JONATHAN BECKER: Elaine's Kitchen in Drugstore Culture's Inaugural Issue

Elaine at Elaine’s, 2002, with some regulars (L to R): 

Lewis Lapham, Frederick Seidel, Father Pete Colapietro, Mayor David Dinkins, George Plimpton, Terry McDonell, Chuck Pfeifer, Josh Gasparo, Nelson Aldrich, Bobby Zarem, David Black & A. E. Hotchner

Photograph © Jonathan Becker

John Paul Getty III, Linda Hutton, Averil P. Meyer

and Fred Hughes in Elaine’s kitchen, 1976

Photograph © Jonathan Becker

Brassaï’s 80th Birthday at Elaine’s, 9 September 1979

Photograph © Jonathan Becker

Elaine’s was a form of inheritance to me, and I didn’t squander it.  Both my mother and my father were part of an intellectual and theatrical New York culture - intelligencia, litterati, glitterati, whatever - that made the city glow in the Sixties and Seventies… 

 – Jonathan Becker

A special portfolio by Jonathan Becker of his brilliant photographs documenting the heyday of Elaine’s Restaurant in New York, illustrated with his personal reminiscences,  is published in the first ever glorious Inaugural Issue of DRUGSTORE CULTURE.

DRUGSTORE CULTURE's Publisher, Charles P. Finch

"Is it a book? Is it a magazine?...." asks British GQ's Charlie Burton. 

I don't know, but I do know it's about Culture and Politics • To be published 6 times a year • The first issue has Film, Art, and Soul and the aforementioned fabulous Portfolio by Jonathan Becker • A digital platform will be live shortly • To receive a copy of the Inaugural Issue, DM/instantmessage your address to @finchandpartners on #instagram for your free issue!

going live any day now in september • dm your address to

@finchandpartners on #instagram for your free issue

drugstoreculture.com

@drugstoreculture #drugstoreculture

@finchandpartners #jonathanbecker

JONATHAN BECKER: A Vanity Fair Retrospective

Robert Mapplethorpe at his Whitney Retrospective, 1988
Copyright © Jonathan Becker / Vanity Fair

Brassaï, Eze, 1982 © Jonathan Becker / Steven Kasher Gallery

Madonna, Martha Graham, and Calvin Klein, N.Y., 1990
Copyright © Jonathan Becker / Vanity Fair

Arthur Miller
Copyright © Jonathan Becker / Vanity Fair

"After the requisite “NO”, followed by a long, debilitating night/morning of Jack Daniels and memorable palaver I can’t remember, Frank Sinatra finally acquiesced with the simple, syncopated, “One pitcher”. He kept his word the next afternoon. I got my picture for Town & Country. Never have I been so careful with the shutter-trigger".

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JONATHAN BECKER began contributing to Vanity Fair in 1981. His portraits of filmmaker Louis Malle and of Becker’s mentor and friend Brassaï featured largely in the prototype for the magazine’s relaunch, in 1983. Becker’s specialty in portraits, photographed by and large on location, soon became a Vanity Fair staple: Robert Mapplethorpe, Arthur Miller, Jocelyn Wildenstein, and Martha Graham with Madonna and Calvin Klein as well as countless socialites, artists, and heads of state. Assignments for the magazine sent Becker from the Amazonian jungle, for first-encounter photographs of members of the Yanomami tribe, to Buckingham Palace, for the first photographs showing the Prince of Wales and Camilla Parker Bowles together. Over the course of work for the Rockefeller Foundation, Becker documented its funded projects on five continents. Three books of Becker's work have been published: Bright Young Things; Studios by the Sea, Artists of Long Island’s East End; and Bright Young Things: London. (bio from Vanity Fair)

View Vanity Fair's Portfolio:
A JONATHAN BECKER RETROSPECTIVE

www.jonathanbecker.com