A Tribute to Gilles Larrain

Oct 16

Goodbye to a Legendary Photographer

My friend and art events collaborator Gilles Larrain created his own artistic universe through studio lighting and hand-crafted original settings. Gilles became famous for making original portraits of many creative luminaries, including Miles Davis, Sting, John Lennon and Yoko Ono, Robert Mapplethorpe, and Norman Mailer. His iconic IDOLS series captured the creative edges of New York City in the 1970s and is a masterpiece of innovative portrait photography.

Rest In Art, Gilles. You showed the art world a fierce tenacity, sustaining the creative life through decades charging through the vagaries of trends and obstacles like an Iberian bull, chasing the majestic red cape of beauty in all its bizarre forms, and inspired by the cross-pollination of visual art and music, always breaking into an outburst of flamenco and classical Spanish guitar! ¡Olé!

Thank you for the memories from our many years co-hosting amazing Art Salon Parties together with Louda in your Grand Street studio in Soho. You will be remembered through your art as an unstoppable force in the New York art world.

We are forever SALONISTAS!

New York Times Tribute

Gilles Larrain, a lauded portrait photographer whose groundbreaking 1973 book, “Idols,” an explosively colorful collection of images of New York City drag queens and gender nonconformists, celebrated the pride and plumage of a subculture that at the time was largely ignored, if not scorned, by the mainstream, died on Oct. 7 in Kauai, Hawaii. He was 86.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/16/arts/gilles-larrain-dead.html

New York Times Arts Section Cover

A New York Times Arts Section cover story in 2010 captured some of our memories of the Art Salon Party: