White

Timothy White: PortraitsJanuary 30 to June 5, 2011The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum

Portraiture is the most traditional and elemental form of art. It is a universal staple in virtually all eras of Western art, from its roots in ancient Egypt, through modern abstraction, to today. Even amidst the serial experimentation and evolution of approaches to art making in the twentieth century, portraiture remained a staple. Think of the massed geometric forms of Malevich’s Self Portrait in Two Dimensions, Picasso’s intimate portraits of his lovers, Dorothea Lange’s haunting Depression-era photographic portraits, or Andy Warhol’s silkscreen portraits.

For more than twenty years Timothy White has worked in the realm of celebrity, the ascendancy of which in our culture was enshrined by Warhol in works such as Liz or Marilyn. White has garnered great professional success in Hollywood and the music industry, while creating a body of work of rare intimacy, humor, and pathos. He has created powerful portraits which, taken together, chronicle America’s collected desires, reflected in instantly recognizable faces. More impressively, White’s work actually reflects the people he is photographing, not just their celebrated images.

Consider the challenges facing the portraitist. Armed—in Timothy White’s case—with a camera, he must capture and reveal the essence of his subject, despite the fact that the

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subject may have an instinctive fear of the intimate violation implied by this act. This is an invasive process.

And what if your subject is already defined in most viewers’ eyes, with an image already delineated by celebrity? The very thing that brings you to take their picture nearly dooms to you to failure before you start. And their ability to project their own image means you will have to overcome their desire, however overt or subtle, to control the process.

White has managed to surmount these challenges by gaining the trust of his subjects and thus getting them to drop their guard—even to enjoy the process. “What I tell my clients is if you allow me to interact with the talent and give me the freedom to collaborate with them and to do something we can bond over, I’ll come back with better and more interesting imagery,” said White in an interview that appeared in

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Resource Magazine in the winter of 2010. “And the talent is going to be into it because of the collaborative process and because we did something they enjoyed.”

The portraits in this exhibition include some created for commercial clients, some additional photographs taken during those shoots, and some created in collaboration with subjects who have become friends over the years, most especially Brad Pitt, Whoopi Goldberg, and Harrison Ford. These extended relationships have led to some amazing images taken over a sustained period of time. The portrait of Pitt in this exhibition, for example, was taken during a motorcycle trip through the Mojave Desert, which included a stop at the Chicken Ranch brothel, where this shot was taken.

White’s involvement in the motorcycle world led to the photograph of Liza Minnelli in this exhibition. White’s initial idea was to bring together two bikers—one of them his friend, the legendary motorcycle creator Indian Larry—and Minnelli to create a

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shot where the bikers’ tattooed arms would shield our view of Minnelli’s naked body. In the moment of bringing them together a very different shot emerged—Minnelli revealing her tattoo for the first time.

Other photos gain import from the circumstances of their creation—James Brown’s portrait was taken the day he was released from prison in 1991. White drove him from prison back to the house he had been raised in, where this picture was taken.

And what of White’s amazing image of Liz, the most iconic of celebrities? An off-camera Shirley MacLaine helped White egg her on to express what one imagines must be the universal, if only occasionally seen, inner reaction of anybody who treads the red carpet for a living.

Harry Philbrick, curator

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A graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design, White was born in Fort Lee, New Jersey, and currently resides in New York City. Publications of White’s photographs include Portraits (Rizzoli, 2001), Indian Larry (Merrell, 2006), Hollywood Pinups (HarperCollins, 2008), and Match Prints (HarperCollins, 2010). His portraits grace movie posters for major Hollywood studios (Sony, Paramount, and Universal), the covers of publications including Vanity Fair, Vogue, Esquire, Playboy, and Rolling Stone, and numerous album covers (Bruce Springsteen and Aretha Franklin, among others).

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Works in the Exhibition

GicléeAll h x w in inches

Björk, Reykjavik, Iceland, 198840 x 40

Keith Richards, New York City, 198840 x 40

Paul Newman, New York City, 198840 x 40

Robert Mitchum, Santa Barbara, CA, 198850 x 40

Mel Gibson, Los Angeles, CA, 199050 x40

Anthony Hopkins, Hollywood, CA, 199150 x 40

Bruce Springsteen, Malibu, CA, 199140 x 40

James Brown, Augusta, GA, 199150 x 40

Ray Charles, Culver City, CA, 199150 x 40

Shirley MacLaine, Los Angeles, CA, 199150 x 40

Susan Sarandon, New York City, 199140 x 40

Michael Jackson, New York City, 199450 x 40

Woody Allen, New York City, 199440 x 40

Bruce Willis, Philadelphia, PA, 199550 x 40

Drew Barrymore, Hollywood, CA, 199550 x 40

Aretha Franklin, Detroit, MI, 199650 x 40

Glenn Close, Bedford, NY, 199650 x 40

Liza Minnelli, New York City, 199650 x 40

Raquel Welch, New York City, 199650 x 40

Whoopi Goldberg, New York City, 199640 x 40

Harrison Ford, Amboy, CA, 199750 x 40

John Travolta, Boston, MA, 199750 x 40

Jim Carey, Los Angeles, CA, 199850 x 40

Julia Roberts, New York City, 199850 x 40

Nicolas Cage, San Francisco, CA, 199850 x 40

Sophia Loren, Beverly Hills, CA, 199950 x 40

Sylvester Stallone, Los Angeles, CA, 200050 x 40

Elizabeth Taylor, Los Angeles, CA, 200150 x 40

Dustin Hoffman, New York City, 200250 x 40

Jack Nicholson, Los Angeles, CA, 200250 x 40

Nicole Kidman, New York City, 200340 x 40

Tim Robbins, New York City, 200350 x 40

Angelina Jolie, Los Angeles, CA, 200450 x 40

Brad Pitt, Pahrump, NV, 200550 x 40

Jamie Foxx, Harlem, NY, 200550 x 40

Eva Mendes, Los Angeles, CA, 200640 x 50

James Gandolfini, New York City, 200650 x 40

All courtesy of the artist

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Mark L. Goldstein, Chairman; A. Peter Sallick, Vice-Chairman; John Tremaine, Treasurer/Secretary; Annadurai Amirthalingam; Richard Anderson; William Burback; Eric G. Diefenbach; Chris Doyle; Linda M. Dugan; Georganne Aldrich Heller, Honorary Trustee; Meagan Julian; Neil Marcus; Kathleen O’Grady; Donald Opatrny; Gregory Peterson; Peter Robbins; Martin Sosnoff, Trustee Emeritus

Larry Aldrich (1906–2001), Founder

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