About the Work
Roberta Bayley's portrait of Richard Hell, shot in 1977 at Glenn O'Brien's West Broadway loft. The concept was Hell's entirely: the phrase written across his chest, "YOU MAKE ME ___", an open prompt in the spirit of the "Blank Generation" song title as Hell understood it — defiantly self-defining, to be filled in by the viewer. The image was selected later that year for the cover of the Voidoids' debut LP Blank Generation.
Photograph by Roberta Bayley.
Cibachrome (Ilfochrome) print, 11 × 14 inches (27.9 × 35.6 cm), executed in 1977. 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.
