Salman Rushdie at Sunbeam Studios III, London, 18 January 2008
Jonathan BeckerSalman Rushdie at Sunbeam Studios III, London, 18 January 20082008
2008
About the Item
- Creator:Jonathan Becker (1954, American)
- Creation Year:2008
- Dimensions:Height: 14 in (35.56 cm)Width: 11 in (27.94 cm)
- Medium:
- Movement & Style:
- Period:
- Condition:Some minor wear consistent with age.
- Gallery Location:New York, NY
- Reference Number:Seller: 2008.004.WI - 11stDibs: LU139327697672
Jonathan Becker
With a style at once impactful, reflective and irreverent, photographer Jonathan Becker belongs more to the artistic than the documentarian realm, masterfully capturing a theatrical sense of the unexpected as he offers glimpses into rarefied worlds.
Bea Feitler — the late, legendary artistic director responsible for vamping up Harper’s Bazaar and Rolling Stone in the 1960s and ’70s — gave Becker his first big break, in 1981, when she asked him to submit images for the relaunch of Vanity Fair.
Becker, who was 26 at the time, had already been the first Paris-based photographer for W magazine and had forged a close friendship with French-Hungarian Surrealist photographer Brassaï, who was then in his 70s. By this age, too, Becker had also developed an enviable reputation as a portrait photographer working on Andy Warhol’s Interview magazine and alongside Slim Aarons and Norman Parkinson at Town & Country, although he knew not to step on his famous colleagues’ toes. “I was a young little interloper,” he says. “I learned more by listening and watching those giants than by trying to engage in any direct interactions with them.”
The young photographer, who was moonlighting at the time as a New York City cab driver, hadn’t dreamed that the project would put his pictures on an equal footing with those of legends of the medium: Also contributing to this debut edition were some of photography’s most revered names, including Richard Avedon, Irving Penn and Helmut Newton, as well as rising star Annie Leibovitz, whose popularity had recently skyrocketed, thanks to her Rolling Stone cover picture of a naked John Lennon curled up alongside a fully clothed Yoko Ono.
That issue was a game changer in modern magazine publishing, with Vanity Fair setting the bar for engaging editorial and daring design for decades to come. It also signaled the making of a man: Becker’s talent for visual storytelling shone through in his avant-gardist tribute, and the magazine’s creative team kept him on, marking the start of his long career there.
As a regular Vanity Fair contributor, Becker operated in the highest echelons of society, traveling the world and immortalizing countless A-list movers, shakers and thinkers from the fields of fashion, culture and politics, not to mention royalty.
Becker's unconventional way of directing his eye is clearly instinctual, resulting in an unusual aesthetic that mixes perception, myth and reality in equal measure. This balance is most apparent in his famous black-and-white picture of Robert Mapplethorpe, taken in 1988 at the opening of Mapplethorpe’s retrospective exhibition at the Whitney, when the famed photographer was dying of AIDS. It is a group shot, showing various figures at different angles, in which Mapplethorpe, caught in profile and listening intently to a woman kneeling beside him, seems to stop time. The moment is heavy with emotion and also dreamlike. It is ineffably surreal.
Becker has given us Stephen King as a cross-eyed zombie (1980); Dustin Hoffman as a mischief maker, lounging on a stack of sun loungers at the Beverly Hills Hotel (2004); and Diana Vreeland as an aging Raphaelesque Madonna dressed in a voluminous black gown and sitting cross-legged in her famous red-clad living room at 550 Park Avenue (1979). The photographer, a lover of spontaneity who deftly plays with perspectives, keeps us intrigued with his open-ended narratives.
Find a collection of Jonathan Becker photography on 1stDibs.
- Hunter Thompson and Anita Bejmuk at home, Aspen, Colorado, 7 July 2002By Jonathan BeckerLocated in New York, NYHunter Thompson and Anita Bejmuk at home, Aspen, Colorado, 7 July 2002 X Photographed by Jonathan Becker Contemporary 44" x 44.5" Archival Pigment Pr...Category
Early 2000s Contemporary Portrait Photography
MaterialsArchival Pigment
- Yanomami, Amazonia, Brazil, January 1995By Jonathan BeckerLocated in New York, NYYanomami, Amazonia, Brazil, January 1995 X Photographed by Jonathan Becker Contemporary 28" x 28.5" Archival Pigment Print Edition Nº 2 of 9 Certificate of Origin Signed and Titled...Category
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- Chevalier André Leon Talley on the Pont Alexandre III, Paris, 30 June 2013By Jonathan BeckerLocated in New York, NYChevalier André Leon Talley on the Pont Alexandre III at six in the morning, Paris, 30 June 2013 Photographed by Jonathan Becker Contemporary 44" x ...Category
2010s Contemporary Portrait Photography
MaterialsArchival Pigment
- Jocelyne Wildenstein at home, New York, 11 January 1998By Jonathan BeckerLocated in New York, NYJocelyne Wildenstein at home, New York, 11 January 1998 It was all animal. The wilder, the better. The décor, the wallpaper, the sculpture and paintings, the trophies, the pets, t...Category
1980s Contemporary Portrait Photography
MaterialsArchival Pigment
- Hunter Thompson and Anita Bejmuk at home, Aspen, Colorado, 7 July 2002By Jonathan BeckerLocated in New York, NYHunter Thompson and Anita Bejmuk at home, Aspen, Colorado, 7 July 2002 X Photographed by Jonathan Becker Contemporary 18" x 18.5" Archival Pigment Pr...Category
Early 2000s Contemporary Portrait Photography
MaterialsArchival Pigment
- Martha Graham with Madonna & Calvin Klein at New York City Center, October 1990By Jonathan BeckerLocated in New York, NYMartha 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...Category
1990s Contemporary Portrait Photography
MaterialsPlatinum
- Gucci, Old Future - Erik Madigan Heck, Fashion, Woman, Portrait, PhotographyBy Erik Madigan HeckLocated in Zurich, CHERIK MADIGAN HECK (*1983, USA) Gucci, Old Future 2016 Chromogenic print Sheet 76.2 x 55.9 cm (30 x 22 in.) Frame 78.5 x 58 x 5 cm (30 7/8 x 22 7/8 x ...Category
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Price Upon RequestFree Shipping - Gucci, Old Future – Erik Madigan Heck, Abstract, Photography, Art, Fashion, LadyBy Erik Madigan HeckLocated in Zurich, CHErik MADIGAN HECK (*1983, United States) Gucci, Old Future, 2016 Chromogenic print Sheet 152.4 x 114.3 cm (60 x 45 in.) Frame 155x 117 x 5 cm (61 x 46 1/8 x 2 in.) Edition of 9, plus...Category
2010s Contemporary Color Photography
MaterialsC Print
Price Upon RequestFree Shipping - DahliasBy Cig HarveyLocated in Sante Fe, NMFrom the Series, You an Orchestra You a Bomb You an Orchestra You a Bomb explores the Cig Harvey’s relationship with life itself. It is a series about paying attention to and apprec...Category
2010s Contemporary Color Photography
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$2,500 - Scout & The ReflectionsBy Cig HarveyLocated in Sante Fe, NMYou an Orchestra You a Bomb explores the Cig Harvey’s relationship with life itself. It is a series about paying attention to and appreciating the fragile present. The series capture...Category
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MaterialsC Print
- Red Velvet FrameBy Cig HarveyLocated in Sante Fe, NMFrom the Series, You an Orchestra You a Bomb You an Orchestra You a Bomb explores the Cig Harvey’s relationship with life itself. It is a series about paying attention to and apprec...Category
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- Three BoysBy Cig HarveyLocated in Sante Fe, NMYou an Orchestra You a Bomb explores the photographer’s relationship with life itself. It is a series about paying attention to and appreciating the fragile present. You an Orchestra...Category
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MaterialsC Print