A Very Cool Valentine's Day

Sid Avery: Stars of "Oceans 11" Stage a Fight, 1960

Santa Fe--Monroe Gallery of Photography, 112 Don Gaspar, is pleased to present “When Cool Was King”, an exhibition featuring photographs from a time when cool reigned supreme. The exhibition opens with a public reception on Valentine's Day, Friday, February 14, from 5 - 7, and continues through April 20.

In their book "COOL: An Anatomy of an Attitude", Dick Pountain and David Robins ask "So what exactly is Cool? That is a difficult question to answer. Is it a philosophy, a sensibility, a religion, an ideology, a personality type, a behavior pattern, an attitude, a worldview?" The exhibition does not attempt to answer that question, but simply accepts Cool as a phenomenon that we can recognize when we see it.

Concurrently, an exhibition at The National Portrait Gallery, "American Cool", asks: "What do we mean when we say someone is cool? Cool carries a social charge of rebellious self-expression, charisma, edge and mystery."

The exhibition featuring portraits of iconic figures of Cool, such as: Steve McQueen, James Dean, Andy Warhol, the Rat Pack, 1960's-era Rolling Stones, the Beatles, Marianne Faithful, Nico and the Velvet Underground, Elvis Presley, each of whom has contributed an original artistic vision to American culture symbolic of a particular historical moment.

See the exhibit on-line here.

Steve McQueen: Unpublished Photos of the King of Cool

 John Dominis/Time Inc.: At his home in Palm Springs, McQueen practices his aim before heading out for a shooting session in the desert

Via Life.com


In the spring of 1963, Steve McQueen was on the brink of superstardom, already popular from his big-screen breakout as one of The Magnificent Seven and just a couple months away from entering the Badass Hall of Fame with the release of The Great Escape.

Intrigued by his dramatic backstory and his off-screen exploits — McQueen was a reformed delinquent who got his thrills racing cars and motorcycles — LIFE sent the great photographer John Dominis to California to hang out with the 33-year-old actor and, in effect, see what he could get.

Three weeks and more than 40 rolls of film later, Dominis had captured some astonishingly intimate and now-iconic images — photos impossible to imagine in today’s utterly restricted-access celebrity universe. Only a handful of those photos were ever published. Here, LIFE.com presents a series of previously unpublished gems from what Dominis would look back on as one of his favorite assignments, along with insights about the time he spent with the man who would soon don the mantle, “the King of Cool.”

Full slide show here.

Happy Birthday Steve McQueen

John Domins: Steve McQueen aims a pistol

Steve McQueen would be 82 today.

"Racing is life....everything before and after is just waiting."

La Lettre de la Photographie: Steve McQueen by John Dominis


See John Dominis' photographs of Steve McQueen at the AIPAD Photography Show, Monroe gallery of Photography, booth #419.