LONDON.- The V&A opened the exhibition Fragile Beauty: Photographs from the Sir Elton John and David Furnish Collection.
Showcasing over 300 rare prints from 140 photographers the exhibition is a major presentation of twentieth and twenty-first century photography on loan from the private collection of Sir Elton John and David Furnish. Selected from their collection of over 7,000 images, the exhibited photographs (many of which are on public display for the first time and some in the collection’s bespoke frames) are era-defining images which explore the connection between strength and vulnerability inherent in the human condition. Whilst universally compelling, the images are intensely personal for John and Furnish, as they are the photographs they live with in their home.
Following on from the 2016 exhibition The Radical Eye: Modernist Photography from the Sir Elton John Collection at the Tate Modern, this exhibition covers the period from 1950 to the present day, including a monumental installation of 149 Nan Goldin prints from her Thanksgiving series. It brings together an unrivalled selection of the world’s leading photographers to tell the story of modern and contemporary photography, and includes celebrated works by Robert Mapplethorpe, Cindy Sherman, William Eggleston, Diane Arbus, Sally Mann, Zanele Muholi, Ai Weiwei, Carrie Mae Weems and others.
Brand new acquisitions also are on display by Tyler Mitchell, Trevor Paglen and An-My Lê. These join some of the very first acquisitions made by John, fashion photographs by Horst P. Horst, Irving Penn and Herb Ritts.
Sir Elton John and David Furnish, said: “Since we first loaned a selection of Horst photographs to the V&A in 2014, our relationship with the museum has grown significantly. Fragile Beauty takes our collaboration to really exciting new heights, showcasing some of the most beloved photographers and iconic images from within our collection. Working alongside the V&A again has been a truly memorable experience, and we look forward to sharing this exhibition with the public.”
Duncan Forbes, curator of Fragile Beauty, said: “We are delighted to be working with Sir Elton John and David Furnish to present highlights from their unparalleled collection: from the playful and surprising, to the contemplative and thoughtful. Whether through the elegance of fashion photography, the creativity of musicians and performers, the exploration of desire, or the passage of history as captured by photojournalism, photography reveals something important about the world. Fragile Beauty will be a truly epic journey across the recent history of photography, and a celebration of Sir Elton John and David Furnish's passion for the medium.”
Marking 30 years of collecting, the exhibition celebrates John and Furnish’s passion for the medium and reflects their personal taste and unique eye as collectors. Across eight thematic sections, Fragile Beauty explores themes such as fashion, reportage, celebrity, the male body, and American photography. Portraits of stars from stage and screen also are being featured, including photography of Aretha Franklin, Elizabeth Taylor, The Beatles, and Chet Baker. Many photographs in the exhibition respond to themes of persecution, resistance, and key moments in history, and include images of the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s, AIDS activism of the 1980s and the events of 11 September 2001.
Three images depicting Marilyn Monroe taken between 1957-1962 are on display: Richard Avedon’s well-known early photograph of the actress in New York in 1957, Eve Arnold’s portrait of Monroe rehearsing her lines on the set of The Misfits in 1960, and finally Bert Stern’s The Last Sitting®, which captures the star lost in thought two months before she died. Presented together to the public for the first time, these candid portraits capture Monroe at the height of her fame, in moments between scripted scenes or staged shoots.
A highlight of the exhibition is Nan Goldin’s Thanksgiving series. A 149-image series, shown in its entirety in the exhibition, it documents events from 1973 to 1999 and depicts some of the most intimate and emotional moments in Goldin and her community’s lives, from the euphoric to the sensual to the distressing. Displayed floor to ceiling, the photographs become an intense homage both to the friendships that survived those twenty-six years, and to those friends she has lost.
Other highlights include; three photographs by David LaChapelle, including the humorous portrait of Elton John with two eggs over his eyes (Elton John: Egg On His Face, 1999); eleven Robert Mapplethorpe images ranging from his still life including Poppy(1988), to self-portraits such as Self-Portrait with Horns (1985); Sam Taylor- Johnson’s Crying Men (2004), featuring some of Hollywood’s greatest male talents including Laurence Fishburne, Robin Williams and Daniel Craig, in vulnerable states of tearfulness and contemplation; photogram portraits of John and Furnish’s children, taken by Adam Fuss; the viral image by Associated Press photographer Julio Cortez, taken at the protests in Minneapolis following the murder of George Floyd in May 2020, depicting a lone protester carrying an upside-down U.S. flag next to a burning building; Peter Hujar’s unflinching portrait, Candy Darling in Her Deathbed (1974), depicting the American transgender actress Candy (an Andy Warhol superstar and a muse of The Velvet Underground) in her hospital bed; Tom Bianchi’s Fire Island Pines, 1975-1983, a series of photographs celebrating gay joy at a time when homosexuality was still illegal across the USA , and capturing the resort’s halcyon days with poolside pictures of tanned torsos.
Fragile Beauty: Photographs from the Sir Elton John and David Furnish Collection is curated by Duncan Forbes, Head of Photography at the V&A, Newell Harbin, Director of The Sir Elton John and David Furnish Photography Collection, and Lydia Caston, Exhibition Project Curator. The exhibition is part of the ongoing partnership between Sir Elton John and David Furnish with the V&A, which began with their generous support for the V&A’s Photography Centre in 2019.
