The Morrison Hotel Gallery, which specializes in music photography – not only photographs of musicians, but also photography by musicians – will present a show of self-portraits by Stevie Nicks from between 1975 and 1987. The pictures for the show were selected by Dave Stewart, the Eurythmics guitarist, who co-produced her “In Your Dreams” album. The show, called “24 Karat Gold” – also the name of Ms. Nicks’s new album (a version of which will come with a book of Ms. Nicks’s photographs) – is devoted entirely to selfies taken in the wee hours of the night, both at home and on tour, using Polaroid cameras.
Why self-portraits?
“I wanted to learn how to become a photographer,” Ms. Nicks said in comments forwarded by her spokeswoman, Liz Rosenberg. “And I don’t sleep at night, so I thought, who am I going to ask to stay up all night, and then do a show tomorrow? So I’m not going to get Christine,” she said, referring to Christine McVie, her colleague in Fleetwood Mac. “She’s going to say, ‘Are you crazy? I’m going to the bar. Bye.’”
In search of variety, Ms. Nicks used props and costumes, often tinkering with lighting and placement through the night. “I did everything,” she said. “I was the stylist, the makeup artist, the furniture mover, the lighting director — it was my joy. I was the model.”
She continued taking self-portraits for more than a decade, until, as she put it, “the Polaroids were just almost impossible to use, because there was just no more film and they all broke down.”
The pictures have not been exhibited before. Mostly, Ms. Nicks said, they were stored in shoeboxes, where she filed them soon after taking them.
The exhibition will be at 201 Mulberry Street on Oct. 10 and 11, and will move to the Morrison Hotel Gallery at 116 Prince Street on Oct. 13, where it will run for the rest of October.
Beginning in the mid-seventies, Stevie Nicks took a series of Polaroid self-portraits in her home as well as hotel rooms around the world while on tour. Earlier this year, during the recording of her new solo album 24 Karat Gold – Songs From the Vault, she decided to share these never-before-seen self portraits. Each one of these archival pigment prints is hand-signed and numbered by Stevie Nicks.
“Some people don’t sleep at night – I am one of those people. These pictures were taken long after everyone had gone to bed – I would begin after midnight and go until 4 or 5 in the morning. I stopped at sunrise – like a vampire… I never really thought anyone would ever see these pictures, they went into shoeboxes, where they remained. I did everything – I was the stylist, the makeup artist, the furniture mover, the lighting director. It was my joy – I was the model…”
– Stevie Nicks