A selection of over 300 photographs from the legendary collection of Elton John will be on display at London's Victoria and Albert Museum from May 18, 2024, to January 5, 2025. The exhibition will be the largest photography exhibition the museum has organized to date.
The exhibition, “Fragile Beauty,” spans from the 1950s to the present and features the work of 140 photographers spread across eight themed sections. Explores celebrity in images of Marilyn Monroe and Miles Davis, photo reports of the Civil Rights movement, AIDS activism in the 1980s, and the 9/11 attacks (of which John and his husband David Furnish have the largest collection in the world) and the male body through photographs by names such as Robert Mapplethorpe and Tyler Mitchell.
“'Fragile Beauty' will be a truly epic journey through the recent history of photography,” said exhibition curator Duncan Forbes. “Whether through the elegance of fashion photography, the creativity of musicians and performers, the exploration of desire or the passage of history captured by photojournalism, photography reveals something important about the world.”
John has been collecting photographs since he became sober in 1991. In fact, “Fragile Beauty” is the second half of a photography tour that began in 2016 with “The Radical Eye,” in which Tate Modern presented 150 of John's photographs from the 1920s to the 1950s. , including rare works by Man Ray, André Kertész and Edward Steichen.
At the V&A, John and Furnish deepened a relationship that began with a loan of photographs from Horst P. Horst in 2014. In 2019, a significant donation from the couple to the museum's new photography center resulted in a gallery named in their honor.
“Working alongside the V&A again was a truly memorable experience,” the pair said in a statement. “We look forward to sharing this exhibition with the public.”
Source: Artnet News