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AMERICAN PHOTO MAGAZINE - September/October 2000
Editor's Note, The Power of Personality.
By David Schonauer, Editor in Chief
Page 68
Elton John Collection
An unveiling of secret, and important, masterpieces.
Some art collectors store their treasures in bank vaults, like any other investments. Not Sir Elton John. The photographic masterpieces he has been anonymously buying up over the past decade are displayed in private galleries in his homes. This fall, much of the collection goes public with an exhibition at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta. Here we present an exclusive preview of some of the work, along with the inside story of the building of the collection by Jane Jackson, the Atlanta art dealer who has helped John reshape the photography market with personal vision as well as an enthusiast's indomitable spirt.
Elton's private art dealer on Elton's private passion.
By Jane Jackson
Page 76
Art Man
Elton John, in less than a decade, has amassed one of the world's most significant private collections of 20th-century and contemporary photography. However, very few people know of the extent, diversity, and sophistication of his holdings, which exceed 2,500 individual photographs and are still growing. Indeed, this may be one of the few details the world doesn't know about Elton, who is one of the most public of public figures.
This is just as he wished. For Elton, photography has been a private passion, and his acquisitions have been made quietly, often through anonymous bids at auction. As one of his principal art dealers, I made many of those bids myself.
With the opening this November 4 of the exhibition "Chorus of Light: Photographs from the Sir Elton John Collection," at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, the public will learn the magnitude and depth of Elton's love of photography.
The exhibition, which includes approximately 400 images, is the first and only planned showing of Elton's photography collection. "Chorus of Light" will be accompanied by a 200-page hardcover catalog containing 156 reproductions along with photos of Elton's collection in his Atlanta home. Painstaking efforts have been made to design this exhibition so that it provides a flavor of Elton's sensibility as a collector. The exhibition design takes advantage of the dense salon installations and elaborate framing style that are seen in Elton's home. More than 900 photographs hang in his Atlanta apartment alone, and many of his rooms have photographs hung from ceilings to floor. With a disdain for simple, ordinary black frames and white mats, the fashion-conscious rock star has reinvented the manner in which photography are presented. By selecting double-eight-ply mats, sometimes in silk, and elaborate custom white-gold-leaf frames, Elton gives even simple works an overly opulent style. The exhibition will be using all of Elton's custom frames and will even include a re-creation of Elton's Atlanta living room, complete with furnishings, contemporary glass, art books, and, of course, photographs.
Elton's affection for photography began at the time when he was starting a new life of sobriety. It is almost as if photography, with its directness, truth, and poignancy, became symbolic of his new life.
In 1991, while he was visiting his friends Alain and Marie-Therese Perrin, the organizers of Le Printemps de Cahors, a photography festival held in France, Elton was introduced to the work of Horst P. Horst. One afternoon, David Fahey, the Los Angeles dealer and a fellow quest of Perrins, was asked to show everyone a selection of photographs he had brought with him. David remembers Elton being fascinated by the abstract beauty and simplicity of Horst's photography's, and the singer immediately made his first purchase. Although Elton has been involved with hundreds of commercial photo shoots during his career, he had never looked at photography as an art until that moment.
My first meeting with Elton was six months later, on New Year's Eve day, 1991. Elton had recently bought a home in an elite high-rise apartment building in Atlanta and was beginning to look at photography again. My gallery was closed for the holiday and I was at home coping with a winter flu when Elton's interior designer, Fred Dilger, called me to see if I could open my gallery for them. Needless to say, I quickly recovered.
Elton was buying photographs for gifts (a tradition he still continues today). It was apparent that he had a strong interest in photography and a craving to learn more about its history and its artists. As he left the gallery, his arms were loaded with photography books. Later, I would discover that Elton is a voracious reader, especially of biographies, and his collection of art books and magazines now reaches into the hundreds.
There are certain people who are born with the personality to be a serious collector. Every avid collector I have known began while young. As a child, Elton collected magazines about sports and music. Later he collected record albums, never loaning any out for fear of the jackets being lost or torn. When he became wealthy he started collecting cars, especially Aston-Martins and Bentleys. At one point, he had a significant collection of Art Nouveau and Art Deco, which he sold at Sotheby's London and auction house in 1989.
His first interests in photography were figurative forms and fashion images. He has an extensive collection of male nudes, with works by Horst P. Horst, Herb Ritts, Bruce Weber, Joe Ziolkowski, and others. Elton also has a significant collection of female nudes, especially vintage works from the 1920s and 1930s. With his own interest in fashion, it is not surprising that Elton would be drawn to elegant fashion images, especially work from the 1950s. Works by Irving Penn, Norman Parkinson, William Klein, and Frank Horvat are found throughout his home. In his living room are a 40x60-inch print of Richard Avedon's "Dovima and Elephants" and two 30x40-inch fashion images by Klein.
I began showing him modenist vintage prints in the early 1990s, when there were still a good number of important works available. I knew it would be more difficult to acquire these in future years. Elton was intrigued with modernism because of its abstract form and experimentation. His first really expensive photograph was Man Ray's "Glass Tears," which he purchased in 1993 for $193,895 - the first time he set an auction record. He had seen the print during a preview at Sotheby's in London and just "had to have it."
It wasn't the only time that Elton desire for a print was so strong he became emotional about having to own it. And unless there was a problem with the print or the price was a problem with the print or the price was simply too exorbitant, he did get it. Among some of his prizes from auction: Paul Outerbridge's "Saltine Box," and "Ide Collar," Andre Kertesz's " Mondrian's Glasses and Pipe," and Herbert Bayer's "Self-Portrait."
At the New York auctions it became increasingly difficult for me to discreetly bid on his behalf, as Elton became known for breaking auction records for certain artists, such as Man Ray and Kertesz. At the time, some of the prices he was paying seemed high, but now his aggressiveness looks farsighted. The market for these vintage prints are increasingly scare. In part, that's because of a big growth of new affluent collectors, like Elton. Having worked with him since the beginning of the collection, I can say that it is not a mere entertainment for him, but a serious intellectual and emotional pursuit. He knows who all the photographers are and where all his 2,500 works are located, and he misses them if they are moved to a different location.
At first all of the photographs were displayed in his Atlanta apartment, which was eventually expanded to more than 18,000 square feet to accommodate the growing collection. Still, space grew limited. (This led him, at one point, to an interest in collecting only small prints.) Later, when he purchased a home in Nice, France, the collection overflowed across the Atlantic. Now the work is hanging in his homes in London and Windsor, England, and he has plans to build an addition for flat files and print viewing rails.
He frequents certain galleries in the United States and London, including Andrew Cowan and Tim Jefferies' Hamiltons Gallery, David Fahey/Klein Gallery, and Jay Jopling's White Cube. If time allows, he visits new galleries in cities as he tours. His partner David Furnish, shares his interest in photography. A passion that started by looking at prints and reading books has now expanded into an entire new world of relationships with artists, writers, and dealers.
And that is perhaps the real reward in doing what Elton has done. He has developed friendships and opened his homes and gardens for artists to visit and work. The upcoming show at the High Museum is more than an exhibition of wonderful photography. It is a showcase for the sincere enthusiasm of a collector and his desire not only to live with his collection but also to share his love of these images with his friends, and now with the public.
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