Sid Vicious Live

SHEILA ROCK (B. 1952)
Sid Vicious Live
signed in ink lower right and numbered ‘1/30’ in ink lower left
black & white digital print 16 × 12 inches (40.6 × 30.5 cm)
this is number 1 from an edition of 30
this work is sold unframed and unmatted

Bare-chested beneath an open leather biker jacket and a padlock-and-chain necklace at his throat: here is Sid Vicious at his prime. Taken ahead of performing at the Electric Ballroom in Camden in August 1978 — his mouth pulled into a sneer, mic stand catching light at the right edge of the frame, caught at close range by Sheila Rock during one of his last performances on London soil. Within weeks, he and Nancy Spungen would leave for New York where they'd both have their lives ended in tragic fashion — the whole post-London window compressing into less than six months. The image carries the full weight of that remaining time: a bass player at the center of the most mythologized band of the 1970s, photographed in high-contrast black-and-white by one of the few photographers trusted inside the Pistols' operating distance.