Janette Beckman

Biography

Beckman started her career photographing the punk scene in England and New York in the 70s and 80s and has continued without pause. Attending King Alfred School in Hampstead, an alternative establishment "where the emphasis, both academically and socially, is on discovering and maximising the potential of each child" she discovered art, and upon leaving at 17 she spent a year at St Martins School of Art, and then three years at London College of Communication studying photography.

Beckman was very prolific from the beginning of her career; she was widely published and continues to photograph new bands and other subjects. Meeting like-minded and similarly-backgrounded Vivien Goldman led to a long-term friendship and productive working relationship.

After an initial gig working for Sounds Magazine with Goldman - her first shoot was with Siouxsie and the Banshees - she soon had a job shooting for music magazines such as Melody Maker and The Face, with a studio and darkroom in central London. Beckman moved permanently to New York in 1982 and continued her career, shooting for her UK clients as well as new ones in the US. Beckman's work has appeared on records for the major labels, and in magazines including Esquire, Rolling Stone, Glamour, Italian Vogue, The Times, Newsweek, Jalouse, Mojo and others. Beckman says "The bands and the fans – I loved the music and the styles."

Beckman describes herself as a documentary photographer. While she produces a lot of work on location, including the cover for Police album Zenyatta Mondatta (taken in the middle of a forest in the Netherlands), she is also a studio portrait photographer.

In August 2010 Beckman produced a new exhibition entitled "Archive of Attitude" at Arkitip's Project Space, Los Angeles, which included artefacts from Def Jam and which garnered a lot of press coverage. Arkitip published a special supplement to the show in the form of a limited edition broadsheet newspaper full of Janette's photographs. That same month photographer Jill Furmanovsky chose Janette's Paul Weller and Pete Townsend as one of her personal favourite music photographs for an article with NME.

In March 2011 the Morrison Hotel Gallery in New York City opened an exhibition at their Bowery location titled "Catch the Beat: The Roots of Punk and Hip Hop", a joint exhibition of photographs by Beckman and photographer David Corio. In a related interview for It's Nice That blog, she talks about the original publications she shot for and how she came to be in New York documenting Hip Hop; and in an article in Interview Magazine about the images in the show she says "I'm sort of the antithesis of Annie Leibovitz." In an interview with the Miami New Times, in conjunction with an exhibition of her work during Art Basel Miami, Beckman describes her aesthetic. She also explained how she made a controversial photograph of N.W.A in front of a police car, a story which is also the opening of a behind-the-scenes video interview with fashion website Byronesque. In a recording of Beckman working on the streets of Harlem, her photograph of LL Cool J with his boom box is described as hip-hop history, known around the world.

In July 2011, Flavorwire named Janette Beckman one of "10 Rock Photographers You Should Know" In the same month, Beckman launched "Archive Of Attitude", a blog recounting the stories behind the photographs.

An interview with Beckman by the UK's Daily Telegraph in March 2012 highlights her current advertising campaign for Kangol, her third lookbook for the music-friendly headwear company. Kangol's biography calls Beckman "a respected veteran photographer of music and youth culture." New York Magazine's interview in 2013, which came in conjunction with the Metropolitan Museum of New York's Punk exhibition, addresses her history photographing the punk scene.

In the summer of 2012 Beckman joined the faculty at the International Center of Photography in New York to teach a course on photographing youth culture. In an interview with the Manchester Fashion Network, Beckman talks about the course, as well as recent assignments including a new working relationship with the British style magazine Jocks and Nerds for which she later became the New York editor.

Beckman's appearance in the Stüssy/Yo! MTV Raps two-part documentary "We Were All Watching / Part 2, Fashion in the Golden Age of Hip Hop," cemented her authority on the subject as she appears alongside Bill Adler, Dante Ross, Questlove, and other experts.

A trip to Caracas in 2013 produced a body of work on Tuki dancers, who combine street styles, pop, house and techno culture. Also in 2013, ONO ARTE gallery in Bologna held two exhibitions: "Made in the UK" and "My Generation."

2014 brought a residency at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts in Omaha, Nebraska, in conjunction with an exhibition at Carver Bank titled “Rebel Culture: Legends of Hip Hop and the Go Hard Boyz (Harlem Bikers).” Beckman also launched a new body of work in the summer of 2014; her photographs of 80s hip hop musicians and other 80s icons were reworked by various graffiti artists, including Cey Adams. By early 2015 prints had been exhibited at Salon Atelier-Galerie in Paris, France, and at Gansevoort Market, New York. Later in 2015 comes an exhibition at the Museum of the City of New York, with photographs by Beckman along with two other New York photographers, Joe Conzo and Martha Cooper: "Hip-Hop Revolution presents more than 80 photographs taken between 1977 and 1990."

Extensive interviews published in 2014 include Huck Magazine: "Rebel Cultures: Hip hop, punk & gang life by Janette Beckman"; Flatt Magazine: "Attitude Never Dies"; and Jay Z's lifestyle blog Life + Times: "Respect the Shooter."

Janette is the niece of Morris Beckman.

Books

Two books, both published by PowerHouse demonstrate the diversity in style and subjects she has achieved over the years.

"Made in the UK: The Music of Attitude"

Made in the UK; The Music of Attitude was published in 2005 and has images of, and stories about, a variety of bands and cultures, from 1977–1983: rockabillies, punks, mods, and dub artists; Elvis Costello, Sex Pistols, The Ramones. It also has a foreword by the British designer Paul Smith, and an essay by Vivien Goldman.

"The Breaks: Stylin' and Profilin'"

The Breaks: Stylin' and Profilin', published in 2007, is made up of images of rap and hip hop stars from 1982–1990 including Afrika Bambaataa, Run DMC, Slick Rick, Salt-n-Pepa and Grandmaster Flash.

"El Hoyo Maravilla"

In 2011 Dashwood Books published previously unseen photographs in El Hoyo Maravilla. The book is a limited edition printing of Beckman's black and white photographs from the 1980s of one of East LA's Hispanic gangs, reviewed on La Journal de la Photographie.

Other

Also published, now out of print, is "Rap: Portraits and Lyrics of a Generation of Black Rockers," with text by Bill Adler. This book was published by St. Martin's Press in America and by Omnibus Press in England in 1991.

The Police

EPMD

Salt-n-Pepa

Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five

Other

Other work

Beckman has also photographed: Campaigns for SAGE; M.I.A. for a Converse billboard; Yao Ming for Nickelodeon Magazine; Madeleine Albright for Glamour and Drag Queens for Vodafone

In 2013 she collaborated with Ben Sherman and the Teenage Cancer Trust on a unique limited edition T-shirt range. It included an image of The Islington Twins, from 1979, one of Beckman's most identifiable photographs of street style.

She shoots kids, authors, sports personalities and celebrities as well as a variety of personal work.