Jonathan Becker: Social Work
Four Decades of Movers, Shakers & Thinkers
Huth, Boeing & Salmon Galleries
October 30, 2020 – January 24, 2021
Nicole Kidman with Tom Cruise at Vanity Fair’s 2000 Oscar Party, West Hollywood, 2000, archival pigment print, 28 x 28 1/2 in. © Jonathan Becker
American photographer Jonathan Becker began contributing to Vanity Fair magazine on the heels of an especially successful solo exhibition in Chelsea in 1981. His portraits of filmmaker Louis Malle and of his mentor and friend Brassaï featured largely in the pages of 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, Jack Kevorkian, Jocelyn Wildenstein, and Martha Graham, as well as countless socialites, artists, and heads of state.
Assignments for the magazine have dispatched Becker far and wide – 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. Becker’s association with Vanity Fair continues to this day. Becker has also contributed portraits and reportage to Town & Country, The New Yorker, Vogue, W, The Paris Review, and many other publications.
This exhibition features 45 images of movers, shakers and thinkers taken by Becker between 1976 and 2015, hand selected by the Museum, including artists, authors, fashion designers, socialites, Hollywood celebrities, and more. Organized by HMA.
Presenting Sponsor:
Additional support provided by:
The Alabama State Council on the Arts