During the last 25 years of his life, the photographer and graphic designer
Jack Robinson worked in Memphis stained-glass studios, lived alone, and made no effort to inform the people around him about his glamorous past.
When Robinson died in 1997, his employer at Rainbow Studio, Dan Oppenheimer, was surprised to find that the will named him sole beneficiary. Oppenheimer was stunned when he found what he had inherited.
"He'd been dead a couple of weeks when I went to his apartment," a high-rise on Central at the southern edge of Central Gardens, Oppenheimer recalls. "It was obvious immediately what it was when I opened a banker's box and on top was Joni Mitchell, Elton John or James Taylor --- what Jack obviously thought was his best work."
They were portraits, a treasure chest of Robinson's images of movie, music and literary stars of the 1960s and early '70s, many taken when the celebrities were at the cusp of their arrival on the international stage.
"The way he stored everything, he wrote the name -- like 'The Beatles' -- on an envelope of contact sheets and negatives," Oppenheimer said. "There were around 1,200 envelopes, each of them labeled. The file cabinets were full."
Many of Robinson's significant images -- of Elton John, Liza Minnelli, Melba Moore, Tina Turner, Clint Eastwood, Jack Nicholson, Paul McCartney, John Lennon, Warren Beatty, The Who -- are included in
"Jack Robinson On Show: Portraits 1958-72" ($39.95) which Palazzo Editions of Bath, England, published this month.
On its website, the publisher writes: "The regular trickle of dusted-down negatives rescued from Hollywood's golden age might make you somewhat blasé about the arrival of yet another celebrity photographer's book. But this coffee-table-cracker commemorating the career of former Vogue snapper Jack Robinson is something special."
An introduction by the British journalist George Perry, former film editor of the London Sunday Times, provides the details of Robinson's life, from his birth in Meridian, Miss., to youth in Clarksdale, early-adult years in New Orleans, and the connection that took him to New York, and finally to his work for Vogue magazine when Diana Vreeland was editor.
"Jack Robinson had a particular knack for getting his sitters at ease, and shedding their self-conscious apprehensions at being photographed," Perry wrote in an e-mail.
"It has to be remembered that he was gay, not for any prurient reasons, but in order to appreciate the extra sensitivity it gave him. He seemed able to invest in even the most macho of subjects a hint of a different side. Warren Beatty, a womanizer of legend at that time, sports a high-necked leather garment, his hands delicately poised with outstretched fingers, (and) comes across almost as a gay icon, while Clint Eastwood ruggedly lours at the lens yet wears a dainty knitted vest."
His subjects are often in motion. Elton John and Herbie Hancock are playing piano. "Tina Turner jumps and shakes and her hair tumbles so fiercely you can almost hear her in full voice," Perry says.
Robinson photographed Beatty in 1967, the year he appeared in "Bonnie and Clyde," and Jack Nicholson in 1970, just after the release of "Easy Rider."
"No other photographer out there has a collection of these people that was taken at this time," Oppenheimer said. "These were fresh. The Who had just released Tommy, Elton John had just come to America."
Vreeland was fired from Vogue in 1971, and Perry chronicles Robinson's subsequent disintegration.
"Not long after Vreeland's departure, Jack entered a crisis induced by his chaotic lifestyle. His drinking seriously affected his work and his assignments trickled away. Beset by financial problems, he first sold his Steinway, a treasured possession, and then relinquished his studio. ... It was as 1972 concluded that he turned his back on New York and returned to his southern roots, broken, bitter, and alcohol dependent."
Oppenheimer, who now maintains the Robinson Gallery at Huling and South Front Street in Downtown Memphis (call [901] 619-4478), and the online archive at robinsongallery.com, says that while Robinson worked more than a decade as Rainbow's chief stained-glass designer, he was nearly silent about his earlier glory days.
"I spent a lot of time wondering why he never talked about it -- he did at first but then he clammed up about it," Oppenheimer says. "We still talk at the studio -- 'Did you ever notice this about Jack?'" To some extent Oppenheimer appreciates the enigma: "So many artists from the Mississippi Delta are tormented souls."
Bringing out the book of Robinson's pictures fulfills what Oppenheimer considered an obligation.
"I just think it's important work; he left it to me to do something with it," Oppenheimer said. "He told a friend years ago, 'The only thing I want after I die is a coffee-table book.' He didn't want publicity while he was living.
"We spent 10, 11, 12 years trying to find the right publisher," Oppenheimer said. "Colin Webb of Palazzo published Allistair Cooke's 'America' series, and started his own imprint 15 years ago. It's high-end, cool. ... A boutique publishing company with partners all over the world."
Says Perry: "Sadly the intensity of the period blew Jack's head, like so many who went through that heavy drugs and booze scene.
"What makes him especially remarkable is that he was not to be a permanent casualty, but would eventually make an extraordinary comeback, pursuing an honorable and accomplished career in stained glass in Memphis, as though his time in New York had never happened. If it was therapy then it was certainly efficacious."
Yale history professor Timothy Snyder will speak at the University of Memphis on Thursday about his book, "Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin" (Basic Books. $29.95), which was named a Best Book of 2010 by The Atlantic, The Economist and The New Republic.
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