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Tish and Snooky, St. Mark’s Place, New York City

Paula Gately Tillman

Tish and Snooky, St. Mark’s Place, New York City

1985

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Paula Gately Tillman

Tish and Snooky, St. Mark’s Place, New York City

1985

Physical Qualities Gelatin silver print, Sheet: 254 x 203 mm. (10 x 8 in.) Image: 179 x 127 mm. (7 1/16 x 5 in.)
Credit Line Gift of the Artist in Honor of her Friend, Dick Richards, a creator of The American Music Show and co-founder of Funtone Records
Object Number 2015.90
During the 1980s and early 1990s, Paula Gately Tillman photographed an eclectic array of personalities on the Atlanta and New York alternative scenes. Hope Nicholls (the front woman for Fetchin Bones) and Jayne County (the ground-breaking transgendered lead singer of Wayne County and the Electric Chairs) were punk rock pioneers. County was also an actor in Andy Warhol’s 1971 theatrical production Pork. Back-up singers for the band Blondie, sisters Tish and Snooky Bellomo established Manic Panic, the first New York punk boutique, in 1977. Gately Tillman had an early introduction to RuPaul through her friend Dick Richards, co-founder of the Atlanta-based Funtone Records label and one of the creators of the public access television program The American Music Show. She made several portraits of RuPaul, capturing his rise from an underground figure to full-fledged celebrity between 1986 and 1992. Even when focusing her lens on an unidentified performer at New York’s Wigstock drag festival, Gately Tillman captured the spirit of unbridled creativity that characterized this unique time in music, performance, and fashion—a period that was influenced by Warhol and overlapped with the last years of his life.
The Baltimore Museum of Art by gift, 2015; the artist

Artist

Paula Gately Tillman

1945–1945

American, born 1946
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Paula Gately Tillman
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Jayne County on the Set of The American Music Show, Atlanta
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John Mackie Falconer
The Earliest Art Center in New York City
1879
Christopher Richard Wynne Nevinson
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1928
Dave Heath
New York City (two women)
1959–1961
Danny Lyon
IRT2, New York City
1978
Jerome Liebling
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1947