Acme (Don Letts and Jeannette Lee)

SHEILA ROCK (B. 1952)
Acme (Don Letts and Jeannette Lee)
signed and numbered '2/50' in ink (reverse)
photograph
20 × 16 inches (50.8 × 40.6 cm)
this is number 2 from an edition of 50
this work is sold unframed and unmatted

Sheila Rock photographed Don Letts and Jeannette Lee inside Acme Attractions, the King's Road shop the pair ran around 1976 as the quieter, more reggae-coded alternative to Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren's SEX further down the street. Letts sits in sunglasses and a leopard-print vest beneath the shelves of brogues and winklepickers that defined the shop's product category; Lee stands beside him in a red top and black PVC skirt. The scene around them shows how the retail world they built: a Vespa SS scooter with a Union Jack seat parked front-and-center, a wall of Beatles LPs, a Marvin Gaye poster, a "Greetings from Jamaica" pennant, and racks of mod and rude-boy apparel receding into the back of the shop. Letts would go on to DJ at the Roxy, where his reggae selections directly shaped the first wave of British punk's sonic palette and directed The Punk Rock Movie; Lee would later join Public Image Ltd and become co-head of Rough Trade. The portrait catches both at their origin point.