LYNN GOLDSMITH

Lynn’s multi award–winning work has appeared on and between the covers of Life, Newsweek, Time, Rolling Stone, Interview, People, Sports Illustrated and many other magazines as well as fourteen books and hundreds of groundbreaking album covers including Patti Smith’sa Easter and Frank Zappa’s Sheik Yerbouti. She has written songs with artists such as Sting, Steve Winwood, and Todd Rundgren.

As a fine art photographer, Lynn Goldsmith's oeuvre, shown in museums and galleries worldwide, has received prestigious accolades including but not limited to a Lucie Award for Achievement in Portraiture, The World Press in Portraiture and the Lucien Clergue Award. In the continued development of a body of work she considers to be about breaking with limiting thought patterns.

Full Bio

NYC - PBS Documentary on Lynn Goldsmith

Featured Artworks

2021 Lucie Awards Honoree: LYNN GOLDSMITH / Achievement In Portraiture

Selected Books

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Lynn Goldsmith. Patti Smith. Before Easter After Edition of 1,300 -- An intimate visual survey of the unparalleled Patti Smith by Lynn Goldsmith, whose lens has immortalized a golden era of rock ’n’ roll history. With hundreds of unseen photographs and exclusive texts by Smith, this signed edition documents a transformative moment in the artist’s career and celebrates two greats whose creative partnership continues to this day. Collector’s Edition (No. 201–1,500), each numbered and signed by Patti Smith and Lynn Goldsmith

The story of rock lives in Lynn Goldsmith’s photographs. After coming of age in the Midwest in the tumultuous 1960s, she crashed the music scene in New York and emerged as one of its leading image-makers. She chronicled Bruce Springsteen’s passage to glory, the Rolling Stones’ legendary stadium tours, Michael Jackson’s staggering ascent, U2’s arrival in New York, and the brooding force of Bob Marley. Culture heroes like Bob Dylan and Patti Smith became frequent subjects for her lens. The range of her work is staggering. In Rock and Roll Stories, she shares the best of this work. Her commentary takes the reader into the studio, the tour bus, the concert hall, and the streets where the pictures were made, offering revealing perspectives on her subjects and herself. A greatly expanded and newly designed edition of her very successful book PhotoDiary (1995), this volume captures the story of a generation’s loyalty to rock and roll.

Published in conjunction with the band, KISS: 1977 - 1980 is the definitive photographic chronicle of KISS at the height of their popularity, showcasing the band on and off stage, in the photo studio, and in unguarded candid moments. From her archive, Goldsmith has compiled fan favorites as well as many never-before-seen photographs, all which perfectly capture the enduring phenomenon that is KISS. Chances are you've seen numerous iconic pictures by award-winning photographer Lynn Goldsmith, who has photographed every important rock musician and band of the late twentieth century: The Rolling Stones, Bruce Springsteen, The Police, Talking Heads, Frank Zappa, Bob Dylan, and Patti Smith, among many others. KISS rose to meteoric prominence with their extravagant live performances featuring fire-breathing, blood spitting, guitars bursting into flames, shooting rockets, levitating drum kits, and pyrotechnic showpieces. With makeup and costumes, Paul Stanley, Gene Simmons, Peter Criss, and Ace Frehley created characters and origin stories similar to comic book characters: the Starchild, the Demon, the Space Ace, and the Catman. When put all together, it wasn’t just a stadium rock concert, it was dynamic performance art that is still on the road today! Goldsmith, Stanley, and Simmons have created this book as a thanks to the KISS Army, many of whom have been devoted to the band for more than 40 years and have brought their children and grandchildren into appreciating the music, as well as the spectacle of the band’s live performances. With a simple matte white laminated padded cover that highlights the KISS logo and edged with gilding, the end result could be compared to a kind of bible, holding the relics that their supporters cherish.

Chances are you’ve seen numerous iconic pictures by award-winning portrait and documentary photographer Lynn Goldsmith at some point in your life. Her images have graced the covers of magazines worldwide from Life to Sports Illustrated, Newsweek, Rolling Stone, People and many more. She has also published 14 monographs of her photographs, including the New York Times best-selling photobook New Kids (Rizzoli, 1990). Over the past 50 years, Goldsmith has photographed hundreds of musicians in studio portrait sessions, at live concerts, on the road and at home. Her new book, Music in the ‘80s, showcases an incredible range of artists during a decade when many new forms of music were gaining popularity: New Wave, Electronica, Rap, Metal, and Ska had chart topping success, as did R&B and Pop. Michael Jackson, Philip Glass, Run DMC, Miles Davis, Judas Priest - these are but a few of the names that during this period became icons. The 80’s was a time like no other in history, and the photographs chosen for this book are as diverse in their style as the music and dress of the decade. The book also features quotes from many of the people featured in Goldsmiths’ photographs—including Iggy Pop, Tina Turner, Keith Richards, Alice Cooper, Elvis Costello and more—as well as those who were influenced by the tremendous cultural importance of the decade, proving that Music in the ‘80s is sure to hit the right note for all lovers of music.