James Sparshatt

El duende by James Sparshatt. Palladium platinum print

2022

It was Christmas day and we were heading to Santa Maria beach in a hired Cuban school bus about 40 minutes from Centro Havana. The girls of Rumba Morena beg...

A photograph of Mario locked in a harmonious embrace with his trumpet… a moment of magic in a jazz club in New Orleans. James Sparshatt’s photographs of music and dance capture the ...

Every Sunday afro-Cubans gather in the Callejon de Hammel to play the drums and sing the harsh vocals of rumba. The Spirit of the Revolution series documents the generation of Cuban...

Sometimes a more practical hair arrangement is needed for warriors and braids are rolled into a net that is tied to keep the hair firm. Once the hair is long, a warrior will only sha...

A Turkana elder photographed by John Kenny in Kenya. John uses simple natural light and builds primitive makeshift studios from locally acquired white sheets! The suffuse light allo...

Mago National Park in southern Ethiopia is home to the Mursi, one of the most well known tribes of the Omo valley. The area is inhospitable to outsiders, because of the heat, humidi...

Martha Graham at New York City Center after her final onstage bow - backstage with Madonna and Calvin Klein, October 1990 "Martha was my godmother, and she was posing." - JB Photog...

Emma in Botafogo, Rio de Janeiro, 1984 Pão de Açucar, (Sugarloaf Mountain), Rio’s defining landmark looms in the background. Photographed by Jonathan Becker Contemporary 14" x 14.5...

Julian Schnabel at his Outdoor Studio, Montauk, New York, 13 August 2001 Schnabel's magnificent open-air studio benefits fully from the special light of Long Island's East End as oi...

Jean-Paul Goude & Toukie Smith in NYC Subway, 1976 Photographed by Jonathan Becker Contemporary 14" x 14.5" Platinum/Palladium Print Edition Nº 1 of 6 Ce...

Elaine's Kitchen - Andy Warhol and Elaine, New York, 1976 Photographed by Jonathan Becker Contemporary 14" x 14.5" Platinum & Palladium Print Edition Nº 1 of 3 Certificate of Origin Signed and Titled by the Photographer in Edition and Emboss-stamped in the Margin/Recto Printing & Edition Notes along with Copyright Stamp and Applicable Providence on Verso Printed by hand at the photographer's studio in the traditional Platinum & Palladium process on 100% cotton rag paper. Platinum & Palladium prints are known for their unrivaled longevity and unparalleled subtlety. Print cost includes wrapping/packing/crating for shipment in double-tubing. ______ Jonathan Becker (Steven Kasher Gallery bio by Mark Rozzo) Literate flair, acute visual intuition, love of mischief and spontaneity, and global wanderlust: These are among the hallmarks of the work of Jonathan Becker, whose photography spans four decades and includes iconic portraits (often for Vanity Fair) of a multiplicity of subjects, including Robert Mapplethorpe, Martha Graham, Madonna, Elia Kazan, Prince Charles, Eudora Welty, André Leon Talley, Ai Weiwei, Diana Vreeland and Jack Kevorkian. Becker - whose work was first published in Andy Warhol’s Interview in 1973 - was born in 1954 and raised in New York City. In the mid-1970s, he moved for a year to Paris, where he was mentored by his hero, Brassaï. Upon return to New York, Becker drove a cab, toting his camera and parking to complete magazine assignments. A 1981 exhibition of Becker’s work at New York’s Rentschler Gallery included a series of arresting images of patrons taken inside the kitchen at Elaine’s, the storied hangout on New York’s Upper East Side. This exhibition, curated by art director Bea Feitler brought Becker to the attention of Frank Zachary, editor-in-chief of Town & Country. Zachary invited Becker to work for the magazine, where the young photographer further developed his passion for journalistic portraiture alongside Slim Aarons, who, after Brassaï, became Becker’s guiding light. Becker was then enlisted by Bea Feitler to contribute portraits to the prototype of Vanity Fair’s 1983 re-launch. His participation led to a highly prolific association with the magazine as Contributing Photographer, continuing to this day. Becker has also contributed portraits and reportage to The New Yorker, Vogue, W, The Paris Review, amongst truly most major publications. In complement to his editorial work, Becker has accepted a limited number of private and family portrait commissions each year, some accompanied by privately published books, and in the course of his three-years-long project for the Rockefeller Foundation, Becker documented its vast array of philanthropic grant recipients on four continents abroad. Six trade books comprised entirely of Becker’s photographs have been published including Bright Young Things...

Joan Didion photographed by Julian Wasser for TIME magazine in 1968. This is a 20 x 24 inch platinum print made in 2022 at Weldon Labs in Los Angeles made ...