Sid Vicious & Johnny Rotten Luxembourg

BOB GRUEN (B. 1945)

Sid Vicious & Johnny Rotten, Cheeks, Luxembourg, 1977

signed, titled, and dated 'SID VICIOUS + JOHNNY ROTTEN - EUROPE - 1988 Bob Gruen NYC 03' (lower margin)

cibachrome print

image: 9 x 12 inches (22.9 x 30.5 cm)

sheet: 11 x 14 inches (27.9 x 35.6 cm)

Executed in 1977. Printed in 2003. Accompanied by a certificate of authenticity signed and dated by the artist.

Sid Vicious and Johnny Rotten photographed by Bob Gruen in Luxembourg in 1977, during the Sex Pistols' brief and chaotic European campaign before the band's American tour and Vicious's heroin spiral. The frame catches the two principals in a moment of silliness, before either of them had become unable to be near the other. Within months, Rotten would walk offstage at Winterland with the closing line that ended the band; less than a year and a half after that, Vicious would be dead.

Gruen's European tour photography of the Sex Pistols sits alongside his more widely circulated American tour work.

PROVENANCE:

From the studio of Bob Gruen