Print Details
About this photograph
Bebop founder and immaculately hip sartorial icon Thelonious Monk was revered for his complex improvisations as well as his indelible compositions, including pieces like Blue Monk and Round Midnight which have become cornerstones of the standard jazz repertoire of the 20th century. His idiosyncratic persona--crisp knife-sharp suits, pork-pie hats, sunglasses-at-night--provided the perfect visual analog to his musical syncopation, percussive improv and judicious use of rests, pauses and dramatic silence in his music. Don Hunstein's iconic portrait of Monk at the keys--his right hand a blur of inspiration, his left a calm fundamental rock--captures the complexity and paradox of Monk and his music in a photographic silhouette, the absence of concrete detail conveying a multiplicity of soul and information.
Print sizes and editions
11" x 14" - Limited Edition
16" x 20" - Limited Edition
20" x 24" - Limited Edition
30" x 40" - Limited Edition
Print type
Archival pigment print
Paper type
Archival paper
Signature
Estate stamped
About the photographer
Don Hunstein worked as chief staff photographer for Columbia Records for over thirty years. During his time there Hunstein had access to a broad range of musicians from a wide variety of genres. At the time Columbia Records felt it was important to document the cultural history of the music of their time, giving him the opportunity to do more than album covers and publicity shots. Hunstein photographed hundreds of album covers and documented the recording of many of the great albums in music history.
© Don Hunstein. All rights reserved. Not to be reproduced without permission.