Le paparazzo extraordinaire, photographer Ron Galella. The man who snapped Michael Jackson, Brooke Shields, Jackie O without her sunglasses, Brigitte Bardot. The Godfather of the paparazzi culture. His photographs can be seen in hundreds of publications including Time, Harper’s Bazaar, Vogue, Vanity Fair, People, Rolling Stone, The New Yorker, The New York Times and Life. Known for his obsessive treatment of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and the subsequent legal battles associated with it (do you remember the movie Smash that Camera?). Marlon Brando punched him in the face breaking the photographer’s jaw and knocking out five of his teeth. Widely regarded as the most famous and most controversial celebrity photographer in the world. The Museum of Modern Art New York and San Francisco, the Tate Modern in London, and the Helmut Newton Foundation Museum of Photography in Berlin, among many others, all maintain collections of Galella’s iconic works.
Isabella Cecconi on February 24, 2014.