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:

Anonymous said...

Love John. Love that he went to Stanford.

Patagonia Community said...

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.

AB said...

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

Anonymous said...

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

Tom said...

@AB I second.

greybreaks said...

long story please.

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

james said...

affirmative on the Sergio warm ups.

greybreaks said...

took a look at the racquets as well.

shakes fist at the sky and curses the gods.

nice score!