Photographs by Hannah Whitaker for The New Yorker
from the article "A Secret Trove of Rare Guitars Heads to the Met"
By Nick Paumgarter
The New Yorker | May 19, 2025
Leo Fender’s solid-body prototype is among the nearly six hundred instruments donated to the Met, tracing the influence of the twentieth-century guitar on American culture.
A J-50 acoustic guitar made by Gibson in 1955 and played by Mississippi John Hurt.
The prototype signature model made for Chet Atkins, by Gretsch, in 1955.
A Gibson Flying V played by Neil Young in the seventies and a Gibson Explorer from 1958.
A Sunburst Les Paul from 1959—the “Keithburst” that Keith Richards played
during the Rolling Stones’ appearance on “The Ed Sullivan Show,” in 1964.
The second solid-body guitar made by Paul Bigsby, in 1948, in Downey, California.
