Robert Altman

Robert Mark Altman (October 10, 1944 – September 24, 2021) was an American photographer. Altman attended Hunter College at the City University of New York and studied psychology and anthropology. Initially he had no intention of becoming a photographer, and said that the camera he wore around his neck was essentially just a prop to "meet girls". However, after graduation, he opened a shop called the Electric Lotus and displayed some of his photographs on a notice board here. The reaction here was so positive that Ansel Adams ended up taking him on as a photography apprentice. He was soon hired as a photojournalist by Rolling Stone magazine. Here he was able to capture shots of the Rolling Stones while in the recording studio, and also captured shots of artists such as Joni Mitchell and Iggy Pop at music festivals. He found that being a photographer opened doors to places where others were not allowed, and he was able to closely follow the stars and capture images that immortalised the 1960s culture. Following his early success as chief staff photographer for Rolling Stone he expanded into fashion photography and fine art. He became a television producer/director for KEMO-TV, an independent station in the San Francisco Bay Area. For a decade beginning in the mid-1990s, Altman taught web design and photoshop as adjunct professor for several institutions including San Francisco State University and the University of California, Berkeley. Background "Robert Altman's photography was instrumental in portraying the look and feeling and vitality of the Sixties." —Jann Wenner, Founder and Publisher of Rolling Stone Magazine Altman has exhibited at Abbey Road Studios in London, The Beat Museum in San Francisco, Bethel Woods Center for the Arts, the Newseum in New York City, the Georgia Historical Society. Altman has been published in dozens of books, magazines and newspapers and his work is a part of the permanent collections of The San Francisco Public Library, The Library of Congress in Washington DC, The Smithsonian Institution, The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and the Kodak Rock Photography Collection.