LOT Phillips de Pury & Company  /  PHOTOGRAPHS PART II  / 

120

ROY SCHATT (American, 1919-May 4, 2002) JAMES DEAN (TORN SWEATER) signed

Currency:USD Category:Everything Else / Other Start Price:NA Estimated At:2,500.00 - 3,500.00 USD
ROY SCHATT (American, 1919-May 4, 2002) JAMES DEAN (TORN SWEATER) signed
ROY SCHATT (American, 1919-May 4, 2002) JAMES DEAN (TORN SWEATER) signed "Roy Schatt" in black ink on verso 2 artist stamps on verso "Vintage" inscribed in ink on verso vintage gelatin silver print on stiff board 10 3/16 x 13 1/8 in. (25.9 x 33.3 cm) December 29, 1954 from the TORN SWEATER series PROVENANCE Acquired directly from the artist by the current owner LITERATURE Roy Schatt, JAMES DEAN: A PORTRAIT, NEW YORK, 1982, p. 15 (illustrated; series illustrated pp. 8-23) This is an image from the most well-known series of photographs of James Dean, called the TORN SWEATER series, shot on December 29, 1954. One similar image from this series by Schatt was used as the backdrop for the stage revue, GREASE, and was reproduced on posters and publicity flyers circulated all over the globe. Schatt explains the background of this series in his book, JAMES DEAN: A PORTRAIT: "Dean was just becoming known when I began photographing him....Life was the important magazine to appear in at the time and, naturally, Jimmy wanted to be in it. He asked me to show them my shots. Frank D. Campion, the man to see, liked the photos, but said he wanted a serious, more manly sitting. What Life wanted we were more than happy to provide. The day I shot the photos, the session went extraordinarily well. After a certain amount of horsing around, Jimmy behaved and became serious when I got the lighting just right. He clicked, I clicked, and the photos clicked. He now had quite a bit of photographic experience himself, and after a while I allowed him to direct some of the shots. It was all pretty heady. At one point he commented, 'Don't you think I look like Michelangelo's David?' The pictures from that sitting became the 'Torn Sweater' series. Life magazine, as it turned out, had an exclusive contract with a big agency and couldn't use the pictures I had taken. But to this day, the 'Torn Sweater' series are the best known and most popular shots of Dean in the world, even though Life never published them" (p. 38).
Sign In to Bookmark Lot