Friday, June 11, 2010

The Mystery of The John McEnroe Portraits: Solved.

Sometime ago, I came into possession of a haul of McEnroe memorabilia; racquets of his, furniture, stereo equipment, kitchen knives, photographs. It's a long story. Among the photos were a few portraits of a much younger Mac, wearing a James Dean t shirt and a Cartier Tank watch. The prints are signed, illegibly. The photographer's identity remained elusive for years. Until last week...While going through a box of old Interview Magazines, from when Andy Warhol was still Publisher, and there it was. A 1982 issue with McEnroe on the cover, the twenty-three year old "enfant terrible" of the Tennis world. His first real print interview. He'd won Wimbledon in '81 and the US Open three years in a row. The cover illustration was taken from a photo from the same session. I opened the magazine and there it was, the photographers name. The illegible signature that had me mystified for years: Peter Strongwater.
Case Closed. Finally.






8 comments:

  1. Love John. Love that he went to Stanford.

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  2. Johnny Mac's the greatest and those prints you have are really cool. Years ago I had his Nike "Rebel with a Cause" poster and got rid of it at a garage sale--stupid. Though his tantrums were pretty ridiculous, he loved and loves the sport, had unreal talent--especially at the net--and is now a terrific commentator.

    I'm quite a bit younger than him but I grew up just up the 101 from Stanford and I have great memories of watching his brother Patrick play and in later years sneaking into the box seats at the tennis stadium to sit in the McEnroe Family box.

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  3. Dude, I wanna hear the long story on how you got this stuff.

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  4. Love John. Hate that he went to Stanford. Go Bears.

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  5. long story please.

    any chance you also came across his sergio tacchini warm up gear?

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  6. affirmative on the Sergio warm ups.

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  7. took a look at the racquets as well.

    shakes fist at the sky and curses the gods.

    nice score!

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