Meeting Punk’s Unlikely Photographer, Jane Ashley

Fifty years on from punk’s advent, its foremost figures gathered at the Saatchi Gallery for a night marking the movement’s history. Alongside the talks, visitors found a limited-run exhibition of photographs by punk’s unlikely chronicler – the daughter of Laura Ashley. C&TH meets Jane Ashley.

There’s a queue coiling around the ground floor galleries at the Saatchi. Or, rather, a stampede of Doc Martens – stilled ahead of a class reunion of sorts. They’re here to mark 50 years of the punk movement at A Night of T/Reason where its foremost figures – including Gaye Advert, Terry Chimes, Andrew Czezowski, Phil Strongman and Edie Ashey – will swap war stories of a battered, attitude-filled 1970s Chelsea. 

At least one person passed out. (Punk is so back).  

The punky crowd sat for a panel talk at A Night of T/Reason at Chelsea Arts Festival 2026

Actually, without the context of the Saatchi’s rebellious teenage years and Chelsea’s rough and tumble era – where it lay at the epicentre of the punk movement, with bands like the Sex Pistols, the Slits and the Clash crashing through its street – it might feel like an unlikely setting for such a panel. Similarly, while there’s a cohort who’ve dug out the leathers and safety pins, there’s as many again dressed for the office. Punk – and punks, and punk places – has necessarily grown-up. But it’s not forgotten its naughty streak, as both the jeering crowd and the exhibition emblazoning the time tonight proves. 

Jane Ashley At The Saatchi Gallery

The exhibiting artist hides an edge, too. Jane Ashley is, at least on the surface, an unlikely chronicler of the movement. The daughter of Laura Ashley (the designer behind the British heritage brand best known for feminine, floral prints), she compiled an incredible photography catalogue which captured the early years of punk in Chelsea with unrivalled access – as a personal friend to many of the figures pictured. She is tonight dressed in a fuschia pink dress and a white blazer, against a backdrop of black. 

‘I went to art college when I was 22, after a few years as a fashion photographer,’ she says, ‘and I met all of these people that you see in the pictures here. They weren’t famous then – they weren’t even musicians – and these were just relaxed, experimental pictures.’ 

Tonight is her first time exhibiting at an institution like the Saatchi. (‘I nearly fell over with excitement,’ she says). Her work largely focused on fashion and styling for Laura Ashley and she formally retired from photography in the mid 1980s, as well as a more recent stint as a political advisor to the Welsh Liberal Democrats. Her archival photography has been displayed at the Museum of Youth Culture, alongside her contemporaries Janette Beckman and Dennis Morris, in Up Yours! a group exhibition. But a mainstream art gallery was a surprise. ‘It’s unbelievably thrilling.’ 

Jane Ashley’s photograph of The Clash on display at the Saatchi

The Pictures

She leads us to her favourite image: three members of the Clash – Paul [Simonon], Mick [Jones] and Joe [Strummer] – performing at the Roxy Club. 

‘I love this one because I took it on 35 millimetre, and then did a rough print in the factory – I was working for Laura Ashley as well at the time so had access to the factory; I used to do the rough print there. This print is fifty years old. I actually had completely lost the negatives, so this had to be digitally re-photographed.

‘With many of these pictures, I had actually put them away in a cupboard until the right time came to show them.’

Jane Ashley’s photograph of ‘Viv and Paul’

Her second favourite: Viv Albertine (guitarist from The Slits) and Simonon, styled by Ashley herself. ‘I was at art school with Viv, and Paul was at a nearby art school. They were struggling musicians – starving, really – and they’d spent all their grant money on guitars. So I said, if you model for me, I’ll give you some money. I love everything about this picture. That’s actually a Laura Ashley dress she’s wearing – so you get that contrast, the punk style against the Laura Ashley – and her poses are just incredible.’

Other figures of note ring the room, like the handsome Billy Idol. Or Billy, just like it’s ‘Viv’ or ‘Paul’ – the striking thing about her work is the warmth of the photos, as many of these figures were also her close friends. In fact, many of the stories swapped in the wider crowd at the Saatchi are taken on a first name basis. And cross-generational stories begin to emerge, too: later, in the green room, Jane’s niece introduces herself to punk writer Phil Strongman, now in his 70s. She’s head to toe in leather garb – buckled boots and all – and ready to kick the movement on from one generation to the next. 

As the first panel kicks off, it becomes hard to hear Jane – the audience are lobbing (friendly) heckles at a speaker. ‘I think we’ll need to cut it here,’ she says. Leaving before an interview finishes? Totally punk.

All of Jane’s photographs are on display until the end of the Chelsea Arts Festival at the Saatchi.