Before Elvis, there was nothing.
—John Lennon

You think you know him: the magnetic performer with jet black sideburns, gem-studded jumpsuits, and a voice so smooth and soulful that it practically bled. This is Elvis, an American icon, endlessly scrutinized and commercialized. But before the main-stream media caught wind of Elvis, before the Ed Sullivan Show, there was Al Wertheimer, a young New York photographer, who captured Elvis on the edge of supernova stardom.

Wertheimer was a twenty-six-year-old Army vet and art school graduate trying to make it big in the Big Apple. In 1956, he landed a job with RCA records to take promotional pictures of the studio’s latest talent: Perry Como, Lena Horn, and others. When Wertheimer was assigned to photograph a young singer from Memphis, it was just another shoot. He had never heard of Elvis.

The task was easy enough, to do publicity shots at a few television appearances and rehearsals—a straightforward, if not mundane, assignment. But Wertheimer, a compulsive storyteller, never had a "let’s just get the job done” attitude. Instead, he would capture something in the soft-faced young man that hadn’t been seen before or since—a surreal candor and spontaneity. “People often asked me later on,” the photographer said, “‘What was so different about Elvis?’ I didn’t know it at the time, but I would soon understand that first of all, he made the girls cry and second, he permitted closeness.” It was this closeness and familiarity that made Wertheimer’s images so compelling—a “fly-on-the-wall” approach to taking pictures. “Mind if I tag along?” he’d ask Elvis, who was very tolerant of the camera’s constant clicking.

The result of this photographic voyeurism is fascinating. Filled with both humanity and journalistic objectivity, Wertheimer’s photographs document Elvis Presley at the quintessential moment of his explosive appearance on the cultural landscape. Candid images of Elvis, the man—shaving, reading comic books, enjoying an afternoon swim, rehearsing at the piano, kissing his girlfriend—are juxtaposed with photographs of Elvis, the magnetic performer, rocking the microphone and working the crowd into a state of frenzy.

SITES is eager to present Elvis at 21, an introspective and intimate look at the most recognized pop culture figure in the world. This surprising exhibition features high-resolution digital prints, approximately 37 x 42" in size. Whether you’re a music lover, a die-hard Elvis fan, or student of 20th-century history, Elvisat 21 is a classic story of a man on the flashpoint of fame.