"Janis Joplin of Big Brother & The Holding Company standing tall"

Jim Marshall, artist

1936–2010

"Janis Joplin of Big Brother & The Holding Company standing tall", 1967

Portfolio/Series title: "Anatomy of a Love Festival," published in Esquire magazine, January 1968

Where object was made: Monterey, California, United States

Material/technique: gelatin silver print; board

Dimensions:
Image Dimensions Height/Width (Height x Width): 47.6 x 31.3 cm
Image Dimensions Height/Width (Height x Width): 18 3/4 x 12 5/16 in
Mat Dimensions (Height x Width): 25 x 20 in

Credit line: Gift of Esquire, Inc.

Accession number: 1980.0491

Not on display

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Label texts

Politics, Race, Celebrity: Photographs from the Esquire Collection

The Monterey Pop Festival was a three-day music festival that Esquire reported on extensively. Esquire’s coverage of the festival included photographs of performances by Otis Redding, The Who, Ravi Shankar, Jefferson Airplane, and Mama Cass. Memorable moments at the festival included performances by Big Brother and the Holding Company, with vocalist Janis Joplin, and the American debut of The Jimi Hendrix Experience. It was during the finale of the Experience’s performance that Jimi Hendrix famously
set his guitar on fire and then smashed it to pieces. Rock critic Robert Christgau’s feature for Esquire characterizes the event as indicative of larger cultural trends, declaring, “If the so-called youth movement has an ethos, this was it; either you dig it or you don’t.”
Jim Marshall had a strong rapport with the musicians he photographed, which often gave him unparalleled access to performances. In addition to photographing the Monterey Pop Festival, Marshall was the chief photographer at Woodstock, and he also created the iconic photograph of Johnny Cash flipping the bird while performing at San Quentin Prison.