OPEN MEMORIAL DAY
NORMAN SEEFF: FIFTY YEARS IN EXILE

Music photography fans! Just a quick message to let you know: while the RPM Special Exhibition Space is normally closed Mondays we will be opening up Memorial Day, Mon. May 30 from 11-4.

Stop by before the BBQ and check out the Norman Seeff: Fifty Years in Exile exhibition, which features the rare, the vintage and the never-before-seen from Norman Seeff's 1972 session with the Rolling Stones. Featured in the show is this colossal 8-foot-wide art piece created by Norman just for the exhibition, featuring two frames from one of the original contact sheets from the Stones Exile on Main St. shoot. Have a great weekend. Hope to see you here!

Memorial Weekend Hours
Fri / Sat 11-8
Sun 11-4
Memorial Day Mon 11-4

Rock Photography Museum
Special Exhibition Space
123 N. Artsakh Ave.
Glendale, CA 91206
(424) 245-0755
Plenty of parking - 90 min. free.

Visit Norman Seeff's Official Site.

View the exhibition on Artsy.

See more of Norman's vintage print archive at Seeff Vintage Photos.

This exhibition is produced in association with our friends at The Perfect Exposure Gallery.

Follow RPM on Instagram.

Find out more about Norman's session with the Stones from the man himself in this fascinating recent interview from LA Weekly by Lina Licaro.

PHOTOGRAPHER NORMAN SEEFF ON HIS ICONIC EXILE ON MAIN STREET IMAGES

LINA LECARO
MAY 13, 2022

Exile on Main Street celebrates its 50th anniversary this week. It is widely regarded as the Rolling Stones’ most important album, but even if it isn’t your favorite, if you’re a Stones fan, you know it’s special, especially as representation of the time when Mick, Keith and the boys were at their coolest and most creative. Coming off the sexy Americana-tinged grit of Sticky Fingers, Exile saw the band at a melodic high point in songwriting and stylistic output, evoking hedonism, wistfulness and defiance as they had “exiled” themselves to avoid exorbitant UK taxes. The year was 1972, and music in general had an effortless excess about it. (The Black Crowes just released an EP celebrating songs from the year, and it opens with Exile’s first track “Rocks Off”). Photographer Norman Seeff was privy to much of the creative planning for the iconic record, as he worked with Mick Jagger and John Van Hamersveld on art direction and photography.

Seeff shares rare images and ephemera from the project with “50 Years In Exile" exhibiting images from his 1972 photo session with the Stones. Vintage photos and the paste-up layout used to produce a set of postcards included with the original pressing of the album will be on display. Seeff shared some memories and background on the project and the band with LA Weekly. 

LA WEEKLY: How did you come to work with The Stones?

NORMAN SEEFF: Well, it’s kind of a very broad story and I’m going to just add some history in there. I was a medical doctor working in emergency medicine in South Africa in Soweto. I had to get out of the country because I didn’t like the South African apartheid system and they didn’t like me. I ended up in New York with one little camera in my hands and, never having been trained in the arts, but in the hubris of youth, thought “I can do anything I want.” I started walking the streets of New York and bumping into interesting people, asking them if I could photograph them. I’d bumped into people like Patti Smith or people from The Factory and I built up this portfolio in New York of what you could call “the subculture.” Suddenly, to my surprise, I ended up as this rock photographer in New York! I didn’t even know when I came from South Africa, that there was a business called the music business where you can take photographs for album covers. I met a man in New York–he was considered the top graphic designer in the music world. He became my mentor and opened up all the doors for me.

After about three years in New York, he recommended that I come to Los Angeles because they were looking for an art director for United Artists Records. Suddenly, you know, from a few years earlier, just walking the streets with a camera, I’m now a head of United Artists, the graphic side. Somehow, my reputation must have reached London. I get a call from someone about The Rolling Stones. They’ll be in L.A. and would I do the shoots.

What was the conceptual idea behind the postcard imagery?

Mick Jagger was pissed off about the tax situation in England and they decided that they needed to leave and go and work in another country. Mick had seen a picture of the Ballet Russes, which was the Russian National Ballet Company. They were traveling the world and what happened is the whole ballet company defected to the States. He’d seen a photograph of them, I think, coming down the ramp of an airplane. The story that I was told was Mick wanted to do it coming down the ramp of a boat, and more kind of period looking–Titanic days, that kind of look. We checked out the Long Beach docks and realized that if we brought the band to Long Beach, we would have 1000 people on the docks and that wasn’t going to work. Then the idea was can we build a set? I found one of the big stages in Hollywood and we had to work quickly. I got my crew and we took one day, starting early in the morning to build the set.

To read the rest of the interview visit LA WEEKLY.

https://www.laweekly.com/photographer-norman-seeff-on-his-iconic-exile-on-main-street-images/