ARA GALLANT

'When Ara became a photographer, he created situations that were both sexy and dangerous. He loved androgyny, daring, intrigue. He was subversive; an influencer, a mentor, an advisor, a director, a comrade in arms...Ara's sideburns were chiselled to a razor point to order to emphasize the hollows of his cheekbones. He wore kohl inside the rims of his eyes at night...He loved to dress in chiffon shirts with flowing sleeves tight on the ribcage and open from the naval...' - Anjelica Huston. Gallant began his professional career in fashion as a hairdresser, working in a New York department store as one of the city's top colourists. In the mid 1960s he was approached by Vogue magazine to work on photo assignments alongside the great fashion photographers of the period Richard Avedon, Irving Penn and Bert Stern among them. His most notable contribution was the introduction of 'flying hair', an effect he used on an Avedon shoot with iconic model Twiggy in 1966, and which is still widely employed today. By the early 1970s he had begun shooting his own photographs, his first assignment being a set of celebrity portraits for Interview magazine. And here is an incredible selection: Penelope Tree with masses of black braided hair 1967, Veruschka with her incredibly long limbs in a dress by Kimberly, glamorous party people sniffing cocaine or pulling at a bare breasted model on a crowded dancefloor, a waitress teasing her blue collar clients in a café, naked and semi-naked boys and girls, their beautiful bodies outstretched, their hair flowing and wild, Mick Jagger, Dustin Hoffman, Faye Dunaway 1981, Drew Barrymore as a little girl in 1982, Sissy Spacek 1977, Warren Beatty 1982, Jack Nicholson 1976, this is a spectacular gallery of beauty and decadence. Very sadly the photographer committed suicide in 1990, but his popularity can now live on. Tinged with nostalgia of the hedonism of 1970s New York. 160 big glamorous pages, most photographs in colour, 25 x 31cm.