1950s Black and White Photography

Elsa Peretti was born in Florence, studied interior design and was a language teacher and ski instructor before becoming a model. Peretti settled in New York in 1968 and began a care...

“I walked into a timeless place … full of supporting actors and actresses of every conceivable role,” Abramson wrote in Light: On the South Side, published by Chicago’s Numero Group in 2009. “Brassai, who photographed nocturnal Paris around 1930, had always been one of my favourite. Having seen, his pictures and, later, read about his experiences, I was fascinated by the implied romance with which he viewed his photography. (…) When I photographed on the South Side, especially in Peppers Hideout, it was very much in recognition of a Brassai–type world. Whether it be ambiance, gestures, or dress, there seemed to be a direct correlation with the Parisian bistros and dance halls that Brassai had photographed.” - Michael Abramson, “Black Night Clubs of Chicago’s South Side”, May 1977. Print details: © Michael L Abramson, Untitled #112, CA. 1974 -1977 Vintage Gelatin Silver Print, in custom made frame Image size: 20.5 x 30.5 cm, Printed on 11 x 14" paper (27.9 x 35.4 cm), white border Series: 1970s Nightclubs of Chicago South Side Stamped; "Provenance Authenticated by Michael L Abramson Estate, 2011" on verso Frame: 38 x 48 cm (Custom made classic hardwood frame, stain in black, museum mount board and antireflective UV AR protective art glass) All prints from 1970s South Side Chicago series are available for purchase as the singular works or as the group of images - please view a selection on 1stDibs and the gallery storefront. All works are Vintage Silver Gelatin prints made by the photographer at the time there were taken. All prints can be purchased in bespoke hardwood frames, museum mount board and anti-reflective UV protective Art Glass. If you wish to ship or purchase unframed prints, we are happy to arrange that for you. About the Photographer: Michael L Abramson was born in New Jersey in 1948, the late American photographer graduated with Master of Photography from Institute of Design, Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago in 1977. His work was regularly featured in Time, New York Times, Newsweek, People, Forbes, Harpers, Wall Street Journal and other popular American and international magazines. He was a highly sought after commercial portrait photographer and photojournalist. His subjects comprised celebrities, prominent stars from sport, politics and the entertainment industry included Bill Clinton, Steve Jobs, Steven Spielberg, Michael Jordan, Oprah Winfrey and many more. Yet it was his 1970s series documenting the Chicago South side club scene that made Abramson’s name. Influenced by Brassaï’s photographs of the 1920s Paris, Abramson caught the stylish nightlife of the funk and soul era in full, alluring swing. His work was exhibited frequently since 1978, including a solo show at Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago, in 2014 and in the same year the group show on American Photography since 1950 at Madison Museum of Contemporary Arts (US). Following Abramson’s death in 2011 a new book entitled Gotta Go Gotta Flow: Life, Love, and Lust From Chicago’s South Side was released by Chicago-based Chicago City...

By the time she was photographed by Jack Robinson on October 30, 1969, few singers had fused gospel and pop with classical music as successfully as Nina Simone. Born as Eunice Kathl...

Listing includes framing with UV Plexi ($900 value), free shipping, and a 14-day return policy. Seydou Keïta Untitled Portrait, 1952 - 1955 (02158) 23...

Warren Beatty dropped out of Northwestern University to study acting with Stella Adler. He made his film debut in Elia Kazan’s Splendor in the Grass (1961). In 1967, Beatty teamed ...

Lauren Bacall was born Betty Joan Perske in New York. As a young model on the cover of Harper’s Bazaar in 1944, she was whisked to California to co-star with Humphrey Bogart in To Have and Have Not. They married and she made three more films with him in succession, The Big Sleep (1946), Dark Passage...

Tina Turner, born as Anna Mae Bullock, began singing professionally as a teenager after meeting the established performer Ike Turner. At twenty, she stood in for a singer who failed to show for a recording session, and her rendering of “A Fool in Love” in 1960 reached number two in the Top 30 chart. Anna Mae was now Tina, and the name of the act was the Ike and Tina Turner Revue. With hits such as “River Deep and Mountain High,” and “Proud Mary,” they regularly appeared in the music charts and on concert stages as they ascended to stardom. Jack Robinson photographed Tina...

Listing includes framing with UV Plexi ($900 value), free shipping, and a 14-day return policy. Seydou Keïta Untitled Portrait, 1952 - 1955 (00089-MA.K...

Anthony Perkins was the son of the distinguished Broadway actor Osgood Perkins. He won an Academy Award nomination in just his second film, Friendly Persuasion (1956). In 1960, he appeared as Norman Bates in Alfred Hitchcock’s thriller Psycho, and from then on, Perkins was strongly identified with that one role. When photographed by Jack Robinson on May 21, 1968, Perkins had just made Pretty Poison playing a mentally disturbed man opposite Tuesday Weld. He was married to the photographer Berry Berenson...

Warren Beatty dropped out of Northwestern University to study acting with Stella Adler. He made his film debut in Elia Kazan’s Splendor in the Grass (1961). In 1967, Beatty teamed ...

Leonard Cohen, Canadian songwriter, folk singer, poet, novelist, and philosopher, came from a middle-class Jewish home in Westmount, Montreal, his father a successful clothing-store ...

Italian director Bernardo Bertolucci, born in Parma and the son of poets, was himself a published poet at the age of eighteen. He moved into films at twenty as an assistant director to Pier Paolo Pasolini, himself a poet turned filmmaker. When Jack Robinson photographed the twenty-eight year old Bertolucci on April 12, 1969, he had not yet started filming on The Conformist (1970) featuring the actors Jean-Louis Trintignant and Dominique Sanda. In Vogue, Bertolucci is described as “a shy man who moves the way he speaks and smiles, gently but cautiously, with sleepy brown eyes on the lookout for the worst”. As a filmmaker, he would achieve notoriety for Last Tango in Paris...