50 years ago, on a late-August night, standing naked out on his apartment’s balcony in Manhattan, John Lennon watched a UFO crawl by.
May Pang, Lennon’s assistant and lover at the time, was getting dressed for a late-night pizza dinner when he called her out. Gawking as the spaceship moseyed down the river, Pang and the ex-Beatle got off shots from two cameras, though none of the images came out legible. In the liner notes of his then soon to be released studio album, “Walls and Bridges,” Lennon wrote: “On the 23rd Aug. 1974 at 9 o’clock I saw a U.F.O.”
Pang’s time with Lennon occurred during his “lost weekend,” an 18 month-long affair that found her assisting the songwriter through the composition and production of “Walls” slick, dreamy sound. Spanning between New York and Los Angeles, the “weekend” was an extravagant time filled with both debauchery and glamor; glittering mid-70s L.A. parties set alongside substance abuse. Not one for drugs or booze, Pang witnessed — and certainly experienced — everything with clarity.
She also captured it. An avid photographer, Pang documented those months with a keen eye. After a previous stop at R. Michelson Galleries, Northampton, Mass, “The Lost Weekend – The Photography of May Pang” will settle at Creative Framing Solutions, Manchester, New Hampshire, and later at Portland, Maine’s Cove Street Arts, this October. She will be in attendance at both locations.
Comprising 35 photographs, most measuring 16” x 20”, “The Lost Weekend” shows the photographer and her lover in a state of bliss, pensiveness and candidness. The usual suspects appear, including Lennon’s three former bandmates, along with his then collaborator, Harry Nilsson.
In “Jude, Disney World, FL 1974,” giclee, Pang captures Lennon’s son Julian in black and white as he looks off. The image ended up as the cover of the younger Lennon’s 2022 album “Jude.” This is one of many photographs on display of the two Lennons and they prove to be the show’s most successful.
Pang has a good eye for the mundane. She makes eating soup, going for a swim and blowing one’s nose compelling, though no doubt her subject helps. “Drinking My Dr. Pepper, NYC 1970,” giclee, shows Lennon slyly holding up a can of soda. It’s the first photo she ever took of the living legend, his unkempt beard the odd-man-out next to the clean shave he had adopted by the mid-70s.
What also jumps out is just how photogenic Pang herself is. “May By John By May, Bel Air, CA 1973,” giclee — a diptych with Pang on the left, Lennon on the right — shows a person more visually captivating than the man bigger than Jesus. Reclining on a blue-and-orange geomatic patterned pillow, they both give off an air of domesticity and young love, though the complexity reflected on Pang’s face grabs the eye.
Similarly, “California Grass, Palm Springs, CA 1974,” giclee, is focused on Pang. Lennon is in the fore, to the right, his face slightly out of focus, while Pang lounges on Southern California turf, her oversized hexagonal glasses partially covered by her long black hair.
Open October 1 and 2 at Manchester’s Creative Framing Solutions, the show marks the space’s gallery launch. Owner Grace Burr’s decision to expand beyond framing work to showing it as well is understandable. With the Palace Theater and Mosaic Art Collective around the corner, the Chestnut-Hanover Street area is the heart of a growing art district.
“Lost Weekend” will move on to Cove Street Arts for the weekend of October 4-6. Both events are free and open to the public.