Featuring the work of some 25 photographers, this exhibit offers an intimate view into the lives of the 20th Century’s most famous and influential personages. Curator Milton Ellenbogen has assembled rare candid photographs and exquisite studio portraits of such prominent figures as Marilyn Monroe, Louis Armstrong, Frank Lloyd Wright and Spike Lee.
ArtsWestchester’s second floor Shenkman Gallery will highlight Allen Tannenbaum’s intimate portraits of John Lennon and Yoko Ono. Tannenbaum photographed the couple in the fall of 1980, for the SoHo Weekly News. Ten days later, Lennon was shot outside his New York apartment. As the last photos of the couple together, Tannenbaum’s prints are treasured images of a timeless icon.
Born in Passaic, New Jersey, in 1945, Allen Tannenbaum has been photographing since the 1960s. He received a B.A. in Art from Rutgers University in 1967, where he photographed and made films for his art courses. He made films as a graduate student at San Francisco State College and as an independent filmmaker in New York. Gravitating to the nascent art scene in the SoHo district of Manhattan, Tannenbaum worked as a taxi driver and bartender while looking for work as a photographer. When the SoHo Weekly News commenced publication in 1973, Tannenbaum became the Photo Editor and Chief Photographer. The newspaper started out as an eight-page free paper, but soon became a popular newsstand seller that rivaled the established Village Voice. Tannenbaum relentlessly covered the art world, music scene, politics, show business, and nightlife. This lasted until 1982 when the SoHo News folded. The high point of this period was photographing John Lennon and Yoko Ono for the paper — the low point was the murder of John Lennon 10 days later.
While working for the SoHo News, Tannenbaum also freelanced for magazines such as Newsweek and New York Magazine. He also syndicated his SoHo News photos to newspapers, magazines, and photo agencies. Upon the demise of the SoHo News, Tannenbaum joined the renowned Sygma Photo News as a Staff Photographer. He began covering national and international stories of historical importance. He has covered, among many international news events, the Philippine Revolution, the Karenni rebellion in Burma, the Palestinian Intifada, violent demonstrations in Korea, the siege of Kabul, German reunification, the situation in Northern Ireland, Operation Desert Storm in Kuwait and Iraq, the Gulf Crisis in 1998 from the nuclear carrier U.S.S. George Washington in the Persian Gulf, and the Rwandan refugee crisis. He won a first prize in Spot New Stories at the World Press Photo competition in 1989 for his coverage of the Intifada. His work has appeared in many photo books and exhibitions, as well as appearing regularly in NEWSWEEK, TIME, LIFE, ROLLING STONE, PARIS MATCH, and STERN. His photographs have graced the covers of TIME three times, and NEWSWEEK five times.
In 2003, a German publisher, Feierabend Verlag, published New York in the 70s, Tannenbaum’s first book based on his photographs from the SoHo News era. The book received critical acclaim and the first printing sold out. Today it is a prized collector’s item, and a new edition published by Overlook Press was published in April, 2009. A second book of New York City photos, from the ‘80s, ‘90s, and right up to July 4th, 2004, titled New York, was published in 2005. His third book, John & Yoko: A New York Love Story, based on his intimate photographs of John Lennon and Yoko Ono, was just published in October 2007 by Insight Editions. American Photo Magazine named it one of the ten best photography books of 2007. It was a Gold Medal winner in the 2008 Independent Book Publisher Awards.
Celebrities: We Remember them Well
Friday September 21, 2012 – Wednesday January 2, 2013
ArtsWestchester
31 Mamaroneck Ave
White Plains, NY 10601
USA
T : 914-428-4220
