The Velvet Underground archive @ Cornell Library

photo: Adam Ritchie

A huge chunk of the legacy of The Velvet Underground is secure. The archives of Cornell University in Ithaca, NY have acquired 25 boxes of rare material for their library. The material was donated by collector and author Johan Kugelberg. Curator Katherine Reagan:

With this collection, we can see how they were being marketed, categorized, packaged, consumed. We can see how the perception of counterculture changed over time, and how the Velvets came to be seen as one of the most influential rock bands of their era. The narratives supported by this kind of material are increasingly important in academic discourse – faculty across multiple disciplines are interested in these important, countercultural, music-based collections.

Adam Ritchie: Velvet Underground and Pink Floyd photos from 1965/66 at Artisan, London

Adam Ritchie has an exhibition at Artisan in London, showing his photos of The Velvet Underground and Pink Floyd.

The photographs capture the energy and colour of their legendary earliest appearances in New York and London. Some have been shown at the Tate, the V&A, the Whitney and are in the Andy Warhol and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Collections. Signed and numbered prints on archive paper available at reasonable prices.

The show runs from Friday 9th March to Saturday 24th March 2012 and will be at 80 Harlesden Road, London NW10 2BE – see artisan80.com for more details.

» adam-ritchie-photography.co.uk

Adam Ritchie: vintage photos of The Velvet Underground and Pink Floyd

UK photographer Adam Ritchie has redesigned his website with vintage photos of The Velvet Underground and Pink Floyd:

Here are pictures of the Velvet Underground and Pink Floyd in some of their earliest performances.

The Velvet Underground in New York in 1965/6 during the making of “Venus in Furs”, the 1966 film by Piero Heliczer; at the Cafe Bizarre; at the NY Cinemateque and, through Andy Warhol, performing for the American Society of Clinical Psychiatry at Delmonico’s Hotel.

I came back to London in June 1966 and photographed Pink Floyd at the Round House, UFO and the AA “Think Pink Party”.

» adam-ritchie-photography.co.uk