LONDON, ENGLAND.- By all accounts the luxuriously opulent surroundings of a furniture and design showroom on the New Kings Road is an unusual place to hold an exhibition of iconic rock n’ roll photography. Then again Talisman is a far cry from your typical ‘showroom’. This fascinating juxtaposition of medium and style works marvellously, perhaps because Talisman’s owner Ken Bolan and photographer Pierre Terrasson are driven by similar motivations; Both have an innate love of the beautiful, the eclectic and most interestingly the slightly defiant.

Terrasson has been photographing legendary musicians for over twenty five years for album covers and publications such as Rolling Stone, Paris Match and Liberation. Dozens of rock stars and musicians from Lou Reed to Annie Lennox have appeared before Terrasson’s lens. His favourite subjects being Serge Gainsbourg, with whom he formed a longstanding professional relationship, and Mick Jagger.

Terrasson is the epitome of the romantic ideal of a rock ‘n roll photographer – he continues to print his own black and white images traditionally, only uses film with a Hasselblad 500cm camera, takes pride in painting his backdrops by hand and drives a 1970s Volkswagen Karmann Ghia around his home town, Paris. His dedication to traditional techniques has led him to lament the demise of pre-digital photographic materials.

Growing up, Terrasson’s father was an opera director – but he insists that this had little to do with his career of photographing musicians: “I don’t play an instrument. I am mainly attracted to the world of rock n’ roll because of its intrinsic subversive element”. A painting graduate from the Ecole Nationale Des Beaux-Arts, Terrasson has a natural eye for strong composition but does not necessarily have a signature look– he allows his subject’s personality to be the lead part of an image.

Now 54, Terrasson enjoys creative reportage work and taking portraits of young cutting edge musicians and artists internationally. This is the first time that Terrasson’s work has been seen in the UK and the exhibition consists of over twenty five of Terrasson’s photographs, spanning from the 1980’s through to today. Expect pre-Johnny Depp images of Vanessa Paradis hung above a 1960s Florence Knoll table, a menacingly stylish Serge Gainsbourg in a dining room full of 18th Century Swedish furniture, and Johnny Rotten gazing down from a traditional Portland stone fireplace.

Since launching in June of this year at 79-91 New Kings Road, Talisman has become an essential destination for the discerning design lover. Talisman owner Ken Bolan sees all 16,000sq ft of the Talisman building as the obvious space in which to hold this unique and impressive photographic retrospective: “I love mixing up styles and periods, and creating challenging yet beautiful environments. Because of this, I am delighted to host Terrasson’s first UK exhibition at Talisman.”