Richard Aaron
The Music Photo Gallery · Represented Photographer
1970s–2000s

Richard Aaron

B. American Photographer · 1949–2016 ·1970s–2000s
Richard Aaron
Portrait of the photographer
Biography

Richard E. Aaron (1949–2016) was one of the defining photographers of modern music culture. Over more than three decades he photographed approximately 4,000 musical artists, creating an unusually broad visual record of rock, punk, soul, pop and performance from the 1970s onward.

His subjects form an extraordinary cross-section of twentieth-century music: David Bowie, Led Zeppelin, Queen, the Ramones, the Sex Pistols, Iggy Pop, Patti Smith, Bob Marley, Prince, James Brown, Bruce Springsteen, Stevie Nicks, The Who, Paul McCartney and hundreds of others. Aaron worked onstage, backstage, in portrait sessions, in recording studios and on international tours, photographing music from inside its culture.

SELECTED PROJECTS

Among Aaron’s best-known assignments was Peter Frampton’s Frampton Comes Alive!, for which his concert photograph became one of the era’s most recognizable album-cover images. He also photographed Paul McCartney and Wings for TIME, creating the magazine’s first photographic rock-and-roll cover.

His work extended well beyond the standard concert assignment. For Fleetwood: The Visitor in Africa he worked on location in Ghana with Mick Fleetwood. Aaron later spent several months in the People’s Republic of China documenting the first Western rock group to record an album and tour there, expanding the archive into a broader record of travel, performance and cultural exchange.

EDUCATION & RECOGNITION

Aaron earned a BFA from the School of Visual Arts in New York. In 2008, Brooks Institute awarded him an honorary Master’s degree, and he delivered the school’s commencement address. Modern Photography named him one of the world’s “10 Best Rock Photographers,” while Nikon World featured his music photography in its Winter 2008 edition.

INSIDE THE ARCHIVE

What distinguishes Aaron’s legacy is not only the strength of individual photographs but the scale of the archive itself. Across negatives, transparencies, contact sheets, magazine assignments, album projects and finished prints, his work follows several decades of modern music history from within the industry. His photographs appeared in more than 45,000 magazines, newspapers and books worldwide.

Seen as a whole, the archive is more than a collection of famous faces: it is a sustained photographic record of how modern music looked, performed and circulated across the second half of the twentieth century.

EXHIBITIONS & LEGACY

Aaron’s final solo exhibition, Rock On Paper, was presented at FATHOM Gallery in Downtown Los Angeles in 2015 and brought together more than 200 photographs. His work has continued to appear in posthumous group exhibitions devoted to music photography and visual culture.

In the artist's
own words
Finally, after three years, I got my first album cover.
Richard E. Aaron, recalling Frampton Comes Alive!
Selected Works

From the archive.

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Elton John, Louder Than Concorde tour, Madison Square Garden, New York City, 1976, photographed by Richard Aaron.
Elton John,  Madison Square Garden, Louder Than Concorde Tour, New York City, 1976
Richard Aaron From$850
Billy Idol, 1984, photographed by Richard Aaron.
Billy Idol,  1984
Richard Aaron From$850
Chuck Berry with guitar, New York City, 1980, photographed by Richard Aaron.
Chuck Berry with Guitar,  New York City, 1980
Richard Aaron From$850
Ray Charles at the piano, Virginia, 1980, photographed by Richard Aaron.
Ray Charles at the Piano,  Virginia, 1980
Richard Aaron From$850
Ray Charles standing on stage, Virginia, 1980, photographed by Richard Aaron.
Ray Charles Standing on Stage,  Virginia, 1980
Richard Aaron From$850
Angus Young of AC/DC, Los Angeles, 1984, photographed by Richard Aaron.
Angus Young,  AC/DC, Los Angeles, 1984
Richard Aaron From$850
Selected career exhibitions & projects

Career Exhibitions & Selected Projects

A selected record of museum and gallery presentations, publications, assignments and significant projects from Richard Aaron's career.

Type
Title
Venue
Year
Solo Exhibition
Rock On Paper
FATHOM Gallery, Downtown Los Angeles, California, USA
2015
Group Exhibition
Icons, Old & New
Confederacy, Los Angeles, California, USA
2012
Posthumous Group Exhibition
FATHOM Punk: A Culture of Attitude
FATHOM Gallery, Los Angeles, California, USA
2019
Posthumous Group Exhibition
We Rise by Lifting Others
FATHOM Gallery, Los Angeles, California, USA
2023
Selected Press

In the press.

Album Cover Hall of Fame

Cover Story – "Frampton Comes Alive" by Richard E. Aaron

Published 20 April 2007 by Mike Goldstein. An interview in which Richard E. Aaron recounts how his 1974 photograph of Peter Frampton was selected for the cover of Frampton Comes Alive!, his first album cover credit, accompanied by previously unpublished images from the 1975 mixing sessions at Electric Lady Studios, New York.

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TIME

TIME Magazine Cover: Paul McCartney

Issue of 31 May 1976, Vol. 107 No. 23. The TIME archive lists the cover credit as Richard E. Aaron for its Paul McCartney cover, published during the Wings Over America tour. The published cover carries acrylic overpainting by Peter Max.

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Billboard

Richard E Aaron, Photographer Behind 'Frampton Comes Alive' Cover & More, Dies at 67

Published 12 December 2016. Steve Baltin's obituary records the death of Richard E. Aaron at the age of 67 and surveys a career that included David Bowie, Freddie Mercury, James Brown, Led Zeppelin, Bob Marley, the Sex Pistols and The Who, with an assessment of the archive by his friend and manager Jeff Jampol.

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