Who Photographed Bob Dylan at Madison Square Garden?
Who took this picture of Bob Dylan?
Our friends in New York, Stan and Aline, have a beautiful loft and we stay with them whenever we visit the city. I have known them since I was a teenager and back in the day they were the coolest young couple I knew and forty years later they still are. He is an aerial panoramic photographer and photo dealer and she is an arts educator and their home is filled with his photography collection. The loft is downtown in NOHO, a beautiful part of the city defined by turn of the century cast iron architecture, a crazy variety of shops, restaurants and cafes of all descriptions, and neighborhood book and record stores. We love visiting with them, our NY 'family' so to speak, and we love being in the city.
On this most recent visit, I had a lot of music on my mind. There was Academy Records in Brooklyn, Rebel Rebel, Other Music, and Mamma Mia - the Broadway ABBA musical - which we saw with our kids.(Although I was obsessed with ABBA's Waterloo when it first hit American AM radio and charts, I never warmed to the phonetic foursome, laughing at how they sang in English before they could speak it. Never realized that I would one day marry an ABBA loving woman and have an ABBA loving daughter and one day find myself on Broadway at an ABBA loving musical. You really never know where your life will lead you?)
In between trips to vintage furniture shops, record stores and Broadway, we hung out in Stan and Aline's loft, cooked and ate and chatted. Stan's photography collection - www.stanries.com - is focused on architectural photography and photographs of buildings and cities but he has a few interesting photographs of other subjects as well. There are candid photographs that he took when he worked for ABC of celebrities like Paul Newman. There is a stunning profile of Andy Warhol. there is street photography of John and Yoko. Nureyev, too. And many others. And then there is the mysterious photograph of Bob Dylan. The one you see here, above.
Stan didn't take the photograph of Bob Dylan, we know that for sure. And that is all we know. I admired the picture - I am an enormous Dylan fan and see him every time the never ending tour comes to Pittsburgh - and asked Stan who took it.
"I don't know," Stan replied, "Let's take a look at the signature. Maybe you can tell me!" So we took the picture out of its matte and looked at the signature:
Dear Readers: Can you tell me who the photographer is? I could and can not. Not to be deterred, Stan suggested a field trip. A new rock music photo gallery, Morrison Hotel, opened up in the old CBGB space. Only in NY!
And so off we went, photograph neatly stored in a black leather portfolio. Together, with Bob under my arm, we crossed the Bowery in search of the photographer's identity. When Stan acquired the photograph, between ten and twenty years ago, at an auction - or maybe it was a trade, he is not sure anymore - it didn't occur to Stan to identify the photographer. But, now, with his photography dealership thriving, he needs to know!
Rick Edwards, the Morrison Hotel Gallery - https://www.morrisonhotelgallery.com/default.aspx - director we met, couldn't have been nicer and tried very hard to match the name on the signature with one of several prominent Dylan photographers. No luck - we couldn't make out the name on the signature. Rick speculated about the photograph and wondered when it was taken and by whom? Stan is pretty confident that he remembers that he was told that it was taken at Madison Square Garden. I think it looks like Mr. Dylan in the late eighties or early nineties.
But your guess is as good as mine.
A day or so later, as we were packing to leave NYC and return home, Stan slipped a slim package on top of my luggage. "I want you to have it! Stan implored, smiling broadly, "Maybe you can figure out what it is."
Maybe I can - can you help?
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