Bruce Springsteen
Barbara Pyle's stunning 1975 photographs are now available to purchase. It's always a pleasure to introduce something of significance for the first time to the collectors market, particularly when that something is a set of photographs capturing rare behind the scenes moments at a critical time in the rock 'n' roll history of Mr Bruce Springsteen. All at very keen prices as well.
Barbara Pyle's intimate 1975 photographs of Bruce and the E Street band in rehearsal, in the recording studio, and onstage and offstage during the Born to Run tour have never been made available to collectors before, so we are delighted to be able to bring them to you.
Barbara's name has been in the headlights recently because two photographs from her archives were featured in the very succesful Photographers Against Hunger charity draw, in support of the Community FoodBank of New Jersey. We have received a number of enquiries from Springsteen collectors keen to acquire limited editions of her photographs.
While Barbara's archives contain other great material (which we will be releasing on to the collectors market over the coming months) we have agreed with Barbara that to begin with, we will be releasing the two photographs that featured in the charity draw.
These two nuggets are:
Dawn Rehearsal: an important historical documentary photograph taken on July 20th, 1975, which shows Bruce and The E Street Band rehearsing for the first night of their Born To Run tour, after an all night session at The Record Plant to finish recording the Born To Run album.
My Home Town: taken on the Born to Run tour, at Barbara Pyle's home town, Pauls Valley, Oklahoma on September 17th, 1975. The photograph, showing Bruce and the E Street band outside the abandoned 'Coffee Cup Cafe', ran in the "Time" magazine cover story on October 27th, 1975, captioned 'Real Roadhouse Rock.'
We want more!!
Don't sweat! Reinforcements are on their way and over the next month or so, when we will be releasing a significant collection of Barbara's work. For now, this is a great taster of what is to follow.
We have been fortunate to have the chance to look through Barbara's archives from 1975, and have seen many photographs which have never been published before. Now here's the interesting thing we realised about Barbara's photographs as a result of this exercise. It seemed to us that they work so well together, that it actually becomes extremely difficult to pick just one favourite. Once we release more from the collection, you will see what we mean, but our guts tell us that if we feel like that about them, it is very likely that you will feel like this too. Once you see them, we think you will want to own more than one... maybe four, six, eight, who knows. And that's a bit of a problem. After all, you can't just have everything you want, because of the wallspace you need, and also because of budget... right?
Wrong !
Here's why. Over the last five years or so, the general ‘norm’ in galleries has been for photographers to offer their work in something like a 16x20 inch paper size as a minimum, and then offer larger variants of the same image; sometimes a 20x24 inch paper size, then a 30 x 40 inch paper and so on. Strangely, photographers rarely offer very small physical sizes. That's a shame because wallspace and budget are always an issue with collectors, and the entry level prices for larger scale versions can be a disincentive to many people.
So in the current economic climate, we feel the time is right to offer something very affordable, in a much smaller physical size than is the 'norm'. When we ran this past Barbara, she was hooked on the idea - her reaction was instant, and she told us: "’Bruce at the people’s price’ …fabulous...it would be fun to take the photographs out to a broader audience..that was always my intention."
The size we like best for these purposes is an 8 x 10 inch paper size, with an image size approximately 5.75 x 8.5 inches. When matted and framed, the external dimensions come out at around 12 x 14 inches - so its a nice small size for the wall. And let's face it: often it is easier to swing a purchase past your partner if they know it isn't going to dominate the room. With this size, the wives need never know, to paraphrase Laurel and Hardy.
There was no way we could scrimp on quality standards, but we've aimed for an entry price point for a signed limited edition 8x10 inch photograph that we know represents really exceptional value in the collectors market. We think that these smaller size 8x10 prints are exactly what people need right now. And if you want larger sizes those are available too. Our aim has been to keep edition sizes low, and keep prices keen across the range, so let's see what you think.
Remember - for now we are just releasing the two Photographers Against Hunger images - but more will follow over the next month or so.
