The HUB Bridgehampton Gallery · artist spotlight
Kisses, Crowns & Roses: Roger Sichel’s Neo-Pop World + Woodstock Intimacy
He photographed Woodstock as a teenager. His work has since traveled to the Moon. Over thirteen pieces — photographs, royal portraits, hand-painted roses, & merchandise — gather under one roof in Bridgehampton. From photographic encounters, contemporary royalty, hand-painted blossoms to wearable images.
Visit The HUB · At 10AM-6PM — Wednesday To Sunday · 2183 Montauk Highway, Bridgehampton, NY 11932
Few artists can say their career began at Woodstock and reached the Moon. Roger Sichel — known to many as maXi — can say both. As a teenager in 1969, he stood in the crowd with a camera and came home with some of the defining images of the counterculture. More than five decades later, his work is part of the Lunaprise Museum, an archive of art carried to the lunar surface. In between lies a life spent close to music, film, media, and technology — and all of it feeds the art. The works at The HUB read like a tour of that life. There is the famous 1969 kiss, and the same kiss reborn on a denim jacket. There is a gallery of crowned portraits of Jackie Siegel, the “Queen of Versailles,” and of Prince Mario-Max Schaumburg-Lippe. There are roses — photographed in lush close-up and painted by hand — a Keith Haring–inspired line drawing, and a poolside cocktail scene with a wink. A kiss can hold an entire composition together. So can a crown, a flowering branch, or the leisurely curve of a pool float. In the Roger Sichel selection at The HUB Bridgehampton Art Gallery, these subjects become starting points for distinctly different kinds of looking: intimate, theatrical, contemplative, and playful. Presented within The HUB exhibition, the collection brings together thirteen featured entries, including clothing, with five additional color variations extending the original pink Blossoms in Balance painting. Across this range, Sichel repeatedly considers the power of a recognizable image—& what happens when its setting, surface, or audience changes. The through-line is simple: Sichel is fascinated by the moment something becomes an icon — a kiss, crown, single rose.
The Artist’s Creative Approach
Roger Sichel describes himself as a photographer, photojournalist, digital and AI artist, and cultural observer. whose practice connects counterculture photography with contemporary image-making. His lens first found its subject at Woodstock, where he photographed performers including Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Carlos Santana, Johnny Winter, Sly and the Family Stone, and The Who. His photographs went on to appear in Time and Playboy. His career since has been anything but linear. According to his biographies, he organized 1960s film festivals that brought together work by Picasso and Dalí with judges including Andy Warhol, Gore Vidal, and Miloš Forman; produced national tours for The Doors, the Four Seasons, and Isaac Hayes; and spent the 1990s and 2000s in film, technology, and university lecturing. Today, he makes what he calls neo-pop mixed media digital art, inspired by his life and by current events. His practice spans photography, painting, mixed media, digital experimentation, AI collaboration, and sculpture — classic pop energy meeting contemporary technology. That breadth is visible at The HUB. A black-and-white embrace depends on gesture and tonal contrast; the celebrity portraits build presence through ornament and saturated color; the hand-painted floral works make space for the directness of a branch and a bloom. The clothing introduces another question: how does an image change when it becomes something a person wears?
Milestones
- 1969: Photographs Woodstock as a teenager, including the image now known as the “Smokin’ Hot Kiss.”
- 2024 — to the Moon: His work is included in the Lunaprise Museum, curated by Space Blue, which traveled aboard the Odysseus lunar lander after launching on a SpaceX Falcon 9 in February 2024.
- December 2024: The Royal Legacy series portraying Prince Mario-Max Schaumburg-Lippe debuts in Palm Beach.
- 2025: The “Smokin’ Hot Kiss” anchors an exhibition at One Art Space in Tribeca.
- Exhibited at: the Salmagundi Club, Southampton Cultural Center, Glass House Hamptons, TFA Galleries, and Kramoris Gallery in Sag Harbor; represented by ACCA Beverly Hills.
A Closer Look at the Featured Works
The thirteen works fall into four families: a famous kiss and its afterlives, a queen in four guises, a prince in two, and a closing set of roses, line, and leisure.
Part I · The Kiss: Woodstock and Beyond
Smoking Hot: The Kiss That Went to the Moon
Black-and-white photograph, Woodstock era · Listed at $41,200
This is the image at the heart of the collection: a couple absorbed in a kiss, photographed in 1969 and later preserved in the lunar archive that carried Sichel’s work to the Moon. The couple’s kiss and intertwined bodies give this black-and-white photograph its immediate emotional center. Hair, denim, bare skin, and surrounding foliage contribute different textures, but the eye repeatedly returns to the point where the faces meet. Unlike the deliberately theatrical portraits, this image derives its force from physical closeness. The embrace makes a wider cultural moment personal. One Art Space’s account of Sichel’s Smokin’ Hot Kiss exhibition identifies the originating photograph as a 1969 image, placing this enduring subject within his counterculture archive.
- Tonality: Darker tones in the jacket and background frame the lighter areas of skin, steering the eye straight to the point where the two figures meet.
- Setting: Loose hair, casual clothing, and surrounding foliage give the scene its unguarded, open-air character, while the world behind the couple recedes into texture.
- Timing: The photograph holds a moment that feels both immediate and complete — the photojournalist’s instinct for the decisive second.
Interpretation: Stripped of color and context, the kiss becomes timeless. It is less a record of one weekend than an image of what that weekend stood for.
An Embrace in Denim: The Kiss You Can Wear
Denim jean jacket featuring Smoking Hot · Listed at $515
The same famous embrace, now carried on the back of a blue jean jacket — the fabric that practically defined the Woodstock generation. A rectangular rendition of the embrace occupies the back of a pale blue denim jacket. Seams and structured fabric panels frame the monochrome image, setting its intimate subject within an immediately familiar garment. The photograph remains the focal point, but its encounter with an audience changes. As the wearer turns or walks, the image becomes visible in passing. Sichel’s photographic memory enters the social space of clothing, where a personal style choice can also carry a story.
- Placement: A rectangular black-and-white image sits on the back panel like a framed photograph worn on the body.
- Contrast: Faded blue denim, stitched seams, and structured panels surround the soft tonal range of the photograph.
- Access: The collection’s most approachable way to own the image — art that leaves the wall and goes out to dinner.
Interpretation: Clothing becomes a way of carrying a story, connecting a private moment of affection with the public act of getting dressed.
Ferris Wheel Kiss Beyond Time: Romance, Cinematic
Monochrome image · Listed at $4,326
Where Smoking Hot is candid, this kiss is staged like a scene from a film. A couple leans together at the center of a black, white, and silver world. A couple’s embrace anchors a monochrome scene threaded with the spokes and structural lines of a Ferris wheel. Those lines spread behind the figures, creating a busy geometric setting for the quieter meeting of their faces. The woman’s pale, textured clothing catches the light against darker hair and surrounding shadows. The heightened setting gives the image a cinematic quality: affection seems to suspend the motion suggested by the wheel. It offers a dreamlike counterpart to the informal immediacy of the Woodstock photograph.
- Light: The woman’s pale, textured garment catches the light against darker clothing, flowing hair, and deep shadow.
- Movement: Radiating lines, reflective surfaces, and architectural fragments pull the eye outward, then return it to the couple.
- Atmosphere: The metallic palette lends the scene a dreamlike, heightened quality.
Interpretation: The world spins; the couple does not. A single gesture becomes more absorbing than everything moving around it.
Part II · The Queen of Versailles
Four portraits cast Jackie Siegel — widely known as the “Queen of Versailles” — in four different roles. Together they form a serial portrait in the Pop tradition: one sitter, reimagined again and again.
Crowned in Devotion: The Queen at Prayer
Queen of Versailles series · Listed at $1,545
Joined palms establish the central axis of this portrait, leading the eye upward toward the face and crown. Blue botanical forms surround golden hair, while turquoise and yellow rays expand behind the figure’s head. The busy perimeter gives the composed pose greater emphasis. The image holds two kinds of presence together: the public spectacle of a crowned portrait & the inward association of a prayer-like gesture. Read as contemplation, gratitude, or hope, the hands lend emotional ambiguity to the surrounding display.
- Pose: A crowned woman holds her palms together before her chest, her symmetrical stance creating stillness.
- Radiance: Rays of turquoise, yellow, and gold spread behind her head like a halo.
- Setting: Blue leaves and flowering forms turn the surrounding space into an ornate garden.
Interpretation: Quiet devotion coexists with spectacle — strength held within a moment of calm.
Sapphire Reign: Blue, Gold & Crimson
Queen of Versailles series · Listed at $1,545
A jeweled crown, elaborate necklace, and deep blue garment frame a direct, frontal gaze. Behind the figure, irregular gold-colored passages break across blue and crimson, creating a restless setting for the portrait’s comparatively smooth features. Sichel concentrates detail around the face and neckline, then repeats those decorative rhythms through the clothing. The result invites a reading of regal identity as something constructed through color, ornament, and the confidence of occupying the center.
- Gaze: The queen faces the viewer directly, her composed expression anchoring the whole image.
- Ornament: An elaborate necklace and jeweled crown echo the detailing of her blue gown.
- Background: Irregular passages of gold break across deep blue and red, an energetic texture against her polished finish.
Interpretation: Royalty as visual performance — assembled from color, ornament, and the confidence of a figure at the center of attention.
The Gilded Guardian: The Queen with Wings
Queen of Versailles series · Listed at $1,591.35
Expansive golden wings extend the figure’s silhouette, transforming a frontal portrait into a symmetrical, almost architectural arrangement. Crown, necklace, hair, and patterned clothing continue the gold palette, relieved by pale fabric and cooler background passages. Palatial details place the image between portrait and fantasy. The wings may suggest protection or elevation, while the direct gaze keeps the person at the center of the spectacle. Its theatrical character comes from enlarging the figure’s presence through recognizable symbolic forms.
- Wings: Expansive wings spread behind her shoulders, turning a frontal pose into an image of protection and elevation.
- Palette: Gold dominates, balanced by cooler grays and creams that give the figure room to emerge.
- Setting: Architectural details and cloudlike passages suggest a place between a palace and a celestial realm.
Interpretation: Beauty and authority merge into an image of watchful strength.
The Currency of Attention: The Queen Online
Queen of Versailles series · Listed at $1,545
Social-media emblems crowd the background of this predominantly monochrome portrait. The figure’s flowing hair and steady gaze form an identifiable center amid repeated symbols, rough-looking textures, and small interruptions of color. Gold-toned jewelry offers a concentrated accent. Here, recognition becomes part of the subject. The surrounding icons suggest the networks through which celebrity circulates, while the title encourages viewers to consider visibility as a form of value. The composed face and crowded background give that possibility a clear visual structure.
- Field of icons: Familiar social-media emblems repeat across a distressed, layered background.
- Color strategy: Face and hair stay mostly black and white, while warm gold gathers around her jewelry.
- Tension: Polished beauty sits against a rough, crowded setting, giving the image a restless energy.
Interpretation: The most pointed of the four — a meditation on what gives an image power when everything competes to be seen.
Part III · The Royal Legacy
Sichel’s Royal Legacy series portrays Prince Mario-Max Schaumburg-Lippe. At The HUB, the prince appears twice: once as a statement canvas, once on a T-shirt.
The Electric Prince: Royalty as Pop Icon
Portrait of Prince Mario-Max Schaumburg-Lippe · Listed at $41,200
A crowned head rises above a white ceremonial collar edged with gold-colored detail. Behind it, red, blue, yellow, and white streaks radiate outward, giving the surrounding field a force that contrasts with the face’s relative stillness. The composition borrows the centered authority of formal portraiture and intensifies it through graphic color. An upward gaze carries the eye toward the crown, while the spreading background marks turn the portrait into a focal point of outward motion.
- The burst: Behind the crown, brilliant white explodes into sharp rays of yellow, red, and blue.
- Detail: The face rises above a white ceremonial collar richly worked in gold; the gaze tilts upward.
- Balance: Precise features and ornament sit against loose, radiating marks — formality meeting motion.
Interpretation: The upward gaze can read as ambition, confidence, or possibility — a composed face at the center of a world in motion.
Someday My Prince Will Come: A Crown on Cotton
Black T-shirt featuring Prince Mario-Max Schaumburg-Lippe · Listed at $419.06
The crowned portrait finds a different setting on a black T-shirt. Its bright rectangular image stands apart from the surrounding fabric, which acts as a broad dark border. The radiating palette retains its impact while the garment gives the image a more informal context. Royal display becomes something worn through everyday life. This shift from wall to wardrobe introduces movement, personality, and the wearer’s own choices into the experience of the work.
- Image: A crowned figure, framed by bursts of blue, red, yellow, and white, fills the front — closely related to The Electric Prince.
- Frame: The black fabric works like a broad border, concentrating attention on the bright palette and face.
- Title: A fairy-tale line gives the piece its wit.
Interpretation: The formal language of monarchy meets an everyday garment — regal display made wearable, and a playful entry point into the collection.
Part IV · Roses, Line & Leisure
Crimson Chorus: A Field of Real Roses
Real roses, close view · Listed at $3,296
Closely gathered blooms fill the composition almost edge to edge. Deep reds dominate, punctuated by pink and creamy white petal edges. Dark gaps between flower heads create depth, while repeated cups and folds establish a dense visual rhythm. The close framing makes the arrangement feel expansive: there is little surrounding space to interrupt the flowers. Seen from a distance, the image reads as a red field; closer viewing reveals the small variations that keep repetition alive. Abundance becomes its organizing principle.
- Framing: The close view removes any setting, so petals and flower heads become an all-over field of color and pattern.
- Color: Deep crimson gathers toward the top, while pink and creamy white create a softer rhythm below.
- Variety: Some blooms stay tightly folded; others open into layered cups and spirals, each with its own angle and shadow.
Interpretation: A chorus in the literal sense — many individual voices joining into one expression of vitality.
Blossoms in Balance: Roses on the Diagonal
Original painting, hand-painted by the artist · Listed at $1,030
Here, the legendary photographer’s own brush is at work. Sichel sets a flowering branch on a square turned to a diamond, so the geometry of the support becomes part of the composition. Hand-painted by Roger Sichel himself, the original pink version places flowering branches against a pale ground, on a square presented as a diamond. Slender dark stems move across the open surface, linking clusters of blossoms without filling every interval. The angled format creates a precise geometric boundary for the irregular growth within it. Pink petals supply concentrated color, while the surrounding space makes the branch’s changes of direction easy to follow. The painting’s restraint provides a quieter encounter within the collection. The series includes six rose colorways: the featured pink original and five additional variations in yellow, purple, green, orange, and red, each hand-painted by Sichel. Together, they offer different color expressions of the floral theme; contact the gallery to explore the individual versions.
- Composition: Vivid pink blossoms and slender dark stems spread in several directions, balancing the diamond’s precise angles.
- Negative space: A pale, open ground lets each bloom stay distinct; small green accents add a quiet counterpoint.
- Movement: The diagonal presentation invites the eye to follow the stems across the surface.
Six hand-painted colorways
Beyond the featured pink shown here, five additional variations feature roses in different colors — each hand-painted by Roger Sichel himself. | See: PinkYellowPurpleGreenOrangeRed
Interpretation: Where Crimson Chorus overwhelms, Blossoms in Balance breathes — a moment of rest built from a few blooms, a branching line, and an uncluttered field.
He, She, & Maybe: A Keith Haring–Inspired Drawing
Drawing, pale line on black · Listed at $1,030
Three stylized figures emerge through fine, pale contours on a black field. Repeated arches above their heads, extended arms, and bent legs create the impression of a shared movement. The overlapping forms remain legible because so much of the surrounding surface stays empty. The listing’s reference to Keith Haring points toward a language of bodily rhythm and graphic immediacy. This is a work by Roger Sichel, whose sparse arrangement makes each small gesture count. Its quiet contrast offers another measure of the collection’s range.
- Line: Three stylized figures emerge from a black field in pale, broken contours that seem to flicker into view.
- Rhythm: Arched outlines around the heads echo one another; extended arms and curved legs suggest a shared dance.
- Restraint: Generous darkness gives every mark unusual weight, and a pale frame sharpens the contrast.
Interpretation: A tribute to a fellow pop icon, rendered with almost no color — companionship and joy conveyed through the lightest traces of a gesture.
Cocktails: Poolside, Perfectly Composed
24″ × 24″ · Listed at $3,180
The collection ends with a smile. Two dapper figures in boater hats drift across a pool in inflatable rings, one sipping a martini through a straw, the other nursing a cocktail of his own. Two stylized, suited figures recline in pale pool floats, wearing straw hats and holding drinks. The nearer figure and oversized cocktail glass dominate the foreground; the second repeats the pose farther back. Lounge chairs and an umbrella establish a rhythm along the far edge of the pool. Against the largely monochrome scene, muted color in the foreground jacket creates a selective emphasis. The figures’ smooth, almost figurine-like appearance and their improbable poolside formality introduce gentle absurdity. It is a playful study of leisure as both an experience and an image we construct.
- Style: The figures have the smooth, sculpted look of collectible vinyl toys, set in an otherwise realistic scene.
- Color: Nearly everything is rendered in cool grays and whites — except the foreground figure’s striped jacket, which glows in orange and blue.
- Composition: A diagonal from foreground to background, with lounge chairs and a parasol lined up behind, gives the square format depth and calm.
Interpretation: A witty portrait of leisure — the Hamptons summer distilled into one unhurried afternoon.
Connections Across the Works
For all their range, the thirteen works keep circling the same ideas. Gesture connects this selection as strongly as subject matter. Joined hands, an upward gaze, an embrace, a reaching arm, and a reclining body each provide an immediate point of entry. Sichel builds different environments around those gestures, from ornate fantasy to a minimal black field. The collection also moves between fullness and restraint. Social symbols and densely packed flowers occupy nearly every available interval; the blossom painting and trio drawing give their subjects room. Color intensifies the royal portraits, while monochrome directs attention toward bodies, expressions, and relationships. An image’s setting changes how we encounter it. That idea becomes especially tangible in the two garments. A photograph and a ceremonial portrait leave the stillness of display and become part of a wearer’s daily movement, extending the conversation between art and lived experience.
- The kiss, again and again. The embrace recurs as a 1969 photograph, on a denim jacket, and in the cinematic Ferris Wheel Kiss Beyond Time. Sichel treats his own images the way Pop treats icons — worth revisiting in new forms.
- The serial portrait. Jackie Siegel appears as a devotee, a sapphire queen, a winged guardian, and a social-media star; Prince Mario-Max as a canvas and a T-shirt. Repetition reveals how much a single face can carry.
- Black and white against full color. The photographs, The Currency of Attention, Midnight Trio, and Cocktails lean monochrome, often with a single accent; the royal portraits blaze in gold, blue, and crimson.
- Abundance and restraint. Crimson Chorus fills every inch with roses, while Blossoms in Balance leaves most of its surface open.
- Art that leaves the wall. A jacket and a T-shirt make the work wearable, while listed prices from $419.06 to $41,200 offer many ways into the collection.
- A sense of humor. From a fairy-tale title to a poolside martini, Sichel never takes glamour entirely seriously — which is exactly what makes it fun.
From Woodstock to Versailles to the Moon, Sichel’s subject has always been the same: the images we fall in love with.
See Roger Sichel in Person
Thirteen works, six decades, one room. Come see the kiss that went to the Moon, compare the six colorways of Blossoms in Balance, and find your favorite Queen. Discover the featured works at The HUB Bridgehampton Art Gallery, from Woodstock photography and contemporary portraiture to the six hand-painted blossom colorways. Browse the collection online or contact the gallery for individual artwork details / purchasing assistance inquiries.
Location: The HUB, 2183 Montauk Highway, Bridgehampton, NY 11932
Hours: 10:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m., closed Tuesdays
Admission: Complimentary
Inquire About Roger Sichel Artwork →
Explore the Full Collection →
The collection at a glance
- Smoking Hot (Woodstock photograph) $41,200
- An Embrace in Denim (jacket) $515
- Ferris Wheel Kiss Beyond Time $4,326
- Crowned in Devotion $1,545
- Sapphire Reign $1,545
- The Gilded Guardian $1,591.35
- The Currency of Attention $1,545
- The Electric Prince $41,200
- Someday My Prince Will Come (T-shirt) $419.06
- Crimson Chorus $3,296
- Blossoms in Balance (6 colorways) $1,030
- He-She, Maybe
$1,030
- Cocktails · 24″ × 24″ $3,180
Discover more at maxiarts.com and follow the artist on Instagram at @roger.sichel and @iammaxi_art.