Art Kane (born Arthur Kanofsky; April 9, 1925 – February 3, 1995) was an American fashion and music

photographer A photographer (the Greek φῶς (''phos''), meaning "light", and γραφή (''graphê''), meaning "drawing, writing", together meaning "drawing with light") is a person who makes photographs. Duties and types of photographers As in oth ...

active from the 1950s through the early 1990s. He created many portraits of contemporary musicians, including

Bob Dylan Bob Dylan (legally Robert Dylan, born Robert Allen Zimmerman, May 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter. Often regarded as one of the greatest songwriters of all time, Dylan has been a major figure in popular culture during a career sp ...

Jefferson Airplane Jefferson Airplane was an American rock band based in San Francisco, California, that became one of the pioneering bands of psychedelic rock. Formed in 1965, the group defined the San Francisco Sound and was the first from the Bay Area to ach ...

, Sonny and Cher,

Aretha Franklin Aretha Louise Franklin ( ; March 25, 1942 – August 16, 2018) was an American singer, songwriter and pianist. Referred to as the " Queen of Soul", she has twice been placed ninth in '' Rolling Stone''s "100 Greatest Artists of All Time". Wit ...

Frank Zappa Frank Vincent Zappa (December 21, 1940 – December 4, 1993) was an American musician, composer, and bandleader. His work is characterized by nonconformity, free-form improvisation, sound experiments, musical virtuosity and satire of ...

Jim Morrison James Douglas Morrison (December 8, 1943 – July 3, 1971) was an American singer, poet and songwriter who was the lead vocalist of the rock band the Doors. Due to his wild personality, poetic lyrics, distinctive voice, unpredictable and err ...

Janis Joplin Janis Lyn Joplin (January 19, 1943 – October 4, 1970) was an American singer and musician. One of the most successful and widely known rock stars of her era, she was noted for her powerful mezzo-soprano vocals and "electric" stage presence. ...

, the

Rolling Stones The Rolling Stones are an English rock band formed in London in 1962. Active for six decades, they are one of the most popular and enduring bands of the rock era. In the early 1960s, the Rolling Stones pioneered the gritty, rhythmically d ...

, and

The Who The Who are an English rock band formed in London in 1964. Their classic lineup consisted of lead singer Roger Daltrey, guitarist and singer Pete Townshend, bass guitarist and singer John Entwistle, and drummer Keith Moon. They are considered ...

. Kane was born 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 ...

to Russian Jewish parents. During the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

, he served in an unusual Army deception unit known as the Ghost Army, an incubator for many young artists. At age 26, he became the art director for '' Seventeen'' magazine, one of the youngest art directors of a major publication. He began to explore his passion for photography, eventually studying under the legendary Alexey Brodovitch. In 1958, he got an assignment that would launch his career as a photographer, when he assembled 57

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a m ...

musicians for ''

Esquire Esquire (, ; abbreviated Esq.) is usually a courtesy title. In the United Kingdom, ''esquire'' historically was a title of respect accorded to men of higher social rank, particularly members of the landed gentry above the rank of gentlema ...

'' magazine in 1958 in

Harlem Harlem is a neighborhood in Upper Manhattan, New York City. It is bounded roughly by the Hudson River on the west; the Harlem River and 155th Street on the north; Fifth Avenue on the east; and Central Park North on the south. The greater Ha ...

. Eventually, the ''Esquire'' photograph would become the basis for a documentary, '' A Great Day in Harlem''. His work was provocative, experimental, and playful, sometimes rejected by magazines for nudity or irreverence. Kane said of his portraiture: "You have to own people...grab them, twist them into what you want to say about them." He was quoted in the book ''The Nikon Image'' as saying: "I've always considered myself an illustrator, a literate photographer interested in producing images that reflect the essence of an idea...I wanted to interpret the human scene rather than simply record it." Art Kane is credited in the book ''Stainless Steel Illusion'' for the photograph of

John DeLorean John Zachary DeLorean (January 6, 1925 – March 19, 2005) was an American engineer, inventor, and executive in the U.S. automobile industry, widely known for his work at General Motors and as founder of the DeLorean Motor Company. DeLorean ma ...

with the DeLorean sports car that was the basis for the only magazine advertisement ever created by

DeLorean Motor Company The DeLorean Motor Company (DMC) was an American automobile manufacturer formed by automobile industry executive John DeLorean in 1975. It is remembered for the one model it produced—the stainless steel DeLorean sports car featuring gull-w ...

. In 1989, the Art Kane Photo Workshops were created in

Cape May, New Jersey Cape May is a city located at the southern tip of Cape May Peninsula in Cape May County, New Jersey, United States, where the Delaware Bay meets the Atlantic Ocean. It is one of the country's oldest vacation resort destinations, and part of ...

. They were week-long workshops with notable photographers. In 1995, Kane, 69, died of a self-inflicted gunshot at his former wife's house in Garrard County, Kentucky. The drummer

Jonathan Kane Jonathan Kane (born November 4, 1956) is an American musician and composer. Coming out of New York's Downtown Music scene of the early 1980s, Kane is known for his work with minimalist composers La Monte Young and Rhys Chatham, and was a foundi ...

is his son.

References

External links

Homepage of the Art Kane estateThe official ''A Great Day In Harlem'' film websiteArt Directors Club biography, portrait, and images of Kane's work
1925 births 1995 suicides Jazz photographers Photographers from New York City 1995 deaths Suicides by firearm in Kentucky {{US-photographer-stub