Welbeck jumps for Mankowitz's collection of Rolling Stones photographs

Headline’s Welbeck imprint will publish The Rolling Stones Rare and Unseen, a collection of photographer Gered Mankowitz’s images of the band, including shots that have never been published before. 

Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards has contributed a foreword for the book, and former Stones manager Andrew Loog Oldham has written an afterword. 

Publishing director Joe Cottington acquired world all-language rights from Carrie Kania at Iconic Images. The Rolling Stones Rare and Unseen will be published on 28th March 2024 in hardback, and e-book to coincide with the start of the band’s major US tour. 

Mankowitz was first introduced to the Rolling Stones in 1964 and quickly struck up a personal and professional relationship with them, “capturing the band’s ascent to rock ‘n’ roll superstardom through the lens of his camera”, the publisher said.  

“Now, Mankowitz opens his archive to share rare, long-lost and newly recovered photographs of his time with the Stones, alongside his most iconic shots”. The images include record cover shoots and recording studio sessions, wild weeks on tour and the band relaxing at home. 

The book also features Mankowitz’s personal anecdotes, as well as essays including writer Will Hodgkinson, author Peter York and the New York Times’ Ben Sisario. 

Cottington said: “I have long been a huge fan of Gered’s photography and am very happy to be working with him to publish a book that should be essential reading for all fans of the Stones. 

“Gered had a backstage pass to music history – he was standing with the band as they took the world by storm – and it’s been a special joy to uncover his breathtaking images from that time, some of which have sat in his archive for the better part of 60 years. With the band releasing a new album and back on the road, it feels like the time is right to shine a light on these forgotten photographs and finally give them the attention they deserve.” 

Mankowitz said: “To be honest, the thought of going through hundreds of sheets of my Rolling Stones archive didn’t excite me much when the idea for this project first came about. However, I couldn’t pretend that I hadn’t noticed on occasion the shot next to the famous one and wondered if it wasn’t just as good – or even a little better. So, I began to go through the material, pulling out sheets of previously dismissed work that had been rejected – not, truth be told, after due consideration, but purely because we had previously selected an image from that roll, that venue, that moment. It was those initially chosen images that stuck and which were always shown. 

“Slowly, it dawned on me that I actually had a hell of a lot of material here which had never been released, but which was really good. In many instances, there were shots that had been completely missed and were even better than the original selection.”