Don Bronstein: Photographs 1958-1968

The late Don Bronstein was Chicago’s beloved and stylish “too cool” photographer who captured the city’s Chess Records jazz legends and Hollywood A-listers of the ‘60s while working as Playboy’s very first staff photographer. This sweeping collection highlights the very best selections from a massive career cut tragically short (he died in 1968 at age 41), where Bronstein’s intense portraits of his beloved smoky nightclubs, legendary jazz recording sessions, vibrant tableaux of mid-century streets of Chicago, and the blossoming dawn of societal liberation blend into a priceless portrait of a bygone era.

Don Bronstein: Photographs 1958–1968 is an eclectic and intimate monograph from the prolific 1960s Chicago photographer Don Bronstein. During his brief career, Bronstein documented glamorous Chicago nightclubs and legendary Chess Records jazz musicians, Playboy’s first bunnies, and 1950s and ‘60s pop culture A-listers.

Bronstein had a special chameleon approach to his practice: he dedicated his life to forming meaningful, lasting relationships with his subjects capturing personal, raw, authentic portraiture few others have matched. On the other hand, he was described as a “fly on the wall” during performances and recording sessions, allowing himself to move fluidly with his camera and truly “capture” history in the making.

Don Bronstein: Photographs 1958–1968 is the first ever comprehensive exploration of Bronstein's remarkable—and remarkably short—career. Much in the vein of Vivian Maier’s riveting story, tens of thousands of contact sheets were catalogued and researched to assemble the very best of Bronsteins’s Playboy, jazz, and Chicago Street scenes. On these pages you’ll find musicians including Ella Fitzgerald, Jack Jones, Sarah Vaughan, Eartha Kitt, Louis Armstrong, Chuck Berry, Count Basie, Sammy Davis Jr., Etta James, Muddy Waters, Howlin Wolf, Wayne Cochran, Ahmad Jamal, Dick Cavet, Duke Ellington, Eddie Higgins, Donald Byrd, Erroll Garner, Gerry Mulligan, Irwin Corey, Harry Belafonte, Jack Jones, John Frigo, Ramsey Lewis, and Shelly Berman; celebrities Dick Cabet, Bob Newhart, Lenny Bruce, Hugh Hefner, Psycho body double Marli Renfro, President Eisenhower, Jayne Mansfield, Woody Allen, Barbra Streisand; and famous jazz clubs like Mister Kelly’s, London House, and Gaslight Club.

Don Bronstein’s singular work blooms with celebrity nostalgia, historicizing the special moment in history where the vivacious elegance of jazz and the cool romance of midcentury modernism was in full swing.