Stellan Holm Gallery is pleased to announce “Pam: American Icon” an exhibition of photographs of Pamela Anderson by Sante D’Orazio, one of the most important photographers working in the field of fashion and portraiture.

The exhibition consists of large format color and black and white nude photographs of America’s premiere sex symbol of the turn of the millennium. Originally commissioned by Playboy, these photographs capture Anderson at a peak of larger than life voluptuousness. These are images that capture a primal moment as expressive of its time as Bert Stern’s Marilyn Monroe or Avedon’s Nastasia Kinski with snake.

D’Orazio studied painting and fine arts at Brooklyn College. He painted and worked as assistant to Phillip Pearlstein and Phillip Guston, before taking up photography professionally in 1981, shooting fashion for Andy Warhol’s Interview. He began shooting for Italian Vogue, and was soon working for the world’s leading fashion magazines. In 1994 he won Grand Prize at the International Festival of Fashion Photography for his photos of Jaye Davidson, Axl Rose and the Rolling Stones.

Since then his work has been exhibited around the world, including one-man shows in New York, Los Angeles, Bologna, Berlin, Cologne, Warsaw, Munich and Tokyo. He has published two books: “A Private View,” (Penguin Books, 1998) a diaristic account of his career, and “Sante D’Orazio Photographs,” a selection of from his professional and personal archives.

In addition to his distinctive fashion work, D’Orazio has photographed a veritable who’s who of actors and musicians, from A (Christina Aguilera) to Z (Catherine Zeta-Jones.) Celebrities often request D’Orazio because they admire his portraits, and that was the genesis of “Pam: American Icon.” Ms. Anderson was a passionate admirer of the artist and selected him for her Playboy spread, which ironically, resulted in one of the D’Orazio’s few “unsuccessful” shoots. Originally scheduled for two days, this unpublished session concluded abruptly because of the heat generated by the first series of pictures. Ultimately the pictures seem too extraordinary for Playboy, in their perfect pop art meld of irony, artifice and sexuality.

Stellan Holm Gallery will publish a catalog with contributions by Richard Prince, Jeff Koons and Glenn O’Brien. The exhibition opens January 21st, 2005.