About the Photograph
Billy Idol photographed by Roberta Bayley in New York in 1978, the year Generation X crossed the Atlantic to play CBGB and the downtown circuit. The frame catches Idol bleached and spiky on a New York street in a pale-pink jacket — the early Generation X look that would carry him out of the second wave of UK punk toward the solo career that defined him in the decade ahead. Bayley shot him with the insider access she brought to the whole scene as door manager at CBGB and house photographer at PUNK Magazine.
Photograph by Roberta Bayley.
Cibachrome (Ilfochrome) print, 16 × 20 inches, executed in 1978. Number 2 from an edition of 25, signed, titled, numbered and dated by the artist on the reverse. Long discontinued, the Cibachrome process leaves every surviving example among the last of its kind.
From the personal archive of Roberta Bayley. Price on request.
