The oversized photographs lining the paths and galleries at Marie Selby Botanical Gardens look like they're about flowers. Lynn Goldsmith says they're about friendship.
Goldsmith, the rock photographer whose images of the Rolling Stones, Bruce Springsteen and Prince have appeared in Rolling Stone, Life and Vanity Fair, opened "Shared Light: Lynn Goldsmith" at Selby's Downtown Sarasota campus on Saturday, June 20. The exhibition runs through Sunday, Sept. 13, in the Richard and Ellen Sandor Museum of Botany and the Arts and along the outdoor garden paths.
Her work is held in the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, the Museum of Modern Art and the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. In 2024, she won a 7-2 U.S. Supreme Court ruling against the Andy Warhol Foundation over unauthorized use of her 1981 photographs of Prince.
The show traces Goldsmith's 50-year creative bond with punk rocker and poet Patti Smith, Selby Gardens' artist in residence. During a morning tour of the exhibition, Goldsmith told Your Observer in July why she chose mid-1970s portraits of Smith for the gallery she calls the "purple room."
"For me, friendship goes through many of the same changes as the life of a flower," Goldsmith said.
The two met in the mid-1970s, around the time Smith's debut album "Horses" was released. In 1977, Goldsmith shot the cover of Smith's album "Easter," a comeback record after Smith broke her neck and was regaining movement in her arms. The chosen image shows Smith tugging on her own hair.
Their collaboration produced the book "Patti Smith: Before Easter After," published as a limited edition by Taschen in 2019 and as a trade edition by Rizzoli in 2024. The Taschen version includes hundreds of previously unseen Goldsmith photographs and private texts by Smith.
The large-scale flower photographs in the show were taken by Goldsmith at the Chelsea Flower Market in New York City, where she would rise before dawn armed with a Nikon and a single 50mm lens, using only available light. She directed placement of the outdoor images remotely: Chief Curator David Berry walked the garden path on video so she could choose locations beneath the banyan trees.
Goldsmith, a Detroit native who studied English and psychology at the University of Michigan, considers herself an honorary Floridian. She attended high school in Miami and began her career in the music business in 1969 as director of publicity, marketing and advertising at Elektra Records. She lives in Nashville.
Exhibition Details
"Shared Light: Lynn Goldsmith" runs through Sunday, Sept. 13, at Marie Selby Botanical Gardens' Downtown Sarasota campus, 900 South Palm Ave., Sarasota, FL 34236. Open daily 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; the museum closes at 4:30 p.m. Admission: adults $28, ages 5-17 $12, members free, ages 4 and under free. Presenting sponsor of the Patti Smith residency: Marianne and Bill McComb.
Upcoming at Selby Gardens
- Bubbles Under the Banyans: Bubble artist Blaise Ryndes performs every Saturday from July 19 through Aug. 1, 10 a.m. to noon. Free for members; included with general admission for non-members. "Bubbles and Brunch" available at The Green Orchid by Michael's On East.
- "Robert Louis Stevenson: A Child's Garden of Verses" featuring an audio recording narrated by Patti Smith, on view through Sunday, Aug. 30, at Selby Gardens' Historic Spanish Point campus in Osprey.
