Description
Dawn Wirth bought her first camera in 1976, a Canon FTb, with the money she earned from working at the Hanna-Barbera animation
studio. She enrolled in a high-school photography class and began taking photos of bands. While still in high school, Wirth
captured on film, the beginnings of an underground LA punk scene. She photographed bands such as The Germs, The Screamers,
The Bags, The Mumps, The Zeros and The Weirdos in and around The Masque and The Whiskey a Go-Go in Hollywood, California.
The day of her high school graduation, Wirth took all of her savings and flew to the United Kingdom where she lived for the
next six months and took color photographs of The Clash before they came to America. Dawn Wirth's photographs have been seen
in the pages of fanzines such as
Flipside,
Sniffin' Glue and
Gen X and featured in the
Vexing: Female Voices from East LA Punk exhibition at Claremont Museum of Art and at DRKRM. Gallery in Los Angeles, California for the
Destroy All Music: The Masque and Beyond Photos from the Early LA Punk Scene 1977-1978 exhibition. The Dawn Wirth punk ephemera collection ranges in date from 1977-2008 with the bulk of the materials created
between 1977-1978 and contains The Weirdos flyers and postcards,
Punk Rock by Virginia Boston,
1988 The New Wave Punk Rock Explosion by Caroline Coon, a Blondie press kit, an issue of
New Wave News, clippings, and the documentary
Ghost on the Highway: A Portrait of Jeffrey Lee Pierce and The Gun Club.
Background
Dawn Wirth bought her first camera in 1976, a Canon FTb, with the money she earned from working at the Hanna-Barbera animation
studio. She enrolled in a high-school photography class and began taking photos of bands. Although the photography teacher
told her that the work was "crap," she continued to follow her passion. "I was going to these punk shows; the music was exciting,
new and different. I thought that taking pictures of the bands might be a lot of fun." Dawn captured on film, the beginnings
of an underground LA punk scene.
Restrictions
Property rights to the physical objects belong to UCLA Library Special Collections. All other rights, including copyright,
are retained by the creators and their heirs. It is the responsibility of the researcher to determine who holds the copyright
and pursue the copyright owner or his or her heir for permission to publish where The UC Regents do not hold the copyright.