About
Gary Lee Boas was painfully shy as a teenager.
His Brownie camera became his salvation. Gary Lee Boas began snapping pictures of celebrities at the age of 14, in 1966, to catch a little bit of their "residual glitter." Gary and his mother to drove to Philadelphia, Hershey, Devon, King of Prussia, and New York where they would wait patiently at stage doors, sometimes for hours, for the stars to appear. Never considering himself an artist, Gary's obsession grew, uninterrupted for many years, into what critics are now calling a unique "lexicon of popular culture."
To quote the LA Times: “The result of his persistence is literally thousands of snapshots of everyone from Lucille Ball to Richard Nixon, each captured for the camera in a way that is eerily revealing. Without an army of stylists and makeup artists to provide an aesthetic armor, these icons are shown in all their imperfection, as flawed, as vulnerable and as real as anyone. In this age of Reality TV, when even fashion shots in Vogue mimic the blurred spontaneity of amateur photography, Gary Lee Boas is the real thing.”
Gary grew up in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. From an early age spent much time daydreaming about TV and movie stars. As a devoted fan, Boas began photographing famous people with his Brownie camera at age 14. Never considering himself an artist, or even a photographer early on, Boas' obsession grew, uninterrupted, since 1966, into what has become a massive archive of over 200,000 photographs, autographs and personal letters from movie stars and icons of movie, TV, stage, screen, news, politics. Since the release of his book STARSTRUCK: PHOTOGRAPHS FROM A FAN (Dilettante Press, 2000), and his third book Celebrity printed by Reflex Gallery in Amsterdam 2008 Boas has become internationally recognized for the snapshots he took of famous people in the ‘60s and 70s as an unknown fan. Gary’s images have been exhibited in numerous galleries and museums throughout the U.S. and Europe. Including Deitch Projects New York, Mary Boone Gallery, NYC, Photographers Gallery London and Changing Role Gallery, Naples Italy. Boas' second book of photographs, GARY LEE BOAS: NEW YORK SEX. 1979 (Edition Mennour 2004), presents another Boas obsession - the hustlers, strippers, porn stars and sex clubs he encountered as a fan/participant in New York in the late ‘70s to early ‘80s. Today, Boas continues to photograph celebrities, as well as documenting the many other interesting characters in his life. Gary spends time between residences in the east and west coasts of the United States and Europe.