A new exhibition opening at Fahey Klein Gallery in LA presents the work of US photographer Paul Jasmin who, for the best part of 50 years, has documented the young dreamers who succumb to the city’s gravitational pull.

Lost Angeles sees the now 85-year-old photographer reflect on what’s been an extraordinary life. Since leaving his hometown of Helena, Montana in 1954, Jasmin has barely had time to look back, with periods spent in Paris, Morocco and New York before eventually settling in LA. During that time, Jasmin has excelled as an illustrator, painter and actor (he provided one of the voices for Norman Bates’ mother in Psycho) before settling on photography at the suggestion of his close friend, Bruce Weber.

Jasmin’s photographs, like his illustrations and paintings, are marked by a sense of youthful optimism that abounds in LA more than any other place. ‘The city of dreams’ is where he and millions of others find hope, where dreams become reality and an innocence he considered lost to the annals of history survives in its sun-soaked boulevards and roadside diners. Shot in both monochrome and colour, these photographs of LA’s young men and women are laced with eroticism and nostalgia, a potent blend that has brought Jasmin editorial commissions from leading global publications (including HERO).

Paul Jasmin: Lost Angeles is on at Fahey/Klein Gallery, LA, from September 24, 2020 through December 31, 2020