Ron Galella: New York - by Nick Vogelson (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

The paparazzi photography of Ron Galella has been the subject of several monographs, but this is the first volume to focus on the city with which his work is most identified--New York, in the 1970s and 80s. The book contains many unpublished images from Galella's archives of iconic celebrities of the day, such as Bianca Jagger, Madonna, Grace Jones, Halston and Al Pacino--out and about on the streets, at JFK airport or in hotel lobbies, enjoying the nightlife and theater culture of a grittier New York City. Journalist William Van Meter interviews Galella about specific images, providing captions that reveal previously untold anecdotes about Galella's most legendary photographs.

Ron Galella (born 1931) is widely regarded as the most famous and most controversial celebrity photographer in the world. He has been dubbed "Paparazzo Extraordinaire" by Newsweek, and "the godfather of US paparazzi culture" by Time and Vanity Fair. Galella has endured two highly publicized court battles with Jacqueline Kennedy-Onassis, a broken jaw at the hands of Marlon Brando and a serious beating by Richard Burton's bodyguards. His work has been exhibited at museums and galleries throughout the world. The Museum of Modern Art New York and San Francisco, the Tate Modern in London and the Helmut Newton Foundation Museum of Photography in Berlin, among many others, all maintain collections of Galella's photography. A native New Yorker now residing in Montville, New Jersey, Galella served as a United States Air Force photographer during the Korean conflict before attending the Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles, where he earned a degree in Photojournalism.

Review Quotes

Reflecting upon his decades of work, Ron Galella, the godfather of American paparazzi photography, remarks, "New York became my studio." Gallella's photos - taken from the windows of moving taxis, behind lampposts on Fifth Avenue, in Studio 54 - captured the likes of De Niro, Nicholson, Jagger, Bowie, and the rest of New York's Me Decade luminaries, each of them unguarded, unposed, and often unhappy about it. These shots, collected in Ron Galella: New York, once filled tabloids; they now fill galleries as beautifull artifacts from a glitzier, grittier New York.--R. Kurt Osenlund "OUT Magazine"

A testament to the city that everyone loves to hate but always comes back to, eventually. Galella captures the then-famous and our still-famous traveling into, out of, and within the Big Apple.--Nicholas Weist "Document"

Alongside a number of never-seen-before photographs, the sensational book also boasts an exclusive interview with the legendary paparazzo, revealing previously untold stories behind some of his most iconic images.--Giulia Mutti "AnOther Magazine"

Galella spends his day poring over his vast archives searching for some picture he overlooked, some gem buried in his contacts. "Mining the gold in my files," as he says. Interest in all his pictures from back when he was still the undefeated don of the paparazzi -- of Jackie, Liz and Brando -- keeps him in circulation in fine art galleries around the world. An 8-by-10 print might easily fetch $2,500, and he distributes scores of them to galleries daily.

Galella was speaking from the home he's shared with his wife Betty for more than two decades. It is covered top to bottom in pictures -- a Jackie over the fireplace, a Liz by the staircase, an Andy Warhol etched onto the back of a chair -- and fistfuls of porcelain rabbits -- his and Betty's favorite animal. Boxes of film are scattered all over the place -- "Mick Jagger Alone," "Elvis Presley with others." The negatives of his most famous pictures -- "Windblown Jackie" and a shot of Galella in a football helmet trailing Marlon Brando -- are also here, stored away in a safe.

He's on a couch, with all his books displayed in front of him, flipping through the pages of "New York," the new book from Damiani and Row NYC that features images extending from 1968 to 1992, all the way from Warhol's prime to his memorial service luncheon.

There's Warhol and Keith Haring at Tunnel in 1986. "Andy liked me a lot, I think, because we liked the same celebrities and because I had the chutzpah and he was shy and he didn't get the pictures I got," he says. "We had the same social disease. We want to be everywhere and we want to cover everything."--Erik Maza "Women's Wear Daily"

Mr. Mickey's look of the month is a plethora of old-school paparazzi shots by the master photographer Ron Galella from his new book, Ron Galella New York (Damiani/Row NYC)--Mickey Boardman "Paper Magazine"