Ben Apfelbaum

ROBERT ROSEN ‘GLITTERATI’ @ POWERHOUSE MUSEUM

Glitterati Entrance
Paul McCartney kissing Linda McCartney, Rosen’s favourite photo
Fashion Image
Deborah Kerr, Liberace, Sam Neill : Polaroids
An extract from Robert Rosen’s diary
Sylvester Stallone, Marianne FaithfullT
Fashion Shoot Backstage
Robert Rosen film clip
Grace Jones at the Enmore Theatre

There was a legendary photographer called Bill Cunningham who snapped society photos for the New York Times riding from one venue to the next wearing shorts, a daggy shirt and cap. It was said that a party was not a real party unless Cunningham had covered it. Cunningham recently died at the age of 87.

The same could be said of Robert Rosen who for over 4 decades covered parties, concerts, fashion events and nightclubs across Australia, London and Europe snapping the rich, famous and fabulous. Rosen would often be admitted to some of the most exclusive events, assumed to be a guest by security guards because he always attended these events in a snappy suit and the then fashionable ponytail. Eventually Rosen became a welcome fixture at these events befriending the glitterati social set with hids disarming charm. Part of  that charm was the fact that he always tried to take photos of people at their best and he could be counted on to be discreet. 

Like Bill Cunningham he would dash from venue to venue using taxis and would return to his office to write copy at three or four in the morning. The fact that he wore two small cameras around his neck meant that he could achieve a level of intimacy that the barrier of an imposing SLR camera could not. Because he regularly wore two cameras loaded with Kodak 400 ASA film, he acquired the nickname ‘Two gun Rosen’.

Despite having gifted over 970 photographs to the Powerhouse Museum he was able to single out a single favourite photograph. It is a picture of Paul McCartney kissing his wife Linda. It is in the Kissing Room section of the exhibition through which you enter to see the remainder of the retrospective.Rosen sent the photo to the McCartneys and received no response. At a London party  many years later he received a tap on his shoulder, spun around, and found himself Linda McCartney who said ‘are you snubbing us. By the way we loved your photo of us.’

GLITERATI, complete with shiny revolving disco ball, presents images from his early career in London and Paris capturing the fashion shows of iconic designers like Yves Saint Laurent, Claude Montana and Zandra Rhodes. In Australia Rosen brought a new perspective to the fashion pages with his backstage photos at Australian Fashion Week indicating the trust that he had obtained from the models and designers, and documented celebrities, politicians and entertainers at parties, openings and events from the Exclusive, Cointreau Ball to the Aria Awards.

Rosen rarely did nudes but undertook some discreet images of siblings including  Louise and Tim Olsen and the Page brothers from the Bangarra Dance Theatre.

As well as his standard images Rosen was also able to take Polaroids of his heroes including Bette Middler, Nina Simone and Liberace. 

The other pleasing aspect of this survey of his work is that he has pre-recorded commentary of the photos that you are looking at whereopen you can follow his voice to various highlights of the exhibition.

Rosen now lives in Bali which is the complete opposite of the milieuhe used to live in. Nonetheless he retains a studio there and invites people who interest him to be the subject of his portraiture. 

Had it not been for Covid i’m sure Robert Rosen would have attended, accompanied by many of the Sydney social set he photographed. Alas, this did not occur but if you are at all interested in photography or the captured culture of the sixties to the nineties this exhibition should not be missed.

The exhibition runs at the Powerhouse until the 19th June 202

Featured mage : All photos by Robert Rosen, with Ben  Apfelbaum photographing tham. Article by Ben Apfelbaum.

 

Published by Ben Apfelbaum

My photography began when my father handed me the proverbial brownie box camera as a child. As cameras developed I went through Fujica and Olympus range finders graduating to my first single lens reflex camera, the Minolta SRT101, the latter being the greatest facilitator to my growth as a photographer. Digital photography has only added to this. I was a regular contributor to Camera Craft magazine (Australian Camera ) for over three years. During Australia’s Bicentennial year (1988) I made it a personal project to document the celebrations. This culminated in the creation of a book of my photos which was published in 1989. The book was called CELEBRATING AUSTRALIA and came with an accompanying calendar. My works have appeared in a number of publications including the coffee book entitled MY AUSTRALIA (1989), publisher Robertsbridge Severn. This book had a preface by the then Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke. I was a co-photographer on a book entitled SYDNEY- DISCOVER THE CITY with text written by Robert Treborlang. Major Mitchell Press was the publisher. Also for two years I was the photographer for calendars celebrating Sydney’s multicultural communities. The two calendars were entitled MULTICULTURAL SYDNEY. My work appeared in a group exhibition held at Sydney’s Town Hall pertaining to the diversity of life in South America to raise money for orphanages there. I have over one hundred photos stored in the New South Wales State Library archive. I had a solo exhibition held in 2007 entitled Ben’s Lens at the Sydney Jewish Museum which celebrated the vibrancy of the Sydney Jewish community. Some of these photos are on the Museum’s permanent display. I have exhibited internationally firstly at the Spruill Gallery in Atlanta Georgia, United States, and in an exhibition entitled Kosher and Co at the Jewish Museum in Berlin. Currently I am a regular contributor to J-Wire and this esteemed publication. To celebrate the opening of a permanent Photography Gallery, the State Library of New South Wales selected 400 shots from its archive of over 2,000,000 images to display in the new gallery. An image of mine was plucked out of the multi million photo archive to be part of the inaugural exhibition.