Paige Powell arrived in New York from Portland, Oregon, in 1980 with a camera and a pocket full of dreams, and most of them came true in quick time. Before long she had worked with Woody Allen and taken up a job with Interview magazine, establishing herself as a confidante of founder Andy Warhol and a regular at The Factory. She also struck up a relationship with the acclaimed Jean-Michel Basquiat, the graffitist turned neo-expressionist painter, which lasted two years.
Paige was living in an apartment in New York’s Upper West Side in 1982 when she took a series of candid and intimate 35mm shots of Basquiat, which are now on display at the Suzanne Geiss Company gallery. Showing Basquiat in relaxed mode, watching cartoons on the television as he drew, the series is a poignant one given Basquiat’s descent into heroin addiction and a premature death aged 27, just six years after these pictured were taken. The exhibition Jean-Michel Basquiat Reclining Nude ends 22 February.
© Paige Powell.
Courtesy The Suzanne Geiss Company
Photo, Adam Reich.
Courtesy The Suzanne Geiss Company.
Photo, Adam Reich.
Courtesy The Suzanne Geiss Company.
© Paige Powell.
Courtesy The Suzanne Geiss Company
Photo, Adam Reich.
Courtesy The Suzanne Geiss Company.
