Lot Details
Lot 1143
BERLIN, BRIGID Polaroid of Ahmet Ertegun at Max's Kansas City.
New York: circa 1970. Color Polaroid depicting Ertegun wearing a suit. 4 1/4 x 3 1/2 inches (11 x 9 cm). The photograph with a Polaroid card backing with the penciled numeral "407" at upper right, also with Brigid Berlin's stamp "B.P." (for Brigid Polk) and her later black ink inscription "Ahmed Ertegun 'Lou reed Live @ Max's... For Rob xxx", this inscription to Rob Vaczy, Brigid's friend and co-executor. Slight curl, surface scratches.
It is well known that Atlantic Records co-founder and president Ahmet Ertegun would not initially sign The Velvet Underground due to songs like Heroin, but by late 1969 he had signed the group to a two record deal. The first released was Loaded in 1970 (titled after Ertegun's request that the album be loaded with hits). The second record, Live at Max's Kansas City, relates to this photograph. On the night of August 23rd, 1970, Brigid Berlin had her cassette tape recorder in tow and recorded The Velvet Underground's final performance before Lou Reed quit the band. We also presume Berlin had her Polaroid camera in hand and captured this three-quarter length portrait of the dapper Ertegun. On the verso of the photograph, Berlin has identified it as such. Following Reed's departure from the band, Ertegun was still owed the second album on the two record deal and, displeased with the iteration of the band without Reed, in 1972 decided to release Berlin's grainy, crowd recorded bootleg of the performance as The Velvet Underground Live at Max's Kansas City. Thus, this photograph further ties Brigid Berlin to this major moment in rock history. A similar double-exposure Polaroid portrait of Ertegun taken on the same date by Berlin is published in Brigid Berlin: Polaroids.
C Estate of Brigid Berlin
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