Milwaukee native David Gahr, of Brooklyn, died on May 25. He was 85.
The son of Russian immigrants, Gahr graduated from North Division High School and earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
As a doctoral candidate at Columbia University in New York with a family to support, Gahr worked at a Sam Goody record store, taking photographs of the celebrities who shopped there.
After turning down an opportunity to write about economic issues for The New Republic magazine, Gahr took up photography as a profession.
“‘I became a professional photographer on the morning my son, Seth, was born,’” Gahr told F.Y.I. magazine, as reported by the New York Times. F.Y.I. was the in-house publication of Time-Life, for which he completed over 2,000 assignments.
Gahr began his career as the folk music movement was gaining popularity in the early 1960s, and went on to become one of the most prolific photographers of musicians and artists of all time.
He took now famous photographs of Bob Dylan at the Newport Folk Festivals in the early 1960s, and captured images of Bruce Springsteen and Miles Davis, among others, for album covers.
His picture of Janis Joplin belting out a tune was on the cover of Time magazine in 1988, 20 years after the photo was taken, as a retrospective of 1968.
Gahr also photographed John Lennon, Johnny Cash, Joan Baez, Judy Collins, Junior Wells, Arthur Miller, John Cheever, Salvador Dali and Georgia O’Keefe.
Besides Time magazine, his work has been featured in People, Life, and in “The Face of Folk Music,” a 1968 collection of hundreds of his photographs coupled with essays by Robert Sheldon.
“It is impossible to think about America’s popular and folk music of the last half century without having a Dave Gahr picture in your mind,” wrote Emmy and Grammy-nominated producer, author and klezmer musician/scholar Henry Sapoznik in an obituary of his friend.
Gahr was preceded in death by his wife, Ruth Gahr in 1993, and by siblings Rose Stein, Louis Gahr and Bonnie Zaret. He is survived by son Seth (Melissa) Gahr of Stratham, N.H.; daughter Carla Gahr of New York City; brother Samuel (Rona) Gahr of Glendale and two grandchildren.
Burial was in Brooklyn, N.Y. Memorial contributions to the new building fund at Congregation Emanu-El B’ne Jeshurun in Milwaukee are appreciated by the family.
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