Thursday, September 19, 2013

Little Joe never once gave it away

Why is it so difficult to find a fine art print of Joe Dallesandro?  Little Joe, as he is known in Lou Reed's Walk on the Wild Side (for the "Little Joe" tattoo on his right arm) is one of the most beautiful men who ever lived, as is obvious from photos from the early 60s - mid 70s.

I mean, I've been able to buy prints of photos taken by Astrid Kircherr of the very young Beatles. I've had two prints for almost ten years now: I bought a photo of Lennon, and another of McCartney - with Stu Sutcliff in the background of each, at the Hamburg Fun Fair - directly from Kircherr's web site. Although those prints aren't listed on the site anymore, possibly because there's an ongoing exhibition in LA(?)

In addition to being musical genii, Lennon and McCartney were also two of the most beautiful men who ever lived.

I've been looking now for several weeks for a decent fine art photo of Dallesandro and I hope I have a real chance to buy one from Victor Shrebneski who took the photo above, and which I discovered thanks to the Museum of Contemporary Photography web site.

Although the photo I would most love to have a fine art print of is the one below by  Richard Avedon - that's Joe with Candy Darling. It was part of a session with Andy Warhol stars - there was an exhibit at Gagosian Gallery a year ago which I missed. You can't get any of the photos as posters though - the best you can do are these cards. Which I might get anyway. I'm kicking myself for missing that exhibit.

Apparently the mural (which does not include the photo below but a similar one) is also in the collection of the Met, but is not currently on display.

A signed edition print of the mural was offered via Christies and sold for 50K.