from John Wood’s introduction in “The Odes of Pindar” translated by Scott Goins

Gorman’s greatness—and he is as genuinely great as any living photographer—derives from his amazing ability to catch the essence of his model. The pictures of Tony and Rex and Gregory in this volume; his well-known nude torso of Iman, a portrait of the essence of feminine allure; Elton John, his eyes closed as if in a moment of ecstasy; Brigitte Nielsen nude and looking like an Amazon colossal in her power; or the closely cropped, full face portrait of Leonardo Di Caprio exuding the most intense sexualityare iconic images that people will still be looking at a hundred years from now, looking at when they no longer can recall who these people were or why there were important to us. These pictures will still speak because others will continue to recognize in them what they are actually about—not celebrity, fame, or even the particular individual but something fundamental about the human species regardless of the century. These are portraits of allure, ecstasy, power, and sexuality because Gorman’s portraiture extracts something essential from the individual. His portraits may be of the famous and the beautiful, but his art, like the art of the great portrait painters, is rooted in our humanity.