25th & Park is an exhibition that provides a glimpse inside the studio where, in the 1960s, the iconic New York photographer and director Jerry Schatzberg produced some of his most extraordinary portraits.
In 1957, a few steps from Fotografiska, Jerry Schatzberg set up his legendary studio at 333 Park Avenue South. These few blocks of Park Avenue South will hold an important place in the history of photography, pop music, fashion, film, theater, literature and 1960s New York in the United States. . The Schatzberg Studio became a living room for dozens of luminaries who were catapulted, thanks to Schatzberg’s lens, into icons of the time. Among them were Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Aretha Franklin, Sharon Tate, Catherine Deneuve and Carmen De Lavallade.
Schatzberg’s work on mid-century fashion and portraiture is not just reportage. It reveals a playful sensibility, a singular elegance, a touch of unpretentious humor drawn from Schatzberg’s childhood in the Bronx. They betray Schatzberg’s inextinguishable, almost maniacal search for glamour, for the glimmers that elevate the geniuses of his time out of their achievements and into an extraordinary pictorial ordinariness.
Jerry Schatzberg was born in the Bronx, New York, in 1927. After launching his career under the guidance of famed fashion photographer William Helburn, at age 28 Schatzberg established his own photography studio. His work has since been published in magazines VOGUE, McCall’s, Esquire, Glamour and LIFE and he photographed many of the leading artistic figures of the 1960s, including the Rolling Stones, Andy Warhol and Faye Dunaway. Schatzberg then began a career in film. In 1970, Schatzberg made his first feature film Puzzle of a Downfall Child which stars his former girlfriend Faye Dunaway. Schatzberg went on to direct over a dozen feature films, including The Panic in Needle Park in 1971 with Al Pacino, Scarecrow in 1973 with Gene Hackman and Pacino, and No Small Affair in 1984 with Demi Moore.
Schatzberg’s photographs have been exhibited at the Les Rencontres d’Arles Festival in France, the Victor & Albert Museum in London, the Domaine de Chamarande and the Brooklyn Museum in New York. His photography books include Thin Wild Mercury: Touching Dylan’s Edge (2006), Paris 1962: Yves Saint Laurent and Dior (2008), Women then: Photographs 1954-1969 (2010) and Dylan by Schatzberg (2018).
This exhibition is organized by Grace Noh of Fotografiska New York in collaboration with the artist, Claire Dunn, director of the archives of Jerry Schatzberg Archive, and Giovanni Gutierrez, assistant to the artist. Text by Carlos Valladares.
Jerry Schatzberg : 25th & Park
January 14 – March 5, 2022
Photographic New York
281 Park Ave S, New York, NY 10010
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