By Ben Miller | 18 January 2011


[www.culture24.org.uk]

Bono, Lady Gaga, Kate Moss and Mick Jagger united by Mick Rock at Idea Generation
By Ben Miller | 18 January 2011 Tags: Photography| colour| portrait photography| All tags
© Mick Rock (1975), 2010Exhibition: Mick Rock: Rock Music, Idea Generation Gallery, London, until January 19 2011





“My timing was excellent,” reflects rock and roll photographer to the stars Mick Rock, looking back on a heyday which started when he portrayed an unknown David Bowie in 1972 and went on to see the snapper become part of folklore.

“London in the late 1960s and early 1970s was a hotbed of creative interchange. Curiosity and circumstance drew me into the flame of rock and roll.”





Andy Warhol (left) and Lou Reed looking suitably moody
© Mick Rock (1976), 2010




For the past two months, Rock: Music has featured his shots of Bowie – who he became tour photographer for – Peter Gabriel, Bono, Lady Gaga, Kate Moss and pretty much anyone else you could care to think of possessing a visual allure as powerful as the music and universe they were part of.

Debbie Harry is the glamorous pop siren, Bowie is Ziggy Stardust and Queen are peering mournfully out of their favoured shadows, as if they never doubted the iconography they were creating.




The slightly unlikely pairing of Bono and Lady Gaga
© Mick Rock (2009), 2010




For the finale tomorrow (January 19 2011), Rock will be holding a Portrait Masterclass, promising “bravado, explicits and drama” as the winner of a public competition gets to join Madonna and Blondie in the hall of framed fame.



I am a Frenchie ,as Mick affectionately called them in the Old Grey Whistle Test in 1977 .