Born and raised in Kenya to Hungarian and Czech parents, Rozsa grew up in thrall to the world around him.
“It was the most beautiful land, the mountains and the earth; it’s so stunning,” he muses. “On top of the land, there’s all these unbelievable animals, zebras, giraffes, and elephants, just incredible. And on top of that, in those days in the 50s, there were tribes like the Maasai wandering around, and I just loved that. I was always out running around; I never wore shoes or long trousers or a shirt. When I was 17, I got to observe a four-day-long tribal ceremony.”
Rozsa says he was “very artsy-fartsy” and his father, an architect (who also built the local synagogue), “tried to understand me, and he built a sort of studio for me above the garage. So I had my own little place where I slept and I painted.”
He was educated in Kenya and in England, where he studied communications and ended up as an intern to an art director at British Vogue. Working in the art department under people like Beatrix Miller and Grace Coddington, Rozsa “met all these incredible photographers at the time, like David Bailey and Clive Arrowsmith and Norman Parkinson, all these incredible legends.”
But although he was later to make his mark as a photographer, his first venture out of college was to partner in a vintage clothing store — a novelty at the time — called “Nostalgia” in Covent Garden.
“You could get incredible clothes from the Victorian era, the 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, I really learned fashion in that place,” he explains. “Every editor used to come in. Every photographer used to come in, and every model. Nostalgia was always in the magazines — I met everybody in that sort of magazine world. But Sharon (his partner in the shop) was a f**king nightmare! So I decided to leave, and she bought out my share, and I bought my first Hasselblad, which I’ve still got.”
That marked the beginning of a new day for Rozsa.
“I had stopped painting when I left Nairobi,” he recalls. “It was too laborious. Photography was much more instant. I was influenced really in my photography by Avedon and Penn, very clean pictures.”
Rozsa began his pro career in England, shooting the “New Romantic” bands, who he much preferred to the punks, as their glam style was much more to his liking. Fashion photography didn’t interest him though, as he notes, I couldn’t care a toss about clothes. I’d done clothes.”
It was personalities that he was after, and in a career that eventually continued in California, he has a portfolio that includes Tina Turner, Winona Ryder, Hugh Grant, Susan Sarandon, Robert Mitchum, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Johnny Rotten, Whitney Houston, John Malkovich, Halle Berry, Daryl Hannah and Dolly Parton, among many others.
Most sessions are remembered fondly, some more than others — and some less.
“I did Diana Ross, and I would say that was my nightmare job of all time”, he states. “I love her, you know, she’s just amazing. But as soon as I arrived, I had to sign a contract that said I would never talk about her hair, in any universe, for eternity. So I was like, okay, whatever. And we got on well, she said, ‘Call me Diana,’ cause everyone else had to call her Miss Ross. And at the end of the day, she sent out her assistant to take the film. I said, ‘Well, I don’t give anyone my film, and I didn’t agree to that.’ A few minutes later, she came charging out; her eyes were bulging out like a chameleon, and she was furious with me. It was a horrible, horrible experience! I never used the film, it’s just stashed away.”
Dolly Parton, on the other hand, was a life-changing experience.
“Dolly Parton, that was a big loss,” he says. “Now at my age, I find myself being a curmudgeon. I’m always miserable. I’m just like moaning, moaning, moaning. And when I think about when she died, I just thought, well, she always was so nice. She was always so sweet. And I just really wanted to change my ways, and I really decided to turn that frown upside down. I don’t want to be a misery. Yeah, I’m really trying to change stuff.”
One change has been his return to making art, encouraged by Chuck Nitzberg at FIT, whom Rozsa calls “the most unbelievable teacher.” Working in watercolors rather than oils (“too smelly”), Rozsa had a very successful show in Tangier, a favorite part of the world which he visits twice a year. On his return, he found that Natalie Kates of the Kates-Ferris Projects gallery was also interested in his work.
“She wanted photographs, and she’s mad about the 80s,” Rozsa recalls. “So I had pictures of Boy George and Leigh Bowery and Vivienne Westwood and all these other designers. I said, I don’t really want to share photographs, I don’t take photographs anymore. But I’ve got these diaries.”
So the show, up now through Nov. 15 at the Kates-Ferris Projects gallery, 561 Grand St., Lower East Side, is partly Polaroids from his past shoots but mostly new watercolors consisting of portraits drawn from memory and imagination.
“When Johnny and I started to discuss the idea of working on a show, I was keen on a survey of photos and polaroids from the 1980-90’s and Johnny was interested in showing his watercolor paintings with handpainted frames inspired by his trips to Morocco,” says Kates. “The resulting exhibition, titled ‘Blow Jobs: $1 – With Lipstick: $5,’ is at the same time a glimpse into the pop culture contribution Johnny made through his photographs and a vivid example of how a creative can reinvent themselves – in this case through another form of art like the watercolors and their imaginary, joyous subjects.”
While the show’s title might make one wonder what it has to do with the decidedly non-erotic content of the exhibit, Rozsa has a perfectly good explanation.
“I go to lots of different openings, and they’re all so dull”, he states. “And I just thought about having that title, taken from Rene Ricard’s painting, ‘Blowjobs, 1 cent, with Lipstick 25 cents.’ I upgraded it because of inflation to one dollar, but … I wanted that title because the idea of putting lipstick on elevates a look. … I always want women to look prettier, a pretty little bit of eyeliner and lipstick. I want everyone to be very uplifted by the show.”
Johnny Rozsa is on Instagram at @johnnyrozsa. Gallery info is online at katesferriprojects.com and on Instagram at @katesferriprojects.
