This month’s guest blog features my friend Newell Harbin, who recently stepped down from her position as photography director for Sir Elton John’s incredible collection. This chapter of her life culminated in putting on a show of the best of the best from Elton’s collection at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, England. Let’s chat to Newell about collecting and the power of a personal collection:

DdeK: How did you first get into photography yourself? And how did you find your way to Sir Elton?

NH: Photography has always been my favorite medium. While I tried my luck at taking pictures, I knew my real strength was more in curating than creating. After grad school, I had an internship with the Department of Photography at MoMA that rolled into a fulltime job. They had me working on Lee Friedlander’s retrospective— which was a beast! 455 prints that spanned his whole career. Working on a catalogue & exhibition of that size was daunting yet the perfect baptism by fire. 

The photography market is very different from other contemporary art markets, as we can be quite an insular group. From the start, I knew the big players in our field and Elton and David were two of the biggest. When I returned to Atlanta, where EJ/DF had a home, I was able to work with their first curator until she retired and passed the torch. 

DdeK: Totaling more than 7,000 works, Sir Elton John’s is one of the largest private collections of photography in the world. Tell me about the accessioning process.

NH: Working with David and Elton was a wonderful partnership. In terms of accessioning photographs for the collection, it came about two ways. Either they would shoot over an artist’s name or an image that they had seen OR I would approach them with works that I had recently found or a photograph that might be on our must-have list. 

While there aren’t many photographers they don’t have in the collection, there was always something or someone to add. The only requirement was that the work had to speak to Elton and David! 

DdeK: How do you choose which images to display at a given time and how often are they rotated?

NH: The medium of photography is a delicate and sensitive process. Too much sunlight or heat can shift their color or damage the print. To keep the photographs in museum-quality standards, we did rotations every few years while consistently monitoring humidity and light levels. 

Choosing the images for the wall was much easier than the conservation side of things! Elton loves hanging his walls “salon style”—meaning floor to ceiling. We had a running joke in Atlanta that no one knew the color of the wallpaper because there was too much art on the walls to see it. We would work on a theme or a time period within the canon of photography and the wall would almost present itself to us. It helps to have a treasure trove of 7000 works to choose from! 

DdeK: Talk about the diversity of John’s collection – how important is it to collect what you love versus collecting what might be a trending artist in pop culture or even from the perspective of an investment?

NH: For fads or an investment, never! The image must speak to Elton and David. I’ve seen them hang a print from an obscure photographer that we found in an Australian magazine for £200 next to a Man Ray print, where there are only three in the world. If they love it, regardless to popularity or cost, it is going on the wall! 

DdeK: I would guess that collecting photography is like collecting jewelry: you are looking for something that moves you and that you want to have around (or on) you all the time. Sir Elton is also a legendary jewelry collector!

NH: The only thing that rivals Elton’s photo collection is his jewelry and watch collection! My favorite story about the crossover within Elton’s collecting of both jewelry and photography is how he displays his photographs. When he started collecting photo in the early 1990s, galleries and museums would typically display the prints in black metal frames. He was aghast! These photographs were jewels to him and they needed the appropriate jewel box to house them. He started a friendship with the brilliant artisan based in Atlanta named Myott, who became our primary framer. Myott’s frames range from white-gold to lacquer with a variety of designs. This wonderful partnership between collector and artisan can be currently viewed at the V&A with our exhibition “Fragile Beauty”. 

Elton and David’s homes are stunning with their vibrant fabrics and lush design, having these intricate “jewel-boxed” frames around their iconic photographic collection hanging throughout is the cherry on top. 

DdeK: Do you have a favorite photo that you helped procure for Sir Elton? Why is this one your favorite?

NH: Most of my favorites were the hardest ones to find. When trying to find a photograph that isn’t easily accessible, I call them my “unicorns” and travel high & low for them. Some prints have taken me years to find. While a seller might have an early print of the image we want, the condition of said print might be less than desirable. It took me seven years to find their perfect print of Diane Arbus’s iconic Child with Toy Hand Grenade, Central Park!

 DdeK: As a globe-trotter and someone working with a high-profile celebrity, what is your daily jewelry wardrobe? If you could swipe one thing from Sir Elton’s collection, what would it be?

NH: Elton notices everything and is hard to compete with an over-the-top style icon, but I do love to bring my own style with my daily jewelry. My newest item in the rotation are earrings! While I have worn clip-on earrings for decades, the COVID masks kept knocking them off and in exhaust, I finally pierced my ears in 2021 at the age of 42.  It is as if a whole new world of jewelry has opened for me! When I’m gallery hopping or hitting art fairs, I do usually sport the “museum-black” look and my dramatic black and red Sonoran Jasper “Nomos” drop earrings from you add the perfect amount of design and style, along with my new tandem ring which has the most lovely & chic Siberian pink tourmaline stone. 

But no need to swipe anything from Elton or David’s closets, as their gifts to me have been the epitome of style! From purses to shoes to bracelets, those two men know how to shop!

DdeK: What’s next for you?

NH: In May of this year, I co-curated Fragile Beauty: Photographs from the Sir Elton John & David Furnish Collection at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London. This exhibition includes over 350 photographs from the collection that spans from 1950 to today. The exhibition remains open until early January 2025 and is accompanied with an exhibition catalogue. The exhibition is a sequel to another exhibition I co-curated, The Radical Eye which was held at Tate Modern in 2016 and focused on Elton & David’s collection from 1920 to 1950. 

With this last exhibition in full swing and an incredible 14 year tenure with Elton and David’s collection under my belt, I decided to officially step down from my role as Director early this fall. My next move is constantly in flux and that is what is most exciting. But I promised my husband, my children and my dogs that the first months would be dedicated just to them, as no one deserves my attention more and nothing could make me happier! 

ABOUT NEWELL:

Newell Harbin joined the Sir Elton John & David Furnish Photography Collection in 2010, serving as its Director from 2012 until 2024.  Prior to the collection, Harbin worked within the photography departments of The Museum of Modern Art (NYC) and The Art Institute of Chicago.  In 2016, she co-curated The Radical Eye: Modernist Photography from the Sir Elton John Collection at Tate Modern.  Under her leadership, the Sir Elton John & David Furnish collection has grown to more than 7,000 photographs housed between three countries, while continuously working with museums, galleries and non-profit organizations to help facilitate loans, research inquiries and other curatorial requests on behalf of Sir Elton John.