REBELS & RENEGADES
The Photography of Sheila Rock
16th November 2024 - 23rd February 2025
Street Level Photoworks are pleased to present REBELS & RENEGADES, a two part exhibition featuring the outstanding work of Sheila Rock and Jill Furmanovsky, two pioneering women photographers who captured the zeitgeist of punk and the post-punk unfolding in music and style.
‘Recognising the import of the changes she was witnessing; Sheila Rock used her camera as an enthusiastic observer to document the explosion of youth culture that foreshadowed what we see around us today.’ -Nick Logan, editor of The Face, Smash Hits and NME.
As a young girl with little expertise or photographic knowledge, Sheila Rock captured the innocence and raw nature of the British Punk movement. She was swept away by the rebellious freedom, the revolutionary style and of course, the music. In her book, Punk +, published in 2013 (republished as YOUNG PUNKS in 2020) she has documented the early days of youth culture in London, the clubs, the mavericks on the scene, the bands.
She worked for The Face magazine in its early days, joining Neville Brody as graphic designer and Nick Logan as editor and publisher, and this launched her career. Many of her photographs from this period feature in the book 80s SOUND AND VISION(2022) is an overview of youth culture in that decade. NEW ROMANTICS - FROM BILLY’S TO THE PEOPLE’S PALACE is her most recent book. Launched in 2023, it is a collection of photographs of the early 1980s New Romantics Clubland where the real fashion happened on the streets. Here are the roots of gender fluidity and an array of impressive talents that emerged from the suburbs and art schools.
In 2014, she had a touring exhibition of her PUNK photographs in Tokyo, Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Singapore. An exhibition of her punk era photographs were exhibited at Elliott Gallery in Amsterdam in 2019, and it was from that exhibition that the aim to show her work in Glasgow was initiated.
This will be her first exhibition in Scotland and the work included in Rebels and Renegades covers the punk period of the 70s, the movers and shakers who helped define the moment, and the 80s post punk and New Romantics bands. Within this there is a section on Scottish bands she shot for magazines and the record companies the bands were signed to – Simple Minds, Hipsway, Cocteau Twins, and The Associates. A selection of some of her covers for The Face are also on display.
The Orlando Museum of Art in Florida is currently exhibiting her early punk and New Romantics photography in the exhibition ‘Torn Apart’ which runs until Jan 4th, 2025. The National Portrait Gallery in London will show her work as part of exhibition focussing on THE FACE magazine from February to May 2025, and the Dimbola Museum and Galleries (the former home of the celebrated Victorian photographer Julia Margaret Cameron) on the Isle of Wight will host an exhibition from May to September 2025.
Sheila’s images are available from the Elliott Gallery in Amsterdam here.
REBELS AND RENEGADES is a two-part exhibition featuring Sheila Rock alongside an exhibition by Jill Furmanovsky.
Many thanks to Addie Elliott of Elliott Gallery (Amsterdam) for the introduction.
This exhibition has been kindly supported by Babbity Bowsters/Rab Ha’s.
Exhibition Page
https://www.streetlevelphotoworks.org/event/Sheila_Rock
Exhibition Events
Exhibition Walk and Talk Tour with Sheila Rock and Jill Furmanovsky on Saturday 16th November at 2pm.
Left Image: Cocteau Twins, c. 1987 © Sheila Rock
