American Legends by Lawrence Schiller - Preview
Preview by Jack Foley
FILM and music fans – or, indeed, anyone interested in iconic photography – should head to Asprey, in London’s New Bond Street, for an exhibition entitled American Legends.
The exhibition features the work of Lawrence Schiller, a photojournalist, director, producer and writer, whose work extends to some of the greatest names in American history.
Some of the images may be well-known, such as a topless Marilyn Monroe laughing while bathing by the side of a swimming pool, as taken in California in 1962. According to Schiller, the photo was taken not long after Monroe had lost a baby, when she was depressed.
But ever the professional, she conceived the idea of jumping into a pool with a bathing suit on and coming back out with nothing on. It’s a beautiful black and white photo.
Memorable, too, is a shot of the late Paul Newman with Robert Redford playing table tennis on the set of Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid. Schiller, for the record, directed the still montage sequence in the film, when the iconic cowboys move from the West to Bolivia – but the photo in the exhibition is an off-set moment, with the two topless hunks clearly enjoying their game.
Elsewhere, Dennis Hopper features in a great colour photo, walking in the desert holding a machine gun, while there are equally memorable non-film photos, such as the Jackson Five frolicking on a Californian beach, Robert Kennedy on his last campaign trail (asleep on an airplane), and Richard Nixon with his wife, Pat, conceding the election to John F Kennedy in Los Angeles, in 1960.
Schiller was born in 1936 in Brooklyn and grew up in San Diego. After attending Pepperdine College, he went to work for Life Magazine, The London Times, Stern and The Saturday Evening Post as a photojournalist. He published his first book, LSD, in 1966.
Since then he has published 11 books, including W. Eugene Smiths’s Minamata and Norman Mailer’s Marilyn. He also collaborated with Albert Goldman on Ladies and Gentlemen, Lenny Bruce and with Norman Mailer on The Executioner’s Song and Oswald’s Tale and wrote the No.1 New York Times bestseller American Tragedy.
He has directed and produced seven motion pictures and mini-series for television; The Executioners Song and Peter The Great won six Emmys and his editorial direction on The Man Who Skied Down Everest won an Academy Award for its producers.
American Legends runs fron January 14 to February 13, 2009, at Asprey. Call 020 7493 6767 for more information.