is the process of selecting and preparing written, visual, audible, and film media used to convey information through the processes of correction, condensation, organization, and other modifications performed with an intention of producing a correct, consistent, accurate, and complete...
of Az Est, Hungary's leading newspaper group based in Budapest, while Elizabeth's father, Heinrich (Henry) Guttmann, was a prominent journalist and book author writing on industry and other topics for German newspapers and magazines. His particular personal interest was in the history of photography
Photography
Photography is the art, science and practice of creating durable images by recording light or other electromagnetic radiation, either electronically by means of an image sensor or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film...
. To illustrate his articles, Guttmann amassed a large collection of photographs, illustrations and engravings which was later acquired by the groundbreaking Picture Post
Picture Post
Picture Post was a prominent photojournalistic magazine published in the United Kingdom from 1938 to 1957. It is considered a pioneering example of photojournalism and was an immediate success, selling 1,700,000 copies a week after only two months...
magazine to form the nucleus of its own picture library; some of a subsequent collection is now contained in the Rex Features picture library. Guttmann, a Jew and a communist sympathiser, realising the threat posed by the rise of the Nazis, left Germany in 1925 with his baby daughter, for Paris where he continued working until 1931. After a brief return to Germany to tidy up his affairs, he settled in London.
Frank travelled to Britain in 1938 to study at Cambridge, but WWII interrupted his plans and he served in the British Army
British Army
The British Army is the land warfare branch of Her Majesty's Armed Forces in the United Kingdom. It came into being with the unification of the Kingdom of England and Scotland into the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707. The new British Army incorporated Regiments that had already existed in England...
for the duration of the war. After demobilization he went into the import-export business. The teenage Elizabeth had meanwhile been working for the Free French resistance
French Resistance
The French Resistance is the name used to denote the collection of French resistance movements that fought against the Nazi German occupation of France and against the collaborationist Vichy régime during World War II...
organization at its HQ in London. After the war she began helping her father to "package" his feature article
Feature article
* For general information "articles", see Article * For the term used in specific, see Article * For the concept of "feature stories," made the primary focus of a issue for in-depth investigation, see feature story...
s, trading as
Doing business as
The phrase "doing business as" is a legal term used in the United States, meaning that the trade name, or fictitious business name, under which the business or operation is conducted and presented to the world is not the legal name of the legal person who actually own it and are responsible for it...
Rex Features, and after she and Frank married in 1948 they merged their respective skills to establish Rex as a full-fledged photo agency.
In early 1954 the couple were asked by a small Paris news agency to sell its pictures in the UK, and so Rex Features as an international agency
International organization
An intergovernmental organization, sometimes rendered as an international governmental organization and both abbreviated as IGO, is an organization composed primarily of sovereign states , or of other intergovernmental organizations...
was born. Elizabeth ran the business in the front room of the family house in northwest London, while Frank went out to sell to the newspapers and magazines whose offices were then still concentrated in and around Fleet Street
Fleet Street
Fleet Street is a street in central London, United Kingdom, named after the River Fleet, a stream that now flows underground. It was the home of the British press until the 1980s...
in central London
Central London
Central London is the innermost part of London, England. There is no official or commonly accepted definition of its area, but its characteristics are understood to include a high density built environment, high land values, an elevated daytime population and a concentration of regionally,...
. Word of Rex’s efficient and reliable service quickly spread; by the 1960s, Rex represented a growing roster of photographers including the renowned showbiz photographer Dezo Hoffmann
Dezo Hoffmann
Dezider Hoffmann was a Slovak photographer, photojournalist and cameraman from Czechoslovakia...
, and was providing a regular supply of features, news and celebrity pictures to the press in Britain and overseas.
Middle period – near disaster and a growth spurt
In 1963 the firm opened its first modest rented offices in a garret overlooking London’s central fruit and vegetable market in Covent GardenCovent Garden
Covent Garden is a district in London on the eastern fringes of the West End, between St. Martin's Lane and Drury Lane. It is associated with the former fruit and vegetable market in the central square, now a popular shopping and tourist site, and the Royal Opera House, which is also known as...
. Later there was a move to Gough Square, just off Fleet Street, and again to nearby East Harding Street where in February 1979 a small fire started by an electrical fault caused extensive smoke damage to the company’s stock and equipment. Despite rumours in the press industry that Rex was “finished”, the company continued doing business as usual during the nine months it took to hand-clean or replace many thousands of filing envelopes, millions of B/W prints and colour slides, and other equipment and documents. In November 1979 the company moved into offices in Vine Hill.
In 1981 Rex raised its profile dramatically with its coverage of the wedding of Prince Charles
Charles, Prince of Wales
Prince Charles, Prince of Wales is the heir apparent and eldest son of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. Since 1958 his major title has been His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales. In Scotland he is additionally known as The Duke of Rothesay...
and Lady Diana Spencer
Diana, Princess of Wales
Diana, Princess of Wales was the first wife of Charles, Prince of Wales, whom she married on 29 July 1981, and an international charity and fundraising figure, as well as a preeminent celebrity of the late 20th century...
. Its fast and comprehensive service beat many more widely known agencies into the pages of newspapers and magazines around the world. Picture editors came to rely on Rex for deadline material of all types, particularly of Royalty and celebrities, as well as for its multi-faceted photo library.
Later success and present-day prominence
Rex has notched up many celebrity and news exclusives over the years, including such high-profile hits as: Liz TaylorElizabeth Taylor
Dame Elizabeth Rosemond "Liz" Taylor, DBE was a British-American actress. From her early years as a child star with MGM, she became one of the great screen actresses of Hollywood's Golden Age...
and Richard Burton
Richard Burton
Richard Burton, CBE was a Welsh actor. He was nominated seven times for an Academy Award, six of which were for Best Actor in a Leading Role , and was a recipient of BAFTA, Golden Globe and Tony Awards for Best Actor. Although never trained as an actor, Burton was, at one time, the highest-paid...
smooching at his 50th birthday party; the first picture of Prince Charles holding hands
Holding hands
Holding hands is a form of physical intimacy involving two or more people. It may or may not be sexual.Whether friends hold hands depends on culture and gender: in the Western culture this is mainly done by women and small children , spouses and romantic couples...
with Camilla Parker
Camilla, The Duchess of Cornwall
Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall is the second wife of Charles, Prince of Wales, and is the current holder of the titles of Princess of Wales, Duchess of Cornwall, Duchess of Rothesay and Countess of Chester...
Bowles; the first pictures of Mick Jagger
Mick Jagger
Sir Michael Philip "Mick" Jagger is an English musician, singer and songwriter, best known as the lead vocalist and a founding member of The Rolling Stones....
together with Luciana Morad and their son Lucas; world exclusive pictures of Hitler’s deputy Rudolf Hess
Rudolf Hess
Rudolf Walter Richard Hess was a prominent Nazi politician who was Adolf Hitler's deputy in the Nazi Party during the 1930s and early 1940s...
in his coffin; coverage of the world’s first arm transplant operation; pictures transmitted back from Mt. Everest
Mount Everest
Mount Everest is the world's highest mountain, with a peak at above sea level. It is located in the Mahalangur section of the Himalayas. The international boundary runs across the precise summit point...
of the discovery of the mummified remains of mountaineer George Mallory
George Mallory
George Herbert Leigh Mallory was an English mountaineer who took part in the first three British expeditions to Mount Everest in the early 1920s....
; photos of a baby’s corpse dumped in a street gutter
Street gutter
A street gutter is a depression running parallel to a road designed to collect rainwater flowing along the street and divert it into a storm drain. Where a curbstone is present, a gutter may simply be formed by the convergence of the road surface and the vertical face of the sidewalk; otherwise, a...
in a Chinese city, which caused an international outcry.
In 2008 Rex Features acquired the prestigious Los Angeles-based Berliner Group of photographic companies, with the aim of strengthening Rex’s presence in the USA and guaranteeing a reliable supply of high-quality celebrity portraiture and coverage of “red carpet” events from the US.
Over the past 57 years Rex Features has established itself as one of the leading sources of editorial photography, with contributors and sales agents throughout the world. Its website is frequently cited by leading newspaper and magazine editors as “the best in the business” for clarity and ease of use. The company now owns a substantial building in London's historic Clerkenwell district, where it employs around 80 staff looking after the interests of its hundreds of photographers and many thousands of clients.
Rex also has offices in New York and Los Angeles.
On Monday 26 April 2010, Mike Selby of Rex Features announced Getty Images' intention to acquire the Rex group of companies. Following a decision by the OFT (Office of Fair Trading) on Thursday 8 July 2010, to refer the proposed merger to the Competition Commission (formerly Monopolies Commission) for further scrutiny, after some UK media companies expressed fears that since Rex is the market leader in the UK the merged entity could be unfairly influential in the market, the deal was called off, and Rex Features continues as an independent company.
Collections
(Owned)Dezo Hoffmann Archive
Pic Photos (Harry Myers) library
(Represented)
Richard Young
Richard Young (photographer)
Richard Young is an English society and celebrity photographer. His photography career started in 1974 and since then, he has photographed personalities such as Princess Diana of Wales, Elizabeth Taylor, and Mick Jagger.-Early life:...
archive