Jerry Schatzberg deserves your applause, ladies and gentlemen, for a variety of things.
Beginning with a career as a noted fashion photographer shooting for magazines such as Vogue, Esquire, and Glamour, moving into celebrity portraiture with notable imagery of The Rolling Stones in drag and Bob Dylan on the cover of “Blonde on Blonde’” and then jumping into filmmaking with a young Al Pacino in the award winning “Panic in Needle Park,” he has also earned a pat on the back for having made it to 98 years old (he’ll be 99 in a couple of weeks).
Schatzberg was having a fabulous time at the Ki Smith Gallery on the Lower East Side last week, where he is a significant part of a group effort titled “Edie 66.” The show is based on the fascinating, and tragic, Warhol superstar Edie Sedgwick, who was only 23 in 1966. The show also includes work by Warhol’s indispensable assistant Gerard Malanga, photographer Adam Ritchie and Warhol himself.
Sedgwick, who would die in 1971 at just 28 years of age, was mostly famous for being famous — facilitated by Warhol’s having adopted her as a muse, but fading from the scene when the artist ended their partnership later that year.
“I was friends with her; she was so open and friendly and wonderful,” Schatzberg recalls. “And I knew Andy, but I didn’t hang out with him. I ran into him in the street and told him that I was going to do a session with Edie. He didn’t like that – I didn’t realize that I was stepping on his toes, he acted like she was his property.”
After Schatzberg got back to the studio, he recalls, Warhol called, wanting to watch the photo session with his friend, another photographer. He agrees, and Warhol shows up, and then more people arrive, until “there were about 40 people in the studio!” Warhol proceeded to take pictures of Schatzberg shooting (the images that are in this show) while the other photographer shot Warhol shooting Schatzberg.
“At one point, I heard his assistant, Bobby Neuwirth say, ‘But, Andy, there’s no film in the camera.’ And he said, ‘Oh, it doesn’t matter.’ He didn’t really care. He was there just to see what was going on,” Schatzberg says.
With the historic shoot over and their audience gone, the model and her photographer headed up to Harlem to see a concert. Yes, Jerry Schatzberg escorted Edie Sedgwick to see Otis Redding at the Apollo. “It was a great show !” he says, and we have no doubt.
Gallery owner Smith notes that while the shoot was done “in a professional setting, you know, the seamless, etc., it wasn’t done for a magazine or a specific purpose. This was done for the art of it and that, to me, is really special.”
There is a brand-new silkscreen contact sheet, created specifically for the show at Smith’s urging, with input from Gary Lichtenstein, who produced the edition of 20.
“Gary actually suggested the coating of diamond dust and I initially was unsure, until he showed me a video,” Schatzberg says. “And I thought, wow, this is really cool because it kind of brings out the sparkle of her personality which is really, really exciting.”
For the record, Schatzberg loves the results.
Looking back over a career that spans an incredibly creative period in American arts, Schatzberg has few regrets. He would have liked to have photographed Janis Joplin, and losing his fiancée Faye Dunaway to an actor was hard to take, but he’s philosophical about that.
“Well, she fell in love with somebody else. But I always say, if I’m gonna lose somebody, it might as well be to Marcello Mastroianni, right? Which didn’t last that long anyway,” he notes.
Also present at the opening was poet, photographer, filmmaker, actor, curator, and archivist Gerard Malanga, who will be the subject of a solo show at the same gallery in the fall.
“We grew up both Bronx boys and now we’re exhibiting together!” Malanga exclaims. “It had to have been around 2018 that we last spent any time together. It was prearranged that I would make his portrait — photographing him was a real treat. I could see why his photos of Edie turned out so well, he surely made her feel comfortable. Edie’s rise to fame seemed preordained. Her downfall is one left for the storybooks. So it’s been nearly eight years and now we’re billed together for Jerry’s show of his Edie pictures, and it’s about time. The recognition is well deserved.”
Their joy in seeing each other at the opening was obvious, as Schatzberg notes: “Of course, we talked about the old days. It was a great pleasure seeing him. I’m sorry he’s in a wheelchair, too. I just remember little anecdotes about him, he was very loyal and kind to Warhol and I appreciate that.”
Looking back on his work, Schatzberg reveals that, at the time, he didn’t think of it as anything more than a way to make a living.
“I didn’t really have an opinion of the quality in my work,” he admits. “I liked it, but I didn’t say, hey, this is great. I did later on….. I would look at them later and say, hey, he’s a pretty good photographer. I like them. I still do.”
As to the opening, which consisted of a constant stream of fans saying hello and more than a few looking to get their Dylan albums signed, Schatzberg had a great time: “It felt great. It’s the first time I’ve been out in a while and it was fantastic seeing all my friends and that they enjoyed what they were seeing. I can’t ask for more than that.”
And that age thing? “I feel like I’m 25,” he says.
“Edie 66” runs through June 5. More info at kismithgallery.com. Jerry Schatzberg is online at jerryschatzberg.com and on Instagram at @schatzbergarchive.
