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Frank Stefanko
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Frank Stefanko is a fine art photographer with connections to New Jersey performers Patti Smith and Bruce Springsteen 1. Stefanko's recently released photographs, taken in the 1960s through the 80s, shed new light on the early careers of the two musicians.
Stefanko was born in Philadelphia in 1946, and has been absorbed by photography since he was given an old box-camera when about seven years of age.
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Frank Stefanko is a fine art photographer with connections to New Jersey performers Patti Smith and Bruce Springsteen 1. Stefanko's recently released photographs, taken in the 1960s through the 80s, shed new light on the early careers of the two musicians.
Stefanko was born in Philadelphia in 1946, and has been absorbed by photography since he was given an old box-camera when about seven years of age. Among his early "teachers" and inspirations were stark, black and white film noir movies, cinematographers such as James Wong Howe, Fritz Lang, and reality photographers such as Diane Arbus, who shot every-day people in natural settings. Stefanko received fine-art training at Glassboro College (now Rowan University) in Glassboro, New Jersey.
It was at Glassboro College, in the mid-sixties, that Stefanko met and became friends with Patti Smith. He began photographing her even before Robert Mapplethorpe did. This friendship with Smith led to an introduction to Bruce Springsteen.
Stefanko's photographs grace the album covers of Bruce Springsteen’s Darkness on the Edge of Town and The River (album), and also the cover of Southside Johnny's Hearts of Stone album. His photos appear in Springsteen's Live 1975–1985 CD, in Tracks, Greatest Hits, in the book Greetings from E Street by Robert Santelli, as well as in books by Dave Marsh.
Stefanko's images have been shown in the exhibition "Springsteen: Troubadour of the Highway", which toured the US from 2002–2004, sponsored by the Frederick R. Weisman Art Museum in Minneapolis. Colleen Sheehy, curator of the production is quoted as saying, "Frank Stefanko's photographs show a sublime convergence of singer and image at a critical point in Springsteen's career". The "Troubadour" show appeared at the Cranbrook Art Museum, The Experience Music Project, the Newark Museum of Art, and at Monmouth University.
Stefanko is among the 43 fine-art photographers invited to donate a print to "FOCUS: an auction of the finest photography to benefit City Harvest...." The fund-raiser on September 18, 2008 supports City Harvest, a food collection bank in New York City.
One-man photographic exhibitions with vintage silver-gel portraits by Stefanko include "Days of Hopes and Dreams: An Intimate Portrait of Bruce Springsteen" (Chris Murray, Director of the Govinda Gallery in Georgetown, DC, said, "The Haddonfield, New Jersey pictures ...are among the best photographs of Springsteen.",) and "The Swamps of Jersey" tour, an installation on display at SNAP Galleries in Birmingham, England and in the Morrison Hotel Galleries in SoHo, New York and LaJolla, California.
Patti Smith-American Artist has been produced as a fine-art photography book containing some of the “most beautiful portraits of Patti Smith ever taken” according to photographer, Bob Gruen. The intimate photographs, along with Stefanko's first-hand accounts, capture the period of cultural change from the mid 1960s to the late 1970s, when a new genre of music was being born. The book chronicles young Smith’s emergence as a writer, painter, singer-songwriter, performer, poet, mystic, and political activist: a true “American Artist”. Smith has said of Stefanko, "good [turnpike] exit, good work, good friend."
Days of Hope and Dreams is Stefanko's first book, published in 2003. It is "An intimate Portrait of Bruce Springsteen" in black and white images taken from 1978–1982. The book contains recollections and anecdotes of the friendship between the two men. In the book's introduction, Springsteen says: "The cover shot of 'Darkness' was taken in Frank's bedroom, and any exterior shots were taken either in Frank's yard or on the streets of Haddonfield [NJ]. The pictures were raw. Frank had a way of stripping away any celebrity refuse you may have picked up along the way, and finding the you in you....Frank always shot your internal life. He let your external imperfections show. His photos had a purity and poetry...."
Stefanko was a resident of Haddonfield, New Jersey for many years.
Books by Stefanko
- Days of Hope and Dreams: An Intimate Portrait of Bruce Springsteen. Watson-Guptill, c.2003. Insight, 2003. Watson-Guptill, 2003. ISBN 082308387X.
- Patti Smith American Artist. Insight, c.2006. ISBN 1-933784-06-7.
External links
- . Snap Gallery, UK, exhibition notice.
- Interview with Stefanko Re: Stefanko's relationship and work with Springsteen.
- San Diego Tribune article
- Associated Press Article, "Putting the Boss on the Map".
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Monmouth University symposium with Stefanko & Colleen Sheehy
South Jersey Magazine Interview (search Stefanko)
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