Steve Schapiro: Then And Now at Kunsthalle Rostock

Muhammad Ali, Monopoly, Louisville, Kentucky from the book Steve Schapiro: Then and Now © 2012 Steve Schapiro

Via Le Journal de la Photographie


Steve Schapiro is the photographer behind countless now-classic portraits of rock stars, film stars and politicians from the 1960s and 70s. He is also an accomplished documentary photographer who recorded many of the greatest political and social upheavals of our times. While working as a 'special photographer' for the film studios, he designed several iconic film posters, most notably for Midnight Cowboy, Taxi Driver and The Godfather III. His extraordinary access has been the hallmark of an illustrious career.

Slideshow here

A retrospective of Schapiro's work opens at the Kunsthalle Rostock, Museum of Modern Art in Germany is on view until May 5, 2013. The show, which is curated by Dr. Ulrick Ptak, presents 160 photographs, many of them recently published for the first time in Schapiro's critically acclaimed retrospective Steve Schapiro: Then and Now (Hatje Cantz). The exhibition and companion book look back at Schapiro's diverse half-century career spanning 1961 to 2011. They portray the celebrities and politicians who shaped a generation, as well as new and unseen documentary work focusing on the marginalized and unidentified people on the street.

Then and Now includes whimsical portraits of the stars: Robert De Niro in full Taxi Driver combat costume, posed in front of his cab with a Mohican and an improbably chirpy smile; Jack Nicholson, nose bandaged, tongue out at the camera on the set of Chinatown; and Marlon Brando, grinning with theatrical devilishness while being made up for The Godfather.

Also gathered are portraits that include artists René Magritte, Nico, and Andy Warhol; film directors Robert Altman, Woody Allen, Francis Ford Coppola, and Martin Scorcese; film stars Drew Barrymore, Mia Farrow, Jodie Foster, Dustin Hoffman, Sophia Loren, Paul Newman and Robert Redford; and musicians David Bowie, Ray Charles, Simon and Garfunkel, Diana Ross, Ringo Starr, Frank Sinatra, Barbara Streisand, and Ike and Tina Turner.

When Schapiro started shooting in the sixties, it was the golden age of photojournalism. Schapiro's extensive work in this genre include his depiction of migrant workers in Arkansas, drug addicts in East Harlem, freedom bus riders, the Selma March to Montgomery, Alabama with Martin Luther King, Jr., and presidential campaigns, most notably that of Robert F. Kennedy. Among his most striking works is a triptych that presents photographs Schapiro took in Memphis in 1968 the day after the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. while on assignment for Life. Schapiro was the only photographer to capture the ominous handprint of King's assassin on the wall above the bathtub in the boarding house bathroom from where the fatal shot was fired.

The thread that connects all of Schapiro's photographs is his humanistic approach to his work. Whether shooting a celebrity or an anonymous person he is searching for that iconic moment. In his essay in the book, curator and author Matthias Harder writes that Schapiro's work reflects "the spirit of the times. It is not only his famous individual photos and groups of works from his engagement with Hollywood that ensure him a firm place in the history of photography of the twentieth and twenty first centuries, but also the diversity of his subjects and the sovereign, continuing mastery of them over such a long period of time."

Born and raised in New York City, Steve Schapiro started taking photographs at age ten while at summer camp. He attended Amherst College and graduated from Bard College, and studied photography with the legendary W. Eugene Smith. As a budding photographer, he got an early break: an assignment from Life magazine. He has never stopped working since. His work has been published in prestigious magazines and on numerous covers around the world, including Life, Look, Vanity Fair, Paris Match, People, and Rolling Stone. Schapiro's photographs were included in the Metropolitan Museum of Art's 1968 exhibition Harlem On My Mind. His work can be found in the collections of the Smithsonian, The High Museum of Art, and the National Portrait Gallery. Schapiro's recent solo shows were in Los Angeles, Amsterdam, London and Paris. The Fotografiska Museum in Stockholm, Sweden presented a retrospective of his work in the spring of 2012. An exhibition of his work entitled Schapiro: Living America opened at the Center for Photography Lumiere Brothers, Moscow in the fall of 2012, and included 180 images.


Exhibition
Steve Schapiro: Then And Now
From March 24th to May 5th, 2013
Kunsthalle Rostock
Hamburger Strasse 40
D-18069 Rostock
Germany
Telephone: 0049 381 7000

Book
Steve Schapiro: Then And Now
ISBN: 97837757344264
Hbk, 9.75 x 12.25 inches
240 pages; 174 photographs
(128 black & white; 46 color)
$70 US

LA Times: Steve Schapiro's photos in 'Then and Now' offer a mix of emotions

Marlon Brando in a makeup session for "The Godfather" in New York, 1971      

©Steve Schapiro

 The photographer's book features candid Hollywood portraits alongside everyday images.

Via The Los Angeles Times
By Liesl Bradner

February 24, 2013

 

When photographer Steve Schapiro first arrived on the Lower East Side set of "The Godfather" in 1971, there were rumors floating around that Marlon Brando was not well. Moving closer to the action, he noticed an old man in an overcoat and hat talking to an assistant director with this gravelly, sick voice. The rumors must be true, he thought.

"Suddenly," Schapiro recalled, "Brando turns to the crowd with this enormous electricity shooting out of his eyes and in his best 'On the Waterfront' accent said, 'I think there's someone with a camera out there.'" That stunning transformation was just one of many Oscar-worthy moments Schapiro has witnessed in his 50-year career working on the sets of such groundbreaking films as "Taxi Driver," "Midnight Cowboy" and "Chinatown."

In "Steve Schapiro: Then and Now" (Hatje Cantz) the 78-year-old pairs candid photos and portraits of Hollywood celebrities alongside artists, musicians, civil rights activists and everyday people taken from the 1960s through 2011.

"I see a lot of celebrity books that don't excite me because they're just portraits," said Schapiro on a call from his Chicago studio. "We wanted to bring pictures together that work against each other or with each other by interjecting things which weren't necessarily film-related." For example, Jane Fonda clad in aerobics attire at the height of her fitness craze juxtaposed next to sumo wrestlers in Chicago in 2010 or Dustin Hoffman in a midair jump placed next to Roman Polanski in a flying-nun pose from 1968.

Of the nearly 150 photos, only 12 pictures have been published before, quite extraordinary for a photographer who has worked on more than 200 films and created 100 movie posters. The list of famous faces he's photographed reads like a history of the Academy Awards: Francis Ford Coppola, Jodie Foster, Sophia Loren, Martin Scorsese and nominee Robert De Niro, up for his third golden statuette at Sunday's ceremony.

Whether it's a candid between-scenes shot or an intimate picture in the comfort of home, Schapiro's aim is to capture the spirit and sense of his subject. "I try to be a fly on the wall as much as possible," he said. "For me emotion is the strongest quality in a picture."

One of the more interesting discoveries he made was an unearthed negative of a young Muhammad Ali (then known as Cassius Clay) meeting his future wife Lonnie for the first time in 1963. On assignment for Sports Illustrated, the black-and-white image Schapiro shot reveals a shy, ponytailed 6-year-old girl, just one of a gaggle of neighborhood kids hanging out on the stoop with Ali outside his parent's house in Kentucky.

Growing up in Brooklyn, Schapiro was influenced by Henri Cartier-Bresson and studied under W. Eugene Smith. He began as a photojournalist during the turbulent '60s. After photo-centric publications such as Life and Look folded in the early '70s he turned to film, working as a special photographer, an industry term for a contractor hired for publicity and marketing. His photograph of Mia Farrow from "The Great Gatsby" was on the first cover of People magazine

Photojournalist Steve Schapiro's Contrasting Life

Steve Schapiro: Martin Luther King Marching for Voting Rights with John Lewis, Reverend Jesse Douglas, James Forman and Ralph Abernathy, Selma, 1965


Via CNN

December 12, 2012

Photographer Steve Schapiro's five decade career of classic photos displayed in new book, ‘Then and Now’

During his five-decade career, photographer Steve Schapiro likes to say he has photographed everything from presidents to poodles. Schapiro has captured the special moments of rock stars, film stars and politicians of the 60's and '70's as well as photos of migrant workers and the Selma March with Martin Luther King. In his new photobook "Then and Now" Schapiro compiles some of his best and most iconic images. The book contains more than 170 photos – some of which have never been published before. He joins “Stating Point” this morning to discuss some of his most iconic photos and his new book.

Video link here.
 

Schapiro says it has always interested him, “to capture all the different elements that make up our country.” He tells the story behind him capturing an iconic photo of Actor Marlon Brando when he was hired to photograph “The Godfather.” Schapiro says, “Brando let me photograph his makeup session… and in the middle of it he just gave me this wonderful look which luckily I caught.” Reminiscing on a picture he took of Actor Dustin Hoffman leaping in a narrow hallway he says, “[Dustin] is a delight. He is a delight on and off camera. He just has such spirit and you know such wonderful feeling and humor all the time…This was just a moment after they had been feeling and it just was a spontaneous event.”

Schapiro admits that he always wanted to be a “Life Magazine” photographer and “one of the things that interested [him] was the migrant worker situation in America.” He talks about his very first story where he spent four weeks documenting the lives of the migrant workers through his photos and an essay and reflects on one particular photo of a cabin wall where a child once wrote “I love anybody who loves me".

Steve Schapiro Talks Photography: Then and Now

Steve Schapiro: Martin Luther King, Alabama, 1965

Via Women's wear Daily

By Susan Stone
November 26, 2012


“I still haven’t done my best photograph, in my mind, at this point. I’m still looking for a photograph which I really feel has lasting quality,” insisted Schapiro, sitting down for a chat at Berlin’s CWC Gallery, the city’s newest outpost of Camera Work. Surrounded by glass-framed photos from his long and varied career — a Factory party with Edie, Andy and the gang, Muhammad Ali shirtless and playing Monopoly, Barbra Streisand in perfect profile — he paged through his latest book “Then and Now,” published by Hatje Cantz.

The book, which recently launched in Germany and is scheduled for a Friday release in the U.S., includes many never-before-seen images from Schapiro’s archives of journalistic work, celebrity portraits and movie-set shoots, as well as some of his recent forays into digital photography. The 50 years’ worth of pictures reveal incredible access and intimate insights.

As a freelance photojournalist in the Sixties, Shapiro worked for the magazines Life and Look, and later shot the first cover for People. His photos hang in the halls of the Smithsonian and Atlanta’s High Museum of Art and feature in countless private collections and galleries, as well as several books. Many of his pictures are powered by that undefinable, invaluable quality that propels so many notables to the top — charisma. Schapiro says it’s not always evident at first glance, citing a shoot with a famous top model as an example.

“We were going to photograph her, and we’re in the Grand Canyon, and we’re driving to it. And she’s, like, incredibly famous. And I’m looking in the [rearview] mirror and I’m saying, ‘This is isn’t going to work at all,’” he says, recalling a shoot with Christie Brinkley. “And the moment we started shooting, it was perfect. So you can’t always tell.”

What is evident is that his images also have a cinematic quality, so he was a natural to take behind-the-scenes portraits on some of the great films, including “Taxi Driver,” “Midnight Cowboy” and “The Godfather.” But whether on the streets or film shoots, he says he wasn’t always aware of when he had a hit in his lens, or that his mountains of daily work would end up as collectibles.

“Basically, this little guy took all these pictures, and now I have them. This little guy was a workaholic, which was great. Because he left me all this stuff,” laughs Schapiro.

The once brightly colored but now fading orange band on Schapiro’s wrist proves that the little guy is still working hard. It’s from the Beloved sacred art and music festival in Oregon, one of the venues he’s visited for his current book project called “Bliss.” Together with his son, who is keenly spiritual, Schapiro is making the rounds of such events internationally, camping in tents and snapping participants reveling in the music and community, for the work in progress. This veteran of several youthquakes says there’s something missing in the current generation of seekers compared with those of the Sixties. “You were very much aware of what was happening in the world. And I would say that in terms of this grouping, there’s less interest in the outside world entirely,” he muses, noting a lack of interest in politics as well.

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For a man known for his poignant photos of Dr. King and Robert F. Kennedy, politics are still important, but politicians of today hold little appeal, nor do contemporary celebrities whose schedules and speech are highly controlled by publicists, Schapiro says. Once, he spent days or even weeks with his subjects, building relationships that developed into great photos. Now, he says, “if it’s not a cover, you probably spend two hours, and people have to keep changing their clothes every 15 minutes so that it looks in print as if you’ve been with them a long period of time. And you have usually a handler sitting there saying, ‘Oh no, wait a minute, I have to fix your hair — no you can’t put a cigarette — no cigarettes,’” he says, dropping his voice into an intent whisper to imitate the commentary of an intent p.r. agent.

Turning to review the famous faces he’s captured and the moments he’s frozen forever in black and white, he says he can’t really explain what makes a photograph have lasting power. It could be an emotional quality or an intuitive feeling or immaculate design. “Certain pictures get better with time.”


Related:  Steve Schapiro, Then and Now: Rare Images from a Photography Legend

STEVE SCHAPIRO: "“I don’t think I’ve yet taken my most important photograph"

 

Barbra Streisand, 1970. 'We shot this at her house in Malibu. She has extremely good taste and strong ideas about how pictures should be.'

Photo: Steve Schapiro

 Via The Telegraph


Steve Schapiro: access all areas


How did photographer Steve Schapiro go from documenting the lives of drug addicts and immigrants to spending months trailing Hollywood’s biggest stars? ‘I was quiet and polite,’ he tells Lucy Davies

Steve Schapiro learnt not to be intimidated by fame at an early age. As a teenager, long before he became a fixture of film sets and rock star mansions, Schapiro was determined to become “the world’s greatest novelist”. So he enrolled at Bard College in upstate New York, where he had tutorials with author Saul Bellow; they walked in the woods together, discussing Dostoevsky. But after a five-week sojourn in Paris and Spain working through the night on a novel, he realised there were “only four good pages in the whole thing. It was at that point I took up photography.”

Until then, it had been his hobby – something to do on holiday. He had a small, Bakelite camera called an Argoflex that he sometimes took outside on the streets near his home in the Bronx. “It seemed to me that the best thing you could do was work for Life magazine, so I began my own projects that were similar to the things they published – drug addicts in East Harlem, Haight Ashbury. I would keep going back to Life every few weeks to persuade them to hire me.”

In 1959, his story on migrant workers in Arkansas was picked up by a small magazine called Jubilee: “The New York Times saw it and asked if they could use one on their cover. It was really a terrific moment for someone just starting out.”

Life finally commissioned him – a portrait of Patrick Dennis, author of hit comic novel Auntie Mame. “I’d heard that Life photographers liked to photograph people in a bathtub – I don’t think it was necessarily true – but I brought along some bubble bath and persuaded him to do it. It ran full page.” The rest of the pack followed suit: Look, Time, Newsweek, Rolling Stone.

“Even though I was in my twenties, I looked about 16, and I was quiet and polite. Everyone liked me. I travelled with Bobby Kennedy, I photographed the Selma March with Martin Luther King. I did Andy Warhol in The Factory and Muhammad Ali. I never knew where I would be in two days because I was always on the plane.”

Alongside the political stories he was making his name on the entertainment pages. His photograph of Dustin Hoffman for Look became the logo for Midnight Cowboy, then Otto Preminger hired him to take the onset photographs for The Cardinal, which was nominated for six Academy Awards.

While working on the lots he heard that Marlon Brando was going to be in Paramount’s forthcoming production of The Godfather. “At the time Brando was the top actor, so I went to Life and I got them to guarantee a cover, which they never do – they wouldn’t even do it for Frank Sinatra. I went back to Paramount and, of course, they agreed. I ended up working on the entire film.” Schapiro’s shots of Brando, Pacino et al are now classics of still photography. Everybody saw them, and everybody wanted Schapiro to photograph them. At the time it wasn’t unusual for him to spend four days, even six months, with a personality, one-to-one. “It often seemed we were the best of friends,” he says.

The only person he found difficult was Charles Bronson: “very brash”. Generally, though, his shoots were amiable collaborations. “For me there’s no difference between photographing a celebrity and a migrant worker. You’re always looking for a picture with emotion, design and information. I leave a lot of room for self-expression. I want my subjects to be themselves, and then I quietly pounce.”

Now 78, Schapiro lives in Chicago with his wife and youngest son. He continues to photograph and recently worked with his son on a photo story about the ageing hippie generation. “I don’t think I’ve yet taken my most important photograph,” he says. “I’m happy with many of the images. But I always look to the future.”

‘Steve Schapiro: Then and Now’ (Hatje Cantz, RRP £55) is available to order from Telegraph Books at £50 plus £1.35 p&p. Call 0844 871 1516 or visit books.telegraph.co.uk

This article also appeared in SEVEN magazine, free with the Sunday Telegraph. Follow us on Twitter @TelegraphSeven