Thursday May 30th – Wednesday June 19th 2024
Private View Thursday May 30th 2024 5pm-8pm
Muswell Hill Gallery
“My work is not pandering to those who know Bob Marley as a music icon. My photographs reveal Marley beyond the bounds of a musician, as the messenger who could reach out to a global audience, a poet of past and future.”
“I wanted to photograph him in the light of Jamaica, showing the colour of our skin the way it should be shown” .
Esther Anderson
Muswell Hill Gallery announces a new exhibition “Through The Lens of Esther Anderson- Bob Marley: The Early Years” which brings together 20 rare and iconic photographs of Bob Marley taken by the pioneering Jamaican filmmaker, photographer and activist, Esther Anderson at the start of Bob Marley’s journey into the music stratosphere in the early 1970’s. Her contribution as a photographer places her amongst some of the greats with this rare and intimate archive that tells the story of the legendary artist, Bob Marley.
As co-founder of Island Records, Esther Anderson first heard Bob Marley sing at Compass Studios in Nassau, Bahamas, in 1972, which was unlike anything she had heard before. A visionary artist, Esther immediately knew that she had found a kindred spirit: someone who shared her love of Rastafarianism and she sought to shine a light on Bob Marley and the rise of reggae music. So began a six-year musical and artistic collaboration which Esther directed as the Wailers worked on their seminal first albums for Island Records. Esther organised all the early activities of Bob Marley & The Wailers and was a driving force behind everything they did at that time. Spearheading getting the message across, she documented them in the studio, on the road and in their everyday lives and “Through The Lens of Esther Anderson: Bob Marley: The Early Years” is a rare chance to view and own intimate photographs from this bespoke curated collection.
So iconic and representative of the roots of the Jamaican Rastafarian movement, the Wailers “Burnin” double Album shot by Esther Anderson was chosen to be included among other memorabilia from the last century, and placed in a Capsule which is housed in the Metropolitan Museum in New York City, to be opened on the night on 2099-3000. In the year 2000, Time magazine and the BBC named Bob Marley “Artist of the Century”.
Only the second retrospective of Anderson’s photographs of Marley in London, many of these black-and-white photographs are intimate and unassuming, taken in 1973, six years before Marley became reggae music’s first superstar. There is a vulnerability and ordinariness to him in the photographs where he is captured as a young rebel, pursuing self-discovery and self-liberation, but unsure of his footing. Rare moments of a musical life with all the spontaneous spirit of different scenes of the journey. Some of the images are off-centre or slightly out of focus but represent moments of authenticity.
“Esther Anderson is a towering figure in the UK Caribbean community, a polymath, who acts and writes as well as makes films. This former Miss Jamaica also photographed Bob Marley for early publicity shots including the cover of Catch a Fire. She is renowned as a champion of Jamaican culture.” Alt Africa Review
Esther Anderson is a pioneering Jamaican filmmaker, photographer and activist, transplanted to London in the 60’s, whose remarkable photographs reflect her heritage and artistic aspirations. Both powerful and unique this collection of photographs and subsequent documentary film “Bob Marley: The Making Of A Legend” are a testament to Esther’s early vision ahead of Bob Marley & The Wailers’ road to global superstardom as Reggae music’s most explosive pioneers. During the Sixties and Seventies, Esther Anderson documented her own Jamaican culture through music, dance and photography, whilst exploring her own representation as an actress in Hollywood and London with artists like Sidney Poitier, Marlon Brando and Sammy Davis Jr. Clocking up movie credits in “The Sandpiper”, “The Touchables” and “A Warm December”. Esther then went behind the camera as a cinema pioneer, launching her unique kaleidoscopic visions. Esther is a young rebel soul into the totality of Art, music, photography, cinema, architecture, Ethiopianism and political resistance, and with Bob Marley she reflects these early ideals.
Radical and uncompromising, these photographs display an unwavering commitment to helping spread Reggae music and the Rastafarian message of peace and love to a global audience. The series of photographs represent a creative journey in which she as the narrator and director takes the viewer to the Caribbean islands, to Jamaica and into 56 Hope Road.
Ms Anderson’s stripped-back approach sees her capture several shots of Marley in quick succession, like film storyboards breaking down one scene into several shots with only a gesture or gaze changes from one photo to the next. The effect is impressionistic and suggests a personality that is hard to pin down, almost restlessly seeking to break the mould of the reggae artist, the Rastafarian and the spokesperson for the dispossessed, but ultimately remaining unsettled. A world away from the endlessly reproducible iconic images, these works offer a sense of how his fellow Jamaicans and collaborators would have seen Marley as they created, debated and travelled together. Yet among these personal photographs are some immediately recognisable images including Marley in his crocheted Rasta cap of yellow, red and green; smoking a splif and in another, he stands on the shore of a beach lost in deep thought.
A distinctive artistic rebel, Esther Anderson co-founded Island Records promoting and managing all the Jamaican artists that went through Island Records, including Millie Small, Jimmy Cliff, and Bob Marley and the Wailers. She helped to launch the film industry in Jamaica, acting as co-producer of the film The Harder They Come (1972), urging director Perry Henzell to give the lead to local Jimmy Cliff rather than to American Johnny Nash
Her musical documentary “Bob Marley: The Making of a Legend” was chosen to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Marley’s passing in 2011 at film festivals around the world, including the Edinburgh International Film Festival; DocMiami International Film Festival; Festival de Cine Documental de la Cuidad de Mexico and Jamaica’s Reggae Film Festival. Its London premiere was held at the British Film Institute on December 17, 2011 and Esther went on to win a Unesco Honor Award for the film. Amazon Prime have recently signed the film to be screened across their platform.
Esther has racked up several awards including in 1976, the Trendsetter Award at the Billboard magazine awards on behalf of Denny Cordell of Mango Records and Chris Blackwell of Island Records in New York for introducing Reggae to America.
In 1981, the mayor of Memphis, Tennessee, made Anderson an honorary citizen for her contribution to films and music.In 2015, she received the Voice of a Woman Distinction Award for outstanding contributions to film in a career that has spanned over 50 years.
In 2016, Councilwoman Barbara Kramer presented Anderson with an official city proclamation declaring February 26th as “Esther Anderson Community Arts Day” on behalf of the City of North Miami Beach Cultural Committee for encouraging cultural events that celebrate music, film and photography and for her dedication to the arts over the past 40 years.
“The Power of an image to inform, to effect change, to distort is endless. It is that power that this image projects out into the world, onto the viewer. Most of these pictures are unseen works that make up the collection which was used to launch the first two Albums on Island Records, “Catch A Fire” and “Burnin”. That photograph of Bob smoking was the first time anyone had been portrayed in that way, as he said he was “partaking of the sacred sacrament for his meditation”.
“The image became for Island Records a powerful marketing tool, but for the people an emblem of amnesty and freedom… Long live the Power of the image… that’s what the photographs have for me”.
Esther Anderson
Listings
show: “Through The Lens of Esther Anderson: Bob Marley: The Early Years Exhibition”
dates: Thursday 30th May – Wednesday 19th June 2024
** Private View on Thursday May 30th 5pm-8pm
times: Monday to Fridays 10am-4pm
Closed Wednesdays
Saturdays 11am-5pm
Sundays 11am-4pm
at: Muswell Hill Gallery
21 High Street, Hornsey, London, N8 7QB
Instagram: @muswellhillgallery
Previous Exhibitions
Charlie Phillips Archive Exhibition
Azubuike Ani: Our Sacred World
A Celebration Of Culture Exhibition
Sidici Exhibition
