Michael Godard

Kevin Westenberg is famed - for his creation of provocative and electrifying images of world-class musicians, artists and movie stars for over 25 years. His technique of lighting, color and composition has helped to produce his own unique visual style. Shortly after receiving an architecture degree, Westenberg moved to London where he’s been based since 1983. Westenberg is self-taught and learned his trade working for the UK inkies New Musical Express and Melody Maker mainly throughout the late 80s and 90s documenting amongst others all the UK ‘Britpop’ bands. The breakthrough came in 1993–94 with the release of Sting’s Ten Summoner’s Tales and Mary J Blige’s Share My World. These two album covers changed the perception of the work worldwide and thus began a run of 20 years of commissions and choice opportunities. For the last 25 years, his musical heritage includes portraits of Radiohead, Thom Yorke, Coldplay, White Stripes, Jane's Addiction, Sting, Bjork, Nirvana, Jeff Buckley, Luther Vandross, Nine Inch Nails, Stone Roses, The Pixies, Paul Weller, Rufus Wainwright, Michael Stipe, U2, Mary J. Blige, R.E.M., Black Sabbath, Massive Attack, BB King, The Rolling Stones, PJ Harvey, Marilyn Manson, Pete Doherty, Oasis, Soundgarden, Jake Bugg and Bon Jovi among many others. Also included are 100’s of albums, singles, magazine and book covers from around the world. He’s also been chosen as an official photographer for the LIVE 8 Hyde Park event in 2005 and for Led Zeppelin reunion concert at the 02 Arena, London. The work and interest also include a wide range of artists portraits beyond the music world. David Lynch, Paul Auster, The Coen Brothers, Rupert Friend, Sir Tom Stoppard, Orla Kiely, Vincent Cassel, Audrey Tautou, Billy Bob Thornton, Ethan Hawke, Alan Rickman, Daniel Bruhl, Sean Penn, Shirley Henderson, Aaron Eckhart, Robin Wright, Rhys Ifans, Frances McDormand, Jean-Luc Godard, Ray Winstone, Michel Gondry and Naomi Watts are amongst these portraits. Rolling Stone, Spin, Q, Time Out, Les Inrockuptibles, Vogue, Rockin On Japan, Esquire, New York Times Magazine, Telegraph and Observer Magazines, Interview and dozens of others around the world have commissioned him. In the last 15 years, he’s been a staff photographer at MOJO Magazine, producing many covers and features. Most recently photographing Sir Paul McCartney for the cover story of the November 2013 issue. Westenberg’s biggest honor to date arrived in 2012, when he had his first major global museum show. The location was the ‘Kobe Fashion Museum’, one of Japan’s largest museums. The whole museum was dedicated to Westenberg’s works for a 3 month period. Over 70 images were included in a wide range of sizes, styles and presentation. The catalog produced sold out during the exhibition’s run. The 20-year attendance record for the museum was also broken by the exhibition.

The first decades of the 20th century were a period of artistic upheaval, with modern art movements including Cubism, Surrealism, Futurism and Dadaism questioning centuries of traditional views of what art should be. Using abstraction, experimental forms and interdisciplinary techniques, painters, sculptors, photographers, printmakers and performance artists all pushed the boundaries of creative expression.

Major exhibitions, like the 1913 Armory Show in New York City — also known as the “International Exhibition of Modern Art,” in which works like the radically angular Nude Descending a Staircase by Marcel Duchamp caused a sensation — challenged the perspective of viewers and critics and heralded the arrival of modern art in the United States. But the movement’s revolutionary spirit took shape in the 19th century.

The Industrial Revolution, which ushered in new technology and cultural conditions across the world, transformed art from something mostly commissioned by the wealthy or the church to work that responded to personal experiences. The Impressionist style emerged in 1860s France with artists like Claude Monet, Paul Cézanne and Edgar Degas quickly painting works that captured moments of light and urban life. Around the same time in England, the Pre-Raphaelites, like Edward Burne-Jones and Dante Gabriel Rossetti, borrowed from late medieval and early Renaissance art to imbue their art with symbolism and modern ideas of beauty.

Emerging from this disruption of the artistic status quo, modern art went further in rejecting conventions and embracing innovation. The bold legacy of leading modern artists Georges Braque, Pablo Picasso, Frida Kahlo, Salvador Dalí, Henri Matisse, Joan Miró, Marc Chagall, Piet Mondrian and many others continues to inform visual culture today.

Find a collection of modern paintings, sculptures, prints and other fine art on 1stDibs.

Find a broad range of photography on 1stDibs today.

The first permanent image created by a camera — which materialized during the 1820s — is attributed to Joseph Nicéphore Niépce. The French inventor was on to something for sure. Kodak introduced roll film in the 1880s, allowing photography to become more democratic, although cameras wouldn’t be universally accessible until several decades later. 

Digital photographic techniques, software, smartphone cameras and social-networking platforms such as Instagram have made it even easier in the modern era for budding photographers to capture the world around them as well as disseminate their images far and wide. 

What might leading figures of visual art such as Andy Warhol have done with these tools at their disposal?

Today, when we aren’t looking at the digital photos that inundate us on our phones, we look to the past to celebrate the photographers who have broken rules as well as records — provocative and prolific artists like Horst P. Horst, Lillian Bassman and Helmut Newton, who altered the face of fashion and portrait photography; visionary documentary photographers such as Gordon Parks, whose best-known work was guided by social justice; and pioneers of street photography such as Henri Cartier-Bresson, who shot for revolutionary travel magazines like Holiday with the likes of globetrotting society lensman Slim Aarons.

Find photographers you may not know in Introspective and The Study — where you’ll read about Berenice Abbott, who positioned herself atop skyscrapers for the perfect shot, or “conceptual artist-adventurer” Charles Lindsay, whose work combines scientific rigor with artistic expression, or Massimo Listri, known for his epic interiors of opulent Old World libraries. Photographer Jeannette Montgomery Barron was given a Kodak camera as a child. Later, she shot on Polaroid film before buying her first 35mm camera in her teens. Barron's stunning portraits of Jean-Michel Basquiat, Warhol and other artists chronicle a crucial chapter of New York’s cultural history.

Throughout the past two centuries, photographers have used their medium to create expressive work that has resonated for generations. Shop a voluminous collection of this powerful fine photography on 1stDibs. Search by photographer to find the perfect piece for your living room wall, or spend some time with the work organized under various categories, such as landscape photography, nude photography and more.