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New York City photographer Richie Fahey paints
on his pictures in a cold water flat, surrounded
by his inspiration: a towering collection of 1930s-
1960s musty paperbacks and detective pulp.
With the help of a postwar hobbyist's manual,
Photo Oil Coloring for Fun and Profit, he learned
to transform black and white photographs into
glorious color by dabbling with pigments on
snapshots from the '40s.
Fahey's Technicolor-like style evokes lobby cards
in old movie houses, covers of dimestore novels
and star portraits in fan magazines like Screen
and Photoplay. In defining his style, Fahey is
inspired by the posed photographs from
detective magazines, cinematographers of the
1940's-50's like John Alton, portrait photographers
such as George Hurrell, and painters and
illustrators like Leeteg and James Avanti.
In creating his images, Fahey plays with the noir
stereotype of beautiful women gone bad and
the men who love them. He is painstaking
about stylistic detail. Convincing art direction,
combined with vintage lighting techniques
and hand coloring conspire to create alluring,
ambiguous works. The viewer's inability to
pinpoint the exact time frame in which a
Fahey photograph was taken, lends a certain
timelessness to the artist's work.
Fahey has created book cover art for Penguin,
Scribner, Warner Books, Vintage, St. Martin's
Press, Knopf and Simon & Schuster. Other
commercial clients include SONY Records,
Adobe Theatre Company and Spot Design. His
editorial clients have included Sports Illustrated,
Gotham, Bust, Atomic and Flatiron magazines.
Fahey produced and co-designed the cover
art for the reissued James Bond novels.
Fahey has been featured in Juxtapose art
magazine, Camera Arts, Yellow Rat Bastard
and Garage. His work has been shown at the
Robin Rice Gallery in New York City's Greenwich
Village and posters of his work are available for
purchase online at VintageArte.com. His 2004
pinup calendar, Women in Crime, slyly depicts
gorgeous women caught in the act of
committing various amusing felonies.
Fahey studied painting at the University of
South Carolina and photography at the
Rochester Institute of Technology.
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