Show Me The Picture: Jim Marshall
Jim Marshall is one of the most celebrated photographers of the late 20th century. Known for his iconic music photography, Marshall immersed himself in the world of his subjects, never betrayed their trust and was therefore granted second-to-none access. A selection of his most rare photographs are being exhibited at the Rebecca Hossack Art Gallery to celebrate the upcoming release of Show Me The Picture: The Story of Jim Marshall - the new feature length documentary directed by Alfred George Bailey and to be released by Modern Films on 31 January 2020.
Marshall was a maverick with a camera: an outsider with attitude who captured the heights of Rock'n'Roll music, and the seismic changes of an era. During the extraordinary rise of popular culture and counterculture in the sixties, Marshall seemed to be everywhere that mattered. From the Beatles to Jimi Hendrix, from Woodstock to the civil rights movement, Marshall immortalised some of the most iconic moments of the sixties and seventies.
It was his passion for music that led him to capture some of the most iconic figures in music history including Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones, Janis Joplin, John Coltrane, Miles Davis, The Beatles last live concert, the Monterey Pop Festival, Johnny Cash's concerts in Folsom and St Quentin Prisons, Woodstock, and the infamous image of Jimi Hendrix burning his guitar.
Through these images and those of the jazz scene and vibrant counter-culture revolution of San Francisco and the early New York folk scene of the sixties, Marshall's photographs captured an era more powerfully than any moving image. In addition to documenting the dynamic music scene of the time, Marshall saw himself as an anthropologist and a journalist; documenting significant events of the era including political unrest, coal miners in Kentucky and families of murdered civil rights activists in Mississippi.
Posthumously, Marshall holds the distinction of being the first and only photographer to be presented with the Recording Academy's Trustee Award, an honorary Grammy presented to individuals for non-performance contributions to the music industry. The award was bestowed on the Jim Marshall estate in 2014 in recognition of Marshall's unprecedented chronicling of music history from the 1950s through the early 2000s.
In a career that ended with his untimely death in 2010, Marshall shot more than 500 album covers; his photographs are in private and museum collections around the world.
The exhibition of Marshall's work at the Rebecca Hossack Art Gallery will be followed by preview screening events and a continuation of the exhibition at the Royal Albert Hall from 28 January - 3 March 2020.
