Care for the original.
Negatives, transparencies, contact sheets and prints are held under archival conditions, catalogued and digitised.
MICK ROCK
THE ESTATEPhotography. Film. Cultural history.
A life in images
The artist.
The archive.
The enduring image.
The Mick Rock Estate preserves and researches a body of work that shaped the way music is seen.
Explore selected works
01 Selected works
Presence. Performance.
Transformation.
Ten photographs from the early archive. From the intimacy of a room to the theatre of the stage, each reveals a different way of seeing.
David Bowie
Ziggy Stardust — mirror portrait
Queen
Queen II — cover portrait
Lou Reed
Transformer
Debbie Harry
Studio portrait
View the complete selectionClose the extended selection
Syd Barrett
Syd Barrett at home
Iggy Pop
Iggy Pop on stage
David Bowie
“Life on Mars?”
Queen
Sheer Heart Attack-era portrait
The Rocky Horror Picture Show
Tim Curry, Patricia Quinn and Nell Campbell
Ramones
End of the Century
Selected photographs, 1969–1980. Images may be opened for a closer view and curatorial notes.
02 The archive
Beyond the
familiar frame.
The complete photographic archive of Mick Rock is preserved and administered by the Estate.
Original negatives and transparencies, contact sheets, vintage and reference prints, Polaroids, publications, moving-image materials and related documentation preserve the decisions and encounters behind more than five decades of photographic practice.
The Estate brings these materials into relation: researching sessions, tracing the history of individual works and opening new paths for exhibitions and scholarship.
Discuss an archive projectEstablish the context.
Attribution, provenance and print status are established through study of the original material.
Bring the archive into view.
Museum loans, institutional displays and touring exhibitions are developed with curators and institutions.
Publish with authority.
The Estate supports monographs, catalogues and editorial projects and administers reproduction rights.
Build lasting partnerships.
Long-term collaborations connect the archive with museums, archives and cultural organisations.
Support new research.
Supervised access is available to scholars, curators and researchers by arrangement with the Estate.
03 The photographer
Mick Rock1944—2021
A singular eye.
A life in collaboration.
Mick Rock photographed musicians as artists in the act of becoming. His portraits attend to both the public performance and the person behind it.
Born in London in 1944, Rock studied Medieval and Modern Languages at Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge. Romantic literature, French New Wave cinema, Impressionism and the wider visual culture of the period informed an approach to photography that was instinctive, intimate and alert to the expressive possibilities of an image.
After Cambridge he attended the London Film School. He supported himself through modelling and acting, wrote for Rolling Stone and worked with the graphic design group Hipgnosis. Photographs of his Cambridge friend Syd Barrett in 1969 led him to devote himself increasingly to photography.
Continue the biography
From 1969 to 1975, Rock worked with David Bowie, Lou Reed, Iggy Pop and Queen, and photographed Rory Gallagher, Thin Lizzy, Ozzy Osbourne, Lindsay Kemp, Bryan Ferry, Mott the Hoople, Ray Davies and Peter Gabriel. His unusual access allowed him to move between public performance and private exchange.
As Bowie’s official photographer in 1972–1973, he worked across stage, studio and private life. Their collaboration also extended to moving image: Rock filmed, directed and produced the promotional films for “John, I’m Only Dancing”, “The Jean Genie”, “Space Oddity” and “Life on Mars?”.
His album photographs include Iggy and the Stooges’ Raw Power, Lou Reed’s Transformer and Queen’s Queen II—the latter later recalled in the opening of the “Bohemian Rhapsody” video. In 1974, director Jim Sharman invited him to photograph the production and cast of The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
Lou Reed’s invitation brought Rock to New York, where he eventually settled. From his Madison Avenue studio he developed a new body of work marked by saturated colour, direct flash and an uncommon visual richness. Debbie Harry, the Ramones, Talking Heads, the Dead Boys, Carly Simon and Bette Midler were among the artists who came through the studio.
Over the following decades he photographed successive generations of musicians and figures from film, fashion and cultural life. His subjects ranged from Andy Warhol and Truman Capote to Kate Moss, Lenny Kravitz and Snoop Dogg. Across more than five decades, he photographed over one hundred album covers and published more than twenty books.
Rock later hosted the television series On the Record with Mick Rock and appeared in the Red Bull Films series Visions of Greatness. Barnaby Clay’s documentary SHOT! The Psycho-Spiritual Mantra of Rock premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2016.
His work was exhibited internationally and entered major public collections. A Blue Plaque at London’s Scala commemorates the July 1972 performances by Lou Reed and Iggy Pop that gave rise to photographs associated with Transformer and Raw Power.
Mick Rock died in New York on 18 November 2021. The Estate continues the preservation, research and presentation of a body of work that helped construct the visual language through which many defining figures in modern music are remembered.
“I was in the right place at the right time with the right people.”Mick Rock
04 Exhibitions & collections
A continuing
cultural presence.
Photographs and films presented in museums, galleries and cultural institutions around the world.
- 2023
Mick Rock: Unique & Rare Vintage Prints
Photo London, Somerset House · London, United Kingdom — presented with The Music Photo Gallery
11–14 May 2023
- 2019
Queen: The Bohemian Rhapsody Years
Centro Cultural Borges · Buenos Aires, Argentina
4 July–11 August 2019
- 2019
Queen: The Origin of a Legend
Foto Museo Cuatro Caminos · Mexico City, Mexico
15 March–21 April 2019
- 2018
STARMAN: Bowie by Mick Rock
Foto Museo Cuatro Caminos · Mexico City, Mexico
23 March–29 April 2018
- 2017
David Bowie by Mick Rock
La Rural · Buenos Aires, Argentina
2017
- 2015
Mick Rock: Shooting for Stardust — The Rise of David Bowie & Co.
TASCHEN Gallery · Los Angeles, United States
10 September–11 October 2015
- 2014
It’s Rock: Instalação de fotos de Mick Rock
Museu da Imagem e do Som (MIS) · São Paulo, Brazil
28 March–20 April 2014
- 2010–2011
Mick Rock — Rock: Music
Idea Generation Gallery · London, United Kingdom
11 November 2010–16 January 2011
- 2005–2006
Rock ’n’ Roll Icons: The Photography of Mick Rock
Urbis · Manchester, United Kingdom
29 September 2005–8 January 2006
- 2003
Rock ’n’ Roll Eye: The Photography of Mick Rock
Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography · Tokyo, Japan
18 July–28 August 2003
Public collections
Victoria and Albert Museum
London · Work by Mick Rock is held in the permanent collection.
National Portrait Gallery
London · Holdings include a 1974 chromogenic print of Queen, acquired in 1999.
Collection recordMuseum of Modern Art
New York · Four moving-image works made with David Bowie are held in the collection.
Collection recordBrooklyn Museum
New York · Work by Mick Rock is held in the permanent collection.
05 Books & publications
The archive,
in print.
A selected bibliography. Each volume offers a different passage through Rock’s photographs, collaborations and recollections.
Century 22 Books · 1995
A Photographic Record 1969–1980
An early survey of Rock’s photographs, with a foreword by Lou Reed.
Vision On Publishing · 2001
Blood & Glitter
A photographic account of the glam era, with a foreword by David Bowie.
Genesis Publications · 2002
Moonage Daydream: The Life and Times of Ziggy Stardust
Rock’s photographs and Bowie’s recollections of the Ziggy Stardust years.
Genesis Publications · 2002
Psychedelic Renegades: Syd Barrett
An extended portrait of Syd Barrett through photographs made between 1969 and 1971.
Chronicle Books · 2010
Mick Rock Exposed: The Faces of Rock ’n’ Roll
A career retrospective combining photographs and Rock’s own commentary.
TASCHEN · 2015
The Rise of David Bowie 1972–1973
Performance, portraiture and private moments from Rock’s collaboration with Bowie.
06 Film & moving image
The image
in motion.
Rock’s collaboration with David Bowie also unfolded on film. These early promotional works brought the portrait into movement, gesture and time.
Life on Mars?
Filmed, directed and produced by Mick Rock during the Ziggy Stardust period to accompany the release of the single.
Open on YouTubeThe Jean Genie
Filmed, directed and produced by Mick Rock in San Francisco and New York during Bowie’s first American tour.
Open on YouTubeJohn, I’m Only Dancing
Filmed, directed and produced by Mick Rock at London’s Rainbow Theatre with David Bowie and the Spiders from Mars.
Open on YouTubeThe archive also holds Space Oddity (1972), filmed, directed and produced by Mick Rock. Four Bowie films are documented in MoMA’s collection. SHOT! The Psycho-Spiritual Mantra of Rock (2016), directed by Barnaby Clay, chronicles Rock’s life and career.
Primary Estate representation
The Music Photo Gallery
The principal gallery for authorised works from the Mick Rock archive.
The Music Photo Gallery works in direct coordination with the Estate on the presentation, provenance and placement of Mick Rock photographs. For a collector, working with TMPG is the gallery equivalent of working directly with the Estate.
TMPG advises private collectors and institutions, manages availability and supplies the authorised gallery network listed below.
View Mick Rock at The Music Photo Gallery- Authorised editions
- Limited editions printed from original negatives and transparencies held in the archive, produced under Estate supervision.
- Lifetime signed works
- Photographs bearing Mick Rock’s signature, signed during his lifetime.
- Vintage & rare prints
- Historical prints and selected rare or unique works, subject to availability.
- Provenance
- Documentation and print information accompany authorised works. Attribution and authentication remain with the Estate.
08 Contact the Estate
Begin a
conversation.
Research, exhibitions, publications, permissions and institutional collaborations.
info@mickrock.comLondon / New York