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Iconic rock lensman's work on display

Jim Marshall's work goes on display at Leica Galerie Milan

Redazione Ansa

(ANSA) - Milan, February 25 - Only a rare photographer can boast he was given access backstage to the Beatles' 1966 final live concert in San Francisco; or, was holding his Leica when Johnny Cash sang his historic concert at Folsom Prison; or, was employed as chief photographer at Woodstock in 1969; and even captured on film the very moment that Jimi Hendrix set fire to his Stratocaster.
    One of the few is legendary rock 'n' roll lensman Jim Marshall.
    Marshall's iconic work goes on display at the Leica Galerie in Milan on Monday, lining the space with an incredible retrospective and "fly on the wall" perspective of the formative music scene of the Sixties and Seventies.
    Marshall used a Leica camera for his work, and the title of the exhibition is a play on words related both to the brand and to the rock 'n' roll scene he uniquely defined through his sharp black and white images.
    Of his technique, Marshall said in his 1997 retrospective book Not Fade Away: "When I'm photographing people, I don't like to give any direction. There are no hair people fussing around, no makeup artists. "I'm like a reporter, only with a camera; I react to my subject in their environment, and if it's going well, I get so immersed in it that I become one with the camera".
    Michelle Phillips, a member of iconic Sixties band The Mamas and the Papas, told Rolling Stone when Marshall died in 2010, "He was a professional genius. But he was ever so discreet - I never remember him taking pictures." One of the more immersive of Marshall's experiences came in 1972 with the assignment to shoot the Rolling Stones' concert tour for Life Magazine.
    Marshall, born in Chicago in 1936, was raised in San Francisco but as a young photographer moved to New York where he worked for Atlantic and Columbia Records, which gave him access to photographing future music legends like Bob Dylan and Ray Charles. In 1964 he moved back to San Francisco, where he captured the emerging rock 'n' roll and cultural scene, including the Haight-Ashbury district and historic bands like the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane and artists like Janis Joplin and Santana.
    Over the course of his career, his images graced the covers of over 500 albums and were frequently used in Rolling Stone magazine.
    In 2014 at the 56th Grammy Awards, Marshall was posthumously given a Trustees Award, the first photographer ever to be given this Lifetime Achievement Award.
    Marshall died at age 74 in New York City, during a trip to promote a book he had collaborated on.
    The March exhibition at Leica Galerie takes place in collaboration with Rolling Stone Italy magazine and is being promoted with the hashtag #LeicaRollingStone.
   

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