What a pleasure to host the first ever gallery exhibition for French photographer Roger Kasparian.
This is a fabulous body of work featuring previously unseen images from the mid-sixties including The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Who, Marianne Faithfull, The Beach Boys, The Kinks, Serge Gainsbourg, Francoise Hardy and more.
Roger Kasparian on location with Francoise Hardy.
It is a complete treat to be able to introduce you to the work of mid-sixties French photographer Roger Kasparian. Roger’s story is the one you always hope for as a gallery owner: a previously undiscovered archive full of gems from arguably the most important decade in the history of contemporary pop culture, on show for the very first time.
I couldn’t put it better than the Financial Times’s esteemed art critic Jackie Wullschlager, who reviewed the work in the FT and called it “an irresistible evocation of time, place and the fleetingness of youth and fame.”
Who is Roger Kasparian?
Roger was working in Paris at the height of the sixties beat boom, and his subjects included the A-List of sixties pop culture: The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Who, Marianne Faithfull, The Beach Boys, Serge Gainsbourg, Francoise Hardy and many more. Then, in 1970, Roger took over his father’s photographic studio, put the showbiz world behind him, and became a typical local photographer. He took pictures of marriages, birthdays and municipal councils while his classic 1960s music archive lay undisturbed – for fifty years.
I am delighted that we are finally able to put Roger’s work under the spotlight it deserves. Unpublished Beatles and Stones pieces are always special, but stand-outs for me are the fabulous shots of The Who, the beautiful Marianne Faithfull close up, and the live portrait of The Beach Boys.
The French press in particular have been going crazy for Roger Kasparian, calling him their Sugarman, in a nod to Rodriguez, and a book and a film are now out about his early work. Crazy stuff.
Now you can own a little piece of the sugar.
Scroll down to view the selection of limited editions.
“An irresistible evocation of time, place and the fleetingness of youth and fame.”
Jackie Wullschlager, Financial Times
Serge Gainsbourg
Serge Gainsbourg profile, Place Victor Hugo, Paris, winter 1963
Serge Gainsbourg, photographed by Roger Kasparian in the winter of 1963 on Place Victor Hugo in Paris. You get two classic takes on French architecture in this photograph. To the left of centre, in sharp focus, the instantly recognisable Gallic profile of Serge Gainsbourg, dressed in black and grasping at the top of his winter coat, and just right of centre, two blocks of grand Parisian buildings and rows of traffic converge into a snowy, soft focus vanishing point. Brilliant.
The Beatles
The Beatles, in line, Palais Des Sports de Paris, 20 June 1965
This Beatles photograph from their concert on 20 June 1965 is a very rare beast. I didn’t actually realise it was so rare until a Beatles uber-aficionado pointed this out to me – but photographs of George with a twelve string Rickenbacker are impossibly difficult to find. I never knew. Personally, I had been loving this one because of the band’s linear formation, each one doing his individual thing, and John really belting out his vocal.
