The Beautiful and The Damned: Punk Photography by Ann Summa

Iggy Pop

Iggy Pop

More than 60 images of L.A.'s early punk scene shot by photographer Ann Summa between 1978 and 1984 make up "The Beautiful and the Damned", a show on display at
Track 16 Gallery at the Bergamot Station Arts Center in Santa Monica. Following, in this post: a photo gallery of selected shots featured in the show.

Curated by filmmaker/journalist Kristine McKenna, the exhibition closes this weekend— but some prints will still be available for purchase. Please contact the gallery for details. They also have copies of Summa's gorgeous large-format photo book, The Beautiful and The Damned, which is also available on Amazon.

At left: Exene Cervenka (X) at legendary punk club The Masque. Here's another reason to visit Track 16 in person: they have an actual door from The Masque on display, original "Darby Crash fucked your mom" graffiti and all.

Here's a related Los Angeles Times article.
Many thanks to both Ms. Summa and Track 16 for allowing Boing Boing to present some images from this historically important series.

Boing Boing readers: were any of you there, at any of these shows? Share your history in the comments.


Joe Strummer (The Clash)


Wendy O Williams (Plasmatics)


Chrissie Hynde (Pretenders)


Dinah Cancer (45 Grave)


Johanna Went


Tom Verlaine (Television)


Bow Wow Wow

L-R: Dale Bozzio (Missing Persons), Darby Crash (Germs), John Doe and Exene Cervenka (X)


(All images © 1977-2010 Ann Summa. All rights reserved. Thanks, Laurie Steelink and Sean Meredith!)