Saturday, January 7, 2023

At the piano, part 1

 Here are some great portraits of musicians at the keyboard. This will be a series, I think.


Arthur Rubinstein by Evelyn Hofer, 1976



Mitsuko Uchida by Michael Putland, 1994


Friedrich Gulda by Franz Hubmann, Vienna, 1955



Angela Hewitt by Hiroyuki Ito, 2010



Gjon Mili photographs Joseph Hofman for Life magazine, 1940



Mili got lots of great shots & closeups of Hofman for the magazine feature.



André Kértesz's photograph of Hazel Scott at Café Society, 1941



Perhaps the greatest portrait at a piano: Arnold Newman's 1946 shot of Igor Stravinsky.

"I have Arnold Newman's portrait of Stravinsky in my studio staring right at me from the wall above where I work. The fact that the maestro is just down there in the corner of the photo, tiny, with this tremendous piano just filling up the frame is so brilliant."
- Danny Elfman



Arnold Newman's contact sheet from his 1946 photoshoot with Igor Stravinsky. The famous portrait (at the bottom right) is a very close crop!



This looks familiar! It's one of Sandro Miller and John Malkovich's great parodies of famous photographs, from 2014.



Chet Baker by William Claxton, Hollywood, 1954

"I saw his striking reflection in the piano top & placed my Rolleiflex on the piano. It was a one-time shot because he moved away almost immediately."



John Cage prepares a piano. A great shot by Fred McDarrah, 1957.


One of my all-time favourite photographs: Bud Powell at the piano with his young son Earl John, by Francis Wolff, from 1958.



Bill Evans by David Redfern, London, 1965



Martha Argerich by Lise Buhs, mid-1960s



Oscar Peterson by Ed Perlstein, Berkeley, May 1978




To end Part 1 of this ongoing series of Piano Portraits, Ebet Roberts' shot of Philip Glass and a friend, from 1987









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