From the evening’s first introductions, it was pointed out it is not everyday Elvis is actually “in the building.” However, on April 12, his image received a warm welcome at the gallery opening of the Telfair Museum’s newest visiting exhibit, “Elvis at 21: Photographs by Alfred Wertheimer.” Scheduled to remain at the Jepson Center for the Arts through Oct. 2, the exhibit features forty original negatives Wertheimer took in 1956, the year Elvis Presley was 21-years-old.
The reception’s guest speaker was exhibition organizer and music photography expert Chris Murray, who was also a close friend of Wertheimer’s. Murray was introduced as the founder and director of the Govinda Gallery in Washington D.C., which has featured artwork by Annie Leibovitz and other notable names in the music photography industry. Rock ‘n’ roll photography, however, is Murray’s real niche and he has organized hundreds of exhibitions across the country dedicated to the innovators of the genre, including Elvis.
Murray began by dedicating his nearly hour-long lecture to Prince, who was earlier that day pronounced dead at 57-years-old. “Elvis at 21’s” stop in Savannah marks the exhibit’s first visit anywhere since Wertheimer’s death back in October 2014. Throughout the evening, Murray introduced and discussed a select few of Wertheimer’s photographs featured in the exhibit.
The year 1956 was a significant one for the young Elvis, according to Murray. It was a time when he was on the cusp of fame and yet still able to walk the streets of New York and Memphis without anybody bothering him. June 25 of that same year, Elvis also made his first appearance in Savannah.
A German-born freelance photographer, Wertheimer was 26-years-old when he first encountered Elvis. As the story goes, Elvis came to New York City to make one of his first television appearances. Murray said the label that had just signed Elvis, the legendary RCA Records, needed some publicity photos of the rising star. The studio hired Wertheimer to meet and follow Elvis around the city though, at the time, Wertheimer had never heard of this up-and-coming singer. According to Murray, Wertheimer’s first reaction when RCA asked him to photograph Elvis was, “Elvis who?”
Despite his lack of familiarity with Elvis, Wertheimer continued to photograph him after their first day in New York. When Murray asked Wertheimer why he bothered following Elvis if he was not yet famous, Wertheimer said, “Chris, he made girls cry.”
Wertheimer asked Elvis if he could tag along on the singer’s trips to Virginia, New York and back home to Memphis. Elvis’s response? A shrug and a, “Yeah.” “That was the contract,” Murray said.
Murray explained that as a photojournalist, Wertheimer valued the ability to be invisible, but at the same time he was so intrigued by Elvis; he was making the girls cry and Wertheimer was just captivated by how this could be. Wertheimer’s first set of photographs were taken around St. Patrick’s Day in New York and the second set were taken in early June and July. He traveled with Elvis to Memphis in order to spend more time capturing this figure by whom he was so fascinated.
To capture the quieter, more intimate moments of Elvis’s off-stage life, Wertheimer used the “fly on the wall” approach. Murray also mentioned how Elvis did not mind having Wertheimer follow him, because the young artist “permitted closeness.” Wertheimer, “had incredibly intimate access to this 21-year-old Southern boy who would go on to become the king of rock n’ roll,” Murray said.
Murray ended his discussion with Wertheimer’s favorite photo in the series. The image shows Elvis onstage during a show in Memphis. His back is to the camera, and he appears to be gazing out at crowd shrieking his name. As Wertheimer snapped the photo, someone else in the crowd did the same but with the flash on, creating a glow effect in front of Elvis. The result is a distilled moment in the singer’s career. Murray said Wertheimer saw this moment as a metaphor for Elvis’s star rising.
Wertheimer’s intimate photos captured Elvis in his multiple personas backstage, onstage, with family and even at the train station without another person paying attention to him. Murray noted how Wertheimer’s photos not only immortalized Elvis but also the American lifestyle in the 1950’s. In that, Wertheimer’s photographs celebrate diversity and pay homage to the way the United States was, Murray said.
Written by Emilie Kefalas.
