A uniquely personal survey of three decades of modernist photography opened in London this week. The extraordinary collection of 200 vintage prints, now showing in The Radical Eye at Tate Modern, includes seminal works by leading figures experimenting in the form from 1917 to the 1950s – Brassai, Imogen Cunningham, André Kertész, Dorothea Lange, Tina Modotti and Aleksandr Rodchenko to name but a few.
The photographs all belong to the private collection of the pop star Elton John. In an interview to promote the exhibition, the British musician talks about his almost obsessive approach to collecting. He appears driven by two conflicting impulses: the desire to own iconic images by early pioneers, such as Man Ray's Glass Tears 1932 and Underwater Swimmer, Hungary by André Kertész, and a fascination with social documentary photography that captures the human condition. An impressive array of portraits, such as Irving Penn's portrait of Salvador Dalí, sits somewhere in between.
John began collecting in 1990 when he bought a dozen black-and-white, mostly fashion photographs, by Irving Penn, Horst P Horst and Herb Ritts. The number of works he owns now stands at about 8,000 and his must surely rank as a world-class collection. Unlike many collectors, his buying habits are not dictated by hopes of financial gain. As he explains:
“Once I started collecting, I became avaricious about it. I moved to Atlanta [into] an 18,000 square foot [1,670 square metre] apartment.
“I didn’t need the space, I just wanted to put the photography on the walls. And that’s how it became the love of my life in art terms.”
John hopes others will be swept away by this most accessible and immediate of art forms, just as he was more than 25 years ago. “That’s what photographs do, your imagination comes alive and you wonder what was going on when the photograph was taken ...
“It’s my favourite art form in the whole world.”
Visitors to this show will find it hard to disagree.
• The Radical Eye: Modernist Photography from the Sir Elton John Collection is being shown at Tate Modern, London, until May 7.
Clare Dight is the editor of The Review.
BAD BOYS: RIDE OR DIE
Director: Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah
Starring: Will Smith, Martin Lawrence, Joe Pantoliano
Rating: 3.5/5
Confirmed bouts (more to be added)
Cory Sandhagen v Umar Nurmagomedov
Nick Diaz v Vicente Luque
Michael Chiesa v Tony Ferguson
Deiveson Figueiredo v Marlon Vera
Mackenzie Dern v Loopy Godinez
Tickets for the August 3 Fight Night, held in partnership with the Department of Culture and Tourism Abu Dhabi, went on sale earlier this month, through www.etihadarena.ae and www.ticketmaster.ae.
Innotech Profile
Date started: 2013
Founder/CEO: Othman Al Mandhari
Based: Muscat, Oman
Sector: Additive manufacturing, 3D printing technologies
Size: 15 full-time employees
Stage: Seed stage and seeking Series A round of financing
Investors: Oman Technology Fund from 2017 to 2019, exited through an agreement with a new investor to secure new funding that it under negotiation right now.
EMIRATES'S REVISED A350 DEPLOYMENT SCHEDULE
Edinburgh: November 4 (unchanged)
Bahrain: November 15 (from September 15); second daily service from January 1
Kuwait: November 15 (from September 16)
Mumbai: January 1 (from October 27)
Ahmedabad: January 1 (from October 27)
Colombo: January 2 (from January 1)
Muscat: March 1 (from December 1)
Lyon: March 1 (from December 1)
Bologna: March 1 (from December 1)
Source: Emirates
The biog
Hobby: Playing piano and drawing patterns
Best book: Awaken the Giant Within by Tony Robbins
Food of choice: Sushi
Favourite colour: Orange
In numbers
Number of Chinese tourists coming to UAE in 2017 was... 1.3m
Alibaba’s new ‘Tech Town’ in Dubai is worth... $600m
China’s investment in the MIddle East in 2016 was... $29.5bn
The world’s most valuable start-up in 2018, TikTok, is valued at... $75bn
Boost to the UAE economy of 5G connectivity will be... $269bn
Company Profile
Company name: Hoopla
Date started: March 2023
Founder: Jacqueline Perrottet
Based: Dubai
Number of staff: 10
Investment stage: Pre-seed
Investment required: $500,000
Review: Tomb Raider
Dir: Roar Uthaug
Starring: Alicia Vikander, Dominic West, Daniel Wu, Walter Goggins
two stars
Living in...
This article is part of a guide on where to live in the UAE. Our reporters will profile some of the country’s most desirable districts, provide an estimate of rental prices and introduce you to some of the residents who call each area home.
Profile
Company: Justmop.com
Date started: December 2015
Founders: Kerem Kuyucu and Cagatay Ozcan
Sector: Technology and home services
Based: Jumeirah Lake Towers, Dubai
Size: 55 employees and 100,000 cleaning requests a month
Funding: The company’s investors include Collective Spark, Faith Capital Holding, Oak Capital, VentureFriends, and 500 Startups.