AXTMANBRILLA
is brought by
BRILLA CONSULTING GMBH & CO.KG, GERMANY
in collaboration with
MARKETING & CONSULTING DI GIULIA KASCINA, ITALY
This is a rare photograph by Dennis Stock out of his series "James Dean". The journalist and photographer Dennis Stock was one of the first media people who believed in James Dean's extraordinary performance as actor. James Dean finished only three movies who made him to achieve cult status. In 1955, shortly before his deadly car crash with his Porsche 550 Spyder on Sept. 30, 1955, he invited Stock to his home to meet his family and friends. Stock was allowed to take any shots as he wanted to show James Dean how he really is, where he is coming from - a rather shy young man from the province full of dreams and very friendly, not that glimmering star in Hollywood who became one of the all time best actors of the world. On this authentic vintage photogravure/heliogravure made in 1956, finished in matte and professionally dry mounted on conservation mat board, James Dean is walking on the streets of his hometown Fairmount, Indiana. That was in early 1955, few months before his death that shocked the entire young generation of that time.
Dennis Stock
Dennis Stock (1928 - 2010) was born and grown up in New York City, Following his military service, he apprenticed under photographer Gjon Mili. In 1951, he won the first prize in a Life magazine competition for young photographers. That same year, he became an associate member of the photography agency Magnum, a full partner-member in 1954.
End of 1954, Stock met the actor James Dean and was fascinated by that young man who wasn't that famous at that time. He undertook a series of photos of the actor in Hollywood, Dean's hometown Fairmount in Indiana, and in New York City. One of his portraits of Dean in New York's Times Square became an iconic image of the young star. The black and white picture shows the actor with a pulled up collar on a long coat and a cigarette in his mouth on a rain-soaked, grey day. It later appeared in numerous galleries and on postcards and posters and became one of the most reproduced photographs of the post-war period and certainly pushed Dean's career.
From 1957 until the early 1960s, Stock aimed his lens at jazz musicians, photographing such famous musicians as Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday, Duke Ellington, and Miles Davis (see for example, Milestones Cover Photo). Using this series of photographs he published the book Jazz Street. In 1962, he received the first prize at the International Photo Competition in Poland. In 1968, Stock left Magnum to start his own film company, Visual Objectives Inc., and made several documentaries. Yet, he returned to the agency a year later, as vice president for new media and film. In the mid-1970s, he traveled to Japan and the Far East, and also produced numerous features series, such as photographs of contrasting regions, like Hawaii and Alaska. In the 1970s and 1980s he focused on color photography of nature and landscape, and returned to his urban roots in the 1990s focusing on architecture and modernism. He lived with his family until his death in Woodstock, New York. Dennis Stock certainly is one of the greatest photographers of the 20th century.
