REBELS & RENEGADES
The Photography of Sheila Rock
16th November 2024 - 23rd February 2025
As a young girl with little expertise or photographic knowledge, Sheila Rock captured the innocence and raw nature of the English 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. In 2014, she had a touring exhibition of her PUNK photographs in Tokyo, Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Singapore. Chelsea Space Gallery in London showed a mix of her punk and English portraits by the sea in 2017.
The FACE magazine launched her career. She worked for the magazine at it’s early genesis. This opened more doors. She subsequently photographed many of the leading musicians and singers in the music industry for a decade.
“80s SOUND AND VISION” (published in 2022) is an overview of youth culture in the 80s featuring photographs from her days shooting for THE FACE magazine. “NEW ROMANTICS - FROM BILLY’S TO THE PEOPLE’S PALACE ” is her most current 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. All her current books celebrate English subcultures and a global fascination with them. In 2023 she had an exhibition in Tokyo at the Book Marc Gallery featuring a collection of these titles.
In the 1990s, she changed direction and worked for major institutions such as the Royal Opera House, Royal Ballet, and the Barbican, London. She contributed photographs to German Vogue, Elle, Glamour, Architectural Digest, The Sunday Times, Rolling Stone, and Time Magazine. She published a book with Columbia University in 2003. ‘SERA : the way of the Tibetan Monk’. She had accompanying exhibitions in London, New York, Berlin, Turin, and Ben Janssen Gallery showed the series at Maastricht Art Fair in Holland.
Her book, 'TOUGH & TENDER’ is a delicate and sensitive report from the English seaside, a visual love letter to the British. She launched this book with an exhibition in Liverpool as part of the Look Photo Festival. Later she showed these in 2015 at the Breede Gallery in Berlin and at the Agnes B Gallery at Paris Photo in 2016.
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, 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 on. A selection 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 on the Isle of Wight will host an exhibitioin from May to September 2025.
Sheila’s images are available from the Elliot Gallery in Amsterdam and from Rock Archive.
The exhibition REBELS AND RENEGADES is a two part exhibition featuring Sheila Rock alongside Jill Furmanovsky
Many thanks to Addie Elliot for the introduction and support.
Exhibition kindly supported by Babbity Bowsters/Rab Ha’s.
Left Image: Cocteau Twins © Sheila Rock