New York native Catherine McGann picked up photography while studying painting in art school in the mid ‘80’s. Instantly smitten, she abandoned her brushes and hasn’t looked back. Shortly after graduation she moved to the East Village, where her journalistic, documentary style found a perfect home at the weekly alternative newspaper, The Village Voice.
She quickly became a Contributing Photographer, shooting assignments at a breakneck pace throughout the ‘80’s and ‘90’s, including a regular weekly nightlife column which continued for fifteen years with famed New York writer/personality Michael Musto. Catherine documented some of the most compelling personalities in music and beyond including: Iggy Pop, Marilyn Manson, Green Day, Aretha Franklin, Black Crowes, Diamanda Galas and others.
Catherine’s client list soon expanded to include Entertainment Weekly, New York Magazine, The New York Times, Spin, Mute Records, Guitar World and many others. Her work has been published extensively internationally, and she has been profiled in publications in New York, London, and Tel Aviv. Her work has been exhibited in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles.
Believing that shooting a portrait is “an intimate thing, a two way street” Catherine favored working on location in 35mm black-and-white: “I’d rather be a fly on the wall in someone else’s world than try to fit them into an artificial world that I impose on them. I really believe in ‘the decisive moment’, that the best pictures are truly spontaneous, and almost given to you, somehow…”
Ready for a change, she packed up her negatives in 2001 and moved to Los Angeles with her family, where she currently lives and works.
Green Day had just hit it big and I was assigned by Entertainment Weekly magazine to shoot the band backstage at Madison Square Garden.
Marilyn Manson backstage at The Jon Stewart Show in New York in June 1995
Official contact sheet print from the acclaimed Duffy archive of David Bowie in his Scary Monsters Pierrot costume in 1980.
Pink Floyd in Abbey Road making a new album that became 'Wish You Were Here'. Jill Furmanovsky was asked to drop in and shoot some stills
Kate Bush onstage performing her classic ballad 'The Man with the Child in His Eyes' at the Hammersmith Odeon in 1979.
Anthony Kiedis comes alive when you aim a camera at him, John Frusciante was stoned and subdued, a perfect combo!
David Bowie was a leading figure in popular music for over five decades & regarded by critics & musicians as a true innovator.
Iggy Pop is an American singer-songwriter, musician and actor. He was the vocalist of influential proto-punk band The Stooges.
The Clash were an English punk rock band that formed in 1976 as part of the original wave of British punk.
The Rolling Stones are an English rock band who were in the vanguard of the British music Invasion that became popular in the US in 1964–65.
Our latest exhibition 'The Main Stage' is now on at the Royal Albert Hall. Don't miss our iconic photographs of rock's greatest performers
Here are the very latest prints we have added to our collection. We hope you love them as much as we do.
Edition 100 was created to give fans & collectors a chance to own classic, historical pictures of their favorite bands.
This new exhibition showcases the candid photos of Jill Furmanovsky taken from behind the scenes at London's legendary Abbey Road Studios
