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: Celebrates 30 Years at Vanity Fair with a New Assouline Book

 

Jonathan Becker

Photograph © Copyright by Ralph Gibson

 

Assouline, December 2012

Read my entire Interview with Jonathan Becker here:

Le Journal de la Photographie

NADAV KANDER: Obama's People - The Book

Barack Obama, 2009Book: Obama's People available hereCourtesy of Flowers, London/New York
The 44th President of the United States

Samantha Power Advisor, 2009
Photograph (c) Nadav Kander/Courtesy of Flowers, London/NY

Now Special Assistant to the President and Senior
Director for Multilateral Affairs and Human Rights

Denis McDonough Senior Foreign Policy Aide, 2009
Photograph (c) Nadav Kander/Courtesy of Flowers, London/NY
Now Deputy National Security Advisor

Eugene Kang
Special Assistant to the President, 2009
Photograph (c) Nadav Kander/Courtesy of Flowers, London/NY

Hilary Rodham Clinton Secretary of State, 2009
Photograph (c) Nadav Kander/Courtesy of Flowers, London/NY
The 1st First Lady elected to the United States Senate,
currently the U.S. Secretary of State

Joseph R. Biden Jr. Vice President, 2009
Photograph (c) Nadav Kander/Courtesy of Flowers, London/NY
The 47th Vice President of the United StatesOBAMA'S PEOPLE | NADAV KANDER

"Early on in the process of making these 53 portraits, I made the fundamental decision not to impose my personal opinion. Instead, I wanted to create works of accurate representation." –Nadav Kander, Obama's People

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January 18 2009, a special edition of the New York Times Magazine published, Obama's People, portraits of the incoming administration of Barack Obama by Nadav Kander. This series was commissioned by Kathy Ryan, Director of Photography, and Gerald Merzorati, editor of the New York Times. Photographic critic, Francis Hodgson wrote, "Nadav Kander has been a brilliant portraitist for years. He has published three series which I see as specific precursors to Obama's People. In all three, the plain background is there, each sitter posed like a medieval saint (or devil) in a niche on a cathedral wall."
Although all of Kander’s photographs are color, they are often compared to Richard Avedon’s black-and-white portraits of The Family, published in Rolling Stone Magazine in 1976 of the 'Power Elite' taken during the Reagan Administration. Having worked on the Avedon project in 1976, I don't see the similarity in their actual portraits, just in the editorial assignment itself. A beautifully created book of Kander's series, Obama's People, is now available through Flowers Gallery (here).

Upcoming News: An exhibition of Nadav Kander’s Prix Pictet award-winning photographic series, Yangtze —The Long River, will be at Flowers, New York October 19th - November 24th. Yangtze — The Long River is a body of work that captures the dramatic effects of a nation at the precipice of enormous industrial and economic change and considers the history and folklore of the waterway that runs through the blood of the people. More on this in October.

Obama's People
Flowers Gallery, London/New York

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I designed the cover and layouts for Richard Avedon's The Family, portraits of the 'Power Elite' during the Reagan Administration published in Rolling Stone Magazine. New Yorker writer/author Renata Adler sequenced the images with Avedon. More views here.

The Family, Rolling Stone Magazine 1976
Photographs of the 'Power Elite' during the Reagan Administration

The Family, Rolling Stone Magazine, 1976

The Family, Rolling Stone Magazine, 1976

Thanks to Jay Prynne for images of The Family
and APhotoEditor.com