Marshall Swerman is a self-taught photographer who began taking photographs in 1966 with his first camera, a Pentax Spotmatic when living on the Lower East Side of New York City. Swerman studied filmmaking and videography at the School of Visual Arts and The New York School of Photography. His reportage work of the culture of the late 60's through the mid-70's has been published worldwide. Swerman was among the first photographers to document the proliferating phenomenon of graffiti in New York CIty. His coverage of graffiti as art was showcased in a cover story in the prestigious Print Magazine and in numerous books on the graffiti scene. His photography has been celebrated in solo exhibits in New York City, Martha's Vineyard, Philadelphia and Los Angeles and his work is found in collections throughout the world.
In the 70's after co-founding a successful advertising boutique and graphics arts services company in Los Angeles that catered to the film, television, radio and recording industries, the demands of the business world necessitated a period of abandonment of his photographic art. Now resurrecting his studio, Swerman is revisiting his photography and archives, working towards completing many of the photographic projects he put on the shelf and new projects. One of these is the "Dead Cars and Other Body Parts", a photographic study of stripped and abandoned cars. Another project is his "Factory and Friends Series" that includes rare photographs of Andy Warhol and his entourage of "superstars," shot when Swerman was given the opportunity to spend time with Andy at his studio (the Factory) in Union Square in the mid-60's. Swerman's Warhol portraits aare included in the Warhol Museum collection in Pittsburgh and were highlighted in the Ric Burns PBS American Masters documentary of the artist in 2006. An exhibit of his Warhol work is planned for this coming September in Berlin, Germany.
Swerman is also completing a book chronicaling his photographic work of the heyday of the hippie/peacenik/psychedelic/be-in/love-in era and Woodstock of the 60's as he witnessed and experience it.