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gallery
December 13, 2015

Inside a ’70s Diary With Andy Warhol and Anna Wintour

By Stephanie Eckardt

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Photo: Peter Schlesinger

At first glance, Peter Schlesinger’s photos could be an ordinary scrapbook of someone who spent the ’70s bouncing around London, Paris, and New York. He photographed his friends with so much familiarity and so little pretension that it takes a second look to realize most of his subjects were famous. The man tucked into the backseat of a cab is, in fact, Andy Warhol; the red-haired woman seated outside a Parisian café happens to be Grace Coddington.

Having grown up in California, Schlesinger went to UCLA in 1966. Once there, he quickly hit it off with a professor: the painter David Hockney. The two moved to London, and Schlesinger fell in with the art world, spending his time with fellow photographers like Robert Mapplethorpe and Cecil Beaton. He got into fashion, too, seeing Manolo Blahnik frequently enough to capture the designer snuggled up in bed with a copy of Interview and getting his hair cut by Schlesinger’s longtime partner, Eric Boman.

Boman has, understandably, been one of Schlesinger’s most frequent subjects. He’s also the one Schlesinger captures most tenderly. Peter Schlesinger: A Photographic Memory 1968–1969, a new book of his photos with a foreword by Hilton Als, depicts their relationship so effectively that by the time you get to his image of Boman bringing an enormous basil plant in from the garden to freeze for pesto, you can already imagine the months of pasta nights that must have followed.

Click through the slideshow for a look inside Schlesinger’s visual diary, including Fran Lebowitz smirking with a poster of herself and Anna Wintour celebrating her children’s birthdays on a Long Island lawn.

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1 / 20 Photos
"Robert Mapplethorpe on the Boulevard Saint-Germain, Paris, 1971." Photo: Peter Schlesinger
"Artist Kathy Huberland, Encino, 1968." Photo: Peter Schlesinger
"Fran Lebowitz at the Fifth Avenue Book Fair, New York, 1979." Photo: Peter Schlesinger
"Eric giving Manolo Blahnik a haircut, London, 1972." Photo: Peter Schlesinger
"Photographer Reto Guntli doing a backflip, Fire Island Pines, 1980." Photo: Peter Schlesinger
"Dom Hamilton, daughter of Pop artist Richard, Villefranche-sur-Mer, France, 1971." Photo: Peter Schlesinger
"Doctor Patrick "Killer" Woodcock and Grace Coddington, Paris, 1972." Photo: Peter Schlesinger
"Andy Warhol and Rex Reed in a taxi, Monaco, 1974." Photo: Peter Schlesinger
"Anna Piaggi at Paloma's wedding, Paris, 1978." Photo: Peter Schlesinger
"Lucy in improved sunglasses, Barbados, 1987." Photo: Peter Schlesinger
"David and Cecil Beaton in Cecil's conservatory, Wiltshire, 1970." Photo: Peter Schlesinger
"The deck at La Piscine Deligny, Paris, 1975." Photo: Peter Schlesinger
"Amanda Lear on my terrace, London, 1973." Photo: Peter Schlesinger
"Jennifer at Anna Wintour's children's party, Bellport, 1989." Photo: Peter Schlesinger
"George arriving at Fire Island Pines, NY, 1979."  Photo: Peter Schlesinger
"Painter Laura Faber in a Goya pose, New York, 1985." Photo: Peter Schlesinger
"Intermission at Glyndebourne, England, 1978." Photo: Peter Schlesinger
"Manolo in bed with Anjelica and Jack, London, 1974." Photo: Peter Schlesinger
"Tina at Mr. Chow's, New York, 1982." Photo: Peter Schlesinger
"Eric with basil for freezer pesto that we're still eating, Bellport, 1986."  Photo: Peter Schlesinger
1 / 20

Tags:

  • gallery
  • peter schlesinger
  • photography
  • fame
  • fashions
  • grace coddington
  • anna wintour
  • cecil beaton
  • david hockney
  • More

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