Gered Mankowitz

'Kate Bush Drama' 20th century signed rock music photography

1978

Gered Mankowitz is responsible for some of the most iconic images ever taken of music’s greatest performers. He began with the Rolling Stones in the mid-1960s and never looked back. Over the course of a career spanning more than five decades, he has strengthened the cultural impact of the photographic genre he practices.

Mankowitz’s work has been explored in numerous books and exhibitions and is a subject explored in 2020's docuseries Icon: Music Through The Lens, airing on British television channel Sky Arts and streaming online. But a fitting introduction to this firebrand photographer would start with an electric shock, of sorts.

In 1967, he was commissioned to photograph a 24-year-old music prodigy by the name of Jimi Hendrix. Mankowitz, three years his subject’s junior, wasn’t sure what to expect of the guitar sensation from Seattle, who had just settled in the United Kingdom and was already being hailed by his peers as an artistic genius. The pictures that came out of the session, along with those produced during a second shoot with Hendrix that same year, are the most widely known and regarded as the most important portraits of the seminal guitarist. They not only celebrated Hendrix’s revolutionary spirit and ineffable charisma but also helped define an entire era of musical creativity.

The assignments kept rolling in, and soon Mankowitz had established a reputation as a spirited rock ’n’ roll portraitist. Then came the dream job: In 1965, at just 19, he became the official photographer of the Rolling Stones, a position that he held for two and a half years and ushered him into adulthood. Mankowitz maintains that he kept a cool head on the job and a professional attitude. “The Stones and I were great friends, but I always knew my limits. I didn’t feel I had to hang out with the band in order to fit in,” he says, confiding, “To be honest, I had a pretty wild lifestyle without their help!” One of Mankowitz’s most famous images of the Stones became the cover for their 1967 album Between the Buttons.

On 1stDibs, shop an impressively wide selection of Gered Mankowitz's work, which features some of the most significant musical artists of all time.