Michael Halsband

In 1979, a student at the School of Visual Arts, Michael Halsband established his own portrait studio. He started photographing everyone and everything that interested him; friends, colleagues, musicians, concerts and artists.  One year after receiving his BFA he became the official tour photographer for The Rolling Stones, documenting their 1981 “Tattoo You” North American tour.  In 1982 he began a career as a fashion photographer.  His fashion and portrait work appeared in Vanity Fair, Time, Interview, Art News, GQ, Vogue, Life, and Self, among many other publications.  His portrait of Andy Warhol & Jean-Michel Basquiat with boxing gloves remains to this day one of his most iconic photographs. His photo documentary projects include: The School of American Ballet 1986-91, Nudes & Portraits of sex industry workers from 1991–96 and portraits of the architects of the Surf culture 1999-2005.   In 1994 he worked again with The Rolling Stones for their “Voodoo Lounge” tour, as well as AC/DC’s 1995-6 “Ballbreaker” and 2000-1 “Stiff Upper Lip” tours. He traveled with Hunter S. Thompson to Cuba, which resulted in Thompson writing Halsband into his book “Kingdom of Fear” as himself hanging out in Havana with Thompson.

Halsband’s also had an interest in motion picture filmmaking and started as director/cinematographer with music videos for a diverse range of bands and solo artists, and advertising campaigns for Pepe Jeans, Vodaphone, and Sony Music.  In 2003 he saw his first commercially released film titled SURF MOVIE: reels 1-14, followed by the Spring 2005 release of SURF BOOK — a portrait of the contemporary surf culture, through the people who have inspired, and shaped it over the past fifty years. In 2011 Quiksilver commissioned Halsband to make a series of three short films with four time world champion Surfer, Stephanie Gilmore, titled “The Water Dancer” and just finished a film titled “Growing Farmers” for The Peconic Land Trust of Eastern Long Island.

His work has been exhibited in museums and galleries throughout the world, and in the permanent collections of: The Museum of Modern Art, The Israel Museum, The Museum of Fine arts in Houston, Miami Museum of Contemporary Art, Farnsworth Art Museum, and Parrish Art Museum.  Halsband’s iconic portraits of Warhol and Basquiat were on view at the Gagosian Gallery, Davies Street in London the summer of 2012. The work was also exhibited with the gallery at Frieze London, FIAC and Paris Photo.

Since 2009 Halsband teaches a portraiture class at the School of Visual Arts where he has served on the Board of the SVA Alumni Society since 2006. He Co-Chaired the Planned Parenthood “Heat Wave” benefit summer art show party in Bridgehampton, NY, Memorial day weekend 2011.

Halsband is working on a book of his photographs from The Rolling Stones’ 1981 tour. Since 2007 he has dedicated himself to making portraits with the 8x10 camera. Twenty gelatin silver prints of select close up portraits spanning Halsband’s thirty-year relationship with the Deardorff 8x10 camera is on exhibit at The Mandarin’s Tea Room in SoHo, New York, open through 2013. In addition to focusing his energy on new Photographic and motion picture commissions, he continues to work on his portraits with no end in site.