Lot 72
Jim Marshall Signed Photograph, "Aretha & Ray"
This photograph, originally taken in 1971, capture s the two best known R&B performers in American musical history: Aretha Franklin and Ray Charles in concert at the Fillmore West, San Francisco, California. Both Franklin and Charles have both had careers that spanned decades, and were as famous at the photograph’s point in time as they are today, and as esteemed. They have crossed and re-crossed all musical boundaries, and remain to this day consummate performers. This photograph captures the misleadingly easy association that veils the trained awareness that two peak performers have for each other in the midst of their music. One of two prints in existence. Image area: 12" x 18"
About Jim Marshall:
Jim Marshall was, without question, one of the seminal photographers of the world of rock and roll in the United States during its most fertile and eventful era. He was in the right place at the right time, with the skills, talent, and relentless drive to capture the spirit of the moment. He was born in Chicago in 1936 and he died March 24, 2010 in New York City.
From his beginnings in the Midwest, through his early career in San Francisco, to his mature career in New York, Marshal gave the country a truly American rock outlook. It reflected the region-trumping growth of rock as a social unifying force that gathered all youth in its wake. In the heyday of 1960s rock music in San Francisco, he captured the likes of Mick Jagger, Jimi Hendrix, Carlos Santana, Grace Slick, Janis Joplin and the rest of the pantheon of rock and roll royalty. As time passed , he kept photographing these people as well as the emerging figures, adding to the sense of history, continuity, and the breaks and changes that all human life—even rock gods—experience.
Marshall had the ability to capture with his lens the quintessential moments that illuminated the lives of his subjects, the performance behind, even within, the performance. When that split second in time is caught forever, it becomes a document, a record, a testament to the talents of both rocker and photographer. Photography itself is then a performance.
A word from the printer Ctein:
“All these Ultrachrome K3 digital color prints were made between September 2009 and March 2010. Jim didn't sell digital prints before then. I did all Jim's digital printing so I'm confident of how many prints were made. The numbers below include the print I own (e.g., if it says 2 prints, that means there is only one other print out there besides the one I own). Since most of these photos were printed for a show Jim had last fall, it should be assumed that all existing prints were signed.”
“The dimensions indicated are approximate image areas; most have 2 inch or larger white borders all around. Except where noted, the prints are signed by Jim in the lower right margin, but they are not titled on the left, like the dye transfers are. They are signed and dated with the printing date on back in graphite by me.”
“All of the digital work for Jim was done in approximately the last six months of his life, and it was certainly among the very last new work he commissioned. There were only two or three new color photographs I printed for him after this body of work. Aesthetically and according to Jim's intent, the digital prints of Aretha and Ray are considerably better than any prints or reproductions of those photographs that were ever done before. They are uniquely good; I worked impressive amounts of digital magic to achieve a level of color quality and fidelity and clarity in the print well beyond anything that had been done before, in both cases actually better than what could be seen in the original slide. Jim was always good at seeking out real talent.”
“Jim typically did a limited numbered-and-signed edition of 50, but most of the editions did not sell out. Since Jim was a last-minute kinda guy, that means there would be fewer than 50 prints out there-- he rarely had more than two or three prints made at a time, and he usually didn't sign one until he sold it. In many cases, I do not know how many prints were made of a particular photograph. “
About Ctein:
For 35 years Ctein has been a master dye transfer printer. This incredibly complex and difficult process produces by far the finest photographic prints and has been undertaken by only a very small percentage of color printers. Ctein is one of only a handful of printers still using this 70-year-old medium. His results are so impressive that Kodak's own dye transfer experts proclaimed that there was no one alive who produced better color prints than Ctein.
Ctein has printed for such notable photographers as: photojournalist Ken Jarecke, whose famous "Face of War" photograph defined the first Gulf War; music photographer Jim Marshall, whose iconic rock and roll, blues and jazz photographs are well-known to every lover of modern music; and portraitist Bernard Lee Schwartz, whose portraits of everyone from the Pope to Twiggy are in major collections around the world. Ctein prints reside in major academic, governmental, and museum collections around the world - even the Royal Family of Great Britain has prints made by Ctein.
Ctein is also a widely-read author, with well over a million words in print. He literally "wrote the book" for Kodak on many dye transfer printing techniques. Several of today's elite circle of dye transfer printers say they owe their beginnings to Ctein's instruction in that craft. For over a quarter-century, he's had hundreds of articles and columns published in numerous photography and technology magazines. His has written the critically acclaimed books, "Post Exposure: Advanced Techniques for the Photographic Printer" and "Digital Restoration from Start to Finish."
Estimate: $3,000 - $4,000