The Customs House Museum in Clarksville, TN, is exhibiting a suite of Andy Warhol portraits by renowned photographer Raeanne Rubenstein. Rubenstein’s exhibit, The Fascinating Mr. Warhol, is on display through May 4th. The exhibition also includes dozens of small photos taken by Warhol himself using a Polaroid Big Shot camera that he purchased in 1974.
As ClarksvilleNow.com explains, “Most of these photos were not put on exhibit while Warhol was alive. But now Warhol aficionados can get a better sense of the process by which the artist ultimately created his large paintings, as such photos were snapped as studies for those works.
This part of the exhibition includes Warhol snapshots of the unknown and the famous, the latter including Princess Caroline of Monaco, Pia Zadora, Gianni Versace and Halston. While some are single snapshots, other photos in this exhibit represent a series of the same individual. In these, the viewer can witness the subtle nuances of a sitter’s emerging personality through the repetition of shots. (There is more information at the website of the Customs House Museum.)
Warhol’s portrait photographer, Rubenstein, made her name in New York City shooting such celebrities as John Lennon, Muhammad Ali, Dustin Hoffman, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Mick Jagger, The Beatles, Andy Warhol, Francois Truffaut, Jim Morrison, KISS, Pink Floyd, John Belushi and Rod Stewart, to name a few.
She went on to work for Rolling Stone, The Village Voice, People, Time, Life, CBS and HBO. She has published several books of her work, including a 2006 luxury cocktail table book titled “Country Music: The People Places & Events That Shaped the Country Sound”. Her photographs have been featured on numerous record covers, and in film and television documentaries. She has had numerous exhibits of her work in galleries and museums, including the Nikon House Gallery, Time-Life Portrait Gallery in NYC and the Emerson Gallery in Dublin, Ireland.