Eric David Kroll (born October 23, 1946 in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

) is a photojournalist, fetish photographer, erotica historian and book editor who has lived in New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.

Work

Eric Kroll's commercial work began in

Taos, New Mexico Taos is a town in Taos County in the north-central region of New Mexico in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. Initially founded in 1615, it was intermittently occupied until its formal establishment in 1795 by Nuevo México Governor Fernando Cha ...

in 1969, when he partnered with friend Sam Bruskin to open a gallery. He worked as a photo journalist in New York from 1971 to 1994. Kroll worked and lived in many worlds at once; fashion, music, and the art and film scenes. During the 70s and 80s he photographed every day scenes from his personal life, photographed celebrities, fashion and the New York social scene for Elle Magazine, Vogue, The New York Times and Der Spiegel. He photographed personalities and artists such as

Madonna Madonna Louise Ciccone (; ; born August 16, 1958) is an American singer-songwriter and actress. Widely dubbed the " Queen of Pop", Madonna has been noted for her continual reinvention and versatility in music production, songwriting, a ...

Andy Warhol Andy Warhol (; born Andrew Warhola Jr.; August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987) was an American visual artist, film director, and producer who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art. His works explore the relationsh ...

Keith Haring Keith Allen Haring (May 4, 1958 – February 16, 1990) was an American artist whose pop art emerged from the New York City graffiti subculture of the 1980s. His animated imagery has "become a widely recognized visual language". Much of his wor ...

, and Korean video artist

Nam June Paik Nam June Paik (; July 20, 1932 – January 29, 2006) was a Korean American artist. He worked with a variety of media and is considered to be the founder of video art. He is credited with the first use (1974) of the term "electronic super hi ...

. In 1976 he published "Sex Objects," with a grant from the New York State Council of the Arts grant, a book documenting sex workers across America. In the early 1980s he turned away from portrait photography with a series title "Fetish Girls" (1994), which remains one of the best selling books in the publisher Taschen's history. Kroll worked with Benedikt Taschen from 1993-2007 as photo editor and erotica historian. Eric Kroll has published collections ("Fetish Girls" and "Beauty Parade"), composed introductions for influential works such as the compiled two-volume "Bizarre" collection and some

Taschen Taschen is a luxury art book publisher founded in 1980 by Benedikt Taschen in Cologne, Germany. As of January 2017, Taschen is co-managed by Benedikt and his eldest daughter, Marlene Taschen. History The company began as Taschen Comics, pu ...

folios. Many of Kroll's photographs refer to and pay homage to his predecessors,

Eric Stanton Eric Stanton (September 30, 1926 – March 17, 1999; born Ernest Stanzoni Jr.) was an American underground cartoonist and fetish art pioneer. While Stanton began his career as a bondage fantasy artist for Irving Klaw, the majority of his later ...

and

John Willie John Alexander Scott Coutts (9 December 1902 – 5 August 1962), better known by the pseudonym John Willie, was an artist, fetish photographer, editor and the publisher of the first 20 issues of the fetish magazine ''Bizarre'', featuring his ch ...

, as well the art of

Man Ray Man Ray (born Emmanuel Radnitzky; August 27, 1890 – November 18, 1976) was an American visual artist who spent most of his career in Paris. He was a significant contributor to the Dada and Surrealism, Surrealist movements, although his t ...

, and

Marcel Duchamp Henri-Robert-Marcel Duchamp (, , ; 28 July 1887 – 2 October 1968) was a French painter, sculptor, chess player, and writer whose work is associated with Cubism, Dada, and conceptual art. Duchamp is commonly regarded, along with Pablo Picasso ...

. Kroll also curated exhibitions including "Warhol: From Dylan to Duchamp," an exhibition of photographs documenting Warhol's factory era. Photographers included

Annie Leibovitz Anna-Lou Leibovitz ( ; born October 2, 1949) is an American portrait photographer best known for her engaging portraits, particularly of celebrities, which often feature subjects in intimate settings and poses. Leibovitz's Polaroid photo of Jo ...

Robert Mapplethorpe Robert Michael Mapplethorpe (; November 4, 1946 – March 9, 1989) was an American photographer, best known for his black-and-white photographs. His work featured an array of subjects, including celebrity portraits, male and female nudes, self-p ...

Helmut Newton Helmut Newton (born Helmut Neustädter; 31 October 192023 January 2004) was a German-Australian photographer. The ''New York Times'' described him as a "prolific, widely imitated fashion photographer whose provocative, erotically charged black-a ...

Cecil Beaton Sir Cecil Walter Hardy Beaton, (14 January 1904 – 18 January 1980) was a British fashion, portrait and war photographer, diarist, painter, and interior designer, as well as an Oscar–winning stage and costume designer for films and the theat ...

, actor

Dennis Hopper Dennis Lee Hopper (May 17, 1936 – May 29, 2010) was an American actor, filmmaker and photographer. He attended the Actors Studio, made his first television appearance in 1954, and soon after appeared in ''Giant'' (1956). In the next ten years ...

, and others. The Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh loaned Firestone Gallery Andy Warhol's "Screen Tests" of both Bob Dylan and Marcel Duchamp for the show.

Books by Eric Kroll

* “Sex Objects”, Addison House, 1977. * "Fetish Girls", Taschen, 1994. * "Beauty Parade", Taschen, 1997. * "The Transformations of Gwen", NBM Publishing, 2000. * "The Transformations of Gwen, Volume 2", NBM Publishing, 2001. * "Warhol: Dylan to Duchamp", Eric Firestone, 2010. * "THE NEW YORK YEARS 1971 to 1994", Timeless Edition, France 2022

Books edited by Eric Kroll

* "The Art of Eric Stanton", a volume dedicated to the artwork of

, Taschen, 1996. * "The Wonderful World of Bill Ward, King of the Glamour Girls", Taschen, 2003. * "The New Erotic Photography", Taschen, 2007. Co-edited with Dian Hanson.

Collections

USC Fisher Museum of Art USC Fisher Museum of Art, formerly USC Fisher Gallery, which is affiliated with the University of Southern California, is the first art museum established in the city of Los Angeles. Founded in 1939 by Elizabeth Holmes Fisher, she donated 29 paint ...

Smithsonian American Art Museum The Smithsonian American Art Museum (commonly known as SAAM, and formerly the National Museum of American Art) is a museum in Washington, D.C., part of the Smithsonian Institution. Together with its branch museum, the Renwick Gallery, SAAM holds o ...

, Washington, D.C * World Erotic Art Museum *

Greer Lankton Greer Lankton (April 21, 1958 – November 18, 1996), was an American artist known for creating lifelike sewn dolls that were often modeled on friends or celebrities and posed in elaborate theatrical settings. She was a key figure in the East ...

Archives Museum *

Mattress Factory The Mattress Factory is a contemporary art museum located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It was a pioneer of site-specific installation art and features permanent installations by artists Yayoi Kusama, James Turrell, and Greer Lankton. The museum' ...

, Pittsburgh, PA

References

External links

Vintage Prints

Etherton Gallery
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kroll, Eric Fetish photographers BDSM photographers 1946 births Living people American erotic photographers