Art Kane (1925-1995) was one of the most influential photographers of the twentieth century. A bold visionary, Kane’s work encompassed fashion, editorial, celebrity portraiture, travel, and nudes with a relentless and innovative eye.
Of that handful of elite post - WWII photographers, Art Kane was the wild child: unflinching, uncompromising and unsentimental. A pioneer of numerous concepts in modern photography, Kane was only interested in what could happen next, how to evolve, to change, to do it better, and to accept nothing less than brilliance.
After graduating from Cooper Union with honors in 1950 Kane designed page layouts at Esquire and at age 27 was named art director at Seventeen, the youngest art director of a major magazine in New York City. In 1956 he studied with Alexey Brodovitch at The New School, where other students included Richard Avedon, Irving Penn and Diane Arbus. As a disciple of Brodovitch’s Art Kane learned to worship the unknown.
Thirty years before Photoshop and digital imaging, armed only with a light table and a loupe, Kane invented the ‘sandwich’ image; two, four, and more transparencies layered, inverted, reversed, book-matched, painstakingly aligned, and taped together at the edges. In perfecting this technique, Kane pioneered photographic storytelling by investing his images with metaphor and poetry, effectively turning photography into illustration.
In 1958, Kane assembled the greatest legends in jazz and shot what became one of his most famous images, Harlem 1958. In the 1960s and 1970s, he photographed, among others, the Rolling Stones, the Who, Janis Joplin, the Doors, Aretha Franklin and Bob Dylan.
(Photos © Art Kane)
Of that handful of elite post - WWII photographers, Art Kane was the wild child: unflinching, uncompromising and unsentimental. A pioneer of numerous concepts in modern photography, Kane was only interested in what could happen next, how to evolve, to change, to do it better, and to accept nothing less than brilliance.
After graduating from Cooper Union with honors in 1950 Kane designed page layouts at Esquire and at age 27 was named art director at Seventeen, the youngest art director of a major magazine in New York City. In 1956 he studied with Alexey Brodovitch at The New School, where other students included Richard Avedon, Irving Penn and Diane Arbus. As a disciple of Brodovitch’s Art Kane learned to worship the unknown.
Thirty years before Photoshop and digital imaging, armed only with a light table and a loupe, Kane invented the ‘sandwich’ image; two, four, and more transparencies layered, inverted, reversed, book-matched, painstakingly aligned, and taped together at the edges. In perfecting this technique, Kane pioneered photographic storytelling by investing his images with metaphor and poetry, effectively turning photography into illustration.
In 1958, Kane assembled the greatest legends in jazz and shot what became one of his most famous images, Harlem 1958. In the 1960s and 1970s, he photographed, among others, the Rolling Stones, the Who, Janis Joplin, the Doors, Aretha Franklin and Bob Dylan.
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| Cream, 1968 |
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| Keith Richards, 1966 |
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| Brian Jones, 1966 |
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| Andy Warhol, 1962 |
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| Janis Joplin, 1968 |
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| Louis Armstrong, 1958 |
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| The Doors, 1968 |
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| Johnny Winter, 1978 |
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| Aretha Franklin, 1967 |
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| Jim Morrison, 1968 |
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| Veruschka, 1963 |
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| The Rolling Stones, 1966 |
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| Mick Jagger 1966 |
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| Pete Townshead, 1968 |
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| Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention, 1968 |
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| Jefferson Airplane, 1968 |
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| Bob Dylan, 1966 |
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| Lenny Bruce |
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| Tim Curry 1981 |
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| The Who,1968 |
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| Sonny and Cher, 1966 |
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| 'Who Killed Davey Moore?' 1970 |
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| Ali MacGraw, 1969 |
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| Joe Louis, 1962 |
(Photos © Art Kane)
I like how Kane plays with angles.
ReplyDeleteThe Zappa one is funny -- half the babies look sleepy, the other half look displeased!
I was there; pretty rough crowd as I remember it.... (GREAT Show though!).
ReplyDeletePhoto caption have exited as old as photos have. But to try an attempt a twist in the tale is a recent phenomenon in a blog titled The Itinerant Poet by Aditya Sharma. The blog tries to re-imagine the concept of photo captions through poetry and phrases. So each photograph in the blog comes along with a poetic phrase, and it completely provokes you to look at the photo in a totally different manner. check it out! its new but surely a great read.
ReplyDeletetheitinerantpoet.blogspot.in
Does it occur to anyone else that the people in these photos actually look MORE modern (in their own way) than most of us today??
ReplyDeleteit wasn't that long ago.
ReplyDelete