"Russwood Stadium Concert, July 4 1956" by Alfred Wertheimer, 1995 Unsigned Offset Lithograph. Paper size is 36 x 24 inches, with an image size of 32.5 x 24 inches. The Offset Lithograph is from an unknown edition size. and is not framed. The condition was rated A: Mint. Additional details:
"Elvis on His Harley" by Alfred Wertheimer, 1995 Unsigned Offset Lithograph. Paper size is 36 x 24 inches, with an image size of 32.5 x 24 inches. The Offset Lithograph is from an unknown edition size. and is not framed. The condition was rated A-: Near Mint, very light signs of handling. Additional details: This is an original poster featuring a photograph by Alfred Wertheimer of a young Elvis Presley on his Harley Davidson motorcycle. The poster was published in 1995 and captures a timeless moment of the iconic rock 'n' roll legend in his early years. The photograph of a young Elvis on his Harley Davidson is a classic representation of the rock 'n' roll era. It captures Elvis's cool demeanor and love for motorcycles, making it a must-have for fans and collectors.
"Russwood Stadium Concert, July 4 1956" by Alfred Wertheimer, 1995 Unsigned Offset Lithograph. Paper size is 36 x 24 inches, with an image size of 32.5 x 24 inches. The Offset Lithograph is from an unknown edition size. and is not framed. The condition was rated A: Mint. Additional details:
"Elvis on His Harley" by Alfred Wertheimer, 1995 Unsigned Offset Lithograph. Paper size is 36 x 24 inches, with an image size of 32.5 x 24 inches. The Offset Lithograph is from an unknown edition size. and is not framed. The condition was rated A-: Near Mint, very light signs of handling. Additional details: This is an original poster featuring a photograph by Alfred Wertheimer of a young Elvis Presley on his Harley Davidson motorcycle. The poster was published in 1995 and captures a timeless moment of the iconic rock 'n' roll legend in his early years. The photograph of a young Elvis on his Harley Davidson is a classic representation of the rock 'n' roll era. It captures Elvis's cool demeanor and love for motorcycles, making it a must-have for fans and collectors.
ALFRED WERTHEIMER (1929-2014) Elvis plays the piano by the glow of the morning light waiting for others to arrive, New York City. Silver print, the image measuring 10x15 inches (25.4x38.1 cm.), the sheet 16x20 inches (40.6x50.8 cm.), with Wertheimer's signature in ink on recto, and his signature, extended caption, and negative date in pencil, two variant copyright stamps with the print date in ink, and a Reproduction Rights stamp, on verso. 1956; printed 1979
"Russwood Stadium Concert, July 4 1956" by Alfred Wertheimer, 1995 Unsigned Offset Lithograph. Paper size is 36 x 24 inches, with an image size of 32.5 x 24 inches. The Offset Lithograph is from an unknown edition size. and is not framed. The condition was rated A: Mint. Additional details:
"Elvis Relaxes by Singing a Hymn at a TV Rehearsal Studio" by Alfred Wertheimer, 1995 Unsigned Offset Lithograph. Paper size is 36 x 24 inches, with an image size of 32.5 x 24 inches. The Offset Lithograph is from an unknown edition size. and is not framed. The condition was rated A: Mint. Additional details:
"Elvis on His Harley" by Alfred Wertheimer, 1995 Unsigned Offset Lithograph. Paper size is 36 x 24 inches, with an image size of 32.5 x 24 inches. The Offset Lithograph is from an unknown edition size. and is not framed. The condition was rated A-: Near Mint, very light signs of handling. Additional details:
ALFRED WERTHEIMER (1929-2014) Elvis Presley relaxing at the piano, plays a hymn. Silver print, the image measuring 14 7/8x10 inches (37.8x25.4 cm.), the sheet 20x16 inches (50.8x40.6 cm.), with Wertheimer's signature in ink on recto, and his signature, extended caption, and negative date in pencil and two credit stamps both with the copyright date 1987 in ink and one reproduction limitation stamp on verso. June 29, 1956; printed 1987
Alfred Wertheimer (1929-2014): Elvis Presley with Hound Dog, 1960, No.1/6, vintage silver gelatin photograph, signed by the photographer in black ink to the lower margin, with pencil annotation on the verso by the photographer reading 'Elvis Sings to a Hound Dog' Elvis Presley during rehearsal, sing 'You ain't nothin' but a hound dog' to a Basset hound on The Steve Allen Show, NBC TV. New York City, July 1, 1956, also with the artist's copyright stamp, framed and glazed, print 7in x 11in (17.5cm x 27cm)
ALFRED WERTHEIMER (1929-2014) Elvis On The Train Home from New York to Memphis. Silver print, the image measuring 14 7/8x10 inches (37.8x25.4 cm.), the sheet 20x16 inches (50.8x40.6 cm.), with Wertheimer's signature in ink on recto, and his signature, negative date, and notations in pencil and two credit stamps both with copyright date 1979 in ink on verso. July 2nd, 1956; printed 1979
Alfred Wertheimer (1929-2014) Elvis Presley, 1956 Gelatin silver print; signed and inscribed '1684/39' in pencil with the photographer's stamp, Topix stamp, and various publication stamps on the verso. 7 x 10 in. (17.7 x 25.4 cm.) sheet 11 x 14 in. (28 x 35.6 cm.)
"Russwood Stadium Concert, July 4 1956" by Alfred Wertheimer, 1995 Unsigned Offset Lithograph. Paper size is 36 x 24 inches, with an image size of 32.5 x 24 inches. The Offset Lithograph is from an unknown edition size. and is not framed. The condition was rated A: Mint. Additional details:
"Elvis Relaxes by Singing a Hymn at a TV Rehearsal Studio" by Alfred Wertheimer, 1995 Unsigned Offset Lithograph. Paper size is 36 x 24 inches, with an image size of 32.5 x 24 inches. The Offset Lithograph is from an unknown edition size. and is not framed. The condition was rated A: Mint. Additional details:
"Elvis on the Train out of Chattanooga to Memphis, TN, 1956" by Alfred Wertheimer, 1995 Unsigned Offset Lithograph. Paper size is 36 x 24 inches, with an image size of 32.5 x 24 inches. The Offset Lithograph is from an unknown edition size. and is not framed. The condition was rated A: Mint. Additional details:
"Elvis on his Harley" by Alfred Wertheimer, 1995 Unsigned Offset Lithograph. Paper size is 36 x 24 inches, with an image size of 32.5 x 24 inches. The Offset Lithograph is from an unknown edition size. and is not framed. The condition was rated A-: Near Mint, very light signs of handling. Additional details:
"Russwood Stadium Concert, July 4 1956" by Alfred Wertheimer, 1995 Unsigned Offset Lithograph. Paper size is 36 x 24 inches, with an image size of 32.5 x 24 inches. The Offset Lithograph is from an unknown edition size. and is not framed. The condition was rated A: Mint. Additional details:
"Elvis Relaxes by Singing a Hymn at a TV Rehearsal Studio" by Alfred Wertheimer, 1995 Unsigned Offset Lithograph. Paper size is 36 x 24 inches, with an image size of 32.5 x 24 inches. The Offset Lithograph is from an unknown edition size. and is not framed. The condition was rated A: Mint. Additional details:
"Elvis on the Train out of Chattanooga to Memphis, TN, 1956" by Alfred Wertheimer, 1995 Unsigned Offset Lithograph. Paper size is 36 x 24 inches, with an image size of 32.5 x 24 inches. The Offset Lithograph is from an unknown edition size. and is not framed. The condition was rated A: Mint. Additional details:
"Elvis on his Harley" by Alfred Wertheimer, 1995 Unsigned Offset Lithograph. Paper size is 36 x 24 inches, with an image size of 32.5 x 24 inches. The Offset Lithograph is from an unknown edition size. and is not framed. The condition was rated A-: Near Mint, very light signs of handling. Additional details:
WERTHEIMER, ALFRED (1929-2014) Group of three gelatin silver prints of Charles Manuel "Sweet Daddy" Grace. Comprises Daddy Grace-Annual Fire House Baptism-West 115 Street. New York City, July 1955, likely vintage or near-vintage. 9 x 13 1/2 inches (230 x 342 mm), flush-mounted to card, verso with Alfred Wertheimer's 16 West 45 Street stamp and the later estate stamp signed by Pam Wertheimer, title apparently in Wertheimer's hand. Minor wear to edges of image; [Daddy Grace getting into limousine], likely 1950s, printed later. 13 1/8 x 8 7/8 inches (332 x 226 mm), verso with Wertheimer's 1296 West Third Avenue stamp, and the later estate stamp signed by Pam Wertheimer Minor retouching noted; and [Daddy Grace with child], likely 1950s, printed later. 10 1/2 x 13 3/8 inches (267 x 340 mm), with the later estate stamp signed by Pam Wertheimer. Minor loss to emulsion at extreme upper right corner of print. Three images by Wertheimer of Daddy Grace, the founder and first bishop of the United House of Prayer For All People, a denomination with a largely African-American congregation. Known for his ostentation (and his long fingernails, evident in these images), Grace was the archetypal celebrity preacher. C
WERTHEIMER, ALFRED (1929-2014) Group of three gelatin silver prints of New York Hassidim. Comprises [Children], Orthodox Jews-Brooklyn N.Y., Sept. 1958, likely printed slightly later. 11 7/8 x 10 3/8 inches (302 x 263 mm), verso with Alfred Wertheimer's Wertheimer's 1296 West Third Avenue stamp, and the later estate stamp signed by Pam Wertheimer and the later estate stamp signed by Pam Wertheimer, title apparently in Wertheimer's hand. Minor wear to edges of image; [Children, Orthodox Jews-Brooklyn N.Y.,] , likely 1950s, printed later. 13 1/8 x 8 7/8 inches (332 x 226 mm), verso with the later estate stamp signed by Pam Wertheimer About fine; and [The Lubavitcher Rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson at Tashlich in the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens, 1958], likely 1950s, printed later. 9 5/8 x 13 3/8 inches (267 x 340 mm), with the later estate stamp signed by Pam Wertheimer. About fine. C
Alfred Wertheimer, Elvis Presley, c. 1956, Vintage gelatin silver print, Image: 5.25" x 9.5", Paper 11" x 14". Signed in pencil on verso. Artist's credit stamped on verso. Topix credit stamped on verso. London Express News credit stamped on verso. "PRESLEY, Elvis" stamped on verso. Artist Biography: Alfred Wertheimer (1929-2014) was an American photographer known for his defining role in the development of rock and roll photography, and most famous for his pictures of a young Elvis Presley. When Alfred Wertheimer was hired by RCA Victor Records in 1956 to photograph one of the label’s newest talents, he was pleased to have a gig—any gig. Wertheimer spent seven days tagging along with this 21-year-old musician, bopping around between Memphis and NYC, photographing everything from train rides to rehearsals to stolen kisses in empty stairwells. Little did Wertheimer know, the musician to which he’d been assigned was on the very cusp of superstardom. Indeed, this musician was none other than The King, himself—Elvis Presley. Alfred Wertheimer was born in 1929 in Coburg, Germany. Seeking refuge from Nazi persecution, Wertheimer moved with his family to Brooklyn, New York in 1936. His father worked as a butcher; his mother, a milliner. Wertheimer went on to graduate from Haaren High School in 1947 and Cooper Union’s School of Art in 1951, earning a degree in advertising design. While at Cooper Union, Wertheimer photographed for the school’s newspaper using a camera that was given to him by his older brother, Henry. Later, Wertheimer was made an official Army photographer after entering the service in 1952. By the time he was approached by RCA Victor to photograph the young Elvis Presley, Wertheimer had not been working as a professional photographer for long. He had briefly worked for the fashion photographer Tom Palumbo upon his return from the Army but had mostly relied on the freelance hustle. And yet, Wertheimer maintains that his early break with Elvis was “probably the best work [he] ever did.” Contained within the roughly 3000 frames from Wertheimer’s week with Presley are some of the most intimate images ever taken of the musician and pop culture icon—including the now famous image known simply as “The Kiss.” Throughout his career Wertheimer would go on to photograph other luminaries and figures of note such as Nina Simone, Lena Horne, and Eleanor Roosevelt. Additionally, he spent time working in moving images as a cameraman for programs similar to Granada Television’s World in Action and Mike Wadleight’s film, Woodstock. As a photographer with a keen eye and unparalleled ability to get close to his subjects, Alfred Wertheimer captured pivotal moments in the evolution of rock and roll—and was instrumental in defining the stylings of the future of rock and roll photograph. However, his body of work does not stop with Elvis; from John F. Kennedy’s 1960 campaign trail to Vietnam training camps to Daddy Grace in Harlem, Wertheimer captured significant moments in American history that we will revisit for generations to come. “You have all these experiences,” Wertheimer said, “and they become part of the collective memory. It takes a while to realize that your perspective is an important ingredient.” (MUUS Collection)
Alfred Wertheimer, Elvis Presley, Steve Allen TV Show, c. 1956, Vintage gelatin silver print, Image: 7.75" x 10", Paper: 11" x 14". Signed in pencil on verso. Artist's credit stamped on verso. Topix credit stamped on verso. London Express News credit stamped on verso. "PRESLEY, Elvis" stamped on verso. Artist Biography: Alfred Wertheimer (1929-2014) was an American photographer known for his defining role in the development of rock and roll photography, and most famous for his pictures of a young Elvis Presley. When Alfred Wertheimer was hired by RCA Victor Records in 1956 to photograph one of the label’s newest talents, he was pleased to have a gig—any gig. Wertheimer spent seven days tagging along with this 21-year-old musician, bopping around between Memphis and NYC, photographing everything from train rides to rehearsals to stolen kisses in empty stairwells. Little did Wertheimer know, the musician to which he’d been assigned was on the very cusp of superstardom. Indeed, this musician was none other than The King, himself—Elvis Presley. Alfred Wertheimer was born in 1929 in Coburg, Germany. Seeking refuge from Nazi persecution, Wertheimer moved with his family to Brooklyn, New York in 1936. His father worked as a butcher; his mother, a milliner. Wertheimer went on to graduate from Haaren High School in 1947 and Cooper Union’s School of Art in 1951, earning a degree in advertising design. While at Cooper Union, Wertheimer photographed for the school’s newspaper using a camera that was given to him by his older brother, Henry. Later, Wertheimer was made an official Army photographer after entering the service in 1952. By the time he was approached by RCA Victor to photograph the young Elvis Presley, Wertheimer had not been working as a professional photographer for long. He had briefly worked for the fashion photographer Tom Palumbo upon his return from the Army but had mostly relied on the freelance hustle. And yet, Wertheimer maintains that his early break with Elvis was “probably the best work [he] ever did.” Contained within the roughly 3000 frames from Wertheimer’s week with Presley are some of the most intimate images ever taken of the musician and pop culture icon—including the now famous image known simply as “The Kiss.” Throughout his career Wertheimer would go on to photograph other luminaries and figures of note such as Nina Simone, Lena Horne, and Eleanor Roosevelt. Additionally, he spent time working in moving images as a cameraman for programs similar to Granada Television’s World in Action and Mike Wadleight’s film, Woodstock. As a photographer with a keen eye and unparalleled ability to get close to his subjects, Alfred Wertheimer captured pivotal moments in the evolution of rock and roll—and was instrumental in defining the stylings of the future of rock and roll photograph. However, his body of work does not stop with Elvis; from John F. Kennedy’s 1960 campaign trail to Vietnam training camps to Daddy Grace in Harlem, Wertheimer captured significant moments in American history that we will revisit for generations to come. “You have all these experiences,” Wertheimer said, “and they become part of the collective memory. It takes a while to realize that your perspective is an important ingredient.” (MUUS Collection)
Alfred Wertheimer, Elvis Presley, c. 1956, Vintage gelatin silver print, Image: 7" x 10", Paper: 11" x 14". Signed in pencil on verso. Artist's credit stamped on verso. Topix credit stamped on verso. London Express News credit stamped on verso. "PRESLEY, Elvis" stamped on verso. Number stamped on verso. Artist Biography: Alfred Wertheimer (1929-2014) was an American photographer known for his defining role in the development of rock and roll photography, and most famous for his pictures of a young Elvis Presley. When Alfred Wertheimer was hired by RCA Victor Records in 1956 to photograph one of the label’s newest talents, he was pleased to have a gig—any gig. Wertheimer spent seven days tagging along with this 21-year-old musician, bopping around between Memphis and NYC, photographing everything from train rides to rehearsals to stolen kisses in empty stairwells. Little did Wertheimer know, the musician to which he’d been assigned was on the very cusp of superstardom. Indeed, this musician was none other than The King, himself—Elvis Presley. Alfred Wertheimer was born in 1929 in Coburg, Germany. Seeking refuge from Nazi persecution, Wertheimer moved with his family to Brooklyn, New York in 1936. His father worked as a butcher; his mother, a milliner. Wertheimer went on to graduate from Haaren High School in 1947 and Cooper Union’s School of Art in 1951, earning a degree in advertising design. While at Cooper Union, Wertheimer photographed for the school’s newspaper using a camera that was given to him by his older brother, Henry. Later, Wertheimer was made an official Army photographer after entering the service in 1952. By the time he was approached by RCA Victor to photograph the young Elvis Presley, Wertheimer had not been working as a professional photographer for long. He had briefly worked for the fashion photographer Tom Palumbo upon his return from the Army but had mostly relied on the freelance hustle. And yet, Wertheimer maintains that his early break with Elvis was “probably the best work [he] ever did.” Contained within the roughly 3000 frames from Wertheimer’s week with Presley are some of the most intimate images ever taken of the musician and pop culture icon—including the now famous image known simply as “The Kiss.” Throughout his career Wertheimer would go on to photograph other luminaries and figures of note such as Nina Simone, Lena Horne, and Eleanor Roosevelt. Additionally, he spent time working in moving images as a cameraman for programs similar to Granada Television’s World in Action and Mike Wadleight’s film, Woodstock. As a photographer with a keen eye and unparalleled ability to get close to his subjects, Alfred Wertheimer captured pivotal moments in the evolution of rock and roll—and was instrumental in defining the stylings of the future of rock and roll photograph. However, his body of work does not stop with Elvis; from John F. Kennedy’s 1960 campaign trail to Vietnam training camps to Daddy Grace in Harlem, Wertheimer captured significant moments in American history that we will revisit for generations to come. “You have all these experiences,” Wertheimer said, “and they become part of the collective memory. It takes a while to realize that your perspective is an important ingredient.” (MUUS Collection)
Alfred Wertheimer, Elvis Fan [Woman with Newspaper], Elvis Presley, c. 1956, Vintage gelatin silver print, 14" x 11". Crop marks/reproduction notes in red on recto. Signed in pencil on verso. Artist's credit stamped on verso. Agency credits stamped on verso. "PRESLEY, Elvis" stamped on verso. Number stamped on verso. Artist Biography: In 1956 freelance photographer Alfred Wertheimer was assigned to photograph a 21-year-old singer whom RCA was promoting. It was Elvis Presley, a name the 26-year-old Wertheimer did not recognize when he trekked down to New York City’s Studio 50 (later to be named the Ed Sullivan Theater) to photograph Presley’s appearance on Tommy Dorsey and Jimmy Dorsey’s Stage Show. At the time, Elvis had already recorded “Heartbreak Hotel” and was beginning to gain some notoriety, but he was nowhere close to becoming a cultural icon. He could still walk the streets unrecognized, without entourage and bodyguards, so Alfred Wertheimer was able to shoot reams of film of Elvis, up close and personal, both on stage and off, in the last remaining months before Elvis’s life would change forever. A series of extraordinary photographs document this brief moment in time when the 21-year-old Elvis Presley was on the cusp of national stardom. Manhattan is a sensory overload. As any visitor knows, it is easy to be staggered by the canyons of man-made buildings, and the raucous torrent of life that runs through them. It is this intense vitality that has made New York the muse of many of the 20th century’s great artists. From photographers like Charles Sheeler and Berenice Abbott, who celebrated its architectural feats as symbolic of progress, to those who recorded the price of modernity as reflected in the activities of its underworld, like painter Edward Hopper and photographer Weegee, almost every artist comes to New York to try their hand at success. It is a city that love it or hate it tows you in: and this is reflected in the work of generations of artists, from those like Charles Sheeler and Berenice Abbott, who celebrated its architectural feats as symbolic of progress, to those who recorded the price of modernity as reflected in the activities of its underworld, like Edward Hopper and Weegee. Almost everyone comes toNew York to try their hand at success. One day in 1956, a young man from the South came to New York to bring his music to a wider audience. This man, who was himself a force to be reckoned with, was as yet unknown outside of the South. He had come to play on Stage Show, a CBS program produced by brothers and big band leaders, Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey. A series of extraordinary photographs document this brief moment in time when the 21-year-old Elvis Presley was on the cusp of national stardom. Alfred Wertheimer, a young photojournalist who had grown up in Brooklyn and attended Cooper Union, would go on to spend around 10 days with Elvis over the next two years, and shoot roughly 2,500 photographs. These intimate photographs of Elvis are a product of Wertheimer’s artistic brilliance and the history of photography. Wertheimer documented pivotal moments in the creation of rock and roll, the musical genre that would take over the world, and defined the stylings of rock-and-roll photography to come. As Wertheimer tells it, there was a bit of luck involved too. Wertheimer, who looks two decades younger than his 81 years, moves around his office with a sprightly step and a shock of whitish grey hair. He likes to joke around, and he says that he only remembers two things: the day he met Elvis and today. Yet he seems to have an encyclopedic knowledge of a wide range of subjects. In 1955 he was sharing a studio with a few other photographers on Third Avenue in New York. Among them were Paul Schutzer, who had attended Cooper Union for a year, and Jerry Yulsman, both of whom would become renowned photographers in their own right. Schutzer’s grand dream in life was to be a staff photographer for Lifemagazine. He would drop other assignments whenever Life gave him a call, happily passing on any other work to his friend Wertheimer, which he would do in addition to his own assignments. And this meant that Wertheimer was in the right place at the right time to take on an assignment that would become the turning point of his life. On March 12, 1956, the head of PR from RCA Victor, Anne Fulchino, called and asked if he could do a job the following week. She said, I want you to photograph the Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey Stage Show, Wertheimer says. He was pleased, as Tommy Dorsey was one of his heroes. But then Fulchino told him that he wouldn’t actually be photographing Dorsey: “I want you to photograph Elvis Presley, who’s playing on Dorsey’s program.” He explains that there was a silence on his part before he said, “Elvis who?” Wertheimer accepted the assignment, and that was how he found himself in the same room as Elvis Presley, who was on the verge of becoming a national star. Wertheimer’s photographs show a pensive Elvis just doing what he did: performing, spending time with his family or fans, napping, reading letters and papers, combing his hair, or listening to music. “From a photographer’s point of view,” he explains, “Elvis was unique in that he permitted closeness”—not six to eight feet away, which was standard, but right up close, three to four feet away. He was so intensely involved with what he was doing. Whether he was combing his hair or chatting up girls, he would be himself with a laser focus. “I didn’t realize how unique that was.” He thinks about it for a minute, before adding, “I put him under my microscope and studied him, but my microscope was my camera lens.” This desire to document everyday habits and the details of life—to be a fly on the wall—is a longstanding tradition in East Coast American art. In fact, Wertheimer was taking a tried and true trope in photography realism and applying it to a new subject. Realism, in Wertheimer’s hands, was not about the down and out, but instead about the up-and-coming. The 20th century marked a turning point for art in the United States. A focus on realism and the urban were the new thing. New York City s art community in particular became enamored of realism. One influential movement of highly realistic art was created in Philadelphia in 1891 by artist Robert Henri, and included painters like John Sloan and Maurice Prendergast. This group would later be dubbed the Ash Can School of Painting, because their subject matter often depictedNewYork s working class neighborhoods, and some of the grittier sides of life in the big city. Their images were often dark not just in terms of subject matter, but quite literally in terms of tone. These painters found their subjects in poverty prostitutes and drunks, life in the tenements. Above all, their subject matter was thoroughly urban. By the 1930s, the New York School of Photography was nascent, though it truly came of age in the 1950s. These photographers took to the streets, often with small cameras and no flash, where they would catch life un-posed. Photography became poetic, a rendering of the drama of everyday lives; the photographers were witnesses, often unnoticed by their subjects, as they quickly and quietly took their shots. The artists who made up this movement reflected America’s ups and downs: the Great Depression, World War II, the postwar years, the wars in Asia, and the unrest of the 1960s and 1970s. Artists Walker Evans, Helen Levitt, and Weegee were all socially conscious exponents of straight photography. Later, heavyweights like Diane Arbus, Robert Frank, and Roy DeCarava, among many others, emerged starting in the 1950s. These artists added the vocabulary of photography to their images. This meant that the very components of imagery itself—grain, darkness and lightness, focus and frame—became as important as the subject matter. They sought the drama of the night, shooting in low light. “Different people come out at night,” says Wertheimer, who was deeply influenced by both the Ash Can School and the New York School. So he turned day into night, sleeping through the days to start wandering and shooting at night. By the same token, the attention he paid to the denizens of the night brought them up as subjects of study, shining a symbolic light onto their activities. By turning day into night, Wertheimer, in effect, also turned night into day. The 20th century was a seminal time for music as well as art, and Elvis changed everything by bridging many different worlds. Leonard Bernstein once said that Elvis was the greatest cultural force of the century. “It’s a whole new social revolution,” he said. “The 60s come from it.” Elvis was a Southern boy, raised by poor parents, who genuinely loved the blues music that he grew up with. He was able to bring what had customarily been black music to a white audience by bringing the blues into mainstream rock and roll, transforming both forever. Elvis not only challenged America’s conservatism in terms of race, but in terms of sexuality. Many people disparaged Elvis’s highly sexualized act, as reviews in The New York Times and the Daily News showed. Ed Sullivan initially refused to have him on his show on CBS, until the high ratings of rival shows where Elvis had appeared made him change his mind. Some, like Steve Allen on his NBC show, tried to make Elvis tone down his act. No matter how much ire there was against Elvis, one thing was certain, young people—and particularly girls—loved Elvis. Perhaps they responded to the pulse of his rockabilly hits, his good looks, or his performances. What is certain is that he was an amazing artist, a talented singer who emoted genuinely. Wertheimer is convinced that what made Elvis different was his pure, raw emotion. “Elvis made the girls cry,” he explains—a talent that comes from a performer’s ability to go deep into a fan’s psyche. And Wertheimer’s photos of Elvis bear witness to this. This is not an easy task, especially with teenagers. To make them cry, that' s a talent that only somebody who was getting deep into their psyche would be able to get. All of these ingredients can be found in Wertheimer sphotos of Elvis. His photographs document an incredible time in the history of photography, as well as the birth of a star and a new chapter in the history of music. Wertheimer coined the term “available darkness” to explain his philosophy that the darker a place is visually, the easier it is to capture a person’s true self. He used this technique to portray Elvis in a way that nobody could match, and he was there for the performances that won the heart of America. Elvis was conscripted into the military in 1958, and Wertheimer photographed him as he shipped out to Germany. After this, he never saw Elvis again. It wasn’t until almost 20 years later, upon the death of Elvis in 1977, that there would be a sudden surge in demand for Wertheimer’s photographs from this era. Wertheimer’s life didn’t stop with Elvis. He continued to freelance, and luminaries Eleanor Roosevelt and Nina Simone were among the people he subsequently photographed. He also spent a great deal of time as a cameraman for well-known programs like Granada Television’s World in Action and Mike Wadleigh’s filmWoodstock. “You have all these experiences,” says Wertheimer, “and they become part of the collective memory. It takes a while to realize that your perspective is an important ingredient.” (Fahey Klein Gallery)
Alfred Wertheimer, Messerschmitt 3 (Elvis Presley), c. 1956, Vintage gelatin silver print, 14" x 11". Signed in pencil on verso. Artist's credit stamped on verso. Agency credits stamped on verso. "PRESLEY, Elvis" stamped on verso. Number stamped on verso. Artist Biography: In 1956 freelance photographer Alfred Wertheimer was assigned to photograph a 21-year-old singer whom RCA was promoting. It was Elvis Presley, a name the 26-year-old Wertheimer did not recognize when he trekked down to New York City’s Studio 50 (later to be named the Ed Sullivan Theater) to photograph Presley’s appearance on Tommy Dorsey and Jimmy Dorsey’s Stage Show. At the time, Elvis had already recorded “Heartbreak Hotel” and was beginning to gain some notoriety, but he was nowhere close to becoming a cultural icon. He could still walk the streets unrecognized, without entourage and bodyguards, so Alfred Wertheimer was able to shoot reams of film of Elvis, up close and personal, both on stage and off, in the last remaining months before Elvis’s life would change forever. A series of extraordinary photographs document this brief moment in time when the 21-year-old Elvis Presley was on the cusp of national stardom. Manhattan is a sensory overload. As any visitor knows, it is easy to be staggered by the canyons of man-made buildings, and the raucous torrent of life that runs through them. It is this intense vitality that has made New York the muse of many of the 20th century’s great artists. From photographers like Charles Sheeler and Berenice Abbott, who celebrated its architectural feats as symbolic of progress, to those who recorded the price of modernity as reflected in the activities of its underworld, like painter Edward Hopper and photographer Weegee, almost every artist comes to New York to try their hand at success. It is a city that love it or hate it tows you in: and this is reflected in the work of generations of artists, from those like Charles Sheeler and Berenice Abbott, who celebrated its architectural feats as symbolic of progress, to those who recorded the price of modernity as reflected in the activities of its underworld, like Edward Hopper and Weegee. Almost everyone comes toNew York to try their hand at success. One day in 1956, a young man from the South came to New York to bring his music to a wider audience. This man, who was himself a force to be reckoned with, was as yet unknown outside of the South. He had come to play on Stage Show, a CBS program produced by brothers and big band leaders, Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey. A series of extraordinary photographs document this brief moment in time when the 21-year-old Elvis Presley was on the cusp of national stardom. Alfred Wertheimer, a young photojournalist who had grown up in Brooklyn and attended Cooper Union, would go on to spend around 10 days with Elvis over the next two years, and shoot roughly 2,500 photographs. These intimate photographs of Elvis are a product of Wertheimer’s artistic brilliance and the history of photography. Wertheimer documented pivotal moments in the creation of rock and roll, the musical genre that would take over the world, and defined the stylings of rock-and-roll photography to come. As Wertheimer tells it, there was a bit of luck involved too. Wertheimer, who looks two decades younger than his 81 years, moves around his office with a sprightly step and a shock of whitish grey hair. He likes to joke around, and he says that he only remembers two things: the day he met Elvis and today. Yet he seems to have an encyclopedic knowledge of a wide range of subjects. In 1955 he was sharing a studio with a few other photographers on Third Avenue in New York. Among them were Paul Schutzer, who had attended Cooper Union for a year, and Jerry Yulsman, both of whom would become renowned photographers in their own right. Schutzer’s grand dream in life was to be a staff photographer for Lifemagazine. He would drop other assignments whenever Life gave him a call, happily passing on any other work to his friend Wertheimer, which he would do in addition to his own assignments. And this meant that Wertheimer was in the right place at the right time to take on an assignment that would become the turning point of his life. On March 12, 1956, the head of PR from RCA Victor, Anne Fulchino, called and asked if he could do a job the following week. She said, I want you to photograph the Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey Stage Show, Wertheimer says. He was pleased, as Tommy Dorsey was one of his heroes. But then Fulchino told him that he wouldn’t actually be photographing Dorsey: “I want you to photograph Elvis Presley, who’s playing on Dorsey’s program.” He explains that there was a silence on his part before he said, “Elvis who?” Wertheimer accepted the assignment, and that was how he found himself in the same room as Elvis Presley, who was on the verge of becoming a national star. Wertheimer’s photographs show a pensive Elvis just doing what he did: performing, spending time with his family or fans, napping, reading letters and papers, combing his hair, or listening to music. “From a photographer’s point of view,” he explains, “Elvis was unique in that he permitted closeness”—not six to eight feet away, which was standard, but right up close, three to four feet away. He was so intensely involved with what he was doing. Whether he was combing his hair or chatting up girls, he would be himself with a laser focus. “I didn’t realize how unique that was.” He thinks about it for a minute, before adding, “I put him under my microscope and studied him, but my microscope was my camera lens.” This desire to document everyday habits and the details of life—to be a fly on the wall—is a longstanding tradition in East Coast American art. In fact, Wertheimer was taking a tried and true trope in photography realism and applying it to a new subject. Realism, in Wertheimer’s hands, was not about the down and out, but instead about the up-and-coming. The 20th century marked a turning point for art in the United States. A focus on realism and the urban were the new thing. New York City s art community in particular became enamored of realism. One influential movement of highly realistic art was created in Philadelphia in 1891 by artist Robert Henri, and included painters like John Sloan and Maurice Prendergast. This group would later be dubbed the Ash Can School of Painting, because their subject matter often depictedNewYork s working class neighborhoods, and some of the grittier sides of life in the big city. Their images were often dark not just in terms of subject matter, but quite literally in terms of tone. These painters found their subjects in poverty prostitutes and drunks, life in the tenements. Above all, their subject matter was thoroughly urban. By the 1930s, the New York School of Photography was nascent, though it truly came of age in the 1950s. These photographers took to the streets, often with small cameras and no flash, where they would catch life un-posed. Photography became poetic, a rendering of the drama of everyday lives; the photographers were witnesses, often unnoticed by their subjects, as they quickly and quietly took their shots. The artists who made up this movement reflected America’s ups and downs: the Great Depression, World War II, the postwar years, the wars in Asia, and the unrest of the 1960s and 1970s. Artists Walker Evans, Helen Levitt, and Weegee were all socially conscious exponents of straight photography. Later, heavyweights like Diane Arbus, Robert Frank, and Roy DeCarava, among many others, emerged starting in the 1950s. These artists added the vocabulary of photography to their images. This meant that the very components of imagery itself—grain, darkness and lightness, focus and frame—became as important as the subject matter. They sought the drama of the night, shooting in low light. “Different people come out at night,” says Wertheimer, who was deeply influenced by both the Ash Can School and the New York School. So he turned day into night, sleeping through the days to start wandering and shooting at night. By the same token, the attention he paid to the denizens of the night brought them up as subjects of study, shining a symbolic light onto their activities. By turning day into night, Wertheimer, in effect, also turned night into day. The 20th century was a seminal time for music as well as art, and Elvis changed everything by bridging many different worlds. Leonard Bernstein once said that Elvis was the greatest cultural force of the century. “It’s a whole new social revolution,” he said. “The 60s come from it.” Elvis was a Southern boy, raised by poor parents, who genuinely loved the blues music that he grew up with. He was able to bring what had customarily been black music to a white audience by bringing the blues into mainstream rock and roll, transforming both forever. Elvis not only challenged America’s conservatism in terms of race, but in terms of sexuality. Many people disparaged Elvis’s highly sexualized act, as reviews in The New York Times and the Daily News showed. Ed Sullivan initially refused to have him on his show on CBS, until the high ratings of rival shows where Elvis had appeared made him change his mind. Some, like Steve Allen on his NBC show, tried to make Elvis tone down his act. No matter how much ire there was against Elvis, one thing was certain, young people—and particularly girls—loved Elvis. Perhaps they responded to the pulse of his rockabilly hits, his good looks, or his performances. What is certain is that he was an amazing artist, a talented singer who emoted genuinely. Wertheimer is convinced that what made Elvis different was his pure, raw emotion. “Elvis made the girls cry,” he explains—a talent that comes from a performer’s ability to go deep into a fan’s psyche. And Wertheimer’s photos of Elvis bear witness to this. This is not an easy task, especially with teenagers. To make them cry, that' s a talent that only somebody who was getting deep into their psyche would be able to get. All of these ingredients can be found in Wertheimer sphotos of Elvis. His photographs document an incredible time in the history of photography, as well as the birth of a star and a new chapter in the history of music. Wertheimer coined the term “available darkness” to explain his philosophy that the darker a place is visually, the easier it is to capture a person’s true self. He used this technique to portray Elvis in a way that nobody could match, and he was there for the performances that won the heart of America. Elvis was conscripted into the military in 1958, and Wertheimer photographed him as he shipped out to Germany. After this, he never saw Elvis again. It wasn’t until almost 20 years later, upon the death of Elvis in 1977, that there would be a sudden surge in demand for Wertheimer’s photographs from this era. Wertheimer’s life didn’t stop with Elvis. He continued to freelance, and luminaries Eleanor Roosevelt and Nina Simone were among the people he subsequently photographed. He also spent a great deal of time as a cameraman for well-known programs like Granada Television’s World in Action and Mike Wadleigh’s filmWoodstock. “You have all these experiences,” says Wertheimer, “and they become part of the collective memory. It takes a while to realize that your perspective is an important ingredient.” (Fahey Klein Gallery)
Alfred Wertheimer, Elvis Presley, Steve Allen, c. 1956, Vintage gelatin silver print, 11" x 14". Signed in pencil on verso. Artist's credit stamped on verso. Agency credits stamped on verso. "PRESLEY, Elvis" stamped on verso. Number stamped on verso. Numbered in pencil on verso. Artist Biography: In 1956 freelance photographer Alfred Wertheimer was assigned to photograph a 21-year-old singer whom RCA was promoting. It was Elvis Presley, a name the 26-year-old Wertheimer did not recognize when he trekked down to New York City’s Studio 50 (later to be named the Ed Sullivan Theater) to photograph Presley’s appearance on Tommy Dorsey and Jimmy Dorsey’s Stage Show. At the time, Elvis had already recorded “Heartbreak Hotel” and was beginning to gain some notoriety, but he was nowhere close to becoming a cultural icon. He could still walk the streets unrecognized, without entourage and bodyguards, so Alfred Wertheimer was able to shoot reams of film of Elvis, up close and personal, both on stage and off, in the last remaining months before Elvis’s life would change forever. A series of extraordinary photographs document this brief moment in time when the 21-year-old Elvis Presley was on the cusp of national stardom. Manhattan is a sensory overload. As any visitor knows, it is easy to be staggered by the canyons of man-made buildings, and the raucous torrent of life that runs through them. It is this intense vitality that has made New York the muse of many of the 20th century’s great artists. From photographers like Charles Sheeler and Berenice Abbott, who celebrated its architectural feats as symbolic of progress, to those who recorded the price of modernity as reflected in the activities of its underworld, like painter Edward Hopper and photographer Weegee, almost every artist comes to New York to try their hand at success. It is a city that love it or hate it tows you in: and this is reflected in the work of generations of artists, from those like Charles Sheeler and Berenice Abbott, who celebrated its architectural feats as symbolic of progress, to those who recorded the price of modernity as reflected in the activities of its underworld, like Edward Hopper and Weegee. Almost everyone comes toNew York to try their hand at success. One day in 1956, a young man from the South came to New York to bring his music to a wider audience. This man, who was himself a force to be reckoned with, was as yet unknown outside of the South. He had come to play on Stage Show, a CBS program produced by brothers and big band leaders, Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey. A series of extraordinary photographs document this brief moment in time when the 21-year-old Elvis Presley was on the cusp of national stardom. Alfred Wertheimer, a young photojournalist who had grown up in Brooklyn and attended Cooper Union, would go on to spend around 10 days with Elvis over the next two years, and shoot roughly 2,500 photographs. These intimate photographs of Elvis are a product of Wertheimer’s artistic brilliance and the history of photography. Wertheimer documented pivotal moments in the creation of rock and roll, the musical genre that would take over the world, and defined the stylings of rock-and-roll photography to come. As Wertheimer tells it, there was a bit of luck involved too. Wertheimer, who looks two decades younger than his 81 years, moves around his office with a sprightly step and a shock of whitish grey hair. He likes to joke around, and he says that he only remembers two things: the day he met Elvis and today. Yet he seems to have an encyclopedic knowledge of a wide range of subjects. In 1955 he was sharing a studio with a few other photographers on Third Avenue in New York. Among them were Paul Schutzer, who had attended Cooper Union for a year, and Jerry Yulsman, both of whom would become renowned photographers in their own right. Schutzer’s grand dream in life was to be a staff photographer for Lifemagazine. He would drop other assignments whenever Life gave him a call, happily passing on any other work to his friend Wertheimer, which he would do in addition to his own assignments. And this meant that Wertheimer was in the right place at the right time to take on an assignment that would become the turning point of his life. On March 12, 1956, the head of PR from RCA Victor, Anne Fulchino, called and asked if he could do a job the following week. She said, I want you to photograph the Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey Stage Show, Wertheimer says. He was pleased, as Tommy Dorsey was one of his heroes. But then Fulchino told him that he wouldn’t actually be photographing Dorsey: “I want you to photograph Elvis Presley, who’s playing on Dorsey’s program.” He explains that there was a silence on his part before he said, “Elvis who?” Wertheimer accepted the assignment, and that was how he found himself in the same room as Elvis Presley, who was on the verge of becoming a national star. Wertheimer’s photographs show a pensive Elvis just doing what he did: performing, spending time with his family or fans, napping, reading letters and papers, combing his hair, or listening to music. “From a photographer’s point of view,” he explains, “Elvis was unique in that he permitted closeness”—not six to eight feet away, which was standard, but right up close, three to four feet away. He was so intensely involved with what he was doing. Whether he was combing his hair or chatting up girls, he would be himself with a laser focus. “I didn’t realize how unique that was.” He thinks about it for a minute, before adding, “I put him under my microscope and studied him, but my microscope was my camera lens.” This desire to document everyday habits and the details of life—to be a fly on the wall—is a longstanding tradition in East Coast American art. In fact, Wertheimer was taking a tried and true trope in photography realism and applying it to a new subject. Realism, in Wertheimer’s hands, was not about the down and out, but instead about the up-and-coming. The 20th century marked a turning point for art in the United States. A focus on realism and the urban were the new thing. New York City s art community in particular became enamored of realism. One influential movement of highly realistic art was created in Philadelphia in 1891 by artist Robert Henri, and included painters like John Sloan and Maurice Prendergast. This group would later be dubbed the Ash Can School of Painting, because their subject matter often depictedNewYork s working class neighborhoods, and some of the grittier sides of life in the big city. Their images were often dark not just in terms of subject matter, but quite literally in terms of tone. These painters found their subjects in poverty prostitutes and drunks, life in the tenements. Above all, their subject matter was thoroughly urban. By the 1930s, the New York School of Photography was nascent, though it truly came of age in the 1950s. These photographers took to the streets, often with small cameras and no flash, where they would catch life un-posed. Photography became poetic, a rendering of the drama of everyday lives; the photographers were witnesses, often unnoticed by their subjects, as they quickly and quietly took their shots. The artists who made up this movement reflected America’s ups and downs: the Great Depression, World War II, the postwar years, the wars in Asia, and the unrest of the 1960s and 1970s. Artists Walker Evans, Helen Levitt, and Weegee were all socially conscious exponents of straight photography. Later, heavyweights like Diane Arbus, Robert Frank, and Roy DeCarava, among many others, emerged starting in the 1950s. These artists added the vocabulary of photography to their images. This meant that the very components of imagery itself—grain, darkness and lightness, focus and frame—became as important as the subject matter. They sought the drama of the night, shooting in low light. “Different people come out at night,” says Wertheimer, who was deeply influenced by both the Ash Can School and the New York School. So he turned day into night, sleeping through the days to start wandering and shooting at night. By the same token, the attention he paid to the denizens of the night brought them up as subjects of study, shining a symbolic light onto their activities. By turning day into night, Wertheimer, in effect, also turned night into day. The 20th century was a seminal time for music as well as art, and Elvis changed everything by bridging many different worlds. Leonard Bernstein once said that Elvis was the greatest cultural force of the century. “It’s a whole new social revolution,” he said. “The 60s come from it.” Elvis was a Southern boy, raised by poor parents, who genuinely loved the blues music that he grew up with. He was able to bring what had customarily been black music to a white audience by bringing the blues into mainstream rock and roll, transforming both forever. Elvis not only challenged America’s conservatism in terms of race, but in terms of sexuality. Many people disparaged Elvis’s highly sexualized act, as reviews in The New York Times and the Daily News showed. Ed Sullivan initially refused to have him on his show on CBS, until the high ratings of rival shows where Elvis had appeared made him change his mind. Some, like Steve Allen on his NBC show, tried to make Elvis tone down his act. No matter how much ire there was against Elvis, one thing was certain, young people—and particularly girls—loved Elvis. Perhaps they responded to the pulse of his rockabilly hits, his good looks, or his performances. What is certain is that he was an amazing artist, a talented singer who emoted genuinely. Wertheimer is convinced that what made Elvis different was his pure, raw emotion. “Elvis made the girls cry,” he explains—a talent that comes from a performer’s ability to go deep into a fan’s psyche. And Wertheimer’s photos of Elvis bear witness to this. This is not an easy task, especially with teenagers. To make them cry, that' s a talent that only somebody who was getting deep into their psyche would be able to get. All of these ingredients can be found in Wertheimer sphotos of Elvis. His photographs document an incredible time in the history of photography, as well as the birth of a star and a new chapter in the history of music. Wertheimer coined the term “available darkness” to explain his philosophy that the darker a place is visually, the easier it is to capture a person’s true self. He used this technique to portray Elvis in a way that nobody could match, and he was there for the performances that won the heart of America. Elvis was conscripted into the military in 1958, and Wertheimer photographed him as he shipped out to Germany. After this, he never saw Elvis again. It wasn’t until almost 20 years later, upon the death of Elvis in 1977, that there would be a sudden surge in demand for Wertheimer’s photographs from this era. Wertheimer’s life didn’t stop with Elvis. He continued to freelance, and luminaries Eleanor Roosevelt and Nina Simone were among the people he subsequently photographed. He also spent a great deal of time as a cameraman for well-known programs like Granada Television’s World in Action and Mike Wadleigh’s filmWoodstock. “You have all these experiences,” says Wertheimer, “and they become part of the collective memory. It takes a while to realize that your perspective is an important ingredient.” (Fahey Klein Gallery)
Alfred Wertheimer, Elvis Presley, c. 1956 Vintage gelatin silver print, 11" x 14". Signed in pencil on verso. Artist's credit stamped on verso. Topix credit stamped on verso. London Express News copyright stamped on verso. "PRESLEY, Elvis" stamped on verso. Number stamped on verso. Mr. Wertheimer was 26 and had not been a professional photographer for long when he got a call from RCA Victor Records asking him to take publicity shots of one of its new artists, a young Southerner making his first television appearance, on the Dorsey Brothers' "Stage Show" on CBS. It was March 1956, and Presley had just one big hit, "Heartbreak Hotel." Mr. Wertheimer had never heard of him. Nearly 60 years later, the black-and-white pictures Mr. Wertheimer made over a total of about 10 days - at "Stage Show," in a New York recording studio, in Richmond, Va., and at home with Presley in Tennessee - have become a compelling and revealing part of the vast visual record of rock 'n' roll's first superstar. Mr. Wertheimer photographed Presley shaving, sleeping on a train, recording "Hound Dog" and "Don't Be Cruel" and devilishly touching tongues backstage with what the photographer called his "date of the day." "He permitted closeness," Mr. Wertheimer said in an interview in 2010 on the occasion of an exhibition of his work at the Smithsonian Institution's National Portrait Gallery. "Without that I wouldn't have gotten my intimate photographs. With Elvis, you could get within three feet." He added: "He really acted himself. He was the best director of his own life, and I couldn't have done better if I tried." Of the more than 2,500 images Mr. Wertheimer made of Presley, most in 1956, only a handful were posed. The pictures were largely forgotten after the 1950s, other than a surge of interest after Presley's death in 1977. But they found new life in the 1990s, when Chris Murray, the owner of the Govinda Gallery in Washington, which specializes in rock-related art, tracked Mr. Wertheimer down. Over the next two decades Mr. Murray exhibited many of the photographs, edited book collections of them and work with the Smithsonian on "Elvis at 21, Photographs by Alfred Wertheimer," a traveling exhibition that opened at the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles in January 2010 and made more than a dozen stops. It closed in March, at Australia's National Portrait Gallery in Canberra. "He got lucky," Pam Wertheimer said of her uncle's encounter with the emerging Presley. "He got there right when he was still a human being." Mr. Wertheimer was born on Nov. 16, 1929, in Coburg, Germany, the younger of two sons of Julius and Katy Wertheimer. His father was a butcher; his mother, a milliner. The family moved to New York in 1936 to escape the Nazi persecution of Jews.He graduated from Haaren High School in 1947 and from Cooper Union's School of Art in Manhattan in 1951, with a degree in advertising design. He took pictures for the Cooper Union newspaper using a camera given to him by his older brother, Henry. Mr. Wertheimer entered the Army in 1952 and was made an Army photographer. He was stationed for a time near Heidelberg, Germany. By 1954, he was out of the Army and back in New York, working for the fashion photographer Tom Palumbo and then freelancing. In addition to Presley, he photographed Perry Como, Arthur Rubinstein, Lena Horne, Nelson Eddy and others for the RCA label. (New York Times)
Alfred Wertheimer, Elvis Presley, c. 1956, Vintage gelatin silver print, 11" x 14". Signed in pencil on verso. Artist's credit stamped on verso. Topix credit stamped on verso. London Express News copyright stamped on verso. "PRESLEY, Elvis" in pen on verso. Mr. Wertheimer was 26 and had not been a professional photographer for long when he got a call from RCA Victor Records asking him to take publicity shots of one of its new artists, a young Southerner making his first television appearance, on the Dorsey Brothers' "Stage Show" on CBS. It was March 1956, and Presley had just one big hit, "Heartbreak Hotel." Mr. Wertheimer had never heard of him. Nearly 60 years later, the black-and-white pictures Mr. Wertheimer made over a total of about 10 days - at "Stage Show," in a New York recording studio, in Richmond, Va., and at home with Presley in Tennessee - have become a compelling and revealing part of the vast visual record of rock 'n' roll's first superstar. Mr. Wertheimer photographed Presley shaving, sleeping on a train, recording "Hound Dog" and "Don't Be Cruel" and devilishly touching tongues backstage with what the photographer called his "date of the day." "He permitted closeness," Mr. Wertheimer said in an interview in 2010 on the occasion of an exhibition of his work at the Smithsonian Institution's National Portrait Gallery. "Without that I wouldn't have gotten my intimate photographs. With Elvis, you could get within three feet." He added: "He really acted himself. He was the best director of his own life, and I couldn't have done better if I tried." Of the more than 2,500 images Mr. Wertheimer made of Presley, most in 1956, only a handful were posed. The pictures were largely forgotten after the 1950s, other than a surge of interest after Presley's death in 1977. But they found new life in the 1990s, when Chris Murray, the owner of the Govinda Gallery in Washington, which specializes in rock-related art, tracked Mr. Wertheimer down. Over the next two decades Mr. Murray exhibited many of the photographs, edited book collections of them and work with the Smithsonian on "Elvis at 21, Photographs by Alfred Wertheimer," a traveling exhibition that opened at the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles in January 2010 and made more than a dozen stops. It closed in March, at Australia's National Portrait Gallery in Canberra. "He got lucky," Pam Wertheimer said of her uncle's encounter with the emerging Presley. "He got there right when he was still a human being." Mr. Wertheimer was born on Nov. 16, 1929, in Coburg, Germany, the younger of two sons of Julius and Katy Wertheimer. His father was a butcher; his mother, a milliner. The family moved to New York in 1936 to escape the Nazi persecution of Jews.He graduated from Haaren High School in 1947 and from Cooper Union's School of Art in Manhattan in 1951, with a degree in advertising design. He took pictures for the Cooper Union newspaper using a camera given to him by his older brother, Henry. Mr. Wertheimer entered the Army in 1952 and was made an Army photographer. He was stationed for a time near Heidelberg, Germany. By 1954, he was out of the Army and back in New York, working for the fashion photographer Tom Palumbo and then freelancing. In addition to Presley, he photographed Perry Como, Arthur Rubinstein, Lena Horne, Nelson Eddy and others for the RCA label. (New York Times)
Alfred Wertheimer, Elvis Presley's Cadillac, 1956, Vintage gelatin silver print, 11" x 14". Signed in pencil on verso. Artist's credit stamped on verso. Topix credit stamped on verso. "PRESLEY, Elvis" stamped on verso. Number stamped on verso. Crop notations on verso. Mr. Wertheimer was 26 and had not been a professional photographer for long when he got a call from RCA Victor Records asking him to take publicity shots of one of its new artists, a young Southerner making his first television appearance, on the Dorsey Brothers' "Stage Show" on CBS. It was March 1956, and Presley had just one big hit, "Heartbreak Hotel." Mr. Wertheimer had never heard of him. Nearly 60 years later, the black-and-white pictures Mr. Wertheimer made over a total of about 10 days - at "Stage Show," in a New York recording studio, in Richmond, Va., and at home with Presley in Tennessee - have become a compelling and revealing part of the vast visual record of rock 'n' roll's first superstar. Mr. Wertheimer photographed Presley shaving, sleeping on a train, recording "Hound Dog" and "Don't Be Cruel" and devilishly touching tongues backstage with what the photographer called his "date of the day." "He permitted closeness," Mr. Wertheimer said in an interview in 2010 on the occasion of an exhibition of his work at the Smithsonian Institution's National Portrait Gallery. "Without that I wouldn't have gotten my intimate photographs. With Elvis, you could get within three feet." He added: "He really acted himself. He was the best director of his own life, and I couldn't have done better if I tried." Of the more than 2,500 images Mr. Wertheimer made of Presley, most in 1956, only a handful were posed. The pictures were largely forgotten after the 1950s, other than a surge of interest after Presley's death in 1977. But they found new life in the 1990s, when Chris Murray, the owner of the Govinda Gallery in Washington, which specializes in rock-related art, tracked Mr. Wertheimer down. Over the next two decades Mr. Murray exhibited many of the photographs, edited book collections of them and work with the Smithsonian on "Elvis at 21, Photographs by Alfred Wertheimer," a traveling exhibition that opened at the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles in January 2010 and made more than a dozen stops. It closed in March, at Australia's National Portrait Gallery in Canberra. "He got lucky," Pam Wertheimer said of her uncle's encounter with the emerging Presley. "He got there right when he was still a human being." Mr. Wertheimer was born on Nov. 16, 1929, in Coburg, Germany, the younger of two sons of Julius and Katy Wertheimer. His father was a butcher; his mother, a milliner. The family moved to New York in 1936 to escape the Nazi persecution of Jews.He graduated from Haaren High School in 1947 and from Cooper Union's School of Art in Manhattan in 1951, with a degree in advertising design. He took pictures for the Cooper Union newspaper using a camera given to him by his older brother, Henry. Mr. Wertheimer entered the Army in 1952 and was made an Army photographer. He was stationed for a time near Heidelberg, Germany. By 1954, he was out of the Army and back in New York, working for the fashion photographer Tom Palumbo and then freelancing. In addition to Presley, he photographed Perry Como, Arthur Rubinstein, Lena Horne, Nelson Eddy and others for the RCA label. (New York Times)
Alfred Wertheimer (1929-2014), "A Nap at the Warwick," signed, titled and inscribed gelatin silver print dated 1979, depicting Elvis Presley napping on a sofa at New York's Warwick Hotel, surrounded by fan mail, March 17, 1956. Signed "A. Wertheimer" in black pen lower right. Inscribed "To Raeanne with Best Wishes" lower left of mat. Additionally signed en verso with copyright stamps stating that this photographic print is for the private use of collectors and no reproduction rights are granted with the sale of the print, and dated 1979. Additional pencil numerical notations upper right corner of back and pencil signature. Framed under plexiglass. Image - 10" H x 15" W. Sheet - 16" H x 20" W. Mat - 19" H x 24" W. Framed - 20 1/2" H x 24 1/2" W. Note: the New York Times, in its obituary of Alfred Wertheimer, wrote, "Mr. Wertheimer was 26 and had not been a professional photographer for long when he got a call from RCA Victor Records asking him to take publicity shots of one of its new artists, a young Southerner making his first television appearance, on the Dorsey Brothers' "Stage Show" on CBS. It was March 1956, and Presley had just one big hit, "Heartbreak Hotel." Mr. Wertheimer had never heard of him. Nearly 60 years later, the black-and-white pictures Mr. Wertheimer made over a total of about 10 days "...have become a compelling and revealing part of the vast visual record of rock-n-roll's first superstar." Wertheimer's candid images of Elvis were largely forgotten until the superstar's death in 1977; they eventually made their way into book collections and in 2010 they were featured as part of a traveling exhibit organized by the Smithsonian: "Elvis at 21, Photographs by Alfred Wertheimer". Provenance: the estate of Raeanne Rubenstein, Nashville, Tennessee. A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg School of Communication, Ms. Rubenstein was a professional photographer specializing in images of celebrities ranging from John Lennon, Janis Joplin and Andy Warhol to Johnny Cash and Dolly Parton. Her work appeared in Rolling Stone, Life, People, and most recently the Ken Burns documentary, Country Music.
Alfred Wertheimer (1929-2014) Elvis and the Hound Dog, Hudson Theatre, New York City, 1956 Gelatin silver print, printed later, signed, titled and dated in pencil on the verso. 16 5/8 x 11 1/4in (42.3 x 28.6cm) sheet 24 x 20in (61 x 50.8cm) For further information on this lot please visit the Bonhams website
Alfred Wertheimer signed poster. Signed and inscribed 'To Lori-From the King + I Alfred Wertheimer 1/10/93. Thanks'. Very good condition, mounted to foam core board. Measures 26 in. x 20 in. If lot is absent of a condition report a condition report may be requested via email. Condition report is provided as an opinion only and is no guarantee as grading can be subjective. We ship most items in this auction in house and gladly combine shipping if possible of multiple items.
ALFRED WERTHEIMER (1929-2014) The Kiss, Elvis and date, 1956 tirage argentique, tiré en 1979 signé à l'encre (marge); titré, daté (image et tirage) et annoté 'Artist Proof' au crayon avec cachets de copyright du photographe (verso) image : 25 x 37.7 cm. (9 7/8 x 14 7/8 in.) feuille : 40.5 x 50.7 cm. (16 x 20 in.) Ce tirage est une épreuve d'artiste.
Alfred Wertheimer, Germany (1929-2014) 'Elvis at the Warwick 1956', signed lower right, numbered lower left 26/950. Hand written on back 'Elvis Presley enters the Warwick Hotel after finishing rehearsal for Dorsey Brothers Stage Show', signed by Wertheimer. Measures 34 5/8"H x 26 1/8"W framed; 23.5"H x 15.5"W unframed. Condition is good, see photos. Examine all photos closely. Contact AAG for more detailed information if needed. AAG is not responsible for any errors or omissions to any lots. All sales are final and sold as is. This item cannot be shipped in house. Please contact our third party shippers.
Gelatin silver print, printed 2006. Signed lower recto along the margin; signed, titled, dated and with photographer's credit stamp on the reverse. 10.83 x 13.98 in. TAGS: Fotografia - photograph
ALFRED WERTHEIMER (1929-2014) Elvis with Hound Dog. Silver print, the image measuring 16 1/4x10 7/8 inches (41.3x27.6 cm.), the sheet 20x16 inches (50.8x40.6 cm.), with Wertheimer's signature, in ink, on recto, and with his signature, title, extended caption, and dates (the print date initialed), in pencil, and his copyright hand stamps, on verso. 1956; printed 2005
Alfred Wertheimer's, (March 2013) Signed, "A. Wertheimer", "Elvis and the Birth of rock and Roll" in calm shell box, collector's edition 459 or 1956. Publisher: TASCHEN Gmbh Approx. H. 17.5", W. 12.25", D. 2"
Alfred Wertheimer (German/American, 1929-2014) Good Bye America, Hello Germany, 1958 Gelatin silver, 2006 7-1/4 x 11 inches (18.4 x 27.9 cm) Signed in ink in margin recto; signed, titled, dated, and annotated in pencil with the artist's stamp on verso. HID04901242017
Alfred Wertheimer (German/American, 1929-2014) Elvis Reading Newspaper, 1956 Gelatin silver, 2006 10-3/4 x 7-1/8 inches (27.3 x 18.1 cm) Signed in ink in margin recto; signed, dated, titled, and annotated in pencil with the artist's stamp on verso. HID04901242017
Alfred Wertheimer (German/American, 1929-2014) Tumbleweed Presley, 1956 Gelatin silver, 1979 7-1/8 x 10-3/4 inches (18.1 x 27.3 cm) Signed in ink in lower margin; signed, titled, dated, and annotated in pencil with the artist's stamp on verso. HID04901242017
WERTHEIMER, ALFRED (b. 1929) Group of three images of Elvis Presley. Includes Elvis on his Harley ... July 4, 1956; New York City, Hudson Theater July 1, 1956; and Elvis in the Upper Berth ... June 30th, 1956, all printed later. The largest 15 x 10 inches (378 x 250 mm), each signed recto in the margin by Wertheimer in ink (lr), one also titled thus; the versos signed, titled, dated and two with extensive annotations regarding Elvis by the photographer in pencil, dated and with his copyright stamps hand-dated 1979. Fine, framed. C Property from the Watermill Center, Water Mill, New York
Note: Description Updated 11/23. Elvis Presley. B&W, 1956. Fiber-based silver gelatin. Older print. Framed. Elvis Presley, reclining on a couch, reading his fan mail at the Warwick Hotel in New York City. Signed, titled, dated, and inscribed in ink to Neil Leifer by photographer. 11 x 14in. This framed work has been professionally framed by Mr. Leifer's preferred framer. The frame is handsome, created in a simple, modern design much preferred by museums. The woods is a light, natural shade; the glazing is a UV plexiglass of the highest quality; the backing board is generally a sheet of foam core. Many framed items also include a white matte. Framed works will be sold as-is, in frame. It is the bidders responsibility to remove the print from the frame if they so desire. More information on the specific framing can be provided by the auction house upon request. The photographs in this auction have been examined by an expert, whose opinions pertaining to the age of the prints, the printing process, and the type of paper used, are included in the description of each photograph. Although Guernsey’s believes these descriptions to be accurate, interested buyers are urged to personally inspect the prints either at the public preview or by appointment with Guernsey’s. As with all items in this auction, all lots are being sold as is.
Note: Description Updated 11/23. Elvis Presley. B&W, 1956. Fiber-based silver gelatin. Older print. Framed. Elvis Presley, combing his hair in men's rest room. Signed, titled ("One Hour from Memphis"), and inscribed in ink to Neil Leifer by photographer. 14 x 11in. This framed work has been professionally framed by Mr. Leifer's preferred framer. The frame is handsome, created in a simple, modern design much preferred by museums. The woods is a light, natural shade; the glazing is a UV plexiglass of the highest quality; the backing board is generally a sheet of foam core. Many framed items also include a white matte. Framed works will be sold as-is, in frame. It is the bidders responsibility to remove the print from the frame if they so desire. More information on the specific framing can be provided by the auction house upon request. The photographs in this auction have been examined by an expert, whose opinions pertaining to the age of the prints, the printing process, and the type of paper used, are included in the description of each photograph. Although Guernsey’s believes these descriptions to be accurate, interested buyers are urged to personally inspect the prints either at the public preview or by appointment with Guernsey’s. As with all items in this auction, all lots are being sold as is.
ALFRED WERTHEIMER (AMERICAN, B. 1929): ELVIS PRESLEY, A SET OF SIX GELATIN SILVER PRINTS, Presley photographed performing on stage and in the recording studio, including recording with the Jordanaires at the RCA Victor studios in New York City, each signed by the artist in black ink and numbered out of editions of 950 and 300, all mounted and framed, the largest, 16 x 23in (41 x 58cm)
Gelatin silver print USA, 1956, printed in 1987 Alfred Wertheimer (born 1929) – German photographer Verso stamped ‘Copyright 1987 Alfred Wertheimer All Rights Reserved’ Image size: 20 x 25 cm Very good condition The photograph with the work title ‘Elvis in the dressing room preparing for Dorsey Brothers Stage Show, 1956’ is from the German photographer Alfred Wertheimer and has been shot in 1956. This gelatin silver print is a reprint from 1987 and shows Elvis Presley in a dressing room in front of a mirror sitting and combing his hair. This typical and incomparably gesture of the then rising King of Rock' n Roll was captured here by Wertheimer for the eternity. The then only a few years older photographer had the unique opportunity to accompany Elvis on Tour and thus enriched the posterity with memorable scenes from the life of the musician. The photograph is in very good condition with only minimal signs of age and usage. The work has been stamped verso with ‘Copyright 1987 Alfred Wertheimer All Rights Reserved’ and a ’NO REPRODUCTION RIGHTS’ stamp. The image size of the photograph is 20 x 25 cm. The passe-partout measures 30 x 40 cm. (asi) Alfred Wertheimer (born 1929) Alfred Wertheimer was born in 1929 in Germany, his family emigrated in 1936 to America with him. He discovered his interest in photography 1948. He was also interested very early in Architecture and Design and studied at the Cooper Union, where he graduated in 1951. Wertheimer's photos, that nationwide found recognition for the first time after Elvis' death on August 16, 1977, documented the metamorphosis of Pop Music and the cultural change in America. As the spokeswoman for RCA Records in 1956 asked Wertheimer if he wanted to photograph Elvis, the new star of the label, Wertheimer said: ‘Elvis who?’. Wertheimer had exclusive access to the King, who was then 21 years old, during the first heavy wave of success. He accompanied him on all concerts, traveling at his side and photographed him everywhere and especially in very private situations. Wertheimer was working as an assistant for a fashion photographer. He is best known as a documentary filmmaker, who was well known among other things for his later work at Woodstock. Alfred Wertheimer still lives and works in New York. Shipping costs excl. statutory VAT and plus 2,5% (+VAT) shipping insurance. Auctionata charges the resale rights tax pursuant to Section 26 of the German Copyright Act (UrhG) towards the buyer in case of the sale of an original work of art or photography prior to 70 years having lapsed since the death of their creator. Therefore, Auctionata charges when purchasing a good – if a protection as an original work of art or photography is given – starting from a hammer price of EUR 400 an additional amount, which is calculated according to Section 26 (2) German Copyright Act (UrhG) and which does not exceed the amount of EUR 12,500. You can find more information about resale rights tax in Auctionata´s table of fees and T&C.
![Alfred Wertheimer, Elvis Fan, [Woman with Newspaper] Elvis Presley, c. 1956](https://stageimg.invaluable.com/housePhotos/KeithDelellisGallery/95/694995/H22760-L243411081.jpg)
