ABOUT A Conversation with Lynn Goldsmith: Music in the 80’s

Genre: Photography

Join us for an evening of conversation with renowned photographer, Lynn Goldsmith. Music journalist and filmmaker Daniel Shaw will lead us through a discussion of Lynn’s latest book, Music in the 80’s, and her recent historic Supreme Court victory over the Estate of Andy Warhol in a landmark copyright case involving the use of one of her iconic photos.

Lynn Goldsmith’s imagery is in numerous museum collections: The Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, The Museum of Modern Art, The Chicago Museum of Contemporary Photography, The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Museum Folkwang, The Polaroid Collection, The Kodak Collection, etc. Her work over the past 50 years in the editorial world has appeared on and between the covers of Life, Newsweek, Time, Vanity Fair, Rolling Stone, National Geographic Traveler, Sports Illustrated, People, Elle, Interview, The New Yorker, etc. The subjects have varied from entertainment personalities to sports stars, from film directors to authors, from the extraordinary to the ordinary man on the street. Winning numerous prestigious awards from the Lucien Clergue to the World Press in Portraiture, to the Lucie for Portraiture in 2020, Lynn considers herself extremely fortunate to have had the opportunity to make her quest into the nature of identity and the human spirit into her livelihood.

 Lynn has published fourteen books of her imagery, one of which, New Kids, was on The New York Times Best Seller list–a rare occurrence for any coffee table book of photography. She’s also received two New York Art Direction awards.

Lynn’s professional achievements transcend the world of photography in a big way. In 1969 for Electra Records, she created the ‘bio-disk,’ won a Clio for one of the radio spots she produced, and worked on the first films of recording artists to be used for promotion. She is the youngest woman member ever to be accepted into the DGA (Director’s Guild of America). In 1971, she was a director of Joshua Television, the first company to do video magnification for rock groups entertaining at large venues. In 1972, she was a director for the first rock show on network television: ABC’s “In Concert”. In 1973, Lynn directed “We’re An American Band,” the first music documentary to be released as a theatrical short. In the mid-seventies, Lynn stopped directing to concentrate on co-managing one of rock’s biggest bands at the time, Grand Funk Railroad.

By the early 80’s, Lynn expanded her creativity to become the first ‘optic-music’ artist. Using the a.k.a. Will Powers, she wrote and produced the album “Dancing For Mental Health” released on Island Records. Working with acclaimed musicians Sting, Steve Winwood, Todd Rundgren and Nile Rodgers, her debut album won critical acclaim, and the single, Kissing With Confidence, reached #3 on the British charts. As was her plan, the videos from the album that she produced and directed became more than commercials for the record. They were used by the United States Department of Labor to inspire unemployed youths, and by the National Marriage Counsel in England. Will Powers’ videos have also been used by Harvard University to help with language instruction, and by other schools throughout the United States for their individual teaching needs. The Museum of Modern Art in New York City has two Will Powers videos in their permanent collection. Lynn was among the first artists to do 3-dimensional computer animation, which she used in her 1983 video, Adventures in Success. The roots of her music came from the experience of being in a band, The Walking Wounded, while attending the University of Michigan, where she graduated in 3 years Magna Cum Laude with a B.A. in both English and Psychology.

Lynn considers herself a self-taught artist and entrepreneur. Others consider her a true pioneer in numerous areas of the arts as well as in business. She was the founder of the first photo agency to focus on celebrity portraiture, representing the work of over two hundred worldwide photographers. Established in 1976, when news photography was what photo agencies focused on, Lynn seemed to know before others that the magazine appetite would change from world events to coverage of the biggest names in entertainment. Part of founding the agency was to make more photographers aware of the importance in copyright. For the past 4 years she has been fighting a legal battle with the Warhol Foundation to help ensure that the copyright law does not become so diluted by the definition of fair use that visual artists lose the rights to their work. This has been a crusade of standing up for rights, and it paid off when the High Court in May ruled in her favor, deciding that Andy Warhol had used a photo of hers of Prince as the basis for a painting without the proper permissions or copyrights. Chronicle Books included her in the 2017 publication of 200 Women Who Will Change the Way You See the World.

The wide range of Lynn’s talents, skills and achievements are products of a belief she holds constant: Creativity is based on breaking limiting thought patterns, busting through fear, taking risks, and persistently working hard toward your goals, if the individual wants to maximize their potential for feeling they have lived life fully. Currently, among other projects, Lynn has been painting. But the one thing she never has stopped doing since she was eight years old is making images with her camera.

Learn more: Website / Facebook / Instagram

DETAILS

• Doors open for show @ 7:00pm / Show @ 8:00pm
• SEATED SHOW | ALL AGES
• Location: TACAW, 400 Robinson St, Basalt, CO 81621

Presented By: TACAW