Kerry Schuss Gallery

Press Release

KS Art is pleased to announce the first exhibition of James Hamilton's rarely seen and previously unpublished photographs. This select group of intimate, black-and- white portraits, reveal a master photographer who captured the candid moments of many musical icons of the twentieth century. These exceptional portraits include legendaries such as: James Brown, Stevie Wonder, The Ramones, Mick Jagger, Janis Joplin, Jerry Lee Lewis, Patti Smith, Liberace, Diana Ross, Pete Townshend, Madonna and Duane Allman. Enter the world of James Hamilton to gain access to rare celebrity images, predating the internet, and existing for years only in print archives. Hamilton visually embraces his subjects, capturing them in all of their glorious humanity.

The exhibition is in conjunction with the publication of "You Should Have Heard Just What I Seen," the music photography of James Hamilton. The newest release by Ecstatic Peace Library and edited by Thurston Moore. This 300 -page collection of black-and-white photographs, portraits, snapshots, sketches and contact sheets exposes of some of the most recognizable faces in music.

As a young man in the late 1960s, James Hamilton met the legendary photographers Diane Arbus and Eugene Smith, and was inspired by them to document the changing skyline of New York City. As staff photographer for the Village Voice, Hamilton recorded the protests and riots, happenings, concerts, poetry readings and art openings of that era, and throughout the 1970s, his photographs of musicians and celebrities would appear in the pages of Crawdaddy! Magazine. Later, Hamilton joined The New York Observer, and began working with filmmakers George A. Romero, Francis Ford Coppola, Wes Anderson and Noah Baumbach as on-set photographer. .

Press