He Spent 50 Years Photographing Madden, Montana, and Jagger — Now He’s Letting Go with Heritage Auctions

August 17, 2026 | Shelby Skrhak | | Auction Alert!, Sponsored Content

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Michael Zagaris sorts through photographs he shot during his career. Heritage’s August 21–23 Summer Platinum Night Sports Auction features photos and other memorabilia from Zagaris’ decades-in-the-making collection. (Credit: Tommy Noel with permission from Heritage Auctions)

For more than five decades, Michael Zagaris had the kind of access most sports and music fans could only imagine.

He photographed Joe Montana as a rookie. He stood beside Bill Walsh as the San Francisco 49ers dynasty took shape. He documented John Madden on the Oakland Raiders sideline and trained his camera on Mick Jagger, The Who, and some of rock music’s biggest names.

Zagaris wasn’t simply photographing those worlds from the outside — he was in it. Now, at 81, Zagaris has partnered with Dallas-based Heritage Auctions to let some of it go.

The 27-lot Michael Zagaris Collection are included in Heritage Auctions’ Summer Platinum Night Sports Auction, taking place Aug. 21–23. The sale includes original photographs of Montana, Walsh, Madden, and rock legends, along with game-worn 49ers memorabilia.

But for Zagaris, deciding what to sell involves considerably more than determining what collectors might pay.

More Than Photographs

Long before Zagaris had official access, he found his own way onto the field.

“The first time I snuck onto the field I had my dad’s London Fog coat on, a fedora, and a homemade press pass,” he told Intelligent Collector magazine.

When a San Francisco police officer approached him, Zagaris said he introduced himself, claimed he was working on a book for the NFL, and asked to photograph the officer and several colleagues.

“They posed for me … and they never bothered me again,” Zagaris said. “From then on, I was on the field.”

A 1979 photo of Joe Montana during the quarterback’s rookie season with the San Francisco 49ers.

That instinct to get inside the action rather than observe it from a distance became a defining feature of his career.

With the 49ers, Zagaris eventually received extraordinary access from head coach Bill Walsh. He pitched the coach on documenting the emerging team much as a White House photographer would document a presidency.

“I said, ‘That means I have to be everywhere — on the buses, on the plane, in the locker room, before the game, halftime, after the game,’” Zagaris told the magazine.

Walsh agreed, with one concern: What would happen if the photographer went too far?

“I said, ‘Coach, inevitably I will go too far. Just give me a look, and I’ll back off.’”

That access produced photographs that now serve as records of one of the NFL’s defining eras.

One of the photographs offered through Heritage captures Montana in 1979, his rookie season with the 49ers. Another shows Walsh and Montana drawing up a play in the dirt during the 1985 NFC Championship Game against the Chicago Bears.

Zagaris’ collection also includes pieces from the games themselves. Among the offerings is a John Taylor 49ers jersey photo-matched to Super Bowl XXIV.

“You knew you were part of something special, but you never fully appreciated how important it was until years later,” Zagaris said of those 49ers teams. “You’re aware of it, but you don’t realize just how historic it is until you look back.”

From the Sidelines to the Stage

Sports accounted for only part of Zagaris’ career.

His camera also gave him a front-row view of rock culture, where his desire to become part of the world he photographed was even stronger.

The Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger performing in the 1970s

“With rock and roll, I took it a step further,” he said. “I didn’t play any instruments, but I wanted to live it. I wanted to be in the band.”

Among the photographs in the Heritage sale is an image of Mick Jagger performing in the 1970s. Another, taken at San Francisco’s Winterland in 1976, catches The Who guitarist Pete Townshend’s guitar suspended in midair above the stage, with the crowd cheering behind it.

Zagaris has called the latter one of his favorite photographs.

This photo of The Who freezes Pete Townshend’s guitar in mid-flight, with a packed crowd behind him.

The images have value to collectors because of who and what they depict. Their value to Zagaris is harder to quantify.

“All of this is about freezing moments in time,” he said. “Everything you’ve ever experienced is still in your brain, but as you get older there’s so much in there it’s harder to pull it all up.”

What Do You Keep From a Lifetime?

Deciding to sell them can be bittersweet.

“I’ve had a pretty cool, magical ride — not just through sports and music, but through culture,” Zagaris said. “These things are daily reminders of that life.”

Even objects he doesn’t look at regularly still connect him to the people, places, and experiences behind them.

But at 81, Zagaris is thinking about the collection differently.

“I’ve never seen a U-Haul behind a hearse,” he said.

He wants the collection to help take care of his family, but he also hopes the photographs find owners who understand them as something more than commodities.

John Madden on the Oakland Raiders sideline in the 1970s

“Hopefully the people who end up with these photographs won’t just see them as investments,” he said. “They’ll connect them to a meaningful experience, a moment they lived through.”

That idea — an object as a vessel for memory — is ultimately what ties together a lifetime spent photographing other people’s historic moments and Zagaris’ decision to part with some of the physical evidence of his own.

“In the end, nothing lasts forever,” he said, “but we all like to have some talisman that keeps those memories alive.”

The Featured Auction

Summer Platinum Night Sports Auction

10 p.m. August 21

Zagaris’ collection is part of Heritage Auctions’ Aug. 21–23 Summer Platinum Night Sports Auction, a much larger sale featuring some extraordinarily high-profile pieces of sports history.

Diego Maradona’s 1986 “Hand of God” Ball

Among the Heritage Auction lots is the photo-matched ball Diego Maradona used for his historic “Hand of God” and “Goal of the Century” against England in the 1986 World Cup. Heritage estimates the ball at $10 million or more. As of Sunday night, bidding had reached $2.7 million.