When Reginald Dwight and Bernie Taupin shared bunkbeds at Dwight’s family home in the 1960s they decorated their room with cheap posters bought from the former high street retailer Athena. According to an interview with The Guardian in 2016, one such poster was a reprint of Man Ray’s 1932 image ‘Glass Tears’.
Fast forward 30 years and Dwight (now known as Elton John) acquired a vintage print of Ray’s image for a staggering $193,895 – a record-breaking price at the time. ‘I thought I had gone stark raving mad but I had to have it,’ he recalled in a catalogue accompanying the 2016 show Radical Eye at Tate Modern.
John has been collecting photographs since 1991, a date that’s firmly imprinted in his mind because it followed a stint in rehab, during which he ended years of substance abuse. ‘He
