"Bob Dylan, 'Blonde on Blonde'", 1965
Signed Schatzberg and numbered 6/20. C-print, image 56.5 x 28 cm. Edition 20 + 4 AP.
Snap Gallery, London.
Illustrated on the cover of Bob Dylans album "Blond on Blonde", 1966.
Jerry Schatzberg, "Thin Wild Mercury; Touching Dylan's Edge", 2006, illustrated with foldout in colour.
Jerry Schatzberg has, over the past three decades, excelled in both the realms of photography and filmmaking. His Fashion photography has been published in magazines such as Vogue, Esquire, Glamour and Life. Schatzberg captured intimate portraits of the generation's most notable artists, celebrities and thinkers. Al Pacino costarred with Gene Hackman in his next film, “Scarecrow” (1973), a moody tale of two drifters which in many ways is an apotheosis of 70’s alienation and confusion. Schatzberg won the Golden Palm at the Cannes Film Festival with “Scarecrow”.
The album Blonde on Blonde was a commercial success; it even spawned several hit singles that restored Dylan to the upper echelons of the singles chart. However, it was an even greater critical success. As critic Dave Marsh wrote in the Rolling Stone Record Guide, Blonde on Blonde is widely regarded as one of Dylan's "best albums, and [one] of the greatest in the history of rock & roll."
This is Schatzberg’s own words on the photo-shoot where he created one of the most well-known images of Bob Dylan: "I wanted to find an interesting location out of the studio. We went to the west side, where the Chelsea Art galleries are now. At the time it was the meat-packing district of New York and I liked the look of it. It was freezing and I was very cold. The frame he [Dylan] chose for the cover is blurred and out of focus. Of course everyone was trying to interpret the meaning, saying it must represent getting high or an LSD trip. It was none of the above; we were just cold and the two of us were shivering. There were other images that were sharp and in focus, but to his credit, Dylan liked that photograph."