Lynn Goldsmith – Aretha Franklin – Maryland, 1993

“Newsweek assigned me to make portraits at the Fifty-Second Presidential Inaugural Gala at the Capital Centre in Landover, Maryland, in honor of President Bill Clinton. I knew there’d be about a hundred big names in entertainment backstage, and with everything that was going on, why would they want to take time to let me photograph them? Many, like Barbara Streisand, were artists who I knew would not sit for an image they had no approval over. I decided that the tool for the job would be the 20×24 Polaroid camera. The subject could approve the image as soon as we peeled back the film and then I could hang the large portraits to dry on a wall outside my makeshift studio. It would look like a gallery. The idea was that seeing the images would make everyone want to be photographed. No one would want to be left out. The work was challenging, as I had to change lighting as well as move the camera up and down very quickly for each person. I was getting artists like Aretha Franklin, whom I’d dreamed of shooting, and combinations of people were posing together that I probably never could have gotten. When THe evening was over, we counted up the film shot and discovered that a number of the prints were missing; among them were two that I cherished of Aretha. We checked with the Secret Service, and they said artists including CHuck Berry, Little Richard, and Warren Beatty had walked out with what looked to them like rolled-up posters. We called those artists’ offices the next day and the only return we got was from Warren Beatty.”

Lynn Goldsmith’s imagery is in numerous collections: The Smithsonian, The Polaroid Collection, The Kodak Collection, The Museum of Modern Art, The Chicago Museum of Contemporary Photography, and the permanent collection of Museum Folkwang. She is a multi-awarded portrait photographer whose work has appeared on and between the covers of Life, Newsweek, Time, Rollingstone, Sports Illustrated, People, Elle, Interview, The New Yorker, etc. Her subjects have varied from entertainment personalities to sports stars, from film directors to authors, from the extra-ordinary to the ordinary man on the street.

Read full bio

All prices are for unframed prints unless mentioned otherwise. Custom framing is available upon request. Please call for framed pricing and additional information 1.310.858.8114 or e-mail us at Info@mouchegallery.com