In June, 1963, on assignment from Sports Illustrated, peerless portrait photographer Steve Schapiro traveled to Louisville, Kentucky to spend some time with the young Olympic champion boxer Cassius Clay and accompany him on a road trip to New York City. At 21, Clay was yet to adopt the mantel of Muhammad Ali, but his boastful persona, intelligence, black pride, and sharp tongue were already fully formed.

Of the course of their five days together, Schapiro–a master at developing trust and capturing unguarded intimacy on film—revealed both sides of the young Ali: the one side posing and preening for the camera, ever conscious of his image; the other, unguarded and unselfconscious, in candid images of the young fighter at home with his family and immersed in his community and neighborhood.

Ali collects the best of Schapiro’s images of the late fighter; many in print for the first time ever. They offer a glimpse of a star on the rise. It is an indelible portrait of the early life of one of the most talented, graceful, controversial, athletic, and influential American figures of the 20th century.

 

 

In June, 1963, on assignment from Sports Illustrated, peerless portrait photographer Steve Schapiro traveled to Louisville, Kentucky to spend some time with the young Olympic champion boxer Cassius Clay and accompany him on a road trip to New York City. At 21, Clay was yet to adopt the mantel of Muhammad Ali, but his boastful persona, intelligence, black pride, and sharp tongue were already fully formed.

Of the course of their five days together, Schapiro–a master at developing trust and capturing unguarded intimacy on film—revealed both sides of the young Ali: the one side posing and preening for the camera, ever conscious of his image; the other, unguarded and unselfconscious, in candid images of the young fighter at home with his family and immersed in his community and neighborhood.

Ali collects the best of Schapiro’s images of the late fighter; many in print for the first time ever. They offer a glimpse of a star on the rise. It is an indelible portrait of the early life of one of the most talented, graceful, controversial, athletic, and influential American figures of the 20th century.

 

 

American Edge

Steve Schapiro

Steve Schapiro traveled throughout America photographing and recording people and issues during the turbulent decade of the 1960s. For the very first time, American Edge brings together ninety of Schapiro's searing images-images fit to stand aside classics of documentary photography like Walker Evans's American Photographs (1938), Robert Frank's The Americans (1959), and Diane Arbus's posthumous MoMA retrospective (1972). American Edge offers a singular vision of the fractured fabric of contemporary American life. The photographer traveled with Bobby Kennedy during his presidential campaign, and with writer James Baldwin through the American South. Schapiro also covered the New York art scene-documenting Andy Warhol's Factory-as well as the hippie and protest movements sweeping the universities, which culminated in the riots of 1968. American Edge reveals the increasing disparity between the rich and poor, racial and class conflict, and the burgeoning American middle class and its materialist desires. Among the countless women and men portrayed are Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard Nixon, Ike and Tina Turner, Simon and Garfunkel, Robert Rauschenberg, Janis Joplin, and Andy Warhol. American Edge represents a major rediscovery of one of the most talented documentary photographers of the late twentieth century.

 

 

Hardbound
Pages: 196
Size: 10 x 11.5 x 1 inches
Publisher: Arena Editions
Publication Date: August 2000

 

Available from the gallery for $70