Lloyd Ziff
A conversation with the photographer and art director about his life, work, and new book, Desire, Photographs: 1968-1969, documenting the relationship between Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe.
Interview by Joan Agajanian Quinn
Lloyd Ziff’s photographs are included in the permanent collections of The Los Angeles County Museum of Art, The Palm Springs Art Museum, and The International Center of Photography, New York. His books include Lloyd Ziff, New York/Los Angeles: Photographs 1967-2014, and Desire, Photographs of Robert Mapplethorpe and Patti Smith, 1968-1969. Ziff has had one-man shows in New York City at Danziger Gallery and Robin Rice Gallery, and Galerie Claude Samuel in Paris. Before his photography career, he was an award-winning art director for Vanity Fair, House & Garden, Condé Nast Traveler, and Rolling Stone. Ziff taught magazine design, photography, and illustration at Art Center College, Pasadena, California, and for 13 years at Parsons School of Design, in New York. In 1999, he was elected to the Board of Trustees of his alma mater, Pratt Institute, in Brooklyn.
You have a show and book signing in Los Angeles. Please tell me about it.
James Danziger and I have been friends for nearly 40 years since he came to Condé Nast as the Photo Editor of Vanity Fair. When I was art director, he formally worked as the Photo Editor at the London Sunday Times.
I'm so happy you are coming to L.A. to show the portfolio of your work. How did you get those intimate photos of Mapplethorpe and Smith?
During my last semester at Pratt Institute, I happened to take a photography course, although my major was graphic design. The magic of the dark room seduced me, and I soon was shooting black and white photographs of Brooklyn, New York City, and of my friends. Robert and I were both in the class of 1967, and although we weren’t particularly close, I believe we recognized in each other something we probably couldn’t put into words at the time.
In 1968 Robert was living with Patti in a little apartment near mine in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn. They were always working, making paintings and drawings and sculptures, and the walls of their apartment were covered with their work. They were both very young, and I found them very beautiful. I asked to come to their place one day to shoot portraits of them. They were among the first double portraits I shot. Patti published two of them in her book Just Kids in 2010 and credits them as the first portraits made of the two of them.
Robert Mapplethorpe and Patti Smith, 1968
Robert Mapplethorpe, 1969
Patti Smith, 1969
Robert Mapplethorpe and Patti Smith (contact sheets), 1969 (left), 1968 (right)
Did you pose them in their positions?
By 1969 I was living in a basement apartment on Charles Street in the West Village. Robert wanted to make an animated movie with nude stills of himself and Patti, but as she writes in her book, he wasn’t yet a photographer. He asked me to do the series of them nude. They came over to my place, we attached a light to the back of a chair. He was planning to silhouette the figures, so we didn’t worry much about the background. He knew exactly what he wanted: just single figures of himself and Patti, sitting, kneeling, standing, praying, sometimes wearing a blindfold. I remember giving him the contacts, but as Patti writes, he lost interest in making the film. After Robert died and his archives were bought by The Getty, included in his works were numerous paper doll-type cut-outs Robert had made from the nude figures I had shot in 1969.
Were they embarrassed while you were clicking away?
No, none of us were.
Where did you go to school, and what did you want to do when you got out?
I was a graphic design major at Pratt institute, and when I graduated they had a great placement service and got me a job at McCall's magazine. I stayed there a year, learned a lot, and then I called Pratt again and said, “Get me out of here—I want to do better work.” They got me a job designing album covers at CBS records. I loved it there. Everybody was on the label: Janis, Dylan, The Byrds… I did great covers and was nominated for a Grammy for my cover of Bessie Smith, Empress of the Blues. During my last semester at Pratt, I took one photography course—I wasn't interested in learning how to do technical stuff. I had a great teacher, Arthur Freed, who taught me it wasn't about technique but what you see.
Portrait of Jack and Jackie, 1967, Brooklyn
San Remo Towers Reflection, 2006, New York City
Gay Pride Day, 1979, Central Park, New York City
Guy on Subway, 1967, New York City
Cadillac DeVille Convertible, 1968, New York City
14th Street, 1966, New York City
Where did your interest in art direction and photography start?
Like most people who go to art school, I was the best in my high school art class at Beverly Hills High School. I loved magazines and design. I wanted to go to college in New York. After two years, I wanted to go to Europe and take photographs, which I did for a year. When I came back, I moved back to Los Angeles and worked with Mike Salisbury at United Artist records for a few months, and then both of us went to San Francisco to direct Rolling Stone. After that, Clay Felker hired me to art direct the sister of New York magazine, New West, in Los Angeles.
You were making a name at New West… Where did you go from there?
The New York Times asked me to move to New York for the summer to art direct two special sections of the Times. When that was finished, Condé Nast called and asked me to permanently move to New York to art direct House & Garden, Vanity Fair, and Condé Nast Traveler. I had one of the most visible art directing jobs in New York, meeting all the greatest photographers: Avedon, Penn, Helmut Newton, and even Lartigue! Annie Leibovitz was my great friend from the Rolling Stone days and still is.
Annie Leibovitz, 1976, Laurel Canyon
Lloyd Ziff, 1976, Laurel Canyon. Photograph by Annie Liebovitz
Explain the difference between commercial art and fine art.
With commercial art, you're solving someone else's problems. When you shoot for yourself, you make the problems and solve them for yourself.
After you retired from Conde Nast, did you freelance with other magazines?
When I left Condé Nast, I was the Art Director of Travel and Leisure for three years, and then I was the Design Director of Time Warner Custom Publishing. We did a magazine for Starbucks called Joe. It lasted three issues. Then I decided I had done everything I wanted in magazine design, and it was time to take my photographs out from under the bed and get them out in the world. I had one-man shows in New York, Los Angeles, and Paris. I never looked back.
Can you shoot anywhere in the world?
I've been lucky to travel a lot, and I always shoot wherever I am. It's always about the light, and B/W Tri-X film is forgiving. And since they invented digital photography, you can shoot a lot of places you never could before.
Florette Ormea and Jacques Henri Lartigue, 1982, Opio, France
How personal are your photographs? Is it necessary to have a relationship with the sitter?
My photographs have always been about me. That's why I love them—they're a document of my time. Of course, I always try to make whoever I shoot feel comfortable, and I got rather good at that.
Yes, I understand because you made me feel comfortable when you did my portrait. Had you planned on shooting from the second floor, or did you decide what to do when you got to my house?
No, I try not to plan. I just show up and see what's available and improvise with whatever is there.
Joan Agajanian Quinn, 2004, Beverly Hills
How has composing a photo changed and evolved over the years?
I got better and faster.
Name some artists you have worked with.
I often became friends with the photographers I commissioned. Annie, of course, and Brigitte Lacombe. Sheila Metzler is still a very close friend. Avedon was difficult… He wanted to shoot all the photographs for Vanity Fair when we revived it in 1982. Often people find me on Facebook and say, “Hey, you gave me my first job.” That's always very gratifying.
Who are some photographers you think are iconic, and what makes them special?
Lee Friedlander taught me the most valuable lesson I've ever learned. He said, “Lloyd, there are photographs everywhere, and it's your job to find them.” Annie Leibovitz works harder than anyone else I've ever known. She taught me never to be satisfied.
Lloyd Ziff, 2017. Portrait by Brigitte Lacombe
Portrait of Joan Agajanian Quinn by Jean Claude Thibaut
Joan Agajanian Quinn
Born and raised in Los Angeles, Joan Agajanian Quinn is a journalist, producer, curator, collector, and arts advocate. She was appointed the West Coast Editor of Interview magazine by Andy Warhol, was Society Editor of Hearst’s Los Angeles Herald Examiner, Editor at Steve Samiof’s Stuff Magazine, founding West Coast Editor of Condé Nast Traveler and has written for several of their magazines. Joan recently produced the documentary Steven Arnold: Heavenly Bodies is the co-host of Beverly Hills View, and has been the producer and host of the Joan Quinn Profiles for over 35 years.