Christopher Felver (born October 1946) is an American photographer and filmmaker who has published several books of photos of public figures, especially those in the arts, most notably those associated with

beat literature The Beat Generation was a literary Subculture, subculture movement started by a group of authors whose work explored and influenced Culture of the United States, American culture and Politics of the United States, politics in the post-war era. T ...

. He has made numerous films (as director, cinematographer or producer), including a documentary on

Lawrence Ferlinghetti Lawrence Monsanto Ferlinghetti (March 24, 1919 – February 22, 2021) was an American poet, painter, social activist, and co-founder of City Lights Booksellers & Publishers. The author of poetry, translations, fiction, theatre, art criticism, an ...

, ''Ferlinghetti: A Rebirth of Wonder'', released in 2013.

Photography

Christopher Felver has photographed numerous writers, intellectuals and filmmakers such as

Charles Bukowski Henry Charles Bukowski ( ; born Heinrich Karl Bukowski, ; August 16, 1920 – March 9, 1994) was a German-American poet, novelist, and short story writer. His writing was influenced by the social, cultural, and economic ambience of his adopted ...

William Burroughs William Seward Burroughs II (; February 5, 1914 – August 2, 1997) was an American writer and visual artist, widely considered a primary figure of the Beat Generation and a major postmodern author who influenced popular cultur ...

Noam Chomsky Avram Noam Chomsky (born December 7, 1928) is an American public intellectual: a linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, historian, social critic, and political activist. Sometimes called "the father of modern linguistics", Chomsky is ...

Gregory Corso Gregory Nunzio Corso (March 26, 1930 – January 17, 2001) was an American poet and a key member of the Beat movement. He was the youngest of the inner circle of Beat Generation writers (with Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and William S. Burrough ...

Clint Eastwood Clinton Eastwood Jr. (born May 31, 1930) is an American actor and film director. After achieving success in the Western TV series '' Rawhide'', he rose to international fame with his role as the " Man with No Name" in Sergio Leone's "'' D ...

, Lawrence Ferlinghetti,

Allen Ginsberg Irwin Allen Ginsberg (; June 3, 1926 – April 5, 1997) was an American poet and writer. As a student at Columbia University in the 1940s, he began friendships with William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, forming the core of the Beat Genera ...

Dennis Hopper Dennis Lee Hopper (May 17, 1936 – May 29, 2010) was an American actor, filmmaker and photographer. He attended the Actors Studio, made his first television appearance in 1954, and soon after appeared in '' Giant'' (1956). In the next ten year ...

Oliver Stone William Oliver Stone (born September 15, 1946) is an American film director, producer, and screenwriter. Stone won an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay as writer of '' Midnight Express'' (1978), and wrote the gangster film remake '' Sca ...

Elizabeth Taylor Dame Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor (February 27, 1932 – March 23, 2011) was a British-American actress. She began her career as a child actress in the early 1940s and was one of the most popular stars of classical Hollywood cinema in the 1950s. ...

Hunter S. Thompson Hunter Stockton Thompson (July 18, 1937 – February 20, 2005) was an American journalist and author who founded the gonzo journalism movement. He rose to prominence with the publication of '' Hell's Angels'' (1967), a book for which he s ...

and

Kurt Vonnegut Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (November 11, 1922 – April 11, 2007) was an American writer known for his satirical and darkly humorous novels. In a career spanning over 50 years, he published fourteen novels, three short-story collections, five plays, and ...

. His photography has been exhibited internationally, with solo photographic exhibitions at the Arco d'Alibert, Rome (1987); the Art Institute for the Permian Basin, Odessa, Texas (1987); Torino Fotografia Biennale Internazionale, Turin, Italy (1989); Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris (1994); Roosevelt Study Center, Middelburg, Netherlands (1998); Fahey/Klein Gallery, Los Angeles (2002); the Maine Photographic Workshop (2002); Robert Berman Gallery, Los Angeles (2007); the

San Francisco Public Library The San Francisco Public Library is the public library system of the city and county of San Francisco. The Main Library is located at Civic Center, at 100 Larkin Street. The library system has won several awards, such as '' Library Journals ...

(2018) and other galleries and museums. His works have also appeared in major group exhibitions, including The Beats: Legacy & Celebration,

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then- Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, ...

(1994) and Beatific Soul: Jack Kerouac On The Road,

New York Public Library The New York Public Library (NYPL) is a public library system in New York City. With nearly 53 million items and 92 locations, the New York Public Library is the second largest public library in the United States (behind the Library of Congress) ...

(2007). A collection of his photographs is held by the

University of Delaware The University of Delaware (colloquially UD or Delaware) is a public land-grant research university located in Newark, Delaware. UD is the largest university in Delaware. It offers three associate's programs, 148 bachelor's programs, 121 m ...

Books

Some of Felver's books include ''American Jukebox: A Photographic Journey'' (Indiana University Press, 2014), a collection of photographs of musicians and singers including

Emmylou Harris Emmylou Harris (born April 2, 1947) is an American singer, songwriter and musician. She has released dozens of albums and singles over the course of her career and has won 14 Grammys, the Polar Music Prize, and numerous other honors, includin ...

Ozzy Osbourne John Michael "Ozzy" Osbourne (born 3 December 1948) is an English singer, songwriter, and television personality. He rose to prominence during the 1970s as the lead vocalist of the heavy metal band Black Sabbath, during which period he adop ...

Odetta Odetta Holmes (December 31, 1930 – December 2, 2008), known as Odetta, was an American singer, actress, guitarist, lyricist, and a civil rights activist, often referred to as "The Voice of the Civil Rights Movement". Her musical repertoire co ...

Taj Mahal The Taj Mahal (; ) is an Islamic ivory-white marble mausoleum on the right bank of the river Yamuna in the Indian city of Agra. It was commissioned in 1631 by the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan () to house the tomb of his favourite wife, Mu ...

, and

Eartha Kitt Eartha Kitt (born Eartha Mae Keith; January 17, 1927 – December 25, 2008) was an American singer and actress known for her highly distinctive singing style and her 1953 recordings of " C'est si bon" and the Christmas novelty song " Santa ...

; ''Beat'' (Last Gasp, 2007) an intimate memoir of image, text, and reminiscence; ''The Late Great Allen Ginsberg'' (Thunder's Mouth Press, 2002); ''The Importance of Being'' (Arena Editions, 2001), 400 portraits of eminent figures in American arts, letters, music, and politics; ''Ferlinghetti Portrait'' (Gibbs Smith Publisher, 1998); ''Angels, Anarchists & Gods'' (Louisiana State University Press, 1996), featuring the American avant-garde; ''The Poet Exposed'' (Alfred Van der Marck Editions, 1986), a monograph of contemporary American poets; and ''Seven Days in Nicaragua Libre'' (City Lights Books, 1984), co-authored with Lawrence Ferlinghetti, based on a week they spent together in Nicaragua with Minister of Culture

Ernesto Cardenal Ernesto Cardenal Martínez (20 January 1925 – 1 March 2020) was a Nicaraguan Catholic priest, poet, and politician. He was a liberation theologian and the founder of the primitivist art community in the Solentiname Islands, where he lived for ...

. His latest book, ''Tending the Fire: Native Voices and Portraits'', a collection of photographs of Native American poets and writers, was published by University of New Mexico Press in April 2017. The book includes an epilogue by Felver, in which he writes, “Native Americans today are as modern as the Space Age, and each in their own way carries forth the cultural heritage ‘from whence they came.’ Their abiding legacy as the first people of this continent has found its voice in the hard-won wisdom of their art and activism."

Film

Felver directed the 2013 film ''Ferlinghetti: A Rebirth of Wonder'' about poet and publisher

, which was reviewed in ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' and other publications. He participated in the 53rd

Venice International Film Festival The Venice Film Festival or Venice International Film Festival ( it, Mostra Internazionale d'Arte Cinematografica della Biennale di Venezia, "International Exhibition of Cinematographic Art of the Venice Biennale") is an annual film festival he ...

, and screened films in festivals and museums around the globe, including presentations at the

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The librar ...

(2006), the Pan African Film Festival, Los Angeles (2006),

Lincoln Center Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts (also simply known as Lincoln Center) is a complex of buildings in the Lincoln Square neighborhood on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. It has thirty indoor and outdoor facilities and is host to 5 millio ...

, New York (2005), the

Mill Valley Film Festival The Mill Valley Film Festival is an annual American film festival founded in 1977. History In October 1977, Mark Fishkin, Rita Cahill and Lois Cole organized a three-day film festival. It featured three film tributes, Francis Ford Coppola's ''Th ...

(1996, 2002), Santa Fe Film Festival (2001, 2005), Northwest West Film Festival, Portland Art Museum (2001), Walker Museum of Art, Minneapolis (2000), Hirshhorn Museum, Washington D.C. (2000), KQED San Francisco (1984, 1999), and WGBH Boston (1984). The

National Gallery of Art The National Gallery of Art, and its attached Sculpture Garden, is a national art museum in Washington, D.C., United States, located on the National Mall, between 3rd and 9th Streets, at Constitution Avenue NW. Open to the public and free of ch ...

in Washington D.C., New York Public Library, and the Museum of Fine Art in Boston have presented retrospectives of his films: ''Cecil Taylor: All the Notes'' (2005), ''Donald Judd’s Marfa Texas'' (1998), ''The Coney Island of Lawrence Ferlinghetti'' (1996), ''Tony Cragg: In Celebration of Sculpture'' (1993), ''John Cage Talks About Cows'' (1991), ''Taken by the Romans'' (1990), ''West Coast: "Beat & Beyond"'' (1984), and ''California Clay in the Rockies'' (1983). In 2022, Felver two documentary films: Spirit of Golf (2022) documenting Felver's quest for the "essence of the Auld Scots' game from

Pebble Beach Pebble Beach is an unincorporated community on the Monterey Peninsula in Monterey County, California. The small coastal residential community of mostly single-family homes is also notable as a resort destination, and the home of the golf course ...

St. Andrews St Andrews ( la, S. Andrea(s); sco, Saunt Aundraes; gd, Cill Rìmhinn) is a town on the east coast of Fife in Scotland, southeast of Dundee and northeast of Edinburgh. St Andrews had a recorded population of 16,800 , making it Fife's four ...

;" and Inside Outside: Anthony Cragg (2022) celebrating Sir Tony Cragg’s sculpture, illuminating his development and thought-processes over the arc of his career.

Other

Felver appears as a guest lecturer at universities and art centers. From 1987 to 1989, he was a Visiting Artist at the American Academy in Rome. His work is collected by numerous libraries and museums, including Stanford University Special Collections; Bancroft Library at

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

; The New York Public Library; Donnell Media Center;

;

University of California Santa Cruz The University of California, Santa Cruz (UC Santa Cruz or UCSC) is a public land-grant research university in Santa Cruz, California. It is one of the ten campuses in the University of California system. Located on Monterey Bay, on the edge of ...

, Special Collections;

University of Buffalo The State University of New York at Buffalo, commonly called the University at Buffalo (UB) and sometimes called SUNY Buffalo, is a public university, public research university with campuses in Buffalo, New York, Buffalo and Amherst, New Yor ...

, Poetry/ Rare Books Collection;

University of North Carolina The University of North Carolina is the multi-campus public university system for the state of North Carolina. Overseeing the state's 16 public universities and the NC School of Science and Mathematics, it is commonly referred to as the UNC Sys ...

Special Collections;

San Diego State University San Diego State University (SDSU) is a public research university in San Diego, California. Founded in 1897 as San Diego Normal School, it is the third-oldest university and southernmost in the 23-member California State University (CSU) syste ...

; University of Delaware Special Collections;

UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a Normal school, teachers colle ...

Special Collections; and

University of New Mexico The University of New Mexico (UNM; es, Universidad de Nuevo México) is a public research university in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Founded in 1889, it is the state's flagship academic institution and the largest by enrollment, with over 25, ...

Special Collections, and

Yale Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...

Collection of Western Americana.

Awards

In 1997, Felver received the Best Art Documentary Award at the Cinema Arts Centre International Independent Film Festival, Huntington, New York. In 2018, he was awarded the Gold Medal in the Photography category of the

Independent Publisher Book Awards The Independent Publisher Book Awards, also styled the IPPY Awards, are a set of annual book awards for independently published titles. They are the longest-running unaffiliated contest open exclusively to independent presses. The IPPY Awards ar ...

for his book ''Tending the Fire: Native Voices & Portraits''. The same book was also a 2018 finalist (for books published in 2017) in the Photography category of the INDIES Awards of Foreword Reviews.

Representation

His photographs are represented and distributed worldwide by Corbis.Breedlove, Mark. "Illustration Credits," page 778, ''Principles of Psychology'', Oxford University Press, 2015.

References

External links

*
"Chris Felver's images in 'American Jukebox' shot in snap"
Article on Christopher Felver by Sam Whiting in ''SF Gate'', July 6, 2014
''Tending the Fire: Native Voices and Portraits''
Review of ''Tending the Fire: Native Voices and Portraits'' by Rachel Jagareski in ''Foreword Reviews'', April 25, 2017
''Portrait of an Invisible Portraitist''
''Portrait of an Invisible Portraitist'' by John Yau in ''Hyperallergic'', December 14, 2019 {{DEFAULTSORT:Felver, Christopher Living people 1946 births Place of birth missing (living people) American photographers