The founder of Rolling Stone Australia visits the Tweed today to officially open an exhibition at the Tweed River Art Gallery that celebrates the iconic magazine.
Phillip Frazer, a key figure in Australian rock music history, will unveil Rolling Stone: The Covers 1972–2000 exhibition, which has been on display at the gallery in Murwillumbah since December but will be officially opened at the gallery today, Friday 18 January, at 6pm.
It features 150 of the publication’s best covers, spanning four decades.
It is the first time the collection of memorable covers has toured the nation and the Tweed gallery will host the exhibition until early April 2013.
Rolling Stone magazine was launched in 1967 by young entrepreneur Jann Wenner, in the San Francisco heartland of the counterculture movement. With an original masthead designed by late, great psychedelic artist Rick Griffin, stunning photography and illustration by luminaries including Annie Leibovitz and Ralph Steadman, and the work of stellar art directors, Rolling Stone’s covers have become as iconic as the stars that feature on them.
The Australian edition was launched in 1972 by Frazer, the founder and editor of the Australian popular-culture magazine Go-set. Since then, Australian Rolling Stone has been moulded by a string of great editors and art directors.
The Australian magazine is the longest-surviving overseas edition.
Gallery director Susi Muddiman said many of the images from the covers were now iconic, with one of the most recognisable being the Leibovitz photograph of John and Yoko Lennon in a nude embrace.
