ELTON AND DAVID’S ECLECTIC IMAGES
It’s not just a photography collection or art collecting, if you will. It is more than that. It is pure love and enduring passion for images that Sir Elton John and his husband David Furnish have grown since the early nineties into one of the most fascinating private photography collections. And yes, the biggest photography extravaganza, ‘Fragile Beauty,’ that the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) has staged to date, is everything you could imagine and more.
Elton John, Egg On His Face, New York, 1999, by David LaChapelle
Ronald Fischer, beekeeper by Richard Avedon
From striking portraits of actress Marilyn Monroe and Chet Baker to iconic shots by Irving Penn, Richard Avedon, and Cindy Sherman, or images of the male body by Robert Mapplethorpe, to photojournalists capturing historic stories, this exquisite exhibition will melt your heart and blow your mind. Covering the period from 1950 to the present day, this epic collection that just hit South Kensington includes over three hundred works from 140 of the world’s most renowned photographers such as Diane Arbus, Nan Goldin, Peter Hujar, Eve Arnold, and Robert Frank to Dave Chappelle, Wolfgang Tillmans, Cindy Sherman, and Ai Weiwei.
Simply Fragile, Tyler Mitchell
Given the overwhelmingly huge number of images, curators created eight dynamic sections including fashion, celebrity, reportage, the male body, along with American photography channeling some of the strongest human instincts and emotions. You can feel all of it from the most iconic images such as Richard Avedon’s Beekeeper, Helmut Newton’s Elsa Peretti as Bunny, or Juergen Teller’s Joan Didion. There is the bleeding intimacy of Peter Hujar or Nan Goldin’s reflection of loss and sorrow in the decade of AIDS-related deaths.
Clemens, Jens and Nicolas Laughing at Le Pulp, Paris, Nan Goldin, 1999
‘Black Americans’ by Bruce Davidson
Marilyn Monroe, 1960 by Eve Arnold
Photojournalism and historic moments are significantly important to the two collectors and include images from the Black civil rights movement in the 1960s to the September 11 attacks (for which John and Furnish hold the world’s largest collection). Reminding us that photojournalists make pictures beyond heroic through snaps of some of the most dramatic and horrific events in modern history such as the death of anti-war protester Jeffrey Miller in 1970, and Boris Yaro’s shot of the moment Robert Kennedy was fatally wounded at the Los Angeles Ambassador Hotel in 1968. Richard Drew’s The Falling Man—a shot of someone plummeting from the World Trade Center on 9/11—is also included.
Some of the subjects and photographers were friends of John and David, which makes this collection even more special. Elton himself appears in one of the most gorgeous portraits, taken by his longtime friend David LaChapelle, in a café with eggs on his face.
The emotional depth of Elton John and David Furnish’s photography journey is indisputable. ‘Only collect what you really love,’ a couple’s rule born out of immense passion for art, tells a story about their own journey. From beauty and desire to vulnerability and loss, suffering and strength, it is sprinkled with a little bit of Elton John’s humor.
Go and check it out yourself. On view now at the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A).
