Jacqueline, Signed by Ron Galella
[Signed by Ron Galella] Galella, Ron. Jacqueline. First Edition. 1974. Book and dust jacket are both in very good condition. Book is warmly inscribed by Galella to a fellow paparazzo on the half title page, “Dec. 4, 1983, Mark, It’s been a pleasure to shoot with you in ‘the Capitol City’! Hope you enjoy my paparazzi adventure. Best wishes, Ron Galella.”
This book of photographs and commentary is built around one of the most famous paparazzi images ever taken: “Windswept Jackie,” which captures the mystique of the former first lady. It is only one of many images in this volume, but it is the defining one. To Galella, Mrs. Onassis was muse, quarry, goddess, and obsession. To her, he was an intolerable nuisance. Time, however, has complicated the verdict. Whatever the injury of the pursuit, Galella’s photographs of Jackie in her jet-set years, cruising the Mediterranean, attending the opera, shopping on Capri, now form part of the visual mythology that surrounds her. The result is a book about beauty, celebrity, intrusion, and the making of modern celebrity.
“I don’t take ugly pictures of Jackie. If I have an unattractive picture of Jackie I tear it up. She’s too beautiful to permit the camera to play tricks on her.”
--Ron Galella