By the summer of 1993, Jesse Frohman was a part of the NYC photography scene, having shot luminaries such as Run DMC, James Brown, and Spike Lee. Jesse’s next assignment found him pointing a lens towards the stratosphere: Kurt Cobain, frontman of Nirvana, the biggest rock star in the world, and reluctant anti-hero for a generation.
Over the past 27 years, The Last Session images have grown into the memorial artefact of Kurt Cobain, an intimate moment with one of the last great rock stars, a hero to the disaffected, and an enigma that will never be fully understood.
Artist: Jesse Frohman
Title: Kurt Cobain; Smoking (A)
Year created: 1993
Medium: Photography
Edition: Limited
Height (inches): 16
Width (inches): 20
Signed by the artist
Signed Area: front
This piece is unframed.
Description of piece:
Even casual Nirvana fans instinctively recognize the tattered leopard print coat or the pair of white Jackie O sunglasses Kurt wore the day he was photographed by Jesse Frohman - the faded nail polish, a dying cigarette. But Frohman was drawn to the uneasy balance Kurt wore within his being: playful and unguarded at moments, feigning ballet moves and spraying water out of his mouth, while at others nihilistic and self-destructive — always flitting between absence and presence. This piece represents an important time in music history and one if its most iconic frontmen.
Artist bio:
Jesse Frohman is a New York-based photographer. After graduating from the University of Michigan, he moved back to New York and assisted Irving Penn for four years. He began his career shooting for magazines such as Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, Rolling Stone and Vogue as well as commercial clients ranging from Estee Lauder to Def Jam Records. In addition to his portrait work, which features artists from every creative field, including countless celebrities, Frohman has also worked extensively in the still life and landscape genres. Frohman’s book of his Kurt Cobain images, Kurt Cobain; The Last Session was published in 2016 by Thames & Hudson. His work can be found in museum collections such as the Museum of Modern Art and the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC, and he has had exhibitions in New York, Paris, Tokyo and Moscow.
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