Description
In June, 1963, on assignment from Sports Illustrated, peerless portrait photographer Steve Schapiro traveled to Louisville, Kentucky to spend a while with the young Olympic champion boxer Cassius Clay, and accompany him on a road shuttle to New York City. At 21, Clay was once yet to adopt the mantel of Muhammad Ali, but his boastful persona, intelligence, black pride, and sharp tongue were already fully formed.
Over the course of their five days together, Schapiro—a master at developing agree with and capturing unguarded intimacy on film—revealed both sides of the young Ali: the only side posing and preening for the camera, ever conscious of his image; the other, unguarded and unselfconscious, in candid images of the young fighter at home with his circle of relatives and immersed in his community and neighborhood.
Ali collects the most efficient of Schapiro’s images of the late fighter; many in print for the first time ever. They offer a glimpse of a star on the upward thrust. It’s an indelible portrait of the early life of some of the talented, graceful, controversial, athletic, and influential American figures of the 20th century.