Frank Stefanko

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Frank Stefanko is a fine art photographer with connections to New Jersey performers Patti Smith and Bruce Springsteen. Frank's recently released photographs, taken in the 1960's through the 80's, shed new light on the early careers of the two musical icons.

Frank was born in Philadelphia on February 2, 1946, and has been absorbed by photography since he was given an old box-camera at about seven years of age. Among his early "teachers" and inspirations were old black and white film-noir movies, cinematographers such as James Wong Howe, Fritz Lang, and reality photographers such as Diane Arbus. Frank also received fine-art training at Glassboro College (now Rowan University) in Glassboro, NJ.

It was at Glassboro College, in the mid-sixties, that Frank met and became friends with Patti Smith. He began photographing her even before Robert Mapplethorpe did. Frank's friendship with Patti led to an introduction to Bruce Springsteen.

Frank's photographs grace the album covers of Bruce Springsteen’s Darkness on the Edge of Town and The River, and also appear on the cover of Southside Johnny’s Hearts of Stone album. Frank's photos appear in Springsteen's Live 1975-1985, CD, in Tracks, Greatest Hits, in the book Greetings from E Street by Robert Santelli, as well as in books by Dave Marsh. Stefanko's images have been featured in the museum production "Springsteen: Troubadour of the Highway" which toured the US from 2002 -2004, sponsored by the Frederick R. Weisman Art Museum in Minneapolis. Colleen Sheehy, curator of the production is quoted as saying, "Frank Stefanko's photographs show a sublime convergence of singer and image at a critical point in Springsteen's career". The "Troubadour" show appeared at the Cranbrook Art Museum, The Experience Music Project, the Newark Museum of Art, and at Monmouth University.

One-man photographic exhibitions with vintage silver-gel portraits by Stefanko include "Days of Hopes and Dreams: An Intimate Portrait of Bruce Springsteen", and "Patti Smith: American Artist,". Chris Murray, Director of the Govinda Gallery in Georgetown, DC, is quoted, "The Haddonfield, New Jersey pictures ...are among the best photographs of Springsteen."

Patti Smith-American Artist (publisher - insight editions/ German edition publishers - Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf)) has been produced as a fine-art photogrpahy book containing some of the “most beautiful portraits of Patti Smith ever taken” (quote by Bob Gruen – photographer). The intimate photographs, along with Stefanko's first-hand accounts, capture the incredible era of cultural change from the mid 1960s to the late 1970s, when a whole new genre of music was being born. The book chronicles young Patti’s emergence as a writer, painter, singer-songwriter, performer, poet, mystic, and political activist: a true “American Artist”. Patti Smith has been called “punk rock’s poet laureate,” and according to Rolling Stone Magazine, “one of the 100 most influential artists of all time.” In the summer of 2005, Patti was named “Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters” by the French Ministry of Culture. In March of 2007, she was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Patti has said of Frank, "good [turnpike] exit, good work, good friend."

Days of Hope and Dreams (publishers- Watson-Guptill) is Frank's first book, published in 2003. It chronicles "An intimate Portrait of Bruce Springsteen" in black and white images taken from 1978 - 1982. The book contains recollections and anecdotes of the friendship between the two men. In the book's introduction, Bruce Springsteen quotes: "The cover shot of 'Darkness' was taken in Frank's bedroom, and any exterior shots were taken either in Frank's yard or on the streets of Haddonfied [NJ]. The pictures were raw. Frank had a way of stripping away any celebrity refuse you may have picked up along the way, and finding the you in you....Frank always shot your internal life. He let your external imperfections show. His photos had a purity and poetry...."

Frank continues his photography, working on an upcoming book featuring his New York photos of the 1970's, and a future project of world landscapes.

SOURCES: Quotes used with author's permission and are published quotes of the artists or critics: Days of Hope and Dreams: An Intimate Portrait of Bruce Springsteen by Frank Stefanko. c. 2003; Watson-Guptill Publishers.

Patti Smith American Artist by Frank Stefanko. c.2006; insight editions Publishers.

                      ISBN: 978-1-933784-06-9 (1-933784-06-7) 

External Link :[Library Thing]http://www.librarything.com/author/stefankofrank&norefer=1

              [Bockley Gallery] http://bockleygallery.com/pages/exh.html