Portraits of icons

Rosen, Robert, Australian fashion, social and fine art photographer (born 1953). The Rosen archive of autographed polaroids, containing unique vintage portraits of Freddie Mercury, Mick Jagger, David Bowie, Paul McCartney, Audrey Hepburn and Muhammed Ali, among many others. Each signed below the image by the celebrity portrayed, all signed and dated by the photographer on the reverse.

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The present collection, predominantly featuring portraits from London in the early 1980s, is an exceptional chronicle of an era and its cultural icons. A photographer for Rolling Stone and other music magazines, Robert Rosen was as much a part of the elite social circles as the celebrities he captured. His journey into vintage portraiture began with Andy Warhol: Rosen recounts meeting Warhol in 1980 at a London party, where he was inspired by Warhol's use of polaroids. This encounter (from which Warhol gave Rosen a lift home) prompted the young photographer to approach Polaroid in London with a proposal to create a collection of signed polaroids of famous personalities. The company equipped him with a camera and unlimited film, leading to a two-decade-long project, preserved here in its entirety. Rosen, today renowned as Australia's pre-eminent social photographer and recently celebrated in an exhibition in Sydney, amassed over 300 celebrity portraits at parties and nightclubs. He had each subject sign their portrait on the spot, using one of the various coloured pens he always carried for that purpose. These portraits stand out for their naturalness and spontaneity, in stark contrast to the rigid poses more typical of society photographs. As a collection they not only capture the glamour and charisma of the social scenes in London, Paris, and Sydney, but also serve as an important record of key figures from diverse fields - actors, rockstars, and other luminaries.

The collection contains the now-famous photo of Paul and Linda McCartney kissing, as well as signed portraits of both, in one of which Linda is holding up the very snapshot of the pair taken by Rosen a minute earlier. In the vibrant setting of Regine's nightclub, Rosen snapped a memorable Polaroid of David Bowie. Amidst garden greenery, Bowie, amused by Rosen's distinct mirror bowtie, remarked, "Robert Rosen with the looking glass bowtie". The developed Polaroid had Rosen's nervous fingerprints on it. Suggesting a retake, Bowie instead declared, "No, I like it, it's art", and signed it. The only unsigned Polaroid in the collection is of Charlie Watts: when asked by Rosen to sign it, Watts declined, explaining that John Lennon had passed away that very day.