– Patti Smith 1969-1976

„I was eager to be Judy’s model and to have the opportunity to work with a true artist. I felt protected in the atmosphere we created together. We had an inner narrative, producing our own unspoken film, with or without a camera.”
-Patti Smith, from her afterword

Like a scene in Godard’s Vivre sa vie or Dreyer’s La Passion de Jeanne d’Arc, Patti Smith posed for the lens of a young photographer, Judy Linn.

It was 1969, some years before Patti Smith entered the arena of rock and roll. Smith was a struggling poet, harboring a romantic ideal of the collaborative possibilities between an artist and model- a dream happily fulfilled within this intimate and high-spirited body of work.

Linn’s images of Smith range from the vulnerable to the iconic. Focusing on shifting influences and spotlighting her profound relationships with artists such as Robert Mapplethorpe and Sam Shepard, Linn has captured Smith like no one else, in the grainy atmosphere of a bygone New York.

Judy Linn’s photographs document the blooming of an enduring friendship and the evolution of two unique artists: gritty and visionary, fragile and tough