Pierre Benain Photographs
SID AND NANCY AND JOHNNY (AND JEANNETTE). LONDON. 1978. POST PISTOLS / PRE PIL. NINE ORIGINAL PRESS PRINTS SHOT BY PIERRE BENAIN AT GUNTER GROVE. SIX MONTHS BEFORE NANCY DIED. LESS THAN YEAR
BEFORE SID DIED.
A little worse for wear. The print we mean. Not that it doesn't apply equally well to the subject. This is a 10 x 8 inch black and white photographic print from 1978. The name of the photographer, Pierre Benain, and his subject, Sid Vicious, are scribbled on the back.
There are nine prints. They would likely have been for the French magazine Actuel
who commissioned Benain to write and photograph a piece on John Lydon. He went to John's house in Gunter Grove to interview him and stayed for three days. The interview recordings were sadly lost. The pictures remain. Their greatness intact.
Sid and Nancy and Sid and knife. After Nancy died of a stab wound in New York this picture (and another where he holds a knife to her throat - which we don't have) went global. Kind of unsurprisingly.
A picture of loneliness. Gunter Grove. Many Polaroids from the Jeannette Lee book Private Image were taken here a few years later. And in fact Jeannette appears in one of these nine prints - with Sid - you can see it here.
On the other side. Johnny Rotten. Chanteur Sex Pistols. This is the reverse of the print shown below.
He always looked good. The prints are stunning. See them on this link. Historic documents all. You can buy the prints. You can frame them and live and work wth them. They are sold as a set. Hit the button below.