Exhibition: ‘Bohemian Melbourne’ at the State Library of Victoria, Melbourne

Exhibition dates: 12th December 2014 – 22nd February 2015

 

Unknown photographer. 'Members of the Ishmael Club' c. 1900

 

Unknown photographer
Members of the Ishmael Club
c. 1900
Gelatin silver photograph
State Library Victoria

 

 

Definition

Bohemianism is the practice of an unconventional lifestyle, often in the company of like-minded people, with few permanent ties, involving musical, artistic, or literary pursuits. In this context, Bohemians may be wanderers, adventurers, or vagabonds. (Wikipedia)

A Bohemian is a person, as an artist or writer, who lives and acts free of regard for conventional rules and practices.

 

This is a fantastic exhibition at the State Library of Victoria, one of the best I have seen so far in Melbourne this year. I have seen it three times and each time it has been a thoroughly rewarding experience.

~ Visually and intellectually stimulating, with a plethora of artefacts, texts and photographs

~ Excellent curatorship, with the exhibition logically structured in order to cohesively display the history, characters and stories, and strands of creativity and rebellious spirit that make up Melbourne’s cultural life

~ A great hang, with disparate elements and mediums all informing each other, pithy quotes, unique film footage, video, music

~ Not too big, just the right size to indulge your senses and brain power


One downside was that the exhibition needed a book or exhibition catalogue to flesh out the themes. Hopefully this will eventuate down the track. Also, it would have been nice to see more of what I would call ‘vernacular bohemianism’ – not just the famous people in each era, but the people that lived the life out on the streets, that supported the subcultures that sprung up from the 1950s onwards, but in a small exhibition it is understandable that there was not enough space.

Another perspective is that, in ordering such a diverse group of people who don’t want to be classified, who lived on the edge of society – you remove their cultural and historical ability to be transgressive, to cross moral and social taboos. By naming them as “bohemian” you seek to classify and order their existence and bring them within a frame of reference that is about control, power and visibility. This disciplinary power, Michel Foucault maintains, relies on surveillance to transform the subjects and the exhibition taxonomy is just that… a form of surveillance of the subject as well as a form of ordering it. Under this phenomena of power, dissonance / dissidence is neutralised and human beings are made subjects: through ‘the systematic linking of the categories of power and knowledge to form a hybrid, power-knowledge.’ (Hirst, 1992, “Foucault and Architecture,” in AA Files, No. 26, Autumn, pp. 52-60)

As John Tagg notes in his book The Burden of Representation (and this is what this exhibition does, it ‘represents’ a particular construction of identity as seen from the viewpoint of the establishment, the institution), “when Foucault examines power he is not just examining a negative force operating through a series of prohibitions … We must cease once and for all to describe the effects of power in negative terms – as exclusion, censorship, concealment, eradication. In fact, power produces. It produces reality. It produces domains of objects, institutions of language, rituals of truth.” (Tagg, John. The Burden of Representation: Essays on Photographies and Histories. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1988, p. 87)

Ultimately, that is what this exhibition does, it produces a reality that many of these bohemians would not have bought into, for they lived outside the fold. It produces domains of objects, institutions of language, rituals of truth that, through their naming, seek to classify and negate the transgressive and subversive nature of many of these people and groups. These people lived in opposition to the tenants and morals of everyday society and that is why we still love them – for their creativity, their individuality, their thoughts and above all their panache, stepping outside the orthodoxies and regi/mentality of everyday life. Against the system, for life.

Dr Marcus Bunyan


Many thankx to the State Library of Victoria for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Installation photographs © Marcus Bunyan and the State Library of Victoria. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

 

 

“The mania of young artists to
wish to live outside of their time,
with other ideas and other customs,
isolate them from the world,
render them strange and bizarre,
puts them outside the law, banished
from society. These are today’s
bohemians.”


Félix Pyat (French, 1810-1889)

 

 

Artist, rebel, hippie, hipster?

Revealing Melbourne’s enduring counter-cultures, Bohemian Melbourne celebrates a who’s who of creative free spirits through their art and the bohemian legacy that has shaped the character of this city. The exhibition shines a light on Melbourne’s cultural bohemians from 1860 to today, tracing individuals who have pushed against convention in their lives and art, from Marcus Clarke, Albert Tucker and Mirka Mora to Barry Humphries, Vali Myers and Nick Cave.

Venture into history’s backstreets and smoky salons to discover the stories of the daring poets, artists, visionaries, rebels and rock stars who changed Melbourne forever.

Text from the website

 

Marcus Clarke: “A Punk in the Age of Steam”

Marcus Clarke, writer, journalist and later a librarian at the Melbourne Public Library, is generally celebrated as the father of Bohemian Melbourne – although he was more its wild child. After a privileged start in a wealthy English family, which allowed him to cultivate the life of a young dandy and to indulge his passion for the writings of Honoré de Balzac and others, a 16-year-old Clarke suddenly found himself in colonial Melbourne in 1863, thanks to a turn in the family fortune.

Determined to maintain a semblance of the life to which he had become accustomed, Clarke was soon to be found strolling the streets of Melbourne as a flâneur, an observer of the city spectacle. A short-lived post as a bank clerk was followed by a stint on the land as a jackaroo, but by the age of 21 he was back in Melbourne and working as a journalist for the Argus newspaper.

Clarke’s bohemian ways soon attracted other young journalists and writers, and they began to congregate at various Melbourne watering holes, in particular the Cafe de Paris establishing the Yorick Club, the early members of which included fellow writers Henry Rendall, George Gordon McCrae and Adam Lindsay Gordon. The Yorick had a human skull for a mascot and rules that parodied the gentleman’s clubs of establishment Melbourne. Its members gathered in rooms adjoining the office of Melbourne Punch to smoke clay pipes, drink from pewter mugs, recite poetry and generally engage in horseplay. Bohemian society had found a Melbourne home and a creative community was born.

Wall text from exhibition

 

Unknown photographer. 'Marcus Clarke' 1866

 

Unknown photographer
Marcus Clarke
1866
Albumen silver photograph
State Library Victoria

 

Bohemian culture in marvellous Melbourne

Marvellous Melbourne, which arose out of the egalitarianism of the gold rushes, gave birth to a strong bohemian culture. Marcus Clarke, the London-born journalist, writer, librarian and professional bohemian, joined the Athenaeum Club and founded in 1868 the Yorrick Club, Australia’s first bohemian club, which became a magnet for men of letters.

He was a dressed-up dandy, a flâneur and a heavy drinker, but had a touch of genius with his novel, For the Term of His Natural Life (1874/75), one of the classics of Australian colonial literature. He was dead by the age of 35, with suicide rumoured but rejected by his actress wife, Marian Dunn, the mother of his six children. Clarke in his behaviour and creative achievement became a model for other Australian bohemians to follow.

Extract from Professor Sasha Grishin. “Celebrating Melbourne bohemians at the State Library of Victoria,” on The Conversation website, 16 January 2015 [Online] Cited 03/02/2015

 

Unknown photographer. 'Marcus Clarke'1866 (detail)

 

Unknown photographer
Marcus Clarke (detail)
1866
Albumen silver photograph
State Library Victoria

 

In 1863, when the young Marcus Clarke arrived in Melbourne, he could have slipped easily into what passed for mannered society in the booming gold-rush city. His uncle was a County Court judge, his cousin a politician, and Clarke himself was granted honorary membership of the elite Melbourne Club. But he chose to turn his back on the bunyip aristocracy. “I am a bohemian,” declared the man who would go on to write the first great Australian novel. “I live, I walk, I eat, drink and philosophise.”

All of which sounds perfectly normal – except, perhaps, for the philosophising – but in reality, Marcus Clarke’s life was far from average. He became a celebrated satirist of Marvellous Melbourne, by turns outraging and titillating 19th-century sensibilities in Australia’s modern metropolis. He befriended fellow intellectuals and bon vivants to form underground literary clubs that didn’t so much turn their backs on as raise an insulting finger to colonial mores. He was a poet and a playwright, a journalist and a novelist, a jackaroo, a wastrel and, above all, quite the tremendous wit.

Clarke’s most enduring gift is his writing, particularly the classic convict novel For The Term Of His Natural Life. But a new exhibition at the State Library of Victoria pays tribute to his other major legacy – that of Australia’s first bona fide bohemian.

“Clarke was an iconoclast, dangerous to know and a dandy about town,” explains historian Dr Tony Moore, author of Dancing With Empty Pockets: Australia’s Bohemians

“Most people think of him as a venerable old Victorian gentleman, but I characterise him as a punk in the age of steam.” [Marcus: I don’t know why a venerable old Victorian gentleman – he was dead at 35]

Moore, who is a Monash University academic and passionate chronicler of unconventional Australians, was an adviser to the exhibition and worked alongside curator Clare Williamson to create this retrospective of radicals. Melbourne’s roaming free spirits have been corralled together for the first time using material – some of it never previously displayed in public – drawn from State Library archives and borrowed from public and private collections. Viewed en masse, they comprise a rogues’ gallery of some of the country’s most indelible cultural icons…

His [Clarke’s] image adorns the exhibition posters, a larger-than-life bohemian in breeches and knee-high boots with a cabbage-tree hat perched jauntily above his broad, handsome face. Melbourne’s original radical would be thrilled to see that his notoriety lives on, more than a century after his death.

Extract from Kendall Hill. “Bohemian Melbourne: Exhibition” on the Qantas Travel Insider website [Online] Cited 03/02/2015. No longer available online

 

Installation view of the exhibition 'Bohemian Melbourne' at the State Library of Victoria, Melbourne

Installation view of the exhibition 'Bohemian Melbourne' at the State Library of Victoria, Melbourne

 

Installation views of the exhibition Bohemian Melbourne at the State Library of Victoria, Melbourne
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

 

Wall text 'Bohemians of the Bush' from the exhibition 'Bohemian Melbourne' at the State Library of Victoria, Melbourne

 

Wall text from the exhibition Bohemian Melbourne at the State Library of Victoria, Melbourne
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

 

Justus Jörgensen (Australian, 1893-1975) 'Fifteen of the Founders' 1944 (installation view)

 

Justus Jörgensen (Australian, 1893-1975)
Fifteen of the Founders (installation view)
1944
Oil on canvas and gauze mounted on panel
Collection of the Montsalvat Trust
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

 

Montsalvat is the result of Justus Jörgensen’s vision for a collective experience of art and life. Jörgensen had trained in architecture and then in painting with earlier bohemian Max Meldrum. His studio in Queen Street, the Mitre Tavern and the Latin and Chung Wah restaurants were sites for lively discussions in which Jörgensen put forward his philosophies of art, the revival of medieval craftsmanship and communal living. This vision began to take shape in 1934 when he and his wife, Lily, brought land at Eltham; with the assistance of friends and followers, he built Montsalvat, an artists’ colony of studios, workshops and the communal Great Hall.

While Justus Jörgensen rarely exhibited, his great love was painting. This multi-panelled work comprises portraits by Jörgensen of 15 significant figures from the early years of Montsalvat. They are, from top to bottom, left to right:

Ian Robertson – student of Jorgensen who also ran an antiques shop
Leo Brierley – businessman and backer of Mervyn Skipper’s Pandemonium journal
Helen (Nell) Lempriere – niece of Dame Nellie Melba, painter, sculptor, and an earl student of Jorgensen
Norman Porter – friend and student of Jorgensen and lecturer in philosophy
Mervyn Skipper – author, journalist and Melbourne editor of the Bulletin
Helen Skipper – Mervyn’s first daughter, Jorgensen’s partner for many years, and mother of Sebastian and Sigmund Jorgensen
Justus Jorgensen – founder and architect of Montsalvat, painter, assistant to artist Max Meldrum and teacher.
Sonia Skipper – second daughter of Mervyn Skipper, and painter and teacher
Arthur Munday – law student, sculptor and stonemason trained by Jorgensen
William (Bill) Cook – teacher, philosophy and president of the Victorian Rationalist Society
Norman Radcliffe – student and friend of Jorgensen, and philosopher
Ray Grant – student of Jorgensen and philosopher
Edward Goll – internationally renowned pianist and teacher at Melbourne Conservatorium of Music
Arthur (George) Chalmers – pharmacist, student of Jorgensen, stonemason and carver, who also planted the first vineyard at Montsalvat

(Label texts)

 

Montsalvat is an artist colony in Eltham, Victoria, Australia, established by Justus Jörgensen in 1934. It is home to over a dozen buildings, houses and halls set amongst richly established gardens on 48,562 m2 (12 acres) of land. The colony of Montsalvat has a detailed history that reflects the life of Jörgensen and his friends and family; there is also a legend behind its name, while its buildings and gardens are steeped in the art and culture of Melbourne and its surroundings.

Visitors can pay a small fee to walk throughout the colony’s historical gardens, artists’ houses/workshops and explore the surrounding buildings. All of the buildings on the site were designed and built by residents with locally available materials, from various sources. The Great Hall offers an extensive network of spaces from extravagant halls and vast exhibition spaces, to small corridors and tiny balconies overlooking the gardens.

Text from the Wikipedia website

 

Percy Grainger (Australian, 1882-1961) Ella Grainger (Australian, 1889-1979) 'Towelling tunic, shirt, leggings, belt, shoes worn by Percy Grainger' c. 1934 (installation view)

 

Percy Grainger (Australian, 1882-1961)
Ella Grainger (Australian, 1889-1979)
Towelling tunic, shirt, leggings, belt, shoes worn by Percy Grainger (installation view)
c. 1934
Cotton bath towels, plastic, leather and metal
Grainger Museum collection, University of Melbourne
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

 

“In 1932 or 1933 my wife and I took up again this idea of clothing made of towelling and when in Australia in 1934 and 1935 we were amazed by the beauty of the bath towels on sale in Australia – some imported from England, Czechoslovakia and America, but most of them (and among them the most beautiful ones) manufactured in Australia. Here was a chance to show what could be done with the beauty born of machinery – a beauty as rich and subtle, in its own way, as anything made by hand or loom.”

Percy Grainger, c. 1955-1956

 

Unknown photographer, New York. 'Percy Grainger wearing a towelling clothes outfit at his home in White Plains' 1936

 

Unknown photographer, New York
Percy Grainger wearing a towelling clothes outfit at his home in White Plains
1936
Silver gelatin print
Grainger Museum collection, University of Melbourne

 

Installation photograph of the exhibition 'Bohemian Melbourne' at the State Library of Victoria February 2015, including at left Albert Tucker, 'Self-portrait with Joy Hester', 1939

 

Installation photograph of the exhibition Bohemian Melbourne at the State Library of Victoria February 2015, including at left Albert Tucker, Self-portrait with Joy Hester, 1939 (see below)
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

 

Albert Tucker (Australian, 1914-1999) 'Self-portrait with Joy Hester' 1939

 

Albert Tucker (Australian, 1914-1999)
Self-portrait with Joy Hester
1939
Gelatin silver photograph
State Library Victoria

 

 

Albert Tucker Interview with an Australian Artist – Heide Museum

An Interview with Albert Tucker conducted by Justin O’Brien in 1997.

Albert expands on his many insights,during the time he spent with John and Sunday Reed and other artists at Heide during the1940’s. An intimate insight into a unique man.

 

Unknown photographer. 'Opening of Mirka Café' 1954

 

Unknown photographer
Opening of Mirka Café
1954
Gelatin silver photograph
Courtesy of Heide Museum of Modern Art and William Mora Galleries

 

Unknown photographer. 'Opening of Mirka Café' 1954 (detail)

 

Unknown photographer
Opening of Mirka Café (detail)
1954
Gelatin silver photograph
Courtesy of Heide Museum of Modern Art and William Mora Galleries

 

 

These clips features home movie footage taken by Gertie Anschel (c. 1953-1954) with audio commentary by film director Philippe Mora.

Part 1 of 3 features scenes of Melbourne, The Mirka Café and Joy Hester and Gray Smith’s property. Philippe reflects on his childhood and identifies key figures of the Melbourne art scene. 

 

 

Part 2 of 3 features the property of Roger de Stoop, artist friends and Arthur Boyd at work on his 1956 Melbourne Olympic statue. Philippe reflects on his childhood identifies key figures of the Melbourne art scene.

 

 

Part 3 of 3 features the Moras, the art gang at a balcony party and late American actor Melvyn Douglas. Philippe reflects on his childhood, parents and identifies key figures of the Melbourne art scene.

 

Making Your Own Fun in the 50s

On the surface at least, Melbourne in the 1950s was a rather dour affair. For some non-conformists, such as Vali Myers and Barry Humphries, it was a place to escape rather than a place to be. For others, however, it was a site for creating underground cultures that were largely invisible to the mainstream.

This was no more so than in the case of gay and lesbian, or ‘camp’, culture, as it was known at the time. Homosexuality was illegal in Victoria until 1960, and in the 1950s it was sensationalised in the tabloid press as a subject for mockery if not horror. As a result, homosexual men and women developed alternative bohemian cultures and communities, with their own covert venues, house parties, secret languages and dress codes.

The gala costume arts balls that raised money for mainstream theatre and other arts charities were grand exceptions to the generally underground clubs and private parties. They offered rare moments in which camp culture could be expressed in public without fear for reprisal. Theatres and dance companies provided employment for many, and bars, such as the one nicknamed the Snake Pit at the Hotel Australia, and restaurants such as Val’s Coffee Lounge, provided opportunities for the camp community to meet and to mix with others who were outside the establishment.

 

Norman Ikin (Australian, 1925-1962) 'Vali Myers' c. 1949

 

Norman Ikin (Australian, 1925-1962)
Vali Myers
c. 1949
Gelatin silver photograph
State Library Victoria

 

Mark Strizic (Australian, 1928-2012) 'Barry Humphries in Melbourne' 1969

 

Mark Strizic (Australian, 1928-2012)
Barry Humphries in Melbourne
1969
Exhibition print from flexible-base negative
State Library of Victoria
Courtesy of the Estate of the artist

 

 

A never seen on broadcast TV programme with Barry Humphries as Dame Edna Everage made in 1975. Barry Humphries was promoting his film ‘Barry McKenzie holds his own’. Films clips were provided officially by EMI. The interviewer trying to hold things together is Mark Caldwell. The programme was made in black and white.

 

Wall text 'North of the River' from the exhibition Bohemian Melbourne at the State Library of Victoria, Melbourne

 

Wall text from the exhibition Bohemian Melbourne at the State Library of Victoria, Melbourne
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

 

Installation photograph of the exhibition 'Bohemian Melbourne' at the State Library of Victoria February 2015 with, in the distance, Henry Talbot 'Portraits of actor Frank Thring' 1963, with Thring's jewellery box and contents in the foreground

 

Installation photograph of the exhibition Bohemian Melbourne at the State Library of Victoria February 2015 with, in the distance, Henry Talbot Portraits of actor Frank Thring 1963, with Thring’s jewellery box and contents in the foreground
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

 

 

It has been said of Frank Thring that he could make most stages or foyers seem small. His larger-than-life personality was almost matched by his frame, often decked out in imposing black and with flamboyant jewellery. Son of Frank Thring snr, founder of Efftee Films and 3XY Radio, Thring jnr earned fame as an actor in London’s West End and in Hollywood films such as Ben Hur, often playing sinister or decadent characters. In the 1950s, he would recite poems laden with innuendo and hold court at the ‘head table’ at Val’s Coffee Lounge. To be welcome at his table was a sign one was part of the ‘in’ crowd.

Label text

 

Unknown photographer. 'Arts Ball, Palais de Danse - John Anderson as Sun God' c. 1963-1964

 

Unknown photographer
Arts Ball, Palais de Danse – John Anderson as Sun God
c. 1963-1964
Gelatin silver photograph
Australian Lesbian and Gay Archives

 

John Anderson was first-prize winner at a number of arts balls in the 1960s. His costume shown here reflects the creativity and effort that many put into their outfits. Costumes and headdresses were sometimes so large that Anderson and others regularly hired furniture vans to take them to the ball. One year the van that was transporting Anderson broke down and he completed the journey strapped upright on the back of a ute. His Sun  God costume wowed new audiences when he was invited to take part in a pageant on ice base on the theme of The Kind and I – with Anderson as the King – at the Southland shopping centre ice rink around 1970.

Label text

But you will go to the ball, you will sweetie!

 

Richard Walsh (editor) 'The Review', Vol. 22, No. 22 Melbourne incorporated Newsagencies Co., March 1972

 

Richard Walsh (editor)
The Review, Vol. 22, No. 22
Melbourne incorporated Newsagencies Co.,
March 1972
State Library of Victoria
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

 

Before editing the irreverent Melbourne weekly The Review (Nation Review from July 1972, Richard Walsh edited counter-cultural Oz magazine with Richard Neville and Martin Sharp. Contributors to Nation Review included Max Harris, Bob Ellis, Phillip Adams, Michael Leunig and Germaine Greer. Greer had been part of the Drift in Melbourne, a loose association of artists, students and graduates. Enrolling in a Masters degree at Sydney University, in 1962 she becomes a leading light in the Sydney libertarian Push, an intellectual bohemia of larrikin anarchists. Gaining her PhD at Cambridge University, Greer then published her groundbreaking book The Female Eunuch.

Label text

 

Ashley Mackevicius (Australian, b. 1958) 'Nick Cave' 1973

 

Ashley Mackevicius (Australian, b. 1958)
Nick Cave
1973
Gelatin silver photograph
National Portrait Gallery, Canberra
Gift of the artist 2006

 

Ponch Hawkes (Australian, b. 1946) 'Soapbox Circus – The Fabulous Spagoni Family' c. 1977

 

Ponch Hawkes (Australian, b. 1946)
Soapbox Circus – The Fabulous Spagoni Family
c. 1977
Gelatin silver photograph
State Library Victoria
© the artist

 

Ponch Hawkes (Australian, b. 1946) 'Melantroppos, Circus Oz, Princes Park' 1979

 

Ponch Hawkes (Australian, b. 1946)
Melantroppos, Circus Oz, Princes Park
1979
Gelatin silver photograph
State Library Victoria
© the artist

 

Installation photograph of the exhibition 'Bohemian Melbourne' at the State Library of Victoria February 2015 with artist Ponch Hawkes' work at right

 

Installation photograph of the exhibition Bohemian Melbourne at the State Library of Victoria February 2015 with artist Ponch Hawkes’ work at right
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

 

Rennie Ellis (Australian, 1940-2003) 'Mirka Mora in her studio' 1978

 

Rennie Ellis (Australian, 1940-2003)
Mirka Mora in her studio
1978
Colour transparency
State Library Victoria
© Rennie Ellis Photographic Archive

 

For more information see the Rennie Ellis Archive website.

 

Vali Myers (Australian, 1930-2003) 'Passions' 1981-1982

 

Vali Myers (Australian, 1930-2003)
Passions
1981-82
Pen, black ink, sepia, burnt sienna and watercolour
Vali Myers Art Gallery Trust

 

Vali Myers discovered a love of drawing at an early age. Over the years it became her primary mode of artistic expression in place of contemporary dance. She dedicated her life to her art and would spend up to two years creating each of her intricately drawn artworks. Passions contains many elements that symbolically represent aspects of Vali Myers’ art and life. These include a fox (referencing her pet Foxy), ravens (Edgar Allan Poe’s The Raven being one of her favourite poems, a gypsy-like figure playing a violin and, at the centre of it all, a woman with flaming red hair.

Label text

 

Liz Ham (Australian born England, b. 1975) 'Vali Myers in her studio in the Nicholas Building' 1997

 

Liz Ham (Australian born England, b. 1975)
Vali Myers in her studio in the Nicholas Building
1997
Gelatin silver photograph
State Library Victoria

 

 

Ed van der Elsken “Vali” 1972

Australian artist Vali Myers moved to Paris from Australia at age 19 where she lived on the streets, danced in cafes, met Satre, Cocteau, Genet and Django Reinhardt. She moved to New York, tattooed Patti Smith’s knee, befriended Salvador Dali and met Andy Warhol and Tennessee Williams.

Vali was a great influence on lots of famous people Tennessee Williams, Jean Cocteau, Mick Jagger, Marianne Faithfull, Debbie Harry, Patti Smith, Jean Genet and Kate Bush.

 

Installation photograph of the exhibition 'Bohemian Melbourne' at the State Library of Victoria February 2015

 

Installation photograph of the exhibition Bohemian Melbourne at the State Library of Victoria February 2015
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

 

 

Howard Arkley

Australian artist Howard Arkley interviewed by ABC television shortly before his untimely death in 1999.

 

Howard Arkley (Australian, 1951-1999) 'The Ritual' 1986

 

Howard Arkley (Australian, 1951-1999)
The Ritual
1986
Synthetic polymer paint on canvas
State Library of Victoria

 

Howard Arkley is recognised as one of Australia’s most significant 20th-century artists. He is unique in embracing not only urban culture but also life in suburbia, a space generally shunned or scorned by bohemians, with exception of that other flaneur of suburbia, Barry Humphries. Like many bohemians before him, Arkley lived on the edge and experimented with mind-altering substances, and, like a good proportion of them, his life was tragically cut short as a result. Despite its large scale, comic-book style and pop colours, The Ritual is as much a cool and judgment-free study in composition and the human form as it is in the rituals or ‘habits’ associated with drug use.

Label text

 

 

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Exhibition: ‘Cairo to Constantinople: Early Photographs of the Middle East’ at The Queen’s Gallery, Buckingham Palace, London

Exhibition dates: 7th November 2014 – 22nd February 2015

 

Francis Bedford (English, 1815-1894) (photographer) 'South West View of the Parthenon [on the Acropolis, Athens, Greece]' 31 May 1862

 

Francis Bedford (English, 1815-1894) (photographer)
South West View of the Parthenon [on the Acropolis, Athens, Greece]
31 May 1862
Albumen print mounted on card
23.8 x 29.4cm
Acquired by the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII), 1862
Royal Collection Trust/© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2014

 

 

The Prince saw the Parthenon on 30 May, the day before Bedford took this photograph. The group drove there in a carriage at 8am, stopping on the way to see a newly excavated amphitheatre. At the Acropolis, the royal party was joined by the Director of Antiquities who showed them the site. The Prince described the ruins as ‘beautiful’.

The photograph is signed, dated and captioned in the negative, ‘F Bedford Athens 163’, 31 May 1862. See RCIN 2861702 for another print of the same image.

 

 

These photographs are absolutely glorious!

Bedford had one advantage… what subject matter to work with. The quality is outstanding and the images really bring these treasures alive. The photographs breathe history, but they also breathe the space and light that surround these great monuments. It takes a special skill as an artist to position the camera in just the right place – to tension the image, to let it breathe, to capture the magic of their continued existence – like Charles Marville and Eugène Atget did with the streets of Old Paris. You can see why Francis Bedford was considered one of the finest landscape photographers in Victorian England.

Just look at the space in photographs such as Acropolis and Temple of Jupiter Olympus (31 May 1862, below) and, my favourite, Tombs of the Memlooks at Cairo (25 Mar 1862, below). In the latter, vibrations in the energy of the air and the earth – oscillating at numerous frequencies simultaneously – flow towards the viewer like a sound wave, akin to musical harmonics. These works veritably sing to you. You only have to look at the stereograph by an anonymous photographer of the same subject to realise what a master photographer like Bedford can achieve.

Please look at these photographs at the large size. They are truly stunning.

Dr Marcus Bunyan


Many thankx to The Queen’s Gallery for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

 

 

“This exhibition follows the journey taken by the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII) in 1862, as he undertook a four month tour around the Middle East. Seen through the photographs of Francis Bedford (1815-1894), the first photographer to travel on a royal tour, it explores the cultural and political significance Victorian Britain attached to the region, which was then as complex and contested as it remains today.

The tour took the Prince to Egypt, Palestine and the Holy Land, Syria, Lebanon, Turkey and Greece where he met rulers, politicians and other notable figures, and travelled in a manner not associated with royalty – by horse and camping out in tents. On the royal party’s return to England, Francis Bedford’s work was displayed in what was described as “the most important photographic exhibition that has hitherto been placed before the public.”

 

Francis Bedford (English, 1815-1894) (photographer) 'Portions of the Frieze of the Parthenon [Athens, Greece]' 31 May 1862

 

Francis Bedford (English, 1815-1894) (photographer)
Portions of the Frieze of the Parthenon [Athens, Greece]
31 May 1862
Albumen print mounted on card
16.7 x 29.2cm
Acquired by the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII), 1862
Royal Collection Trust/© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2014

 

The photograph shows marble blocks from the frieze that ran around all four sides of the Parthenon, a temple dedicated to the goddess Athena. The frieze was sculpted probably between 438 and 432 BC. In the early 19th century, Thomas Bruce the 7th Earl of Elgin removed about half of the surviving marble blocks from the Parthenon. In 1816 they ended up in the British Museum. The head of the Prince’s party, Robert Bruce, was the younger son of the 7th Earl. Bedford photographed several of the blocks which remained in Athens.

The photograph is signed, captioned and dated in the negative, ‘F Bedford Athens’, 31 May 1862. See RCIN 2861704 for another print of the same image.

 

Francis Bedford (English, 1815-1894) (photographer) 'The Caryatid porch of the Erechtheum [Athens, Greece]' 30 May 1862

 

Francis Bedford (English, 1815-1894) (photographer)
The Caryatid porch of the Erechtheum [Athens, Greece]
30 May 1862
Albumen print mounted on card
24.6 x 29.5cm
Acquired by the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII), 1862
Royal Collection Trust/© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2014

 

After leaving Constantinople, the royal party sailed to Athens. Their first stop upon arrival was to visit the King and Queen of Greece. They then spent two days sightseeing and shopping before rejoining the Royal Yacht. The Erechtheum, set on the Acropolis, is a Greek temple probably built between 421 and 406 BC. The figures of six maidens (the ‘caryatids’) are used to support the porch.

The photograph is signed, captioned and dated in the negative, ‘F Bedford Athens’, 30 May 1862. See RCIN 2861708 for another print of this image.

 

The best-known and most-copied examples are those of the six figures of the Caryatid Porch of the Erechtheion on the Acropolis at Athens. One of those original six figures, removed by Lord Elgin in the early 19th century, is now in the British Museum in London. The Acropolis Museum holds the other five figures, which are replaced onsite by replicas. The five originals that are in Athens are now being exhibited in the new Acropolis Museum, on a special balcony that allows visitors to view them from all sides. The pedestal for the Caryatid removed to London remains empty. From 2011 to 2015, they were cleaned by a specially constructed laser beam, which removed accumulated soot and grime without harming the marble’s patina. Each Caryatid was cleaned in place, with a television circuit relaying the spectacle live to museum visitors.

Although of the same height and build, and similarly attired and coiffed, the six Caryatids are not the same: their faces, stance, draping, and hair are carved separately; the three on the left stand on their right foot, while the three on the right stand on their left foot. Their bulky, intricately arranged hairstyles serve the crucial purpose of providing static support to their necks, which would otherwise be the thinnest and structurally weakest part.

Text from the Wikipedia website

 

Francis Bedford (English, 1815-1894) (photographer) 'Acropolis and Temple of Jupiter Olympus [Olympieion, Athens]' 31 May 1862

 

Francis Bedford (English, 1815-1894) (photographer)
Acropolis and Temple of Jupiter Olympus [Olympieion, Athens]
31 May 1862
Albumen print mounted on card
22.0 x 29.4cm
Acquired by the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII), 1862
Royal Collection Trust/© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2014

 

The columns in the foreground are part of the remains of the Olympieion, also known as the Temple of Olympic Zeus. This vast temple was dedicated to Zeus, King of the Gods. During the Roman period, it was renowned as the largest temple in Greece. The Acropolis, with the ruins of the Parthenon, can be seen beyond.

The photograph is signed, captioned and dated in the negative, ‘F Bedford Athens’, 31 May 1862. See RCIN 2861698 for another print of this image.

 

Francis Bedford (English, 1815-1894) (photographer) 'The Temple of Jupiter from the north west [Baalbek, Lebanon]' 3 May 1862

 

Francis Bedford (English, 1815-1894) (photographer)
The Temple of Jupiter from the north west [Baalbek, Lebanon]
3 May 1862
Albumen print
23.6 x 29.3cm
Acquired by the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII), 1862
Royal Collection Trust/© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2014

 

The royal party spent about a day and a half exploring Baalbek. Most of the time was spent in and around this temple. The Prince wrote in his journal that ‘Mr Bedford took some excellent views of it, which will be a great addition to his collection of photographs.’

The photograph is signed, captioned and dated in the negative, ‘F Bedford Baalbec’. The number in the Day & Son series is 111.

 

Francis Bedford (English, 1815-1894) (photographer) 'The Temple of the Sun and Temple of Jupiter [Baalbek, Lebanon]' 4 May 1862

 

Francis Bedford (English, 1815-1894) (photographer)
The Temple of the Sun and Temple of Jupiter [Baalbek, Lebanon]
4 May 1862
Albumen print
24.3 x 28.8 cm
Acquired by the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII), 1862
Royal Collection Trust/© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2014

 

The six standing columns are all that remain of the colonnade that ran around the outside of the Temple of Jupiter. The columns are the largest in the world, at a height of 22.9 metres. A legend about the founding of Baalbek stated that a race of giants constructed the buildings.

The photograph is signed, captioned and dated in the negative, ‘F Bedford Baalbec’. It is number 106 in the Day & Son series.

 

In 334 BC, Alexander The Great conquered Baalbek and the process of Hellenization began. After the death of Alexander the Great, the Ptolemies of Egypt invaded Baalbek and they renamed it to Heliopolis, the City of the Sun. They identified Baal with Zeus and the temple was mentioned as a place of oracular divination. During the Greek era, the court was enlarged and a podium was completed to support a classic temple that was never built.

During the Roman era, Baalbek entered its golden age. In 15 BC, Julius Caesar settled in Baalbek and began the construction of a temple complex consisting of three temples: Jupiter (God of sky and thunder), Bacchus (God of agriculture and wine), and Venus (God of love and beauty). On a nearby hill, the Romans built the temple of Mercury. The construction of the temple complex was completed in several phases over three centuries during the Roman Empire.

Extract from Lauren Zak, “Baalbek: The Unsolved Enigma,” on the Exposing the Truth website, June 23, 2014 [Online] Cited 12/07/2021

 

Francis Bedford (English, 1815-1894) (photographer) 'The Colossi on the plain of Thebes [Colossi of Memnon]' 17 Mar 1862

 

Francis Bedford (English, 1815-1894) (photographer)
The Colossi on the plain of Thebes [Colossi of Memnon]
17 Mar 1862
Albumen print, mounted on card
23.7 x 28.6cm
Acquired by the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII), 1862
Royal Collection Trust/© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2014

 

The ‘colossi’ are two statues of the Pharaoh Amenhotep III, standing about 18 m (60 ft) high. They are all that remain of a large mortuary temple to Amenhotep, originally serving as guardians to the entrance of the temple. During the Roman period, one of the statues was believed to ‘sing’ at dawn and thus was linked to the legendary figure of Memnon. As the son of Eos the dawn, he was believed to greet her each morning with a sigh.

The photograph is signed, captioned and dated in the negative. The number in the Day & Son series is 38.

 

The twin statues depict Amenhotep III (fl. 14th century BC) in a seated position, his hands resting on his knees and his gaze facing eastwards (actually ESE in modern bearings) towards the river. Two shorter figures are carved into the front throne alongside his legs: these are his wife Tiy and mother Mutemwiya. The side panels depict the Nile god Hapy.

The statues are made from blocks of quartzite sandstone which was quarried at el-Gabal el-Ahmar (near modern-day Cairo) and transported 675 km (420 mi) overland to Thebes. (They are too heavy to have been transported upstream on the Nile.) The blocks used by later Roman engineers to reconstruct the northern colossus may have come from Edfu (north of Aswan). Including the stone platforms on which they stand – themselves about 4 m (13 ft) – the colossi reach a towering 18 m (60 ft) in height and weigh an estimated 720 tons each The two figures are about 15 m (50 ft) apart.

Both statues are quite damaged, with the features above the waist virtually unrecognisable. The southern statue is a single piece of stone, but the northern figure has a large extentive crack in the lower half and above the waist consists of 5 tiers of stone. These upper levels consist of a different type of sandstone, and are the result of a later (Roman Empire) reconstruction attempt. It is believed that originally the two statues were identical to each other, although inscriptions and minor art may have varied.

The original function of the Colossi was to stand guard at the entrance to Amenhotep’s memorial temple (or mortuary temple): a massive construct built during the pharaoh’s lifetime, where he was worshipped as a god-on-earth both before and after his departure from this world. In its day, this temple complex was the largest and most opulent in Egypt. Covering a total of 35 hectares (86 acres), even later rivals such as Ramesses II’s Ramesseum or Ramesses III’s Medinet Habu were unable to match it in area; even the Temple of Karnak, as it stood in Amenhotep’s time, was smaller.

Text from the Wikipedia website

 

Francis Bedford (English, 1815-1894) (photographer) 'The Sphinx, the Great Pyramid and two lesser Pyramids, Ghizeh, Egypt' 4 March 1862

 

Francis Bedford (English, 1815-1894) (photographer)
The Sphinx, the Great Pyramid and two lesser Pyramids, Ghizeh, Egypt
4 March 1862
Albumen print
23.1 x 29.5cm
Acquired by King Edward VII when Prince of Wales, 1862
Royal Collection Trust/© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2014

 

The Prince and his companions visited the pyramids on camels, which the Prince described as ‘not at all an unpleasant mode of conveyance’. They viewed the Sphinx just before sunset and decided to set up an encampment below the pyramids where they slept for the night in order to climb the Great Pyramid before sunrise the following day.

The photograph is signed, captioned and dated in the negative, ‘F Bedford Pyramids Gizeh’. The number in the Day & Son series is 14.

 

 

In 1862, the 20-year-old Prince of Wales, eldest son of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert (and the future King Edward VII), embarked on a tour of the Middle East, accompanied by the photographer Francis Bedford. The resulting images, produced little more than 20 years after the arrival of photography, were the first-ever visual record of a royal tour.

A new exhibition Cairo to Constantinople: Early Photographs of the Middle East on view at The Queen’s Gallery, Buckingham Palace this Friday reveals the Prince’s journey through Egypt, Palestine and the Holy Land, Syria, Lebanon, Turkey and Greece in over 100 spectacular photographs.

The Prince of Wales’s four-month tour, the first official royal tour of the Middle East, had been carefully planned by his parents to occupy him after university and before he was married. Despite Prince Albert’s sudden death just two months earlier in December 1861, Queen Victoria was determined that her son’s visit should go ahead. The Prince travelled in a manner unassociated with royalty at the time, by horse and camping in tents, and met rulers, politicians and other notable figures throughout his journey. He diligently recorded his travels in a private journal, which is on show for the first time.

Photography of a royal tour was a new concept, inspired in part by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert’s avid interest in the medium. Francis Bedford had already impressed the Queen with his photographs of places associated with Prince Albert’s childhood in Germany, an earlier royal commission. In mid-February 1862, the Photographic News announced that the Prince of Wales was to be accompanied by ‘eight gentlemen only’, including Mr Bedford, on a tour to be undertaken ‘in as private a manner as possible’. The presence of a photographer was “the first public act which illustrates that the heir to England’s throne takes as deep an interest in photography as his late royal father.”

The main purpose of Bedford’s work was to capture historic and sacred landscapes – the young Prince and his companions appear in only three of the 191 surviving photographs. Two of these were taken in Egypt, showing the party in front of the pyramids at Giza and at the Temple of Amun at Karnak, ancient Thebes. In the third, they are having lunch under a fig tree at Capernaum, on the northern shore of the Sea of Galilee. The rest of the photographs reflect a growing public demand for romantic images of biblical sites, Egyptian and Greek ruins, and mosques. By the 1860s leisure travel to the Middle East was increasing, stimulated by major archaeological discoveries in the region. The introduction of steamships to Alexandria in 1840 had cut journey times and made the area more accessible for European pilgrims and tourists.

In his lifetime, Francis Bedford was considered one of the greatest British photographers, and on his return from the Middle East many of his photographs of the royal tour were exhibited to the public in a gallery on New Bond Street. Among those now on display for the first time since then are views of the Colossi of Memnon and of the Temple of Horus at Edfu on the west bank of the Nile, in which Bedford’s portable darkroom can be seen in the shadow of the temple. Bedford would have had to take a large amount of equipment with him, including plates, tripods, lenses, chemicals and a darkroom, as well as the camera itself.

A number of antiquities collected by the Prince also are on display for the first time. They include an ancient Egyptian papyrus inscribed with the Amduat, a funerary text which describes the journey of regeneration of Re, the Egyptian sun god, and pottery vessels from an excavation on the island of Rhodes. Also among the objects is a marble fragment from Syria inscribed From the remains of the Christian Quarter at Damascus, May. 1862. Syria, reflecting the devastation caused by the 1860 conflict between the Christian Maronites and the Druze, when the Christian quarter in Damascus was destroyed. A marble bust of Princess Alexandra, who married the Prince the following year, shows her wearing a brooch set with one of the scarabs acquired by the Prince in Egypt, which is also on display.

Sophie Gordon, Royal Collection Trust, curator of the exhibition, said, “Today royal tours are widely photographed, and the pictures are transmitted instantly around the world. Bedford’s photographs were not seen by the public until over a month after the royal party’s return to England, but his presence on the tour was widely reported in the press. The intense interest in his work at the time shows just how innovative and ground-breaking a move it was to invite Bedford to accompany the tour.”

Writer and broadcaster John McCarthy, who has written the foreword to the exhibition publication, said, “The first thing that strikes me about Bedford’s photographs is how good they are. It is only 20 or 30 years after the invention of the medium, and yet the quality of the images is stunning. They manage to bring alive the places the royal party visited, capturing the majesty and romance of what were then largely unvisited sites. One hundred and fifty years on and the Middle East continues to hold our attention – for the wonderful sites, but also for the political landscape in which they are set.

Press release from The Queen’s Gallery

 

Joseph Albert (German, 1825-1886) (photographer) '[The Prince of Wales with Prince Louis of Hesse, and companions, in Munich, February 1862]' 1862

 

Joseph Albert (German, 1825-1886) (photographer)
[The Prince of Wales with Prince Louis of Hesse, and companions, in Munich, February 1862]
1862
Albumen print pasted onto card
Acquired by the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII), 1862
Royal Collection Trust/© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2014

 

A group of eight men, with the Prince of Wales (later Edward VII) at the centre and Prince Louis of Hesse standing on the right. The Prince of Wales rests his hand against his face, while an open book is held in front of him.

This photograph was taken at the beginning of the Prince of Wales’s tour to the Middle East. He travelled out by train through Europe, meeting various dignitaries en route. Prince Louis of Hesse (who was to marry the prince’s sister, Princess Alice, in July 1862) met the royal party in Darmstadt on 8 February 1862. The Prince of Wales and Prince Louis were photographed with a number of the party who accompanied the Prince from Windsor. The Prince wrote about the occasion in his journal, ‘before luncheon we went through the ordeal of being photography by Mr. Albert and the result was very successful’.

 

Francis Bedford (English, 1815-1894) (photographer) 'View through the Great Gateway into the Grand Court of the Temple of Edfou [Temple of Horus, Edfu]' 14 Mar 1862

 

Francis Bedford (English, 1815-1894) (photographer)
View through the Great Gateway into the Grand Court of the Temple of Edfou [Temple of Horus, Edfu]
14 Mar 1862
Albumen print mounted on card
23.5 x 29.2cm
Acquired by the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII), 1862
Royal Collection Trust/© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2014

 

Edfu is the site of an important temple complex to the falcon-headed god Horus, constructed between 237 and 51 BC. The main gateway, properly known as the First Pylon, is covered in carvings showing the Pharaoh Ptolemy XII defeating his enemies in the presence of the god Horus and goddess Hathor, both of whom appear twice, on either side of the gateway.

The photograph is signed, captioned and dated in the negative, ‘F Bedford Edfou’. The number in the Day & Son series is 23.

 

Francis Bedford (English, 1815-1894) (photographer) 'The Great Propylon of the Temple at Edfou [Pylon of the Temple of Horus, Edfu]' 14 Mar 1862

 

Francis Bedford (English, 1815-1894) (photographer)
The Great Propylon of the Temple at Edfou [Pylon of the Temple of Horus, Edfu]
14 Mar 1862
Albumen print, mounted on card
23.4 x 29.0cm
Acquired by the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII), 1862
Royal Collection Trust/© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2014

 

Edfu is the site of an important temple complex to the falcon-headed god Horus, constructed between 237 and 51 BC. The main gateway, properly known as the First Pylon, is covered in carvings showing the Pharaoh Ptolemy XII defeating his enemies in the presence of the god Horus and goddess Hathor, both of whom appear twice, on either side of the gateway.

The photograph is signed, captioned and dated in the negative, ‘F Bedford Edfou’. The number in the Day & Son series is 22.

 

Edfu was one of several temples built during the Ptolemaic period, including Dendera, Esna, Kom Ombo and Philae. Its size reflects the relative prosperity of the time. The present temple, which was begun “on 23 August 237 BC, initially consisted of a pillared hall, two transverse halls, and a barque sanctuary surrounded by chapels.” The building was started during the reign of Ptolemy III and completed in 57 BC under Ptolemy XII. It was built on the site of an earlier, smaller temple also dedicated to Horus, although the previous structure was oriented east-west rather than north-south as in the present site. A ruined pylon lies just to the east of the current temple; inscriptional evidence has been found indicating a building program under the New Kingdom rulers Ramesses I, Seti I and Ramesses II. A naos of Nectanebo II, a relic from an earlier building, is preserved in the inner sanctuary, which stands alone while the temple’s barque sanctuary is surrounded by nine chapels.

The temple of Edfu fell into disuse as a religious monument following Theodosius I’s edict banning non-Christian worship within the Roman Empire in 391. As elsewhere, many of the temple’s carved reliefs were razed by followers of the Christian faith which came to dominate Egypt. The blackened ceiling of the hypostyle hall, visible today, is believed to be the result of arson intended to destroy religious imagery that was then considered pagan.

Over the centuries, the temple became buried to a depth of 12 metres (39 ft) beneath drifting desert sand and layers of river silt deposited by the Nile. Local inhabitants built homes directly over the former temple grounds. Only the upper reaches of the temple pylons were visible by 1798, when the temple was identified by a French expedition. In 1860 Auguste Mariette, a French Egyptologist, began the work of freeing Edfu temple from the sands.

The Temple of Edfu is nearly intact and a very good example of an ancient Egyptian temple. The Temple of Edfu’s archaeological significance and high state of preservation has made it a centre for tourism in Egypt and a frequent stop for the many riverboats that cruise the Nile. In 2005, access to the temple was revamped with the addition of a visitor centre and paved carpark. A sophisticated lighting system was added in late 2006 to allow night visits.

Text from the Wikipedia website

 

Francis Bedford (English, 1815-1894) (photographer) 'Tombs of the Memlooks at Cairo [Mausoleum and Khanqah of Emir Qawsun]' 25 Mar 1862

 

Francis Bedford (English, 1815-1894) (photographer)
Tombs of the Memlooks at Cairo [Mausoleum and Khanqah of Emir Qawsun]
25 Mar 1862
Albumen print, mounted on card
24.1 x 29.0cm
Acquired by the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII), 1862
Royal Collection Trust/© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2014

 

Once the royal party returned to Cairo, Francis Bedford spent some time photographing the sites alone while the Prince undertook a separate programme of events. Bedford visited a number of fine examples of Islamic architecture. Emir Qawsun was one of the most powerful emirs during the 14th century. His tomb and khanqah (a large hall for gatherings for prayer and meditation) were built in 1335-1336.

The photograph is signed, captioned and dated in the negative, ‘F Bedford Cairo’. The number in the Day & Son series is 9.

 

Anonymous photographer. 'View of the Tombs of the Memlook Kings, Cairo, Egypt' Nd

 

Anonymous photographer
View of the Tombs of the Memlook Kings, Cairo, Egypt
Nd
7.75 x 4.2 inches
From the collection of Dr Paula Sanders, Rice University

 

Francis Bedford (English, 1815-1894) (photographer) 'Mosque of Mehemet Ali [Mosque of Muhammad Ali, Cairo]' 8 March 1862

 

Francis Bedford (English, 1815-1894) (photographer)
Mosque of Mehemet Ali [Mosque of Muhammad Ali, Cairo]
8 March 1862
Albumen print, mounted on card
24.8 x 29.5cm
Acquired by the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII), 1862
Royal Collection Trust/© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2014

 

View of Mosque of Mohammed Ali in Cairo, Egypt. Alabaster building seen across square, with 2 tall minarets centre. Single row of columns supporting round arches lining court, left. The mosque was built in the Ottoman style between 1830 and 1848 for the son of the ruler Muhammad Ali Pasha (Mehmet Ali). The Prince of Wales and his party visited the mosque on 3 March 1862. They climbed to the roof to get a view of the town and country, and were able to see the pyramids in the distance. They also visited Mehmet Ali’s tomb within the mosque (he died in 1849).

The photograph is signed, captioned and dated in the negative, ‘F Bedford Cairo’. The number in the Day & Son series is 10.

 

Francis Bedford (English, 1815-1894) (photographer) 'Fountain in the Court of the Mosque of Mehemet Ali [Mosque of Muhammad Ali, Cairo]' 3 Mar 1862

 

Francis Bedford (English, 1815-1894) (photographer)
Fountain in the Court of the Mosque of Mehemet Ali [Mosque of Muhammad Ali, Cairo]
3 Mar 1862
Albumen print, mounted on card
24.8 x 29.6cm
Acquired by the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII), 1862
Royal Collection Trust/© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2014

 

The Prince spent a few days in Cairo before travelling down the Nile. The royal party were taken to visit the Mosque of Muhammad Ali (r. 1805-1848), who was the founder of the dynasty ruling the country at that time. The Mosque, only completed in 1857, remains today one of the most prominent landmarks in the city.

The photographer, Francis Bedford, wrote in his catalogue of this scene, “This light and elegant edifice has long and justly been celebrated as one of the most beautiful fountains in the mosks of Cairo. As is apparent in the Photograph, it is fast hastening to decay; and it is altogether to be lamented that among the inhabitants of modern Egypt so little provision is made for the repair and preservation of interesting monuments of ancient art.” (Bedford photographic catalogue 1862, pp. 4-5).

The photograph is signed, captioned and dated in the negative, ‘F Bedford Cairo’. The number in the Day & Son series is 11.

 

Francis Bedford (English, 1815-1894) (photographer) 'Garden of Gethsemane [Jerusalem]' 2 Apr 1862 

 

Francis Bedford (English, 1815-1894) (photographer)
Garden of Gethsemane [Jerusalem]
2 Apr 1862
Albumen print, mounted on card
21.1 x 29.1cm
Acquired by the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII), 1862
Royal Collection Trust/© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2014

 

The Garden of Gethsemane has always been identified as an olive grove. Here the carefully tended, centuries-old olive trees are easily identified.

The photograph is signed, captioned and dated (incorrectly as 2 March 1862) in the negative, ‘F Bedford Gethsemane’. The number in the Day & Son series is 68.

 

Francis Bedford (English, 1815-1894) (photographer) 'The Mount of Olives and Garden of Gethsemane [Jerusalem]' 2 Apr 1862

 

Francis Bedford (English, 1815-1894) (photographer)
The Mount of Olives and Garden of Gethsemane [Jerusalem]
2 Apr 1862
Albumen print, mounted on card
23.4 x 28.5cm
Acquired by the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII), 1862
Royal Collection Trust/© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2014

 

The Mount of Olives rises to the east of Jerusalem. The walled enclosure to the right contains the site identified as the Garden of Gethsemane. After the Last Supper, Jesus went to the garden where he prayed, accompanied by St Peter, St John and St James the Greater. Jesus was subsequently betrayed by Judas in the garden and arrested.

The photograph is signed, captioned and dated (incorrectly as 2 March 1862) in the negative, ‘F Bedford Jerusalem’. The number in the Day & Son series is 63.

 

Francis Bedford (English, 1815-1894) (photographer) 'West Front of the Mosque of Omar [Dome of the Rock, Jerusalem]' 1 Apr 1862

 

Francis Bedford (English, 1815-1894) (photographer)
West Front of the Mosque of Omar [Dome of the Rock, Jerusalem]
1 Apr 1862
Albumen print, mounted on card
22.3 x 28.2cm
Acquired by the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII), 1862
Royal Collection Trust/© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2014

 

The Islamic shrine was constructed on a site traditionally identified with Solomon’s Temple, which was later replaced with the Second Temple only to be destroyed by the Romans. The Dome of the Rock was constructed between 688 and 691 AD. The ‘rock’ is believed to be the place from where the prophet Muhammad ascended to Heaven in his Night Journey. Other traditions identify the rock as the place where Abraham was asked to sacrifice Isaac.

The photograph is signed, captioned and dated in the negative, ‘F Bedford Jerusalem’. The number in the Day & Son series is 55.

 

Francis Bedford (English, 1815-1894) (photographer) 'Upper Bethoron [Beit Ur al-Foqa and the Valley of Ajalon]' 31 Mar 1862

 

Francis Bedford (English, 1815-1894) (photographer)
Upper Bethoron [Beit Ur al-Foqa and the Valley of Ajalon]
31 Mar 1862
Albumen print, mounted on card
23.1 x 29.0cm
Acquired by the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII), 1862
Royal Collection Trust/© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2014

 

The Royal Yacht reached Jaffa (modern-day Tel Aviv) on 29 March. The following day the royal party set out on horses in the direction of Jerusalem. En route they visited Beit Ur al-Foqa from where they could view the Valley of Ajalon, the site of a famous biblical battle, fought by Joshua, the leader of the Israelites, against the Amorite kings.

The photograph is signed, captioned and dated in the negative, ‘F Bedford Bethoron’. The number in the Day & Son series is 50.

 

Francis Bedford (English, 1815-1894) (photographer) 'Damascus - from a minaret in the Christian quarter [Syria]' 30 Apr 1862

 

Francis Bedford (English, 1815-1894) (photographer)
Damascus – from a minaret in the Christian quarter [Syria]
30 Apr 1862
Albumen print
23.5 x 28.8cm
Acquired by the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII), 1862
Royal Collection Trust/© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2014

 

View across rooftops of dilapidated buildings in Damascus. Minarets and dome of Great Mosque visible in distance, left. The ruins were a consequence of the conflict during the 1860 massacres.

The photograph is signed, captioned and dated in the negative, ‘F Bedford Damascus’. The number in the Day & Son series is 95.

 

Francis Bedford (English, 1815-1894) (photographer) 'The Street called Straight, Damascus' 30 Apr 1862

 

Francis Bedford (1815-1894) (photographer)
The Street called Straight, Damascus
30 Apr 1862
Albumen print
23.8 x 29.0cm
Acquired by the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII), 1862
Royal Collection Trust/© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2014

 

View up Straight Street – narrow lane running between Christian and Jews’ Quarter in Damascus. Buildings either side stand in ruins.

The ‘Street called Straight’ led out of the Christian quarter. Signs of the 1860 conflict are still apparent in the photograph. The street, however, was known as the place where St Paul (formerly Saul) regained his sight and converted to Christianity, having been blinded by holy light three days earlier while travelling on the road to Damascus. The Christian quarter is to the north-east of the street. This reflects a decision made in 636 by Khalid Ibn al-Walid, the Muslim conqueror of Damascus, to retain the orthodox churches in this area and to continue to provide access for the Christians to these buildings.

The photograph is signed, captioned and dated in the negative, ‘F Bedford Damascus’. The number in the Day & Son series is 97.

 

Francis Bedford (English, 1815-1894) (photographer) 'Tower of Galata and part of Turkish burial ground [Istanbul, Turkey]' 21 May 1862

 

Francis Bedford (English, 1815-1894) (photographer)
Tower of Galata and part of Turkish burial ground [Istanbul, Turkey]
21 May 1862
Albumen print mounted on card
23.6 x 28.8cm
Acquired by the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII), 1862
Royal Collection Trust/© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2014

 

View of the Galata Tower, in the Galata district of Constantinople [Istanbul]. The tower was built by the Genoese community in 1348 and was known as the ‘Christea Turris’ [Tower of Christ]. Various restoration works have taken place over the years, and the tower now has a conical turret at the top, rather than the two-storey pavilion seen in the photograph. The Prince of Wales makes no mention in his journal of visiting or climbing the tower. It was not far from the arsenal and the Nusretiye Mosque, which he visited on 21 May 1862.

The photograph is signed and captioned in the negative, ‘F Bedford Constantinople’. See RCIN 2861678 for another print of this image.

 

The Romanesque style tower was built as Christea Turris (Tower of Christ) in 1348 during an expansion of the Genoese colony in Constantinople. Galata Tower was the tallest building in Istanbul at 219 1/2 feet (66.9 m) when it was built in 1348. It was built to replace the old Tower of Galata, an original Byzantine tower named Megalos Pyrgos (English: Great Tower) which controlled the northern end of the massive sea chain that closed the entrance to the Golden Horn. That tower was on a different site and was largely destroyed in 1203, during the Fourth Crusade of 1202-1204.

The upper section of the tower with the conical cap was slightly modified in several restorations during the Ottoman period when it was used as an observation tower for spotting fires. According to the Seyahatname of Ottoman historian and traveller Evliya Çelebi, in circa 1630-1632, Hezarfen Ahmet Çelebi flew as an early intercontinental aviator using artificial wings for gliding from this tower over the Bosphorus to the slopes of Üsküdar on the Anatolian side, nearly six kilometres away. Evliyâ Çelebi also tells of Hezarfen’s brother, Lagari Hasan Çelebi, performing the first flight with a rocket in a conical cage filled with gunpowder in 1633.

Starting from 1717 the Ottomans began to use the tower for spotting fires in the city. In 1794, during the reign of Sultan Selim III, the roof of the tower made of lead and wood, and the stairs were severely damaged by a fire. Another fire damaged the building in 1831, upon which a new restoration work took place.

In 1875, during a storm, the conical roof on the top of the building was destroyed. The tower remained without this conical roof for the rest of the Ottoman period. Many years later, during the restoration works between 1965 and 1967, the conical roof was reconstructed. During this final restoration in the 1960s, the wooden interior of the tower was replaced by a concrete structure and it was commercialised and opened to the public.

Text from the Wikipedia website

 

Francis Bedford (English, 1815-1894) (photographer) 'Rhodes, supposed site of the Colossus' 15 May 1862

 

Francis Bedford (English, 1815-1894) (photographer)
Rhodes, supposed site of the Colossus
15 May 1862
Albumen print mounted on card
22.6 x 29.0cm
Acquired by the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII), 1862
Royal Collection Trust/© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2014

 

The Colossus of Rhodes, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, was said to have straddled the entrance to the harbour into Rhodes Town. The Colossus was a statue of the Titan Helios, standing at about 30 m (107 ft) high. It was constructed to commemorate an unsuccessful siege of the island in 305 BC.

The photograph is signed and captioned in the negative, ‘F Bedford Rhodes’.

 

Francis Bedford (English, 1815-1894) (photographer) 'Entrance to the Grotto of Antiparos' 16 May 1862

 

Francis Bedford (English, 1815-1894) (photographer)
Entrance to the Grotto of Antiparos
16 May 1862
Albumen print mounted on card
22.5 x 28.6cm
Acquired by the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII), 1862
Royal Collection Trust/© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2014

 

The Grotto, or ‘Great Cave’, on the small island of Antiparos, has been a tourist attraction for hundreds of years. The Prince of Wales described his visit, “A ride of 45 minutes brought us to the entrance of a large grotto or cave which is 60 fathoms in depth. We descended it by means of rope and rope ladders, and it was by no means an easy job. … There are some very fine stalactites in the cave.”

The photograph is signed and captioned in the negative, ‘F Bedford Antiparos’. See RCIN 2861673 for another print of this image.

 

Francis Bedford (English, 1815-1894) (photographer) Photographic title page: 'Photographic Pictures made by Mr Francis Bedford during the Tour in the East' 1862

 

Francis Bedford (English, 1815-1894) (photographer)
Photographic title page: ‘Photographic Pictures made by Mr Francis Bedford during the Tour in the East’
1862
Albumen print on original mount
25.8 x 21.3 cm
Acquired by HM The Queen, 2006
Royal Collection Trust/© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2014

 

Photographic title page from Francis Bedford’s Middle East views of 1862. Includes a copy of Bedford’s view of the ‘Mosque of Omar from the Governor’s House’ in Jerusalem

 

Joseph Albert (English, 1825-1886) (photographer) '[The Prince of Wales and Prince Louis of Hesse, 11 February 1862]' Feb 1862

 

Joseph Albert (English, 1825-1886) (photographer)
[The Prince of Wales and Prince Louis of Hesse, 11 February 1862]
Feb 1862
Albumen print pasted on card
Commissioned and acquired by the Prince of Wales while travelling through Europe, 1862
Royal Collection Trust/© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2014

 

A carte-de-visite portrait of the Prince of Wales (right) with Prince Louis of Hesse (Grand Duke Ludwig IV). Prince Louis was engaged to marry the Prince’s sister, Princess Alice.

This photograph was taken when the Prince was travelling across Europe in order to meet the royal yacht at Venice, in order to commence his tour of the Middle East. Both princes wear overcoats and hats, and are smoking cigarettes; the Prince of Wales is holding a cane. The Prince later wrote about this occasion in his journal, “Before luncheon we went through the ordeal of being photographed by Mr Albert and the result was very successful” (11 February 1862).

 

 

The Queen’s Gallery
Buckingham Palace Road,
London SW1A 1AA, United Kingdom
Phone: +44 20 7766 7300

Opening hours:
10.00 – 17.30
Closed Tuesdays and Wednesdays

The Queen’s Gallery website

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Exhibition: ‘Storyteller: The Photographs of Duane Michals’ at Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh

Exhibition dates: 1st November 2014 – 16th February 2015

 

Duane Michals (American, b. 1932) 'A Letter from My Father' 1960/1975

 

Duane Michals (American, b. 1932)
A Letter from My Father
1960/1975
Gelatin silver print with hand-applied text
Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh
Courtesy of the Artist and DC Moore Gallery

 

 

Exposing your/self


Viva Michals! Viva Michals!

Magician, poet, storyteller, philosopher and dreamer.

Not for him the overblown statement (huge prints the size of billboards) but small, dark, rough prints assembled in photo-sequences, often incorporating text, that examine the human condition in every aspect. This is emotional work and Michals has a unique style and voice as an artist. You always know that you are looking at a sequence by Michals, for his signature is that distinctive.

As he says, his work goes beyond description, beyond surfaces, to reveal the subject – not as it looks but as it feels. In his sequences he usually achieves this by posing a question that has no answer, a question that is like a Zen koan… what is the sound of one hand clapping? The grandfather ascends smilingly to heaven with little wings on his back as the child waves goodbye (if youth knew, if age could); the man as human condition turns into a galaxy; and the spirit leaves the body as it was left before.

Various Michals sequences, such as The Spirit Leaves The Body (1968, below), have a circular construction. Another sequence, Things are Queer (1973, below) is also a circular spatio-temporal enigma where instead of moving forward, the camera and the viewer are pulled backwards in a space-time continuum… where Michals forces you to question what reality really is. These two sequences are my personal favourites, and I had to scour the internet to find images for them as you rarely see them online.

His most famous sequence, the one that you see most often, is Chance Meeting (1970, below) – again an open-ended, intimate but puzzling encounter with a reflection of the self. Michals sequences are full of ghosts, uncommon intimacies, nubile females and delicious males (Michals is gay and has just celebrated his 54th anniversary with his partner). Dealing “with topics such as death, desire, and the passage of time” his work peers inward to examine “his own thoughts and dreams, to blur the lines between photography and philosophy.”

All is not sunshine and light, and I feel that there is a nebulous, obsidian energy hovering not too far below the surface. The photographs have high contrast and the subjects are very closely framed, giving the sequences an almost claustrophobic quality, as though you are having the life, the energy gently yet forcibly manipulated around you. The photographs rarely breathe freely and you feel as though you are almost trapped within their spaces.

Then there is the text. Never used to excess in the sequences (the title does that job alone), the singular images are extended into a longer narrative by biting, poignant words – sentences that utter harsh truths and tell it how it really is. I can’t look at the image and read that text from A Letter from My Father (1960 / 1975, above) without thinking of my abusive father and wondering what happened to his love – whether he hadn’t hidden it, he just didn’t have any to start with. For any child inside an adult who has been abused, the image cuts to the bone.


Michals staged, narrative scenes take us on a journey into his reality, one which “has entered a realm beyond observation.” He poses difficult questions that force us to examine ideas beyond the world of phenomena, beyond the world of surfaces. He challenges our repressed inner lives and our idealised image of ourselves, disturbing the boundaries of personality, ego, and identity.1 He wrestles with Sartre’s noumenal world (the world of the subconscious, dreams), the “being-in-itself” or sometimes simply “the in-itself,” as Sartre calls it (what Kant called the noumenal world), where Sartre does not see man comfortably installed in the world.

“All of us, says Sartre, have a “pre-ontological comprehension” of being-in-itself, that is to say, an opaque, inarticulate, but very real sense of its presence and nature. The world is but a “varnish” on the surface of the being-in-itself; or, changing the metaphor, the world is but a “thin crust” of meaning which we impose upon being-in-itself. Ordinarily this thin crust of meaning conceals the in-itself and obscures our awareness of it, but the anguish of being is always there just below the surface of daily consciousness, and from time to time it breaks through to the surface, presenting being-in-itself without disguise.”2


This is what Michals attunes himself to, an examination of the in-itself, one that impacts on our internal poetic understandings of space and time. In his malleable daydreams Michals proffers a ‘releasement toward things’, the glimpsing of a coexistence between a conscious and unconscious way of perceiving which enables the seeing of the ‘Thing Itself’. As Heidegger observes,

“We stand at once within the realm of that which hides itself from us, and hides itself just in approaching us. That which shows itself and at the same time withdraws is the essential trait of what we call the mystery… Releasement towards things and openness to the mystery belong together. They grant us the possibility of dwelling in the world in a totally different way…”3


It is Michals great skill as an artist and a human being that enables us the possibility of accessing some aspect of the mystery of our existence.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

 

Footnotes

1/ As discussed in Magee, Bryan. Confessions of a Philosopher. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1997, pp. 405-406

2/ Olsen, Robert. An Introduction to Existentialism. Dover Publications, New York, 1962, p. 39

3/ Heidegger, Martin. Discourse on Thinking. New York: Harper & Row, 1966, pp. 55-56 quoted in Baracco, Mauro. “Completed Yet Unconcluded: The Poetic Resistance of Some Melbourne Architecture,” in van Schaik, Leon (ed.,). Architectural Design Vol. 72, No. 2 (‘Poetics in Architecture’). London: John Wiley and Sons, 2002, p. 74. Footnote 6.


Many thankx to the Carnegie Museum of Art for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

 

 

“Who gives a fuck about what he had for breakfast? These are stylistic ticks. The digital has changed the paradigms of photography. I had an opening in Boston and this woman had a little camera with her and kept exclaiming, ‘Everything is a photograph!’ That’s the problem. The bar has been lowered so much in photography now…”


“Photographers tend not to photograph what they can’t see, which is the very reason one should try to attempt it. Otherwise we’re going to go on forever just photographing more faces and more rooms and more places. Photography has to transcend description. It has to go beyond description to bring insight into the subject, or reveal the subject, not as it looks, but how does it feel?”


“I don’t trust reality. So all of the writing on and painting on the photographs is born out of the frustration to express what you do not see.”


Duane Michals

 

 

Duane Michals (American, b. 1932) 'Cavafy Cheats Playing Strip Poker' 2004

 

Duane Michals (American, b. 1932)
Cavafy Cheats Playing Strip Poker
2004
12 Gelatin silver prints with hand applied text
5″ x 7″ each

 

This series of photographs was inspired by the poem The Windows by Constantine Cavafy:

In these dark rooms where I live out empty days,

I wander round and round trying to find the windows.

But the windows are not to be found – 
or at least I can’t find them.
And perhaps
it is better that way.

Perhaps the light will prove another tyranny.

Who knows what new things it will expose?

 

Duane Michals (American, b. 1932) 'Chance Meeting' 1970

Duane Michals (American, b. 1932) 'Chance Meeting' 1970

Duane Michals (American, b. 1932) 'Chance Meeting' 1970

Duane Michals (American, b. 1932) 'Chance Meeting' 1970

Duane Michals (American, b. 1932) 'Chance Meeting' 1970

Duane Michals (American, b. 1932) 'Chance Meeting' 1970

 

Duane Michals (American, b. 1932)
Chance Meeting
1970
Six gelatin silver prints
Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh
Courtesy of the Artist and DC Moore Gallery

 

Duane Michals (American, b. 1932) 'Things are Queer' 1973

Duane Michals (American, b. 1932) 'Things are Queer' 1973

Duane Michals (American, b. 1932) 'Things are Queer' 1973

Duane Michals (American, b. 1932) 'Things are Queer' 1973

Duane Michals (American, b. 1932) 'Things are Queer' 1973

Duane Michals (American, b. 1932) 'Things are Queer' 1973

Duane Michals (American, b. 1932) 'Things are Queer' 1973

Duane Michals (American, b. 1932) 'Things are Queer' 1973

Duane Michals (American, b. 1932) 'Things are Queer' 1973

 

Duane Michals (American, b. 1932)
Things are Queer
1973
Nine gelatin silver prints
Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh
Courtesy of the Artist and DC Moore Gallery

 

Duane Michals (American, b. 1932) 'Grandpa Goes to Heaven' 1989

Duane Michals (American, b. 1932) 'Grandpa Goes to Heaven' 1989

Duane Michals (American, b. 1932) 'Grandpa Goes to Heaven' 1989

Duane Michals (American, b. 1932) 'Grandpa Goes to Heaven' 1989

Duane Michals (American, b. 1932) 'Grandpa Goes to Heaven' 1989

 

Duane Michals (American, b. 1932)
Grandpa Goes to Heaven
1989
Five gelatin silver prints with hand applied text
Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh
Courtesy of the Artist and DC

 

 

“The best part of us is not what we see, it’s what we feel. We are what we feel. We are not what we look at… We’re not our eyeballs, we’re our mind. People believe their eyeballs and they’re totally wrong… That’s why I consider most photographs extremely boring – just like Muzak, inoffensive, charming, another waterfall, another sunset. This time, colours have been added to protect the innocent. It’s just boring. But that whole arena of one’s experience – grief, loneliness – how do you photograph lust? I mean, how do you deal with these things? This is what you are, not what you see. It’s all sitting up here. I could do all my work sitting in my room. I don’t have to go anywhere.”


Duane Michals

 

 

Opening November 1, 2014, at Carnegie Museum of Art (CMOA), Storyteller: The Photographs of Duane Michals is the definitive retrospective and the largest-ever presentation of this innovative artist’s work. Drawing from select loans and the museum’s holdings, which constitute the largest single collection of Michals’s output, and spanning six decades, the works in Storyteller include classic sequences from the early 1970s as well as rarely seen images from later in his career.

Born in 1932 and raised in a steelworker family in McKeesport, Pennsylvania, Michals broke away from established traditions of documentary and fine art photography in the 1960s when he added handwritten messages and poems to prints, produced multi-image narrative sequences, and experimented with double- and triple-exposures. His work was poignant and unabashedly sentimental, flying in the face of the dominant photographic aesthetics of the time.

Storyteller unfolds in thematic groupings that range from portraiture to meditations on the mind’s interior world; from childhood and imagination to desire and death. Michals’s love of two very different cities, Pittsburgh and Paris, is evident in sections exploring the beauty, quirks, and particularities of these places. He has riffed on, critiqued, and crossed paths with countless artists, including René Magritte, Cindy Sherman, Joseph Cornell, Robert Frank, Andreas Gursky, Andy Warhol, and others, and a section of the exhibition brings to light the admiration and acerbic wit in Michals’s engagements with other creative minds.

“The exhibition is designed to acquaint the visitor with the many themes that Michals explored over more than half a century,” says curator of photography Linda Benedict-Jones. “Well known sequences such as Paradise Regained and Chance Meeting greet the viewer first, followed by engaging and sometimes surprising Children’s Stories. A section called The Mind’s Eye shows Michals’s absorption with photographing things that cannot actually be seen, such as A Man Going to Heaven or The Human Condition. We could not present Storyteller chronologically, because Michals revisits themes often. One theme, Painted Expression, shows how, in two distinct periods of his life – in the early 1980s and again in 2012 – Michals has picked up a brush to apply oil paint to both black-and-white photographic prints as well as most recently to 19th century tintypes, resulting in unique, one-of-a-kind photographic works. His creative energy is boundless and readily apparent when seen in a large retrospective display.”

“I’m a storyteller,” he often states as he begins a talk in public – equally interested in the moments before and after the “decisive moment” (a term coined by famed photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson). “When I began to do sequences, it wasn’t because I thought it was cool and the latest thing. I did it out of frustration with the still photograph.” He has observed that his practice aims to transcend mere appearances: “I’m not interested in what something looks like, I want to know what it feels like… My reality has entered a realm beyond observation.” This approach can be seen throughout his career, from early, carefully staged sequences, to hand-painted gelatin silver prints and tintypes, revealing the artist’s hand at work long after the image is captured.

According to curator of photography Linda Benedict-Jones, who organised Storyteller, “Duane Michals is a sensitive and provocative artist who has followed his own unique path. His way of staging narrative scenes, then recording them with a 35mm camera, represented a fresh approach to the medium. This, combined with an uncommon intimacy when dealing with topics such as death, desire, and the passage of time, set him apart as an image-maker.”

Storyteller also touches upon Michals’s extensive portfolio of commercial photography and portraiture, which spans several decades, and includes assignments for Neiman Marcus, Esquire, Vogue, and Gap, as well as commissioned portraits of such figures as Nancy Reagan, Sting, and Willem de Kooning.

CMOA, a fixture in Michals’s artistic upbringing, has acquired 139 of his works, ranging from his earliest images made in Russia in 1958 to hand-painted tintypes that he began creating in 2012. Michals, in turn, has always felt an attachment to Pittsburgh, a subject of many of his photographs, and of two books, the sequence The House I Once Called Home (2003) and poetry collection A Pittsburgh Poem (2013). Lending institutions to Storyteller include Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Museum of Fine Arts (Houston), Musée des Beaux Arts (Montreal), High Museum of Art (Atlanta), and Museum of Modern Art (New York). Even longtime admirers of the artist may be unfamiliar with several of his bodies of work, and an examination of this full range is long overdue: while Michals has been championed in several solo exhibitions throughout Europe in the past decade, this is his first major museum exhibition in North America since 1998.

Storyteller also touches upon Michals’s extensive portfolio of commercial photography and portraiture, which spans several decades, and includes assignments for Neiman Marcus, Esquire, Vogue, and Gap, as well as commissioned portraits of such figures as Nancy Reagan, Sting, and Willem de Kooning.

Presented alongside Storyteller will be the exhibition Duane Michals: Collector, which highlights works from Michals’s private art collection that are promised gifts to the museum. The eclectic array of objects, ranging from 1799 to 1999, and from Francisco de Goya to André Kertész to Mark Tansey, will be united by Michals’s unique take on the artists, the artworks, and their influence on his own practice. Organised by associate curator of fine arts Amanda Zehnder, Duane Michals: Collector will further contextualise his work from an unusually personal perspective.

Storyteller: The Photographs of Duane Michals represents a refreshing, much-needed reexamination of a historically significant photographer. Michals’s pioneering photography infused the medium with a personal, critical approach that translates universally. In an art world that feels at times jaded and detached, his images retain the same moving, affecting impact that they commanded decades ago.

Press release from the Carnegie Museum of Art

 

 

Photographer Duane Michals Talks About His Career

Internationally-renowned photographer Duane Michals discusses his eight-decade life and career as a self-described “expressionist.” His work is known for its innovative narrative sequencing and iconic use of text and image. During a period when photography looked out to the world around us, Michals redefined the medium by peering inward to his own thoughts and dreams to blur the lines between photography and philosophy.

 

Duane Michals (American, b. 1932) 'The Spirit Leaves The Body' 1968

Duane Michals (American, b. 1932) 'The Spirit Leaves The Body' 1968

Duane Michals (American, b. 1932) 'The Spirit Leaves The Body' 1968

Duane Michals (American, b. 1932) 'The Spirit Leaves The Body' 1968

Duane Michals (American, b. 1932) 'The Spirit Leaves The Body' 1968

Duane Michals (American, b. 1932) 'The Spirit Leaves The Body' 1968

Duane Michals (American, b. 1932) 'The Spirit Leaves The Body' 1968

 

Duane Michals (American, b. 1932)
The Spirit Leaves The Body
1968
Seven gelatin silver prints with hand applied text
Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh
Courtesy of the Artist and DC Moore Gallery

 

Duane Michals (American, b. 1932) 'The Young Girl’s Dream' 1969

Duane Michals (American, b. 1932) 'The Young Girl’s Dream' 1969

Duane Michals (American, b. 1932) 'The Young Girl’s Dream' 1969

Duane Michals (American, b. 1932) 'The Young Girl’s Dream' 1969

Duane Michals (American, b. 1932) 'The Young Girl’s Dream' 1969

 

Duane Michals (American, b. 1932)
The Young Girl’s Dream
1969
Five gelatin silver prints with hand applied text
Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh
Courtesy of the Artist and DC Moore Gallery

 

Duane Michals (American, b. 1932) 'Magritte with Hat' 1965

 

Duane Michals (American, b. 1932)
Magritte with Hat
1965
Gelatin silver print with hand applied text
Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh
Courtesy of the Artist and DC Moore Gallery

 

Duane Michals (American, b. 1932) 'Magritte with Hat' 1965 (detail)

 

Duane Michals (American, b. 1932)
Magritte with Hat (detail)
1965
Gelatin silver print with hand applied text
Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh
Courtesy of the Artist and DC Moore Gallery

 

Duane Michals (American, b. 1932) 'This Photograph Is My Proof' 1967

 

Duane Michals (American, b. 1932)
This Photograph Is My Proof
1967
Gelatin silver print with hand-applied text
The Henry L. Hillman Fund, Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh
Courtesy of the Artist and DC Moore Gallery

 

Duane Michals (American, b. 1932) 'Young Soldiers Dream in the Garden of the Dead with Flowers Growing from Their Heads' 1995

 

Duane Michals (American, b. 1932)
Young Soldiers Dream in the Garden of the Dead with Flowers Growing from Their Heads
1995
From the series Salute, Walt Whitman
Gelatin silver print
The Henry L. Hillman Fund
Courtesy of Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh

 

Duane Michals (American, b. 1932) 'The Human Condition' 1969

 

Duane Michals (American, b. 1932)
The Human Condition
1969
Six gelatin silver prints with hand applied text
Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh
Courtesy of the Artist and DC Moore Gallery

 

Duane Michals (American, b. 1932) 'Rigamarole' 2012

 

Duane Michals (American, b. 1932)
Rigamarole
2012
Tintype with oil paint
The William T. Hillman Fund for Photography
Carnegie Museum of Art,Pittsburgh
Courtesy of the Artist and DC Moore Gallery

 

 

Carnegie Museum of Art
4400 Forbes Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA 15213

Opening hours:
Monday: 10am – 5pm
Tuesday: Closed
Wednesday: 10am – 5pm
Thursday: 10am – 8pm
Friday: 10am – 5pm
Saturday: 10am – 5pm
Sunday: noon – 5pm

Carnegie Museum of Art website

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Exhibition: ‘Bruce Davidson / Paul Caponigro: Two American Photographers in Britain and Ireland’ at The Huntington Library, San Marino, CA

Exhibition dates: 8th November 2014 – 9th February 2015

Curators: Scott Wilcox and Jennifer A. Watts

 

Paul Caponigro (American, 1932-2024) 'Avebury, Wiltshire, England' 1967

 

Paul Caponigro (American, 1932-2024)
Avebury, Wiltshire, England
1967
Gelatin silver print
9 3/8 × 13 1/8 in.
© Paul Caponigro

 

 

Individually, the work of these two photographers is outstanding, but together?

The premise for the exhibition (two American photographers in Britain and Ireland) seems weak, tenuous at best. The exhibition focuses on the contrasting styles of the two photographers – Davidson is a photojournalist and Caponigro practices a pure, formalist approach to landscape photography – “as they trained American eyes on enduring landscapes and changing cultural scenes… “Britain and Ireland are the countries to which each man embarked on significant creative journeys in the course of refining his art.” (Jennifer A. Watts)”

But is this enough? For example, the ground breaking exhibition Caravaggio – Bacon at Gallery Borghese, Rome in 2009-2010 offered the viewer something that they had never thought about before: “Instinctively, intellectually we know how the paintings of a Baroque artist of the early 17th century affect how we look at the paintings of Bacon. This exhibition offers the reverse, in fact it rewrites how we look at Caravaggio – through the benediction of Bacon.”

Here no such revelation occurs. You could argue that the connection lies outside photography in a concern for what is present in the landscape, what is present in a community, what is present beyond bricks and mortar, leaves and rocks – what is our place in the world, full stop. But the work of the artists is so different, one from the other, that this diffident relationship is strained at best. No wonder these humans had never met before the opening of the exhibition, for they seem artistically to have little in common.

I have tried to sequence the photographs in the posting, so that they might have some reflection, some conversation one to the other: the presence of The Duke of Argyll, fag in hand kitted out in traditional Scottish attire, and the grandness of his residence playing off the darkness, isolation and simplicity of the house in Caponigro’s Connemara, County Galway, Ireland; the luminous stones in Stonehenge, Wiltshire, England becoming the dark edged reflections in Davidson’s London (1960); and the church in Caponigro’s Church, St. MacDara’s Island, County Galway, Ireland morphing into the temple of the British sun, the beach holiday, in Davidson’s Blackpool (1965) – but it is hard work.

Best to just enjoy the photographs individually, especially Caponigro’s glorious paen to ancient forces Avebury, Wiltshire, England (1967, above). The life force of the tree, the life force of the stone – the communion of those two things with the landscape – with sheep in the background. A friend of mine (Ian Lobb) who knows Caponigro told me that he said he never travelled anywhere without a blow up sheep in the back of the car.

Dr Marcus Bunyan


Many thankx to the The Huntington Library for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

 

 

Bruce Davidson (American, b. 1933) 'Brighton' 1960

 

Bruce Davidson (American, b. 1933)
Brighton
1960
Gelatin silver print
8 3/4 ×12 7/8 in.
Yale Center for British Art, Gift of Ralph and Nancy Segall
© Bruce Davidson/Magnum Photos

 

Paul Caponigro (American, 1932-2024) 'Callanish Stone Circle, Isle of Lewis, Outer Hebrides, Scotland' 1972

 

Paul Caponigro (American, 1932-2024)
Callanish Stone Circle, Isle of Lewis, Outer Hebrides, Scotland
1972
Gelatin silver print
17 1/4 × 23 3/4 in.
© Paul Caponigro

 

Paul Caponigro (American, 1932-2024) 'Stonehenge, Wiltshire, England' 1967

 

Paul Caponigro (American, 1932-2024)
Stonehenge, Wiltshire, England
1967
Gelatin silver print
17 × 23 3/8 in.
© Paul Caponigro

 

Bruce Davidson (American, b. 1933) 'The Duke of Argyll, Inverary, Scotland' 1960

 

Bruce Davidson (American, b. 1933)
The Duke of Argyll, Inverary, Scotland
1960
Gelatin silver print
9 × 13 1/4 in.
Yale Center for British Art, Gift of Ralph and Nancy Segall
© Bruce Davidson/Magnum Photos

 

Paul Caponigro (American, 1932-2024) 'Connemara, County Galway, Ireland' 1970

 

Paul Caponigro (American, 1932-2024)
Connemara, County Galway, Ireland
1970
Gelatin silver print
9 1/2 × 12 1/8 in.
© Paul Caponigro

 

Bruce Davidson (American, b. 1933) 'Wales' 1965

 

Bruce Davidson (American, b. 1933)
Wales
1965
Gelatin silver print
8 1/4 × 12 1/2 in.
Yale Center for British Art, Gift of Henry S. Hacker, Yale BA 1965
© Bruce Davidson/Magnum Photos

 

Bruce Davidson (American, b. 1933) 'Wales' 1965

 

Bruce Davidson (American, b. 1933)
Wales
1965
Gelatin silver print
8 3/8 × 12 5/8 in.
Yale Center for British Art, Gift of Henry S. Hacker, Yale BA 1965
© Bruce Davidson/Magnum Photos

 

Paul Caponigro (American, 1932-2024) 'Running White Deer, Wicklow, Ireland' 1967

 

Paul Caponigro (American, 1932-2024)
Running White Deer, Wicklow, Ireland
1967
Gelatin silver print
7 1/2 × 19 1/8 in.
© Paul Caponigro

 

Paul Caponigro (American, 1932-2024) 'Stonehenge, Wiltshire, England' 1977

 

Paul Caponigro (American, 1932-2024)
Stonehenge, Wiltshire, England
1977
Gelatin silver print
13 5/8 × 19 in.
© Paul Caponigro

 

Bruce Davidson (American, b. 1933) 'London' 1960

 

Bruce Davidson (American, b. 1933)
London
1960
Gelatin silver print
8 5/8 × 12 7/8 in.
Yale Center for British Art, Friends of British Art Fund
© Bruce Davidson/Magnum Photos

 

Bruce Davidson (American, b. 1933) 'Wales' 1965

 

Bruce Davidson (American, b. 1933)
Wales
1965
Gelatin silver print
8 3/8 × 12 1/2 in.
Yale Center for British Art, Gift of Henry S. Hacker, Yale BA 1965
© Bruce Davidson/Magnum Photos

 

Bruce Davidson (American, b. 1933) 'Wales' 1965

 

Bruce Davidson (American, b. 1933)
Wales
1965
Gelatin silver print
8 1/4 × 12 1/2 in.
Yale Center for British Art, Gift of Henry S. Hacker, Yale BA 1965
© Bruce Davidson/Magnum Photos

 

Paul Caponigro (American, 1932-2024) 'Tralee Bay, County Kerry, Ireland' 1977

 

Paul Caponigro (American, 1932-2024)
Tralee Bay, County Kerry, Ireland
1977
Gelatin silver print
9 5/8 × 13 1/4 in.
© Paul Caponigro

 

 

Bruce Davidson/Paul Caponigro: Two American Photographers in Britain and Ireland is set to open at The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens on Nov. 8 after a successful run at the Yale Center for British Art in New Haven over the summer. Focusing on the contrasting styles of two of the greatest American photographers of their generation, the exhibition of 128 works by Paul Caponigro (b. 1932) and Bruce Davidson (b. 1933) showcases their photography of Britain and Ireland beginning in 1960. It will be presented in a newly designed installation in the MaryLou and George Boone Gallery through March 9, 2015.

Davidson traveled to England and Scotland in 1960, where he brought the same gritty street sensibility that had made his photography a sensation in the United States. Caponigro went to Ireland and Britain in 1966 on a prestigious Guggenheim fellowship. Those countries became sites of creative energy to which he returned repeatedly in the 1960s and beyond. The exhibition examines the work of the two virtuosic photographers as they trained American eyes on enduring landscapes and changing cultural scenes.

“This is the first exhibition to pair these influential contemporaries who followed overlapping yet distinct creative paths,” said Jennifer A. Watts, the exhibition’s co-curator and curator of photographs at The Huntington. “Britain and Ireland are the countries to which each man embarked on significant creative journeys in the course of refining his art. How fitting, then, to bring these works to The Huntington, where we have one of the strongest collections of British art and historical materials in the country.”

The exhibition is also curated by Scott Wilcox, chief curator of art collections and senior curator of prints and drawings at the Yale Center for British Art. Watts and Wilcox also coauthored a richly illustrated catalog of the exhibition, published by Yale University Press.

The Artists and Their Work in Britain and Ireland

While Caponigro and Davidson were acquainted with each other’s work, the two had never met until the opening of the exhibition in New Haven.

Davidson is a photojournalist and member of the prestigious Magnum Agency; Caponigro practices a pure, formalist approach to landscape photography. Both are devoted to black-and-white film and continue to make prints by hand. And both of them produced important bodies of work in Britain and Ireland beginning in 1960.

In trips to Britain in 1960 and 1965, Davidson created an evocative and sometimes tongue-in-cheek portrait of the British people at work and play. During numerous visits starting in 1967, Caponigro focused on the ancient stone circles, dolmens, and early churches in the British and Celtic landscape. “There’s a force in the land and it’s intelligent” became Caponigro’s mantra and guide. He returned repeatedly to the United Kingdom and Ireland (his latest photographs in the exhibition are from 1993).

Paul Caponigro was born in Boston, a shy child in a boisterous Italian-American family. Drafted into the Army in 1953, he was sent to San Francisco and eventually fell under the influence of Ansel Adams, Edward Weston, and other luminaries of the Bay Area school, a loose affiliation of photographers who took the natural landscape as their subject and used razor-sharp focus and superb printing techniques as expressive tools. In 1966, he went to Ireland and Britain on a Guggenheim grant. He had intended to travel to Egypt, but unrest in the Middle East interrupted his plans. “Ireland became my Egypt,” he said, “and the stones my temples.”

That year marked the beginning of a sustained relationship with places that significantly shaped his career. He returned a dozen times over the next decade.

Bruce Davidson grew up in suburban Chicago and purchased his first camera as a young boy. In 1952, he enrolled in the Rochester Institute of Technology in upstate New York, encountering there the work of Henri Cartier-Bresson and Robert Frank. The spontaneity and emotional depth of their pictures proved a revelation.

In the late 1950s, Davidson was invited to join Magnum, the elite organisation of photojournalists founded by Cartier-Bresson, Robert Capa, and several others. He received wide acclaim with the publication in 1960 of Brooklyn Gang, a series featuring a notorious group of streetwise teens. He left the United States shortly thereafter for England and Scotland on a two-month assignment for British magazine The Queen.

He would return to the United Kingdom periodically thereafter, producing photography documenting a range of people in diverse settings, including Blackpool, the mining districts of southern Wales, and a traveling circus in rural Ireland.

 

Still Looking (excerpt)

 

Installation

The installation will divide the gallery into two separate but equal sections devoted to each artist’s work. Davidson’s photographs are organised according to the four trips he made on assignment between 1960 and 1967. Caponigro’s work will be seen in geographic sections that account for the numerous trips he made to the British Isles over more than two decades. The Huntington’s presentation of the show will incorporate two recently acquired Caponigro prints. (The institution also holds a substantial collection of Caponigro’s work that focuses on California and the West.)

Still Looking, a film featuring both photographers and produced exclusively for the exhibition, is installed in a separate room of the exhibition and is also posted online. Created in early 2014 by Huntington filmmaker Kate Lain, the 16-minute film is a series of evocative moments with Davidson and Caponigro on location in their respective homes in New York City and Maine.”

Press release from The Huntington Library website

 

Still Looking

 

Bruce Davidson (American, b. 1933) 'Trafalgar Square, London' 1960

 

Bruce Davidson (American, b. 1933)
Trafalgar Square, London
1960
Gelatin silver print
13 1/4 × 8 7/8 in.
Yale Center for British Art, Friends of British Art Fund
© Bruce Davidson/Magnum Photos

 

Paul Caponigro (American, 1932-2024) 'Trethevy Quoit, Cornwall, England' 1977

 

Paul Caponigro (American, 1932-2024)
Trethevy Quoit, Cornwall, England
1977
Gelatin silver print
19 × 13 1/2 in.
© Paul Caponigro

 

Paul Caponigro (American, 1932-2024) 'Church, St. MacDara’s Island, County Galway, Ireland' 1989

 

Paul Caponigro (American, 1932-2024)
Church, St. MacDara’s Island, County Galway, Ireland
1989
Gelatin silver print
19 1/8 × 14 in.
© Paul Caponigro

 

Bruce Davidson (American, b. 1933) 'Blackpool' 1965

 

Bruce Davidson (American, b. 1933)
Blackpool
1965
Gelatin silver print
12 7/8 × 8 3/4 in.
Yale Center for British Art, Gift of Henry S. Hacker, Yale BA 1965
© Bruce Davidson/Magnum Photos

 

Bruce Davidson (American, b. 1933) 'Brighton' 1960

 

Bruce Davidson (American, b. 1933)
Brighton
1960
Gelatin silver print
13 1/4 × 8 7/8 in.
Yale Center for British Art, Gift of Ralph and Nancy Segall
© Bruce Davidson/Magnum Photos

 

Bruce Davidson (American, b. 1933) 'London' 1960

 

Bruce Davidson (American, b. 1933)
London
1960
Gelatin silver print
13 1/4 × 9 in.
Yale Center for British Art, Gift of Richard S. and Jeanne Press
© Bruce Davidson/Magnum Photos

 

Paul Caponigro (American, 1932-2024) 'Dead Calf in the Sand, County Kerry, Ireland' 1993

 

Paul Caponigro (American, 1932-2024)
Dead Calf in the Sand, County Kerry, Ireland
1993
Gelatin silver print
18 1/8 × 13 in.
© Paul Caponigro

 

Bruce Davidson (American, b. 1933) 'Albert Hall, London' 1960

 

Bruce Davidson (American, b. 1933)
Albert Hall, London
1960
Gelatin silver print
13 × 8 7/8 in.
Yale Center for British Art, Friends of British Art Fund
© Bruce Davidson/Magnum Photos

 

Paul Caponigro (American, 1932-2024) 'Reefert Church, Glendalough, County Wicklow, Ireland' 1988

 

Paul Caponigro (American, 1932-2024)
Reefert Church, Glendalough, County Wicklow, Ireland
1988
Gelatin silver print
19 × 13 1/4 in.
© Paul Caponigro

 

 

The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens
1151 Oxford Road San Marino, CA 91108

Opening hours:
Wed – Mon 10am – 5pm
Closed Tuesdays

The Huntington Library website

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Exhibition: ‘Marc Chagall – A Retrospective 1908-1985’ at the Palazzo Reale, Milan

Exhibition dates: 17th September 2014 – 1st February 2015

 

Marc Chagall (French born Russia, 1887-1985) 'Figura davanti alla volta blu' 1911

 

Marc Chagall (French born Russia, 1887-1985)
Figura davanti alla volta blu
1911
Gouache on paper

 

 

A bumper posting on this glorious artist – another who, too late, realised the threat of Nazi Germany and only survived deportation and death by the skin of his teeth. It would have been a sad loss, for he possesses an unbridled passion for life. Social conscience, mythology, iconography, place, identity, race, religion, beauty, war and tragedy. And the exemplary use of colour in his metaphysical, fantastical scenes. But above all…. MAGIC!

Marcus


Many thankx to the Palazzo Reale for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

 

 

“If I create from the heart, nearly everything works; if from the head, almost nothing.”


Marc Chagall

 

“Chagall a pioneer of modern art and one of its greatest figurative painters… [who] invented a visual language that recorded the thrill and terror of the twentieth century…

On his canvases we read the triumph of modernism, the breakthrough in art to an expression of inner life that … is one of the last century’s signal legacies. At the same time Chagall was personally swept up in the horrors of European history between 1914 and 1945: world wars, revolution, ethnic persecution, the murder and exile of millions. In an age when many major artists fled reality for abstraction, he distilled his experiences of suffering and tragedy into images at once immediate, simple, and symbolic to which everyone could respond.”


Wullschlager, Jackie. Chagall: A Biography. Knopf, 2008. p. 4

 

 

Marc Chagall (French born Russia, 1887-1985) 'Daphnis and Cloe' 1911

 

Marc Chagall (French born Russia, 1887-1985)
Daphnis and Cloe
1911
Watercolour
16.5 x 21cm
Private collection

 

Marc Chagall (French born Russia, 1887-1985) 'Il compleanno' 1915

 

Marc Chagall (French born Russia, 1887-1985)
Il compleanno (Birthday)
1915
Oil on cardboard
The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Acquired through the Lillie P. Bliss Bequest, 1949
© 2014 Digital image, The Museum of Modern Art, New York/Scala, Firenze © Chagall ® by SIAE 2014

 

Marc Chagall (French born Russia, 1887-1985) 'The Blue House' 1917

 

Marc Chagall (French born Russia, 1887-1985)
The Blue House
1917
Oil on canvas
66 x 96.8cm
Musée des Beaux-Arts, Liège, France

 

Marc Chagall (French born Russia, 1887-1985) 'Matrimonio' (Wedding) 1918

 

Marc Chagall (French born Russia, 1887-1985)
Matrimonio (Wedding)
1918
Oil on canvas
100 x 119cm
Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, Russia

 

Marc Chagall (French born Russia, 1887-1985) 'Model of great scene for "Mazeltov" Scholem Aleichem' 1919

 

Marc Chagall (French born Russia, 1887-1985)
Modello di grande scena per “Mazeltov” di Scholem Aleichem (Model of great scene for “Mazeltov” Scholem Aleichem)
1919
Oil and black pencil on paper pasted on cardboard
Private Collection

 

Marc Chagall (French born Russia, 1887-1985) 'Composition with circles and goat (Jewish Theatre Art)' 1920

 

Marc Chagall (French born Russia, 1887-1985)
Composizione con cerchi e capra (Teatro d’arte ebraica) (Composition with circles and goat (Jewish Theatre Art))
1920
Oil on cardboard laid on wood agglomerate
Private Collection

 

Marc Chagall (French born Russia, 1887-1985) 'Angelo cadente' (The Falling Angel) 1923

 

Marc Chagall (French born Russia, 1887-1985)
Angelo cadente (The Falling Angel)
1923
Oil on canvas
148 x 189cm
Private collection

 

Marc Chagall (French born Russia, 1887-1985) 'Bella con un libro e un vaso di fiori (o Bella a Mourillon)' 1926

 

Marc Chagall (French born Russia, 1887-1985)
Bella con un libro e un vaso di fiori (o Bella a Mourillon) (Beauty with a book and a vase of flowers (or Bella in Mourillon))
1926
Oil on canvas
Credits: Collezione Privata
© Chagall ® by SIAE 2014

 

Marc Chagall (French born Russia, 1887-1985) 'Nude above Vitebsk' 1933

 

Marc Chagall (French born Russia, 1887-1985)
Nude above Vitebsk
1933
Oil on canvas
Private collection
© Chagall ® by SIAE 2014

 

Marc Chagall (French born Russia, 1887-1985) 'Cow with Parasol' 1946

 

Marc Chagall (French born Russia, 1887-1985)
La mucca con l’ombrello (Cow with Parasol)
1946
Oil on canvas
New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Bequest of Richard S. Zeisler, 2007
© Chagall ®, by SIAE 2014

 

Marc Chagall (French born Russia, 1887-1985) 'The Red Circus' 1956-1960

 

Marc Chagall (French born Russia, 1887-1985)
The Red Circus
1956-1960
Oil on canvas

 

Marc Chagall (French born Russia, 1887-1985) 'Big Sun' 1958

 

Marc Chagall (French born Russia, 1887-1985)
Big Sun
1958
Oil on canvas

 

Marc Chagall (French born Russia, 1887-1985) 'War' 1964

 

Marc Chagall (French born Russia, 1887-1985)
War (Guerra)
1964
Oil on canvas
163 x 231cm
Kunsthaus Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland

 

Marc Chagall (French born Russia, 1887-1985) 'The Players' (i giocatori) 1968

 

Marc Chagall (French born Russia, 1887-1985)
The Players (i giocatori)
1968
Oil no canvas
150 x 160cm
Private collection

 

Marc Chagall (French born Russia, 1887-1985) 'The Grand Parade' 1979

 

Marc Chagall (French born Russia, 1887-1985)
The Grand Parade
1979
Oil on canvas
119 x 132cm
Private collection

 

 

“Will the hurried men of today be able to penetrate her work, her world?” is the question asked by Marc Chagall in 1947 in the postface to the memoirs of his wife Bella, who left him “in the shadows” following her sudden death three years earlier. However, this question could also be asked about his own work, the work of an artist who speaks such a universal language that he is loved by everyone alike, both young and old, men and women, scholars and men on the street. Chagall is an artist who is known and recognised by everyone and, out of all the 20th-century artists, was one of the few to remain faithful to himself despite living through a century of wars, catastrophes, political and technological upheavals.

The exhibition narrative has arisen from a question and a need: on the one hand, the attempt to understand the strength that an enabled an artist who experimented with the styles of all the avant-garde movements, to remain so consistent to himself, always curious about the world around him, developing a style that can be recognised immediately by people of any age and any social status; on the other, the need to study Chagall’s work in order to identify the secret behind the poetry of this fragile man who was yet able to keep faith with his traditions and with his humanity, despite living in a world shaken to the core by indescribable and until then unimaginable catastrophes.

The exhibition opened on 17 September at the Palazzo Reale in Milan and is the biggest retrospective ever devoted to Marc Chagall in the last 50 years in Italy, with over two hundred and twenty works – mainly paintings from 1908 onwards, when Chagall painted his first work Le Petit Salon, right up to his final, monumental works of the 1980s – which guide visitors through the artistic career of Marc Chagall. Works from the collections of his heirs, some of which have not been exhibited to the public before, feature alongside masterpieces from the world’s most important museums, including the MoMA, the Metropolitan Museum in New York, the National Gallery in Washington, the State Russian Museum in St Petersburg, the Centre Pompidou, and over fifty public and private collections that have so generously collaborated. The exhibition theme therefore focuses on a new interpretation of the language of Chagall, whose poetic vein developed throughout the 20th century out of a blend of the best western European traditions: from his original Jewish culture to the Russian culture and his encounter with French avant-garde painting.

“The exhibition features a comprehensive chronological narrative, which is divided into sections, starting with his earliest works painted in Russia; his first visit to France and his subsequent return to Russia where he stayed until 1921; the second period of his exile, opened by the autobiography written by Chagall when he left Russia forever, living firstly in France and then, in the 1940s running away from Nazism, in America where he endured the tragedy of the death of his beloved wife Bella; his return to France and his decision to settle permanently on the Cote d’Azur, where Chagall rediscovered his most relaxed poetic language, calmed by the colours and atmosphere of the south.

The exhibition provides visitors with an understanding of how, despite living in perennial exile, Chagall never lost hold of the thread that kept the child he used to be in his heart; how, over the years and throughout the terrible events that marred his existence, he succeeded in preserving his sense of amazement, joy and wonder inspired by nature and humanity, as well as his strong faith that led him to believe in the possibility of a better world and seek to build it in all possible ways. Visitors will also discover his highly original poetic language, born out of the assimilation of the three cultures to which he belonged: Jewish culture (the visual tradition of its ornate manuscripts inspired the expressive, non-perspectival and sometimes mystic elements of his work); Russian culture (evident both in the folk images of the luboks and the religious images of the icons); western culture (in which he assimilates the great artists of tradition, from Rembrandt to the avant-garde artists whom he frequented so assiduously). They will also observe his sense of wonder at nature and the amazement inspired by living creatures that places him closer to mediaeval sources than 20th-century ones.

Flowers and animals are a constant presence in his paintings, enabling him on the one hand to overcome the Jewish interdiction of human depiction, while on the other becoming metaphors for a possible world in which all living beings can live in peace as in Russian mediaeval culture. In the words of Giovanni Arpino: “The soul of Chagall is a bleating soul, as mild as it is invincible because it escapes the horrors, the snares, the outrages … His paradise is an earthly Otherworld that encompasses the simulacra of life, a physical place that becomes metaphysical precisely because we have all killed it during daily life.” His art constitutes a sort of metissage [mix] between cultures and traditions. The fundamental key to his modernity lies in his desire to transform contamination into a value, a work of art into a language able to ask questions that have as yet been left unanswered by mankind.

After Milan the exhibition will travel to the prestigious Musees royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique / Koninklike Musea voor Schone Kunsten van Belgie, Bruxelles.

Press release from the Palazzo Reale website

 

Marc Chagall (French born Russia, 1887-1985) 'La nascita' (The birth) 1911

 

Marc Chagall (French born Russia, 1887-1985)
La nascita (The birth)
1911
Oil on canvas original pasted on wood (plywood)
Private collection
© Chagall ® by SIAE 2014

 

Marc Chagall (French born Russia, 1887-1985) 'The Soldier Drinks' 1911

 

Marc Chagall (French born Russia, 1887-1985)
The Soldier Drinks (Soldato che beve)
1911
Oil on canvas
109.8 x 94.7cm
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York

 

Marc Chagall (French born Russia, 1887-1985) 'Bride with Fan' 1911

 

Marc Chagall (French born Russia, 1887-1985)
Bride with fan (Sposa con ventaglio)
1911
Oil on canvas
Private Collection

 

Marc Chagall (French born Russia, 1887-1985) 'I and the village' 1911

 

Marc Chagall (French born Russia, 1887-1985)
I and the Village
1911
Oil on canvas
192.1 x 151.4cm
Museum of Modern Art, New York

 

Marc Chagall (French born Russia, 1887-1985) 'Nude with comb' 1911-1912

 

Marc Chagall (French born Russia, 1887-1985)
Nude with comb (Nuda con pettine)
1911-1912
Black ink and gouache on paper

 

Marc Chagall (French born Russia, 1887-1985) 'The Fiddler' 1912

 

Marc Chagall (French born Russia, 1887-1985)
The Fiddler
1912
Oil on canvas
188 x 158cm
Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam

 

Marc Chagall (French born Russia, 1887-1985) 'Soldiers' 1912

 

Marc Chagall (French born Russia, 1887-1985)
Soldiers
1912
Private collection
38.1 x 32.4cm

 

Marc Chagall (French born Russia, 1887-1985) 'The Old Jew' (il vecchio ebreo) 1912

 

Marc Chagall (French born Russia, 1887-1985)
The Old Jew (il vecchio ebreo)
1912
Oil on canvas

 

Marc Chagall (French born Russia, 1887-1985) 'Self-portrait in profile' 1914

 

Marc Chagall (French born Russia, 1887-1985)
Self-portrait in profile
1914
Oil on cardboard
34 x 27.9cm
Private collection

 

Marc Chagall (French born Russia, 1887-1985) 'Blue Lovers' 1914

 

Marc Chagall (French born Russia, 1887-1985)
Blue Lovers
1914
Tempera on paper pasted on cardboard
49 x 44cm
Private collection

 

Marc Chagall in his studio of Saint-Paul de Vence

 

Marc Chagall in his studio of Saint-Paul de Vence
Nd

 

Marc Chagall (French born Russia, 1887-1985) 'Red Jew' 1915

 

Marc Chagall (French born Russia, 1887-1985)
Red Jew
1915
Oil on cardboard
Russian Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia

 

Marc Chagall (French born Russia, 1887-1985) 'The Poet Reclining' 1915

 

Marc Chagall (French born Russia, 1887-1985)
The Poet Reclining (Il poeta giacente)
1915
Oil on board
Support: 772 x 775mm
Frame: 953 x 960 x 91mm
© Tate, London 2014 © Chagall ® by SIAE 2014

 

Marc Chagall (French born Russia, 1887-1985) 'La passeggiata' (The walk) 1917-1918

 

Marc Chagall (French born Russia, 1887-1985)
La passeggiata (The walk)
1917-1918
Oil on canvas
Russian State  Museum, St. Petersburg
© Chagall ® by SIAE 2014

 

Marc Chagall (French born Russia, 1887-1985) 'Al Cavalletto (tavola 18 di "Ma Vie")' 1922

 

Marc Chagall (French born Russia, 1887-1985)
Al Cavalletto (tavola 18 di “Ma Vie”)
1922
Etching and drypoint on Japanese paper
Private collection
© Chagall ® by SIAE 2014

 

Marc Chagall (French born Russia, 1887-1985) 'Autoritratto (tavola 17 di "Ma Vie")' 1922

 

Marc Chagall (French born Russia, 1887-1985)
Autoritratto (tavola 17 di “Ma Vie”) (Self-portrait)
1922
Etching and drypoint on Japanese paper
Private collection
© Chagall ® by SIAE 2014

 

Marc Chagall (French born Russia, 1887-1985) 'Study for The green violinist' 1917

 

Marc Chagall (French born Russia, 1887-1985)
Study for The green violinist (studio violinista verde)
1917

 

Marc Chagall (French born Russia, 1887-1985) 'Two pigeons' 1925

 

Marc Chagall (French born Russia, 1887-1985)
Two pigeons
1925
Gouache, ink and blue ink on coloured paper
Private collection

 

Marc Chagall (French born Russia, 1887-1985) 'L'aquila e lo scarabeo' 1926

 

Marc Chagall (French born Russia, 1887-1985)
L’aquila e lo scarabeo
1926
Gouache on paper pasted on wooden panel
Private collection
© Chagall ® by SIAE 2014

 

Marc Chagall (French born Russia, 1887-1985) 'The Madonna of the Village' 1938-1942

 

Marc Chagall (French born Russia, 1887-1985)
The Madonna of the Village
1938-1942
Oil on canvas
Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, Madrid
© Chagall ® by SIAE 2014

 

Marc Chagall (French born Russia, 1887-1985) 'Mondo rosso e nero o Sole rosso' (Red and black world) 1951

 

Marc Chagall (French born Russia, 1887-1985)
Mondo rosso e nero o Sole rosso (Red and black world)
1951
Gouache, watercolour, pastel on paper pasted on canvas
Private collection

 

Marc Chagall (French born Russia, 1887-1985) 'Il trionfo della musica - Maquette per il murale Metropolitan Opera, Lincoln Art Center, New York' 1966

 

Marc Chagall (French born Russia, 1887-1985)
Il trionfo della musica – Maquette per il murale Metropolitan Opera, Lincoln Art Center, New York (The triumph of music – Maquette for the mural Metropolitan Opera, Lincoln Art Center, New York)
1966
Tempera, gouache and collage on paper
Private collection

 

Marc Chagall (French born Russia, 1887-1985) 'Lovers over Saint-Paul' 1968

 

Marc Chagall (French born Russia, 1887-1985)
Lovers over Saint-Paul
1968
Oil, tempera and sawdust on canvas
145 x 130cm
Private collection
© Chagall ® by SIAE 2014

 

 

Palazzo Reale
Piazza del Duomo 12
Milan, Italy

Opening times:
Tuesday – Sunday 10 – 19.30

Palazzo Reale website

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Exhibition: ‘Goya: Order and Disorder’ at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Exhibition dates: 12th October 2014 – 19th January 2015

Curators: Stephanie Loeb Stepanek, Curator of Prints and Drawings; Frederick Ilchman, Chair, Art of Europe; and Mrs. Russell W. Baker Curator of Paintings.

 

Francisco Goya (Spanish, 1746-1828) 'The Parasol' 1777

 

Francisco Goya (Spanish, 1746-1828)
The Parasol
1777
Oil on canvas, tapestry cartoon
Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid, España
Photograph © Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

 

 

This one is for me, this man of darkness and light.

Marcus


Many thankx to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston for allowing me to publish the art work in the posting. Please click on the images for a larger version of the art.

 

 

Francisco Goya (Spanish, 1746-1828) 'The Family of the Infante Don Luis' 1784

 

Francisco Goya (Spanish, 1746-1828)
The Family of the Infante Don Luis
1784
Oil on canvas
630 x 838cm
Fondazione Magnani Rocca, Parma, Italy

 

Francisco Goya (Spanish, 1746-1828)  'Attack on a Military Camp' about 1808-1810

 

Francisco Goya (Spanish, 1746-1828) 
Attack on a Military Camp
c. 1808-1810
Oil on canvas
Colección Marqués de la Romana
Photograph © Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

 

Francisco Goya (Spanish, 1746-1828) 'One Can't Look (No se puede mirar), Disasters of War 26' c. 1811-1812

 

Francisco Goya (Spanish, 1746-1828)
One Can’t Look (No se puede mirar), Disasters of War 26
c. 1811-1812
Etching, direct etching, and drypoint (working proof)
1951 Purchase Fund
Photograph © Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

 

Francisco Goya (Spanish, 1746-1828) 'A heroic feat! With dead men! (Grande hazaña! Con muertos!)' c.1810-1813

 

Francisco Goya (Spanish, 1746-1828)
A heroic feat! With dead men! (Grande hazaña! Con muertos!), Disasters of War 39
c. 1810-1813
Etching, direct etching, and drypoint

 

Francisco Goya (Spanish, 1746-1828) 'Unfortunate events in the front seats of the ring of Madrid, and the death of the Mayor of Torrejón' (Desgracias acaecidas en el tendido de la plaza de Madrid, y muerte del alcalde de Torrejón) 1815-1816

 

Francisco Goya (Spanish, 1746-1828)
Unfortunate events in the front seats of the ring of Madrid, and the death of the Mayor of Torrejón (Desgracias acaecidas en el tendido de la plaza de Madrid, y muerte del alcalde de Torrejón)
1815-1816
From the 35 etchings making up the Tauromaquia (“Art of Bullfighting”) series
Etching with burnished aquatint, drypoint and burin on paper

 

Francisco Goya (Spanish, 1746-1828) 'The Agility and Audacity of Juanito Apiñani in the Ring at Madrid' (Ligereza y atrevimiento de Juanito Apiñani en la de Madrid) (Tauromaquia 20) 1815-1816

 

Francisco Goya (Spanish, 1746-1828)
The Agility and Audacity of Juanito Apiñani in the Ring at Madrid (Ligereza y atrevimiento de Juanito Apiñani en la de Madrid) (Tauromaquia 20)
1815-1816
Etching with burnished aquatint, drypoint and burin on paper
© Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

 

Francisco Goya (Spanish, 1746-1828) 'Feminine Absurdity (Disparate femenino) Disparates 1' 1815-1817

 

Francisco Goya (Spanish, 1746-1828)
Feminine Absurdity (Disparate femenino) Disparates 1
1815-1817
Fundación Lázaro Galdiano

 

 

This fall, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA), presents Goya: Order and Disorder, a landmark exhibition dedicated to Spanish master Francisco Goya (1746-1828). The largest retrospective of the artist to take place in America in 25 years features 170 paintings, prints and drawings – offering the rare opportunity to examine Goya’s powers of observation and invention across the full range of his work. The MFA welcomes many loans from Europe and the US, including 21 works from the Museo Nacional del Prado in Madrid, along with loans from the Musée du Louvre, the Galleria degli Uffizi, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the National Gallery of Art (Washington) and private collections. Goya: Order and Disorder includes some 60 works from the MFA’s collection of Goya’s works on paper, one of the most important in the world. Many of these prints and drawings have not been on view in Boston in 25 years. Employed as a court painter by four successive rulers of Spain, Goya managed to explore an extraordinarily wide range of subjects, genres and formats. From the striking portrait Duchess of Alba (1797) from the Hispanic Society of America, to the tour de force of Goya’s Seated Giant (by 1818) in the MFA’s collection, to his drawings of lunacy, the works on view demonstrate the artist’s fluency across media. On view in the Museum’s Ann and Graham Gund Gallery from October 12, 2014 – January 19, 2015, the MFA is the only venue for the exhibition, which is accompanied by a publication revealing fresh insights on the artist.

“This exhibition offers a once-in-a-generation look at one of the greatest, most imaginative artists of all time,” said Malcolm Rogers, Ann and Graham Gund Director at the MFA. “Goya: Order and Disorder reflects the Museum’s close collaboration with the Prado, and builds on our proud tradition of Goya scholarship.”

As 18th-century culture gave way to the modern world, little escaped Goya’s penetrating gaze. Working with equal prowess in painting, drawing and printmaking, he was the portraitist of choice for the royal family as well as aristocrats, statesmen and intellectuals – counting many as acquaintances or friends. Living in a time of revolution and radical social and political transformations, Goya witnessed drastic shifts between “order” and “disorder,” from relative prosperity to wartime chaos, famine, crime and retribution. Among the works he created – some 1,800 oil paintings, frescoes, miniatures, etchings, lithographs and drawings – many are not easy to look at, or even to understand. With a keen sensitivity to human nature, Goya could portray the childhood innocence of Manuel Osorio Manrique de Zuñiga (about 1788, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York) – his most famous portrait of a child – or the deviance of the Witches’ Sabbath (1797-1798, Fundación Lázaro Galdiano, Madrid).

The full arc of Goya’s creativity is on display in the exhibition, from the elegant full-length portraits of Spanish aristocrats that first brought the artist fame, to caustic drawings of beggars and grotesque witches, to his series of satirical etchings targeting ignorance and superstition, known as the Caprichos. Rather than a chronological arrangement, exhibition curators Stephanie Loeb Stepanek, Curator of Prints and Drawings, and Frederick Ilchman, Chair, Art of Europe and Mrs. Russell W. Baker Curator of Paintings, grouped the works in Goya: Order and Disorder, and its accompanying publication, into eight categories highlighting the significant themes that captured Goya’s attention and imagination. From tranquil to precarious, Goya’s art made the diversity of life, and the conflicting emotions of the human mind, comprehensible to the viewer – and to himself.

“We decided to juxtapose similar subjects or compositions in different media in order to allow visitors to examine how Goya’s choice of technique informed and transformed his ideas, since the characteristics of each medium – and the intended audience – influenced the final appearance of the work,” said Stepanek.

Noted for his satirical eye, Goya reserved his closest scrutiny for himself. The first section of the exhibition, Goya Looks at Himself, is a sweeping group of self-portraits. In the MFA’s etching, The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters (El sueño de la razon produce monstruos), Caprichos 43 (1797-1799), Goya offers himself as a universal artist sleeping at a desk, while the creatures of his dreams swirl about his head. This print is grouped with two loans from Madrid, The Artist Dreaming (about 1797), a drawing from the Prado that preceded the famous print, and Self-Portrait while Painting (about 1795), from the Museo de la Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando. Together, these works reflect Goya’s tendency to insert his persona into allegories and fantasies. At the entrance of this section is an imposing group portrait of The Family of the Infante Don Luis (1784, Fondazione Magnani Rocca, Parma, Italy) – the brother of King Charles III – which features 14 figures, including Goya, who depicts himself working on a sizeable canvas on an easel.

“Just as Goya’s imagery is determined by whether he painted, drew or made a print, he also reconsidered certain favoured subjects, reviving them from his memory and returning to them again and again during his long career,” said Ilchman. “Examining his compositional preoccupations across decades – often in the same room of the exhibition – reveals the continuity of Goya’s imagination.”

Through his art, Goya sought to describe, catalogue and satirise the breadth of human experience – embracing both its pleasures and discomforts. The artist tackled the nurturing of children, the pride and infirmity of old age, the risks of romantic love, and all types of women – from young beauties to old women. In the section dedicated to Goya’s depictions of the stages of life, Life Studies, the exhibition explores how the artist transformed observations of human frailty, creating allegories of vanity and the passage of time. A wizened woman, who is unsuccessfully attempting to adopt youthful styles in Until Death (Hasta la muerte), Caprichos 55 (1797-1799, The Boston Athenaeum), is revived in one of Goya’s most haunting monumental paintings – Time (Old Women) (about 1810-1812, Palais des Beaux-Arts de Lille). The aged woman is now decayed and diseased, but still clings to her outdated fashions, and is soon to be swept away by the broom of Time. Goya’s tapestry designs frequently depict young people, with relationships between men and women marked by affection, disaffection and tension. The Parasol (1777, Museo Nacional del Prado) presents a young woman who poses under a parasol with her docile lapdog – she seems to ignore her male companion in favour of engaging viewers who would look up at this tapestry, which was meant to hang over a door.

In the Play and Prey section, Goya’s creative process is revealed through representations of a popular game in which young women toss a well-dressed mannequin in a blanket. In Straw Mannequin, this carnivalesque reversal of class and gender roles is seen in a tapestry (1792-1793, Patrimonio Nacional, Spain), as well as two preparatory paintings (1791, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles and Museo Nacional del Prado). A late print, Feminine Absurdity (Disparate femenino) Disparates 1 (1815-1817, Fundación Lázaro Galdiano), imparts new meaning to the previously simple image of young women at play, as the women now strain to lift several figures, including a peasant and donkey. This more sinister vein is reflected in many of the subjects the artist returned to later in life, following the devastation of the Peninsular War and its political reversals. “Play and Prey” also explores Goya’s famous images of men engaging in hunting (his own favourite pastime) and the bullfight. In these works, including examples from the series of prints, the Tauromaquia and the Bulls of Bordeaux, Goya celebrates both activities while also subtly portraying their darker sides.

The precarious relationship between order and discord, balance and imbalance, is fundamental to Goya’s work, and the subject of the section In the Balance. The theme appears vividly in images of the punishing forces of nature, figures losing their balance and others fighting. This topic is particularly noteworthy given the tumultuous social and political change during Goya’s lifetime, as well as the artist’s own struggles with illness, dizzy spells and deafness. The MFA’s print, The Agility and Audacity of Juanito Apiñani in the Ring at Madrid (Ligereza y atrevimiento de Juanito Apiñani en la de Madrid (Tauromaquia 20) (1815-1816) depicts a precarious matador, who is poised midair as he vaults over a charging bull, anchored only by his upright pole.

Goya earned widespread fame through grand portraits executed in the 1780s and 1790s, and the exhibition displays some of these masterpieces alongside more intimate likenesses of his artistic and family circle. Focusing on the painter’s approach to portraiture – from relations with sitters to his handling of paint – Portraits explores the discipline that remained central to his reputation as Spain’s leading painter and helped sustain him financially throughout his career. Paintings of the Duke of Alba (1795, Museo Nacional del Prado) and Duchess of Alba (1797, Hispanic Society of America), shown together for the first time since the early 19th century, are superb examples of his aristocratic portraits and illustrate two of his most important patrons. In the Duchess of Alba, the darkly clothed sitter points a finger to the ground, where the words “Solo Goya” are written in the sand. The assertion that only Goya was worthy of this commission and that only he could have pulled off such a dramatic likeness, changes the painting’s focus from the aristocrat to the artist.

Other Worlds, Other States features two facets of Goya’s spiritual explorations – Christian religious belief and its opposite, superstition. While Goya frequently focused on clerical abuses, religious commissions helped pay the bills throughout his life, and there is no evidence that he lacked personal piety. One of Goya’s greatest legacies is his ability to represent mental and psychological conditions. His depictions of illusions and inner reality are also on view in this section, and include visions, nightmares and the deluded mind of the insane. An imaginative rendering of a particular Spanish nightmare – a witch riding a bull through the air – is depicted in the drawing Pesadilla (Nightmare) (1816-1820).

Many of Goya’s deranged characters highlight the fragile boundary between lunacy and sanity. A luminous painting on copper from the Meadows Museum in Dallas, Yard with Madmen of 1794 – which shows distressed and helpless lunatics – anticipates a sequence of black crayon drawings made three decades later. In these later works, the individuals, whom Goya labeled as “locos,” are in even more desperate condition, restrained in straitjackets or trapped behind bars. Also in this gallery, a “learning space” offers additional educational materials and a timeline that provides context and insight into the mind of the Spanish Master.

A keen awareness of the weight of historical events pervades Goya’s work. Although he belongs in the ranks of great history painters who narrated courageous acts, he is not preoccupied with generals, patriots and battles. Instead, he focuses attention on the anonymous victims of the horrors of war or the Spanish Inquisition, and rarely fails to raise moral questions in these works. In Capturing History, works that blend the epic and mundane include a painting of an imagined scene, Attack on a Military Camp (about 1808-1810, Colección Marqués de la Romana), in which a woman holds a screaming infant as she runs from assailants who have already wounded several people. In One Can’t Look (No se puede mirar), Disasters of War 26 (1810-1814), the viewer is only a step or two away from the victims and the advancing bayonets of the print’s aggressors. The work is part of the wrenching print series, Disasters of War, which depict the artist’s thoughts on violence during the Peninsular War that ripped Spain apart from 1808 to 1814.

The final section of the exhibition, Solo Goya, summarises the characteristics that establish the artist’s greatness – exploring themes such as Goya’s imagery of swarms of human figures as well as his periodic reflection on the concept of redemption. The same artist who took on the abuses of war could also evoke the most sympathetic and poignant moments of human experience, such as the Last Communion of Saint Joseph of Calasanz (1819, Collection of the Padres Escolapios). The altarpiece depicts Joseph of Calasanz, from Goya’s home region of Aragón, who founded the order of the Padres Escolapios (Piarists) to educate poor children. Goya may have attended one of the order’s schools, known as the Escuelas Pías, and might have felt a personal connection to the protagonist of the painting – his final major religious work – which comes to the US for the first time in this exhibition.

One of Goya’s most resonant themes addresses the problem with power, embodied by a central character: the giant. Conditioned by the events of his day, particularly the sudden rise and fall of military and institutional fortunes, Goya explores how power is not necessarily inherent, but comes with a cost. Goya’s Seated Giant (by 1818), from the MFA’s renowned collection of Goya prints and drawings, is among the most enigmatic and compelling of the artist’s graphic works, depicting a looming figure immobilised by the burden of power. While no single work can epitomise an artist’s achievement, this figure embodies the grandest of Goya’s great themes.

The MFA’s Goya collection owes a great debt to former MFA Curator of Prints and Drawings, and esteemed Goya scholar, Eleanor A. Sayre, who worked on the exhibitions The Changing Image: Prints by Francisco Goya (1974) and Goya and the Spirit of Enlightenment (1989) at the MFA. Many of the works on view in Goya: Order and Disorder were acquired by the Museum during her tenure, including the Seated Giant; Woman Reading to Two Children (about 1819); Resignation (La resignacion) (1816-1820); Merry Absurdity (Disparate alegre) (1816-1819); and the oil sketch on canvas of the Annunciation (1785). The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters (El sueño de la razon produce monstruos), Caprichos 43 (1797-1799) and the drawing of Two Men Fighting (1812-1820) were part of Sayre’s bequest to the MFA after she passed away in 2001.

Press release from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston website

 

Francisco Goya (Spanish, 1746-1828) 'Duke of Alba' 1795

 

Francisco Goya (Spanish, 1746-1828)
Duke of Alba
1795
Oil on canvas
195 x 126cm
Museo del Prado, Madrid, Spain

 

Francisco Goya (Spanish, 1746-1828) 'María del Pilar Teresa Cayetana de Silva Álvarez de Toledo y Silva, Thirteenth Duchess of Alba' 1797

 

Francisco Goya (Spanish, 1746-1828)
María del Pilar Teresa Cayetana de Silva Álvarez de Toledo y Silva, Thirteenth Duchess of Alba
1797
Oil on canvas
On loan from The Hispanic Society of America, New York, NY
Photograph © Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

 

Francisco Goya (Spanish, 1746-1828) 'Self-Portrait While Painting' c. 1795

 

Francisco Goya (Spanish, 1746-1828)
Self-Portrait While Painting
c. 1795
Oil on canvas
Museo de la Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, Madrid
Photograph © Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

 

The most inquiring self-portraits often display a cool detachment almost to the point of impersonality. These are the real backstage revelations, where the painter’s high seriousness and insight are as palpable as the flaws exposed by these virtues.

Goya in his studio is dressed like a matador or majo, a wideboy, a mistake as he himself owns: his jacket is too tight and the trousers are straining around his bulging thighs. At nearly fifty he is too old and too stout for such clothes, as he very well knows, for in letters to his boyhood friend, Martin Zapater, Goya periodically laments his snub nose, and increasing girth. Yet he chose to paint himself in the least flattering position – side on – and the worst possible light, silhouetted against a whiteness so shattering that every contour is emphasised. He might as well have stood there naked.

It is high noon in the studio. The light is so bright that nothing is visible beyond the window as reflected in the mirror, and you need to squint to see this man of darkness. The brim of his hat is ringed with candleholders; according to his son Javier, Goya preferred to paint in the clear morning light but give ‘the final touches at night in artificial light’. He may not have been the only painter to get a close glow by turning his hat into a lamp stand but he is the only artist to paint himself wearing one of the candle-hats and thus revealing a trick of the trade. Presumably it is acting as an eye-shade at this moment, though he could have taken it off in the final painting for the sake of vanity, this cumbersome pot that’s too tall for his head. But size is a running gag here. Look at the tiny brush he is using to prod away at a painting so big it makes the artist look even smaller beneath his outsize headgear (matador and bull), a painting that is too large to correspond to this one for the self-portrait is surprisingly small – not quite two feet tall.

So small and yet strong enough to carry the full force of the scene, the stark light and the stark disenchantment of a man who turns upon himself very suddenly out of a spell of protracted thought. Just as in his portraits of the Spanish royal family – like the corner barker and his wife, as the French writer Théophile Gautier once described them – Goya doesn’t lay a gloss upon the facts. He is a fat man, quite probably a small fat man, tousled, unshaven, unsuitably dressed and able to see the truth quite clearly. That is what his look declares: I see how I look, I know what I am doing and who I am in this world.

Goya is probably stone-deaf by the time he painted himself in his studio at number 1 calle del Desengano, Madrid, the final cruelty of a long and mysterious illness. And the world is shut out of this picture, the window a white-out, the artist all alone in the little kingdom of his studio. The solo studio – as opposed to the buzzing workshop or atelier – was still quite a recent luxury in Goya’s day, only just becoming a place of withdrawal. It plays its part in the history of self-portraiture not just as a room of one’s own, or a refuge from society; but as the cell that throws you back on yourself and your misfortunes.

Laura Cummings. A Face to the World: On Self-Portraits. London: Harper Press, 2009, pp. 110-111.

 

Francisco Goya (Spanish, 1746-1828) 'Manuel Osorio Manrique de Zuñiga' c. 1788

 

Francisco Goya (Spanish, 1746-1828)
Manuel Osorio Manrique de Zuñiga
c. 1788
Oil on canvas
Lent by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Jules Bache Collection, 1949
Photograph © Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

 

Francisco Goya (Spanish, 1746-1828) 'Manuel Osorio Manrique de Zuñiga' c. 1788 (detail)

 

Francisco Goya (Spanish, 1746-1828)
Manuel Osorio Manrique de Zuñiga (detail)
c. 1788
Oil on canvas
Lent by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Jules Bache Collection, 1949
Photograph © Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

 

Francisco Goya (Spanish, 1746-1828) 'Witches' Sabbath' 1797-1798

 

Francisco Goya (Spanish, 1746-1828)
Witches’ Sabbath
1797-1798
Oil on canvas
Fundación Lázaro Galdiano, Madrid, España
Photograph © Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

 

Francisco Goya (Spanish, 1746-1828) 'Last Communion of Saint Joseph of Calasanz' 1819

 

Francisco Goya (Spanish, 1746-1828)
Last Communion of Saint Joseph of Calasanz
1819
Oil on canvas
Collection of the Padres Escolapios, Madrid, España
Photograph © Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

 

Francisco Goya (Spanish, 1746-1828) 'Self-Portrait with Doctor Arrieta' 1820

 

Francisco Goya (Spanish, 1746-1828)
Self-Portrait with Doctor Arrieta
1820
Oil on canvas
Lent by The Minneapolis Institute of Arts, The Ethel Morrison Van Derlip Fund
Photograph © Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

 

Francisco Goya (Spanish, 1746-1828) 'Seated Giant' by 1818

 

Francisco Goya (Spanish, 1746-1828)
Seated Giant
by 1818
Burnished aquatint (first state)
Katherine E. Bullard Fund in memory of Francis Bullard
Photograph © Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

 

Francisco Goya (Spanish, 1746-1828) 'Pesadilla' (Nightmare) 1816-1820

 

Francisco Goya (Spanish, 1746-1828)
Pesadilla (Nightmare)
1816-1820

 

Francisco Goya (Spanish, 1746-1828) 'Raging Lunatic (Loco furioso), Bordeaux Album I, G, 3[4?]' 1824-1828

 

Francisco Goya (Spanish, 1746-1828)
Raging Lunatic (Loco furioso), Bordeaux Album I, G, 3[4?]
1824-1828
Black crayon on laid paper
Collection Andrea Woodner
Photographer: Jim Strong. Courtesy of The Frick Collection.
Photograph © Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

 

Francisco Goya (Spanish, 1746-1828) 'Two Men Fighting', Album F, 73 1812-1820

 

Francisco Goya (Spanish, 1746-1828)
Two Men Fighting, Album F, 73
1812-1820
Brush and brown ink, with scraping
Bequest of Eleanor A. Sayre
Photograph © Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

 

Francisco Goya (Spanish, 1746-1828) 'Old Man on a Swing', Bordeaux Album II, H, 58 1824-1828

 

Francisco Goya (Spanish, 1746-1828)
Old Man on a Swing, Bordeaux Album II, H, 58
1824-1828
Black crayon on laid paper
On loan from The Hispanic Society of America, New York, NY
Photograph © Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

 

Francisco Goya (Spanish, 1746-1828) 'The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters' (El sueño de la razon produce monstruos), Caprichos 43 1797-1799

 

Francisco Goya (Spanish, 1746-1828)
The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters (El sueño de la razon produce monstruos), Caprichos 43
1797-1799
Etching and burnished aquatint (first edition)
Bequest of Eleanor A. Sayre
Photograph © Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

 

Francisco Goya (Spanish, 1746-1828) 'Until Death' (Hasta la muerte), Caprichos 55 1797-1799

 

Francisco Goya (Spanish, 1746-1828)
Until Death (Hasta la muerte), Caprichos 55
1797-1799
Burnished aquatint etching with drypoint
The Boston Athenaeum

 

Francisco Goya (Spanish, 1746-1828) 'Time (Old Women)' c. 1810-1812

 

Francisco Goya (Spanish, 1746-1828)
Time (Old Women)
c. 1810-1812
Oil on canvas
Palais des Beaux-Arts de Lille

 

Francisco Goya (Spanish, 1746-1828) 'Straw Mannequin' 1791

 

Francisco Goya (Spanish, 1746-1828)
Straw Mannequin
1791
Oil on canvas

 

 

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Exhibition: ‘Robert Gober: The Heart Is Not a Metaphor’ at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York

Exhibition dates: 4th October 2014 – 18th January 2015

Contemporary Galleries and The Donald B. and Catherine C. Marron Atrium, second floor

 

Many thankx to MoMA for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

 

Robert Gober (American, b. 1954)
 'X Playpen' 1987

 

Robert Gober (American, b. 1954)
X Playpen
1987
Wood and enamel paint
27 x 37 x 37″ (68.6 x 94 x 94cm)
Batsheva and Ronald Ostrow
Image credit: D. James Dee, courtesy the artist and Paula Cooper Gallery
© 2014 Robert Gober

 

 

“Begun in 1984, the sink series appeared during the darkest period of the AIDS epidemic. Gober, who is gay, responded to the tragedy with poetic indirection: the sinks’ cold air of clinical hygiene. The Times critic John Russell nailed the artistic effect: “Minimal forms with maximum content.” The fact that the content must be intuited by the viewer, who is free to regard the sinks as just cleverly manufactured found objects, typifies Gober’s circumspection. His works are enigmatic but not coy, morally driven but not aggrieved. They radiate a quality that is as rare in life as it is in art: character. …

The heart is an excitable physical organ that registers sensations of fight or flight and of love or aversion: the first and last unimpeachable witness to what can’t help but matter, for good and for ill, in every life.”


Peter Schjeldahl. “Found Meanings: A Robert Gober Retrospective,” October 6, 2014 in ‘The Art World’ October 13, 2014 Issue on ‘The New Yorker’ website [Online] Cited 09/07/2021.

 

 

Robert Gober (American, b. 1954)
 'The Ascending Sink' 1985

 

Robert Gober (American, b. 1954)
The Ascending Sink
1985
Plaster, wood, steel, wire lath, and semi-gloss enamel paint
Two components, each: 30 x 33 x 27″ (76.2 x 83.8 x 68.6cm); floor to top: 92″ (233.7cm)
Installed in the artist’s studio on Mulberry Street in Little Italy, Manhattan
Collection of Thea Westreich Wagner and Ethan Wagner, New York
Promised gift to the Whitney Museum of American Art
Image credit: John Kramer, courtesy the artist
© 2014 Robert Gober

 

Robert Gober (American, b. 1954) 'Untitled' 1984

 

Robert Gober (American, b. 1954)
Untitled
1984
Plaster, wood, wire lath, aluminium, watercolour, semi-gloss enamel paint
28 x 33 x 22 1/2″ (71.1 x 83.8 x 57.2cm)
Rubell Family Collection
Courtesy the artist and Matthew Marks Gallery
© 2014 Robert Gober

 

Robert Gober (American, b. 1954) 'Two Partially Buried Sinks' 1986-1987

 

Robert Gober (American, b. 1954)
Two Partially Buried Sinks
1986-1987
Cast iron and enamel paint
Right: 39 x 25 1/2 x 2 1/2″ (99.1 x 64.8 x 6.4cm)
Left: 39 x 24 1/2 x 2 3/4″ (99.1 x 62.2 x 7cm)
Private collection
Image credit: Andrew Moore, courtesy the artist
© 2014 Robert Gober

 

Robert Gober (American, b. 1954)
 '
Untitled Closet' 1989

 

Robert Gober (American, b. 1954)
Untitled Closet
1989
Wood, plaster, enamel paint
84 x 52 x 28″ (213.4 x 132.1 x 71.1cm)
Private collection
Courtesy the artist and Matthew Marks Gallery
© 2014 Robert Gober

 

Robert Gober (American, b. 1954)
 'Untitled' 1991

 

Robert Gober (American, b. 1954)
Untitled
1991
Wood, beeswax, human hair, fabric, paint, shoes
9 x 16 1/2 x 45″ (22.9 x 41.9 x 114.3cm)
Collection the artist
Image credit: Andrew Moore, courtesy the artist
© 2014 Robert Gober

 

Robert Gober (American, b. 1954)
 'Untitled' 1994-1995

 

Robert Gober (American, b. 1954)
Untitled
1994-1995
Wood, beeswax, brick, plaster, plastic, leather, iron, charcoal, cotton socks, electric light and motor
47 3/8 × 47 × 34″ (120.3 × 119.4 × 86.4cm)
Emanuel Hoffmann Foundation, on permanent loan to the Öffentliche Kunstsammlung Basel
Image credit: D. James Dee, courtesy the artist and Matthew Marks Gallery
© 2014 Robert Gober

 

 

Chronicling a 40-year career, Robert Gober: The Heart Is Not a Metaphor is the first large-scale survey of Robert Gober’s (American, b. 1954) work to take place in the United States. The exhibition is on view from October 4, 2014 to January 18, 2015, and features approximately 130 works across several mediums, including individual sculptures, immersive sculptural environments, and a distinctive selection of drawings and prints. Robert Gober: The Heart Is Not a Metaphor is organised by Ann Temkin, The Marie-Josée and Henry Kravis Chief Curator, and Paulina Pobocha, Assistant Curator, Department of Painting and Sculpture, MoMA, working in close collaboration with the artist.

Early on, Gober’s sculptures declared themselves an indispensable part of the landscape of late-twentieth century art; since then they have continued to evolve while remaining tightly bound to the principles outlined by the artist almost four decades ago. Gober places narrative at the centre of his endeavour, embedding themes of sexuality, religion, and politics into work drawn from everyday life. Spare in its use of images and motifs while protean in its capacity to generate meaning, Gober’s work is an art of contradictions: intimate yet assertive, straightforward yet enigmatic. Taking imagery familiar to anyone – doors, sinks, legs – Gober dislocates, alters, and estranges what we think we know. Although a first glance might suggest otherwise, all of Gober’s objects are entirely handmade, by the artist and by collaborators with the necessary expertise.

The earliest works in the exhibition date from the mid-to-late 1970s when Gober was largely working in two dimensions. A painting of the house he grew up in Connecticut hangs at the entrance to the galleries. The first room of the exhibition offers an introduction to Gober’s career, as told through five works: a sculpture of a paint can, a man’s leg, and a closet, as well as a drawing and a small print.

Between 1983 and 1986, Gober created more than 50 sculptures of sinks and scores of related drawings. Based on real sinks, including one in the artist’s childhood home, Gober built them from wood, plaster, and wire lath, and finished them with multiple coats of paint to mimic the appearance of enamel. But, crucially, they lack faucets and plumbing. The sinks’ appearance coincided with the early years of the AIDS epidemic, and their uselessness spoke to the impossibility of cleansing oneself. The sculptures on view in the second gallery of the exhibition were featured in Gober’s first show of sinks, held at the Daniel Weinberg Gallery, Los Angeles, in 1985.

Gober’s early and straightforward sink sculptures gave way in 1985 to a group of distorted sinks whose bodies are variably stretched, bent, multiplied, and divided. The evolution of form registers in the works’ titles: self-evident descriptions become increasingly expressive (eg. The Sink Inside of Me). By the mid-1980s, the artist’s preoccupation with domestic objects expanded to include sculptures of furniture such as beds and playpens, as well as an armchair, on view in the third gallery. Between 1986 and 1987, Gober created Two-Partially Buried Sinks, among the last sink sculptures of the decade. This work is positioned outside the walls of the Museum on a scaffold, and can be viewed through the gallery’s window.

In 1989 at the Paula Cooper Gallery, Gober exhibited his first room-sized installations. Each is framed by wallpapers: a pattern pairing a sleeping white man and a lynched black man in one, and line drawings of male and female genitalia in the other, both of which are on view in the following galleries. These backdrops powerfully inflect the sculptures contained within: a freestanding bridal gown and hand-painted plaster cat litter bags in the first room and a bag of donuts with cast-pewter drains inset into the walls in the second. With characteristic concision, Gober sets off a complex swirl of questions about the unease surrounding issues to everyday life in America.

Gober made Slides of a Changing Painting between 1982 and 1983. During this year, he painted on a small Masonite board and photographed the imagery as it changed over time. Eventually, he had accumulated more than 1,000 slides, which he edited down and organised into a slide projection that he showed in 1984. After the exhibition, Gober put the slides away. When he revisited the project around 1990, he realised that he had unknowingly employed many of the same images in his subsequent sculptures. Slides of a Changing Painting has continued to be generative; it provides a nearly complete index of Gober’s visual themes and vocabulary. The work is on view in a gallery centrally located within the exhibition.

The human figure was absent from Gober’s sculptural repertoire until 1989, when he made his first sculpture of a man’s leg, a breakthrough that ushered in many related works. Single legs wearing trousers and shoes and truncated at mid-shin were followed by pairs of legs that Gober left whole to the waist. He showed these surreal sculptures in a 1991 exhibition in Paris, recreated in the following gallery. Three pairs of legs, augmented by candles, drains, and a musical score, are positioned around the perimeter of a room wallpapered with a kaleidoscopic landscape of a beech forest in autumn. In the centre of the gallery sits a human-sized cigar composed of tobacco sheafs purchased from a Pennsylvania supplier. To learn how to preserve this organic material as it aged, Gober consulted an expert at the American Museum of Natural History. Seeking out specialists’ advice on complicated projects is a hallmark of the artist’s craft based practice.

The works on view in the following gallery were made by artists Anni Albers, Robert Beck, Cady Noland, and Joan Semmel; photographs by Nancy Shaver hang in the adjoining space. Gober brought these objects together for the first time in an exhibition he organised at the Matthew Marks Gallery, New York in 1999. Gober has been curating exhibitions since the mid-1980s, most recently focusing on monographic presentations of the works by American artists Charles Burchfield and Forrest Bess. The contemporary artists included in this gallery share with Gober daring approaches to the representation of sexuality, violence, and American culture.

The immersive installation Gober conceived for a 1992 exhibition at the Dia Center for the Arts, New York is on view nearby. All three rooms of that original presentation are reconstructed: an antechamber, a central gallery, and a dark cul-de-sac. The main space features a hand-painted mural, executed in a paint-by-number method by scenic painters, depicting a forest inspired by the landscape of Long Island’s North Fork. Barred prison windows, through which a blue sky is visible, interrupt the verdant panorama. Placed throughout the gallery are hand-painted plaster sculptures of boxes of rat bait and bundles of newspapers – actually photolithographic facsimiles of newspapers featuring real and invented content. After a six-year absence from Gober’s work, sinks reappeared in the installation at Dia, water now running freely from their faucets.

Following the introduction of mens’ legs into his sculptural vocabulary, Gober cast the leg of a young boy and used that mould as the basis for several subsequent works, including a fireplace where legs take the place of firewood, a vision invoking childhood nightmares and uncensored fairy tales. Also on view is a sculpture of a suitcase that occupies space below ground as well as above. Its lid opens to reveal a sewer grate and a brick shaft that leads to a subterranean tidal pool complete with seaweed, mussel shells, and starfish. Visible through the depths of the water, amid the marine life, are the legs of a man and baby, one holding the other in a manner suggestive of baptism. While primarily a sculptor, Gober has worked across a range of media throughout his career including drawing and printmaking. Drawings sit the closest to his work in three dimensions; most of his sculptures and installations are preceded by preparatory drawings. A selection of Gober’s works on paper is also on view in this gallery.

The final installation included in the exhibition was made in response to the attacks of September 11, 2001, and results from Gober’s desire to create a space of refuge and reflection. The overall structure evokes the interior of a church: a central aisle separating rows of pews leads to an altar-like area flanked by two chapels. From the nipples of a headless Christ, regenerative “living water” flows into a large hole jackhammered into the floor. In the pastel drawings hanging on the side walls, the power of human embrace confronts the harrowing news contained within the photo-lithographed pages of the September 12, 2001, issue of The New York Times. In this installation, the overt references to Catholicism explore the vitality of such symbolism in the wake of contemporary tragedy.

Over the past decade, Gober’s sculptures have become increasingly complex, both technically and iconographically. The artist sometimes uses casts of existing sculptures and combines them to create hybrid objects, as in the conjunction of a chest, a stool, and a twisted network of children’s legs. Elsewhere, Gober pushes recognisable imagery into unpredictable terrain: a sink’s backsplash morphs into gnarled planks of wood interwoven with casts of fragmented arms. New motifs, such as a surrealistically melting rifle, also have entered the artist’s visual universe. The strangeness of these new sculptures is presaged by Prayers Are Answered (1980-1981), an early work loosely based on a Catholic church on 7th Street and Avenue B in the East Village. Rather than the traditional religious scenes to be found in paintings lining the walls, Gober has furnished the church with murals depicting the harshness of daily life in the city.

The exhibition’s final gallery presents works made as early as 1979 and as recently as this past spring. Images of domestic objects and architecture and themes of childhood and the body reverberates across the decades. The dollhouse placed on the floor is one of several that Gober designed and built during his first years in New York City, as one way of earning a living. The sculpture and installations that would follow may be considered life-size realisations of the imaginative potential contained within these small structures.

Published in conjunction with the exhibition and prepared in close collaboration with the artist, Robert Gober: The Heart Is Not a Metaphor traces the development of his work, highlighting themes and motifs to which he has returned throughout the decades. The book features an essay by Hilton Als – a text both wide-ranging and personal – and an in-depth narrative of Gober’s life. The rich selection of images illustrates every phase of the artist’s career, and includes previously unpublished photographs from his own archive. Hardcover. 6.5″w x 9.75″h; 272 pages; 169 illustrations. ISBN: 978-0-87070-946-3. $45.

Ann Temkin

The Marie-Josée and Henry Kravis Chief Curator of Painting and Sculpture
The Museum of Modern Art

Ms. Temkin assumed the role of Chief Curator of Painting and Sculpture in 2008, after joining The Museum of Modern Art in 2003 as Curator. During her tenure, Ms. Temkin has worked extensively with her colleagues on reimagining the Painting and Sculpture collection galleries at the Museum. Along with Robert Gober: The Heart Is Not A Metaphor, her exhibitions at MoMA include Ileana Sonnabend: Ambassador for the New (2013); Abstract Expressionist New York (2010); Gabriel Orozco (2009); and Color Chart: Reinventing Color, 1950 to Today (2008). Prior to MoMA, Ms. Temkin was the curator of modern and contemporary art at the Philadelphia Museum of Art from 1990 to 2003, where she organised such exhibitions as Barnett Newman (2002), Constantin Brancusi (1995), and Thinking is Form: The Drawings of Joseph Beuys (1994).

Paulina Pobocha

Assistant Curator, Department of Painting and Sculpture
The Museum of Modern Art

Ms. Pobocha is an assistant curator in the Department of Painting and Sculpture at The Museum of Modern Art. She joined the Museum in 2008 and has worked on the exhibitions Gabriel Orozco (2009) and Abstract Expressionist New York (2010). In 2013 she co-organised Claes Oldenburg: The Street and The Store. She has also worked extensively with the Museum’s collection. Prior to MoMA, Ms. Pobocha was a Joan Tisch Fellow at the Whitney Museum of American Art, where she lectured on a broad range of subjects in contemporary and modern art. In 2011, she was appointed Critic at the Yale University School of Art.

Press release from the MoMA website

 

Installation view of 'Robert Gober: The Heart Is Not a Metaphor', The Museum of Modern Art, October 4, 2014 - January 18, 2015

 

Robert Gober (American, b. 1954)
X Pipe Playpen
2013-14
Wood and bronze
26 1/8 x 55 x 55″ (66.4 x 139.7 x 139.7cm)
Collection the artist

 

Installation view of 'Robert Gober: The Heart Is Not a Metaphor', The Museum of Modern Art, October 4, 2014 - January 18, 2015 showing Gober's 'Untitled' 1989-1996

 

Robert Gober (American, b. 1954)
Untitled
 (installation view)
1989-1996
Silk satin, muslin, linen, tulle, welded steel, hand-printed silkscreen on paper, cast hydrostone plaster, vinyl acrylic paint, ink, and graphite
Dimensions variable, approximately 800 square feet installed
The Art Institute of Chicago, restricted gift of Stefan T. Edlis and H. Gael Neeson Foundation; through prior gifts of Mr. and Mrs. Joel Starrels and Fowler McCormick
© 2014 Robert Gober

 

Robert Gober (American, b. 1954) 'Bag of Donuts' 1989

 

Robert Gober (American, b. 1954)
Bag of Donuts
1989
paper, dough and rhoplex (12 donuts)
© 2014 Robert Gober

 

Robert Gober (American, b. 1954)
 'Untitled Leg' 1989-1990

 

Robert Gober (American, b. 1954)
Untitled Leg
1989-1990
Beeswax, cotton, wood, leather, human hair
11 3/8 x 7 3/4 x 20″ (28.9 x 19.7 x 50.8 cm)
The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Gift of the Dannheisser Foundation
© 2014 Robert Gober

 

Installation view of 'Robert Gober: The Heart Is Not a Metaphor', The Museum of Modern Art, October 4, 2014 - January 18, 2015 showing on the floor, Gober's 'Cigar' 1991

 

Robert Gober (American, b. 1954)
Cigar (installation view)
1991
Wood, paint, paper, tobacco
15 3/4 x 15 3/4 x 70 7/8″ (40 x 40 x 180cm)
The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. Purchased with funds provided by the Collectors Committee in honour of Marcia Simon Weisman
© 2014 Robert Gober

Robert Gober (American, b. 1954)
Forest
1991
Hand-printed silkscreen on paper
180″ x 124″ (457.2 x 315cm)
Courtesy the artist
© 2014 Robert Gober

 

Robert Gober (American, b. 1954) '
Untitled' 1991


 

Robert Gober (American, b. 1954)
Untitled
1991
Wood, beeswax, leather, fabric, and human hair
13 1/4 x 16 1/2 x 46 1/8″ (33.6 x 41.9 x 117.2cm)
The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Gift of Werner and Elaine Dannheisser
Background: Forest, 1991
Hand-painted silkscreen on paper
Image credit: K. Ignatiadis, courtesy the artist and Matthew Marks Gallery
© 2014 Robert Gober

 

Installation view of 'Robert Gober: The Heart Is Not a Metaphor', The Museum of Modern Art, October 4, 2014 - January 18, 2015 showing Gober's 'Untitled' 1992

 

Robert Gober (American, b. 1954)
Untitled (installation view)
1992
Paper, twine, metal, light bulbs, cast plaster with casein and silkscreen ink, stainless steel, painted cast bronze and water, plywood, forged iron, plaster, latex paint and lights, photolithography on archival (Mohawk Superfine) paper, twine, hand-painted forest mural
511 3/4 × 363 3/16 × 177 3/16″ (1300 × 922.5 × 450.1cm)
Glenstone
© 2014 Robert Gober

 

Robert Gober (American, b. 1954) '
Untitled' 1992


 

Robert Gober (American, b. 1954)
Untitled
1992
Paper, twine, metal, light bulbs, cast plaster with casein and silkscreen ink, stainless steel, painted cast bronze and water, plywood, forged iron, plaster, latex paint and lights, photolithography on archival (Mohawk Superfine) paper, twine, hand-painted forest mural
511 3/4 × 363 3/16 × 177 3/16″ (1300 × 922.5 × 450.1cm)
Glenstone
Image credit: Russell Kaye, courtesy the artist and Matthew Marks Gallery
© 2014 Robert Gober

 

Robert Gober (American, b. 1954) 'Untitled' 2003-2005

 

Robert Gober (American, b. 1954)
Untitled
2003-2005
Courtesy MoMA and Matthew Marks Gallery
Image credit: Russel Kaye
© 2014 Robert Gober

 

Installation view of 'Robert Gober: The Heart Is Not a Metaphor', The Museum of Modern Art, October 4, 2014 - January 18, 2015 showing Gober's 'Untitled' 2003-2005 (detail)

 

Robert Gober (American, b. 1954)
Untitled (detail)
2003-2005
© 2014 Robert Gober

 

Robert Gober (American, b. 1954) 'Untitled' 1980-1981

 

Robert Gober (American, b. 1954)
Untitled
1980-1981
Oil on wood panel
8 x 5 3/4″ (20.3 x 14.6cm)
Collection the artist
Image credit: Ron Amstutz, courtesy the artist and Matthew Marks Gallery
© 2014 Robert Gober

 

Robert Gober (American, b. 1954) '
Slip Covered Armchair' 1986-1987

 

Robert Gober (American, b. 1954)
Slip Covered Armchair
1986-1987
Plaster, wood, linen, and fabric paint
31 1/2 x 30 1/2 x 29″ (80 x 77.5 x 73.7cm)
Collection the artist
Image credit: D. James Dee, courtesy the artist
© 2014 Robert Gober

 

Installation view of 'Robert Gober: The Heart Is Not a Metaphor', The Museum of Modern Art, October 4, 2014 - January 18, 2015 showing Gober's 'Untitled Door and Door Frame' 1987-1988

 

Robert Gober (American, b. 1954)
Untitled Door and Door Frame (installation view)
1987-1988
Wood, enamel paint
Door: 84 x 34 x 1 1/2″ (213.4 x 86.4 x 3.8cm)
Doorframe: 90 x 43 x 5 1/2″ (228.6 x 109.2 x 14cm)
Collection Walker Art Center, Minneapolis. Gift of the John and Mary Pappajohn Art Foundation, 2004
© 2014 Robert Gober

Installation views of Robert Gober: The Heart Is Not a Metaphor, The Museum of Modern Art, October 4, 2014 – January 18, 2015
All works by Robert Gober © 2014 Robert Gober © 2014 The Museum of Modern Art
Photos: Jonathan Muzikar

 

Robert Gober (American, b. 1954) 'Untitled' 2005-2006

 

Robert Gober (American, b. 1954)
Untitled
2005-2006
Aluminium-leaf, oil and enamel paint on cast lead crystal
4 3/4″ high × 4 1/4″ diameter (12.1 × 10.8cm)
Collection the artist
Image credit: Bill Orcutt, courtesy the artist and Matthew Marks Gallery
© 2014 Robert Gober

 

Robert Gober (American, b. 1954) '
Untitled' 2008


 

Robert Gober (American, b. 1954)
Untitled
2008
Cast gypsum polymer
14 1/2 x 10 3/4 x 6″ (36.8 x 27.3 x 15.2cm)
Edition of 4, with 1 AP
Collection the artist
Image credit: Fredrik Nilsen, courtesy the artist and Matthew Marks Gallery
© 2014 Robert Gober

 

Robert Gober (American, b. 1954) 'Leg with Anchor' 2008

 

Robert Gober (American, b. 1954)
Leg with Anchor
2008
Forged iron and steel, beeswax, cotton, leather, and human hair
28 × 18 × 20″ (71.1 × 45.7 × 50.8cm)
Glenstone
Image credit: Bill Orcutt, courtesy the artist and Matthew Marks Gallery
© 2014 Robert Gober

 

 

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Text/Exhibition: ‘Wynn Bullock: Revelations’ at the High Museum of Art, Atlanta

Exhibition dates: 14th June 2014 – 18th January 2015

 

Wynn Bullock (American, 1902–1975) 'Del Monte Forest' 1969

 

Wynn Bullock (American, 1902-1975)
Del Monte Forest
1969
Gelatin silver print
High Museum of Art, Atlanta, promised gift of Barbara and Gene Bullock-Wilson
© Bullock Family Photography LLC. All rights reserved

 

 

Being and Becoming in the work of Wynn Bullock

It’s strange how some artists become famous while others wane in relative obscurity. For 50 years after his death, J. S. Bach’s reputation as a composer declined, his work regarded as old-fashioned compared to the new style of the day. Just look at him now.

Wynn Bullock, contemporary of Edward Weston, Minor White, Harry Callahan, Aaron Siskind, Imogen Cunningham, Frederick Sommer and Ansel Adams, is not yet as well known as any of them. He should be. As the press release states, “Despite early acclaim, the true breadth and depth of Bullock’s career has remained largely in the shadows.” This first retrospective of his work in 40 years will hopefully start to change that perception. In my estimation he is up there in the pantheon of photographic stars. There are photographers… and there are master photographers. Bullock is one of the latter, in my top ten classical black and white analogue photographers of all time.

Bullock began pursuing “straight” photography after meeting Edward Weston in 1948. Work from the early 1950s has an essential, humanist flavour as can be seen in photographs such as Child in Forest (1951) and Let There Be Light (1951), both images appearing in Edward Steichen’s seminal exhibition The Family of Man at the Museum of Modern Art in 1955, printed at large scale. By the mid-50s Bullock was really hitting his straps and the work starts to become less didactic and more open to multiple interpretations and possibilities.

As Bullock says, the mysteries lie all around us waiting only to be perceived. But it’s more than that… it’s more than “what if”. Bullock claims the existence of these things while at the same time acknowledging that they are not generally accessible within the Western canon. That he expresses their existence is his gift to the world.

Take, for example, that most complex of images, Point Lobos Tide Pool (1957). Once seen, never forgotten. I remember seeing this image in my first year studying photography at university and it being seared into my brain. How could you get such an image! It encompasses every feeling and emotion about our place in the cosmos that I could ever think of. And then you hear the story (one that I recently confirmed with his daughter Barbara), which I recount here and which appeared in the book Darkroom edited by Eleanor Lewis, published in 1976 by Lustrum Press, and dedicated to Bullock’s memory.

Bullock was only able to make ONE exposure.

“The first photograph I want to discuss is the POINT LOBOS TIDE POOL. This is a contact print from an 8 x 10 negative. The picture was taken at sunset and the light was dim. The sun was striking only the edges of the rocks in the upper-left-hand corner. The tide pool itself was especially dull, and the light was disappearing so fast I had to make a quick exposure. The negative is very soft because in my hurry to capture the picture, I forgot to underexpose the film so that I could expand the contrast by overdeveloping. The tide pool, a critical part of the image, is especially soft.

“For the final print, I used Brovira No. 5 paper, Amidol developer, and developed it for three minutes to keep the dull parts from going flat. As soon as you use high contrast papers, everything gets more critical. A second or two variation in exposure in high contrast areas can mean the difference between seeing what I want to see, and not seeing anything but black or white paper.

“I could think of the negative-making process as one in which I would make a technically perfect negative. But the technically perfect negative doesn’t always give me what I want… By not always reaching for the easily printed negative, I get luminosity I wouldn’t otherwise have.

In the tide pool print, it’s always been a touchy problem to get the brilliance in the pool itself, where the negative is soft. Unless carefully controlled, that part goes muddy. The rest of the photograph is secondary, but requires some burning and dodging to get tonal balance.

“These are problems I’ve been living with. In doing so, I’ve developed printing skills. It’s a way of life with me. In printing, I don’t want to distort the reality of the image, but I don’t want to distort the reality of my feelings for it either. The two go hand in hand. I have no qualms about altering the image by burning and dodging. I’m not a purist in that way. I am a purist in that I don’t want the manipulation to show. As soon as it does, the magic is destroyed.”


As his daughter Barbara notes, “Point Lobos Tide Pool, 1957 is another serendipitous image that took place on the [Point Lobos State] Reserve. The day this photograph was made, Dad was hauling his heavy field camera along the South Shore Trail when he happened upon a tide pool with a galaxy in its midst. He set up his equipment as quickly as he could and made his first exposure. Normally, he liked to bracket his exposures, but before he could make a second one, a gust of wind swept across the pool and the complex pattern of microscopic organisms vanished.

Fortunately, one exposure was good enough. Whenever he told the story, Dad would laugh and say, “I was just damn lucky that day!” What he often left unexpressed was the lasting impression of the experience that exemplified for him the continual being-and-becoming nature of the universe as well as the kinship of its microcosmic and macrocosmic dimensions. The image remained a personal favourite for the rest of his life.” (Barbara Bullock-Wilson. “Point Lobos Tide Pool, 1957” Commentary © 2013/2015 Barbara Bullock-Wilson. All rights reserved.)


It is as if the universe stood still for the length of time that it took Bullock to expose his plate, as though the universe was giving him permission for his previsualisation … … … before it moved on, in a gust of wind. But that is not the end of it, no! Because of the thin negative Bullock had to print on grade 5 paper, the most contrasty paper that you can get. And because the area of the tide pool was especially thin, the exposure time is absolutely critical for this print, to get the luminosity in the pool that the artist required. In the whole scheme of things there is a tiny window of opportunity with the exposure of this negative to get a glorious print. This is far from a straight print, and what makes the story even more remarkable is that Bullock had to delve into his scientific knowledge, had to experiment with his feelings (his exposure time), with the magic of the analogue print, to make this apparition appear!

The whole story is quite thrilling really. As my mentor observes, “Point Lobos is several km of coast if you measured into every bay – but there aren’t that many spots where you can photograph the actual tide zone – probably 7 or 8 inlets – some smaller than a basketball court. The spot that Minor White talks about as Weston cove is about basketball court size from memory. You can walk around above it a few metres in the air and see it all. Only someone with a specific aim would scramble down to be amongst what could already be clearly seen. There are just as many spots where you can’t get down like Weston’s sparkle on the sea shot. Weston cove feels amazing; full of ghosts. Bullock would have been very familiar with what would be likely to come around again and what would not.”

Close your eyes and just imagine dragging an 8 x 10 camera down there and finding that image.


Readers, you know that I am a passionate person, that I am passionate about photography. As I relatively young man what these great artists seemed to me to be doing were noble artistic things; I still feel that. You cannot talk about photography like other mediums that define themselves – not in a modernist sense of materials – Rothko can only be talked about by referring to Rothko, Beethoven, Mozart, etc… Much as Bullock says that light “permits the same freedom of expression as paint for the painter, words for the writer, numbers for the mathematician, or sound for the composer,” photography is of a different order. You are comparing a system of making using the hand with a system using a photo-mechanical eye. Making great images is of necessity much more difficult within this process (as can be see in the millions of meaningless images that flood the world today).

I believe that inherent to any photograph is the ability to transcend the medium – whether that is in vernacular photography (by chance) or through astute observation and meditation (MW and WB). Whether the person then recognises these images as such is another matter, but it only happens on limited occasions. But when you get something, the magic just works. In his Point Lobos Tide Pool (1957), Navigation without Numbers (1957), Under Monterey Wharf (1969) and Erosion (1959), Bullock is like a mystical time traveller – of both the body and the landscape. You only have to look at the timbre of the prints and the layering of tones. These images can’t be judged on any terms other than the terms the image itself lays down. They are beyond serious: and it shows how difficult photography really is – and how rare the good photograph is – that most photographers don’t really have a count that gets into double figures for a decade’s work. It doesn’t add up to much of a crop for a lifetimes work but does Bullock care… hell no!

As he says, “You really have to give of yourself to make good pictures… The fact that good pictures are rare, however, has never slowed me down. Just going out and looking at things and using a camera is therapeutic. I deeply love the whole process.”


A deep love of the whole process, a deep love of being and becoming.


The ability of the photographer is that they can massage the medium – through imagination, surrealism, reality, space / time etc… that ENACTS a difference that painters, musicians can only dream of – through a manipulation of reality, through a form of hyper-reality. In Bullock’s case it is the recognition of the mysteries that lie all around us in which the images take on a symbiotic relationship with an observation of the human mind THROUGH photography.

Openly talking in a clear language from a lifetime of meditation.

A clear language where words don’t quite equal the meanings normally attached to them.

From another dimension.

 

“In streams of light I clearly saw
The dust you seldom see,
Out of which the Nameless makes
A Name for one like me.

I’ll try to say a little more:
Love went on and on
Until it reached an open door –
Then Love Itself
Love Itself was gone.

All busy in the sunlight
The flecks did float and dance,
And I was tumbled up with them
In formless circumstance.

I’ll try to say a little more:
Love went on and on
Until it reached an open door –
Then Love Itself
Love Itself was gone.”

(from “Love Itself” lyrics by Leonard Cohen)

 

Dr Marcus Bunyan


Many thankx to the High Museum of Art for allowing me to publish the photographs and text in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

 

 

“Mysteries lie all around us, even in the most familiar of things, waiting only to be perceived.”


“Light to me is perhaps the most profound truth in the universe… [It] permits the same freedom of expression as paint for the painter, words for the writer, numbers for the mathematician, or sound for the composer.”


“You really have to give of yourself to make good pictures. Well, that giving takes a lot out of you, and you simply can’t operate at that intense level all the time. Neither can you predetermine what happens outside you.

The fact that good pictures are rare, however, has never slowed me down. Just going out and looking at things and using a camera is therapeutic. I deeply love the whole process.”


Wynn Bullock

 

 

Wynn Bullock (American, 1902-1975) 'Point Lobos Tide Pool' 1957

 

Wynn Bullock (American, 1902-1975)
Point Lobos Tide Pool
1957
Gelatin silver print
7 9/16 x 9 1/2 in.
Collection Center for Creative Photography
© Bullock Family Photography LLC. All rights reserved

 

Point Lobos Tide Pool appears simultaneously to resemble both a galaxy and a bacterial growth across a petri dish, when in fact it is neither so large nor so small a subject, but rather a pool arrayed with microorganisms along the Carmel coast, transformed into a picture of astounding beauty.

 

Wynn Bullock (American, 1902-1975) 'Erosion' 1959

 

Wynn Bullock (American, 1902-1975)
Erosion
1959
Gelatin silver print
Collection Center for Creative Photography
© Bullock Family Photography LLC. All rights reserved

 

Bullock found this scene along a California roadway and was drawn to the insight it provides into what goes on in spaces that normally lie beyond our perception. The eroded embankment reveals the slow evolution of the world across centuries, with organic and inorganic elements coexisting together at different stages of growth and decay. Stripped of its skin and flayed by the corrosive power of water, the hill in Bullock’s picture reveals a powerfully foreign world as real and as beautiful as anything on the surface of the earth. Bullock’s efforts were decidedly pointed toward making the ordinary profound and in revealing a complexity beyond the surface of things.

 

Wynn Bullock (American, 1902-1975) 'Under Monterey Wharf' 1969

 

Wynn Bullock (American, 1902-1975)
Under Monterey Wharf
1969
Gelatin silver print
Collection Center for Creative Photography
© Bullock Family Photography LLC. All rights reserved

 

Wynn Bullock (American, 1902-1975) 'Navigation without Numbers' 1957

 

Wynn Bullock (American, 1902-1975)
Navigation without Numbers
1957
Gelatin silver print
6 13/16 x 8 15/16 in.
Collection Center for Creative Photography
© Bullock Family Photography LLC. All rights reserved

 

Wynn Bullock (American, 1902-1975) 'Nude by Sandy's Window' 1956

 

Wynn Bullock (American, 1902-1975)
Nude by Sandy’s Window
1956
Gelatin silver print
Center for Creative Photography
© Bullock Family Photography LLC. All rights reserved

 

In this picture, a brightly lit window occupies the bulk of Bullock’s composition, hovering over a woman who appears to be asleep; light shines in through the glass with a blinding intensity that obscures a clear view of the exterior while alluding to the existence of a world of indefinite proportions beyond.

 

Wynn Bullock (American, 1902-1975) 'Lynne, Point Lobos' 1956

 

Wynn Bullock (American, 1902-1975)
Lynne, Point Lobos
1956
Gelatin silver print
7 1/2 x 9 7/16 in.
Collection Center for Creative Photography
© Bullock Family Photography LLC. All rights reserved

 

 

“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science.

He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.”

Albert Einstein, quoted by Wynn Bullock

 

 

In June 2014, the High Museum of Art will become the first major museum in nearly 40 years to mount a retrospective of work by Wynn Bullock (1902-1975) with the exhibition Wynn Bullock: Revelations, organised by the High in collaboration with the Center for Creative Photography.

One of the most significant photographers of the mid-20th century, Bullock worked in the American modernist tradition alongside Edward Weston, Harry Callahan and Ansel Adams. More than 100 black-and-white and colour works by Bullock will come together for the exhibition, which will coincide with a major gift to the High from the Bullock Estate of a large collection of vintage photographs, making the Museum one of the most significant repositories of Bullock’s work in the U.S.

The High is home to the most robust photography program in the American Southeast with particularly distinct holdings in the classic modernist tradition. Wynn Bullock: Revelations offers an unprecedentedly holistic look at Bullock’s innovative career, beginning with his early light abstractions and moving through his landscapes, figure studies, colour work, negative images and late abstractions. The exhibition will be on view June 14, 2014 through Jan. 18, 2015.

A close friend of influential West Coast artists Ansel Adams and Edward Weston, and a contemporary of Minor White, Harry Callahan, Aaron Siskind, Imogen Cunningham and Frederick Sommer, Bullock created a body of work marked by a distinct interest in experimentation, abstraction and philosophical exploration. His images Let There Be Light and Child in Forest (both of which will be included in the High’s exhibition) became icons in the history of photography following their prominent inclusion in Edward Steichen’s landmark 1955 exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, The Family of Man.

Bullock’s photography received early recognition in 1941, when the Los Angeles County Museum of Art staged his first solo exhibition. His mature work appeared in one-man shows at the Bibliotèque Nationale, Paris; the Royal Photographic Society, London; the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; and the Art Institute of Chicago; among other prestigious venues. His archive was a foundational collection for the Center for Creative Photography in Tucson, Ariz., which is recognised as one of the most important photographic resources in the world.

Despite early acclaim, the true breadth and depth of Bullock’s career has remained largely in the shadows. Wynn Bullock: Revelations offers the most comprehensive assessment of the photographer’s extraordinary career in nearly 40 years. This retrospective traces Bullock’s evolution from his early experimental work of the 1940s, through the mysterious black-and-white imagery of the 1950s and colour light abstractions of the 1960s, to his late metaphysical photographs of the 1970s.

“Bullock’s arresting work was integral to codifying what we now think of as quintessential mid-century style, which in turn paved the way for every stage of photography that has followed,” said Brett Abbott, curator of photography and head of collections at the High. “Presenting this exhibition and acquiring this generous body of work from Bullock’s estate will allow us to play a role in bringing him back into the popular consciousness. Our photography department has expanded greatly over the last few years, in terms of the work we own and the exhibitions we mount, giving us the ability to position this pivotal body of work as part of the nearly two-century-long story of the development of photography.”

Wynn Bullock: Revelations will be accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue to be produced by the High in collaboration with the University of Texas Press. The book presents 110 images, including some from the Bullock Estate that have never been published before. An essay by Abbott explores the nuances of Bullock’s approach to photography and its fascinating relationship to the history of science and philosophy. The volume also includes an illustrated chronology, bibliography, selected collections, exhibitions history, plate list and notes.

About Wynn Bullock

Wynn Bullock was born on April 18, 1902, in Chicago, Ill. After graduating from high school, Bullock worked as a professional singer in New York City and across Europe. In 1938 he moved to Los Angeles to pursue a law degree but soon dropped out of school to become a photography student at Art Center School, where he became deeply involved in exploring alternative processes such as solarisation and bas relief and began building a career in commercial photography. Bullock went on to serve in the military and then to build a successful private photography business, where he developed a way to control the line effect of solarisation, a discovery for which he was awarded patents. Bullock began pursuing “straight” photography after meeting Edward Weston in 1948. Throughout the 1950s he explored the natural world from his own unique perspective in photography and came into the public spotlight through exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City and the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, D.C. In the 1960s he created an innovative body of abstract colour images. He later returned to experimental black and white, on which he continued to focus until his death in 1975. Bullock’s work is part of the collections of more than 90 major institutions throughout the world.

Press release from the High Museum of Art website

 

Wynn Bullock (American, 1902-1975) 'Color Light Abstraction 1076' 1963

 

Wynn Bullock (American, 1902-1975)
Color Light Abstraction 1076
1963
Inkjet print
14 x 21 in.
High Museum of Art, Atlanta, promised gift of Barbara and Gene Bullock-Wilson
© Bullock Family Photography LLC. All rights reserved

 

Wynn Bullock (American, 1902-1975) 'Color Light Abstraction 1075' 1963

 

Wynn Bullock (American, 1902-1975)
Color Light Abstraction 1075
1963
Inkjet print
14 x 21 in.
High Museum of Art, Atlanta, promised gift of Barbara and Gene Bullock-Wilson
© Bullock Family Photography LLC. All rights reserved

 

Entrance Mural to the exhibition 'Wynn Bullock: Revelations' at the High Museum of Art, Atlanta with glimpses of Galleries 1 and 3

Installation view of the exhibition 'Wynn Bullock: Revelations' at the High Museum of Art, Atlanta with a view of Gallery 1

Installation view of the exhibition 'Wynn Bullock: Revelations' at the High Museum of Art, Atlanta with a view of Gallery 2

Installation view of the exhibition 'Wynn Bullock: Revelations' at the High Museum of Art, Atlanta with a view of Gallery 3

 

Wynn Bullock: Revelations installation at the High Museum of Art, Atlanta
Entrance mural with glimpses of Galleries 1 and 3 (top), Galleries 1, 2 and 3 (bottom)

 

“Love Itself”

The light came through the window,
Straight from the sun above,
And so inside my little room
There plunged the rays of Love.

In streams of light I clearly saw
The dust you seldom see,
Out of which the Nameless makes
A Name for one like me.

I’ll try to say a little more:
Love went on and on
Until it reached an open door –
Then Love Itself
Love Itself was gone.

All busy in the sunlight
The flecks did float and dance,
And I was tumbled up with them
In formless circumstance.

I’ll try to say a little more:
Love went on and on
Until it reached an open door –
Then Love Itself
Love Itself was gone.

Then I came back from where I’d been.
My room, it looked the same –
But there was nothing left between
The Nameless and the Name.

All busy in the sunlight
The flecks did float and dance,
And I was tumbled up with them
In formless circumstance.

I’ll try to say a little more:
Love went on and on
Until it reached an open door –
Then Love itself,
Love Itself was gone.
Love Itself was gone.

 

Lyrics by Leonard Cohen

 

Wynn Bullock (American, 1902-1975) 'Child in Forest' 1951

 

Wynn Bullock (American, 1902-1975)
Child in Forest
1951
Gelatin silver print
7 7/16 x 9 3/8 in.
High Museum of Art, Atlanta, purchase
© Bullock Family Photography LLC. All rights reserved

 

Wynn Bullock (American, 1902-1975) 'Stark Tree' 1956

 

Wynn Bullock (American, 1902-1975)
Stark Tree
1956
Gelatin silver print
7 5/8 x 9 1/16 in.
Collection Center for Creative Photography
© Bullock Family Photography LLC. All rights reserved

 

Wynn Bullock (American, 1902-1975) 'Let There Be Light' 1954

 

Wynn Bullock (American, 1902-1975)
Let There Be Light
1954
Gelatin silver print
7 3/8 x 9 7/16 in.
Collection Center for Creative Photography
© Bullock Family Photography LLC. All rights reserved

 

Wynn Bullock (American, 1902-1975) 'Old Typewriter' 1951

 

Wynn Bullock (American, 1902-1975)
Old Typewriter
1951
Gelatin silver print
7 1/16 × 9 7/16 in.
High Museum of Art, Atlanta, Gift of Lucinda W. Bunnen for the Bunnen Collection
© Bullock Family Photography LLC. All rights reserved

 

Wynn Bullock (American, 1902-1975) 'The Shore' 1966

 

Wynn Bullock (American, 1902-1975)
The Shore
1966
Gelatin silver print
9 1/4 x 13 5/8 in.
High Museum of Art, Atlanta, promised gift of Barbara and Gene Bullock-Wilson
© Bullock Family Photography LLC. All rights reserved

 

Wynn Bullock (American, 1902-1975) 'Sea Palms' 1968

 

Wynn Bullock (American, 1902-1975)
Sea Palms
1968
Gelatin silver print
7 1/2 x 9 1/4 in.
High Museum of Art, Atlanta, promised gift of Barbara and Gene Bullock-Wilson
© Bullock Family Photography LLC. All rights reserved

 

Wynn Bullock (American, 1902-1975) 'Driftwood' 1951

 

Wynn Bullock (American, 1902-1975)
Driftwood
1951
Gelatin silver print
7 1/2 x 9 1/2 in.
High Museum of Art, Atlanta, promised gift of Barbara and Gene Bullock-Wilson
© Bullock Family Photography LLC. All rights reserved

 

Wynn Bullock (American, 1902-1975) 'Point Lobos Tide Pools' 1972

 

Wynn Bullock (American, 1902-1975)
Point Lobos Tide Pools
1972
Gelatin silver print
© Bullock Family Photography LLC. All rights reserved

 

Wynn Bullock (American, 1902-1975) 'Early Solarization' 1940

 

Wynn Bullock (American, 1902-1975)
Early Solarization
1940
Gelatin silver print
6 1/4 x 8 in.
Collection of Barbara and Gene Bullock-Wilson
© Bullock Family Photography LLC. All rights reserved

 

Wynn Bullock (American, 1902-1975) 'Edna' 1956

 

Wynn Bullock (American, 1902-1975)
Edna
1956
Gelatin silver print
7 1/2 x 7 1/2 in.
High Museum of Art, Atlanta, promised gift of Barbara and Gene Bullock-Wilson
© Bullock Family Photography LLC. All rights reserved

 

Wynn Bullock (American, 1902-1975) 'Portrait of Edna, Cannery Row' 1955

 

Wynn Bullock (American, 1902-1975)
Portrait of Edna, Cannery Row
1955
Gelatin silver print
9 1/2 x 7 1/2 in.
Collection of Barbara and Gene Bullock-Wilson
© Bullock Family Photography LLC. All rights reserved

 

Wynn Bullock (American, 1902-1975) 'Barbara through Window' 1956

 

Wynn Bullock (American, 1902-1975)
Barbara through Window
1956
Gelatin silver print
9 1/2 x 7 1/2 in.
Collection Center for Creative Photography
© Bullock Family Photography LLC. All rights reserved

 

Wynn Bullock (American, 1902-1975) 'Nude Torso in Forest' 1958

 

Wynn Bullock (American, 1902-1975)
Nude Torso in Forest
1958
Gelatin silver print
9 1/2 x 6 1/4 in.
Collection of Barbara and Gene Bullock-Wilson
© Bullock Family Photography LLC. All rights reserved

 

Wynn Bullock (American, 1902-1975) 'Child on Forest Road' 1958

 

Wynn Bullock (American, 1902-1975)
Child on Forest Road
1958
Gelatin silver print
© Bullock Family Photography LLC. All rights reserved

 

Wynn Bullock (American, 1902-1975) 'Fallen Tree Trunk' 1972

 

Wynn Bullock (American, 1902-1975)
Fallen Tree Trunk
1972
Gelatin silver print
8 5/8 x 7 1/2 in.
High Museum of Art, Atlanta, promised gift of Barbara and Gene Bullock-Wilson
© Bullock Family Photography LLC. All rights reserved

 

Wynn Bullock (American, 1902-1975) 'Tree Trunk' 1971

 

Wynn Bullock (American, 1902-1975)
Tree Trunk
1971
Gelatin silver print
Promised Gift of Lynne Harrington-Bullock
© Bullock Family Photography LLC. All rights reserved

 

To create this image, Bullock reversed the positive and negative values of his rendering of a tree trunk, and then turned the composition upside down. In so doing, he disrupts a habitual reading of the natural world, creates an experience of disorientation, and allows the forms pictured to engage the eye in freshly invigorating ways.

 

Wynn Bullock (American, 1902-1975) 'Photogram' 1970

 

Wynn Bullock (American, 1902-1975)
Photogram
1970
Gelatin silver print
9 1/8 x 7 3/8 in.
Collection of Barbara and Gene Bullock-Wilson
© Bullock Family Photography LLC. All rights reserved

 

Wynn Bullock (American, 1902-1975) 'Rock' 1973

 

Wynn Bullock (American, 1902-1975)
Rock
1973
Gelatin silver print
8 5/8 x 6 3/4 in.
Collection of Barbara and Gene Bullock-Wilson
© Bullock Family Photography LLC. All rights reserved

 

 

High Museum of Art
1280 Peachtree Street,
N.E. Atlanta, GA 30309

Opening hours:
Monday Closed
Tuesday – Saturday 10am – 5pm
Sunday 12 noon to 5pm

High Museum of Art website

Wynn Bullock Photography website
Wynn Bullock Photography web page dedicated to the exhibition

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Exhibition: ‘Joel Meyerowitz Retrospective’ at NRW-Forum Düsseldorf

Exhibition dates: 27th September 2014 – 11th January 2015

 

Joel Meyerowitz (American, b. 1938) 'New York City' 1963

 

Joel Meyerowitz (American, b. 1938)
New York City
1963

 

 

Meyerowitz really comes into his own in the ’70s. Luscious colours and lascivious compositions in which the attention of the photographer is directed towards the relationship between object, light and time. The image becomes an object of fetishistic desire.

The hyperreal colours and placement of figures are crucial to this ocular obsession. Look at the image Gold corner, New York City (1974) and observe the precise, choreographed placement of the figures and how the colours flow, from orange/brown to green/blue and onto turquoise/red and polka dot, the central figure’s eyes shielded under a wide-brimmed hat, hand to head, model style. This is colour porn for the eyes. And Meyerowitz does it so well… the stretch of thigh and shadow in Los Angeles Airport, California (1976), the classic red of Truro (1976) or the bare midriff and raised yellow heel in New York City, 42nd and Fifth Ave (1974).

The best of these photos give you a zing of excitement and a surge of recognition – like a superlative Stephen Shore or an outstanding William Eggelston. At his best Meyerowitz is mesmerising.

Dr Marcus Bunyan


Many thankx to the NRW-Forum Düsseldorf for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

 

 

Joel Meyerowitz (American, b. 1938) 'Untitled' 1976

 

Joel Meyerowitz (American, b. 1938)
Ballston Beach, Truro, Cape Cod
1976

 

Joel Meyerowitz (American, b. 1938) 'Los Angeles Airport, California' 1976

 

Joel Meyerowitz (American, b. 1938)
Los Angeles Airport, California
1976

 

Joel Meyerowitz (American, b. 1938) 'Dairyland, Provincetown' 1976

 

Joel Meyerowitz (American, b. 1938)
Dairyland, Provincetown
1976

 

Joel Meyerowitz (American, b. 1938) 'Truro' 1976

 

Joel Meyerowitz (American, b. 1938)
Truro
1976

 

Joel Meyerowitz (American, b. 1938) 'Red Interior, Provincetown, Massachusetts' 1977

 

Joel Meyerowitz (American, b. 1938)
Red Interior, Provincetown, Massachusetts
1977

 

 

Joel Meyerowitz is a “street photographer” in the tradition of Henri Cartier-Bresson and Robert Frank, who influenced him greatly at the beginning of his career. Since the mid-seventies he has photographed exclusively in colour.

The artist was born in 1938 in the Bronx. He initially studied art, history of art and medical illustration at the Ohio State University. Back in New York City he began his career in 1959 as an Art Director and Designer. Particularly impressed by an encounter with the photographer Robert Frank, he started taking photographs in 1962 and in the same year he left the agency, devoting himself from this point on, exclusively to photography. He travelled through New York City and capturing the mood of the streets. He soon developed his distinctive sensitivity and his candid, people-focussed style, a very unique visual language. In 1966, he embarked on an 18 month trip through Europe, which both profoundly affected and also influenced him and can be described as an artistic turning point. Meyerowitz photographed many of his works from a moving car. These works were displayed in 1968 in his first exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York: Photographs from a moving car, curated by the photography legend John Szarkowski. From the late seventies onward, Joel Meyerowitz concentrated exclusively on colour photography. In the first half of the seventies, he created numerous unique works of “street photography”. In order to further improve the image quality, the artist took another crucial step: in the mid 1970s he changed from the 35mm format to the 8 x 10″ plate camera.

In 1979, his first book Cape Light was published by Phaidon Verlag. The picture book sold over 100,000 copies and is to this day regarded as a milestone in colour photography. 17 further publications followed, most recently in 2012 with a comprehensive two-volume edition Taking my Time, a retrospective of 50 years of his photography, also published by Phaidon Verlag.

A few days after the attack on the World Trade Center, Meyerowitz began to document its destruction and reconstruction. As the only photographer, he received unrestricted access to the site of the incident. It resulted in over 8000 photographs for the The World Trade Center exhibition, which was displayed in the 9/11 Memorial Museum in New York City.

Joel Meyerowitz’ works have been and will be shown in numerous solo and group exhibitions around the world; several times in the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. On 27 September, the NRW Forum in Düsseldorf opens the most comprehensive retrospective of the artist. In addition, the works are represented in many international collections, including in the Museum of Modern Art and the Boston Museum of Fine Art.

Text from the NRW-Forum Düsseldorf website

 

Joel Meyerowitz (American, b. 1938) 'New York City' 1965

 

Joel Meyerowitz (American, b. 1938)
New York City
1965

 

Joel Meyerowitz (American, b. 1938) 'London, England' 1966

 

Joel Meyerowitz (American, b. 1938)
London, England
1966

 

Joel Meyerowitz (American, b. 1938) 'JFK Airport, New York City' 1968

 

Joel Meyerowitz (American, b. 1938)
JFK Airport, New York City
1968

 

Joel Meyerowitz (American, b. 1938) 'Paris, France' 1967

 

Joel Meyerowitz (American, b. 1938)
Paris, France
1967

 

Joel Meyerowitz (American, b. 1938) 'New York City, 42nd and Fifth Ave' 1974

 

Joel Meyerowitz (American, b. 1938)
New York City, 42nd and Fifth Ave
1974

 

Joel Meyerowitz (American, b. 1938) 'Dusk, New Jersey' 1978

 

Joel Meyerowitz (American, b. 1938)
Dusk, New Jersey
1978
Archival pigment print

 

 

Joel Meyerowitz (born 1938 in New York) is, along with William Eggleston and Stephen Shore, one of the most important representatives of American New Colour Photography of the 1960s / 70s. After a first encounter with Robert Frank 1962, Meyerowitz decided to give up his job as art director in New York and to devote himself to photography. In particular, his photographs of street scenes of American cities, which he takes with his 35mm camera as fleeting moments, make him a precursor of street photography and his works icons of contemporary photography.

“Watching Life is all about Timing”

A first turning point in his photography was his annual trip to Europe in 1966/67, a trip which allowed him to critically question his colour photography. As early as 1968, he had his first solo exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) of works created in Europe under the title From a moving car. His first book, Cape Light (1978), in which he examines achromatic variations of light at Cape Cod, is now regarded as a milestone in photography. In addition to his film camera, which he always carries with him, Meyerowitz has been working since the late 1970s with the 8 x 10 plate camera, which allows him to capture the relationship between object, light and time in a new and more accurate way for him.

“Time is what Photography is About”

The exhibition at the NRW-Forum presents the entire photographic spectrum of 50 years of his photography for the first time in Germany. In addition to the early black / white and colour photographs of the 1960s / there will be years works from all business groups such as Cape Light, Portraits, Between the Dog and the Wolf and Ground Zero series, presented to allow the visitor a photographic and cultural image-comparison between Europe and the USA. In addition, the first documentary about the life and work of the photographer, created over a period of three years in France, Italy and the United States, will have its world premiere.”

Text from the NRW-Forum Düsseldorf website

 

Joel Meyerowitz (American, b. 1938) 'Gold corner, New York City' 1974

 

Joel Meyerowitz (American, b. 1938)
Gold corner, New York City
1974

 

Joel Meyerowitz (American, b. 1938) 'Madison Avenue, New York City' 1975

 

Joel Meyerowitz (American, b. 1938)
Madison Avenue, New York City
1975

 

Joel Meyerowitz (American, b. 1938) 'New York City' 1975

 

Joel Meyerowitz (American, b. 1938)
New York City
1975

 

Joel Meyerowitz (American, b. 1938) 'Provincetown' 1977

 

Joel Meyerowitz (American, b. 1938)
Provincetown
1977

 

Joel Meyerowitz (American, b. 1938) 'Roseville Cottages, Truro, Massachusetts' 1976

 

Joel Meyerowitz (American, b. 1938)
Roseville Cottages, Truro, Massachusetts
1976

 

Joel Meyerowitz (American, b. 1938) 'New York City' 1963

 

Joel Meyerowitz (American, b. 1938)
New York City
1963

 

Joel Meyerowitz (American, b. 1938) 'Cape Cod' 1976

 

Joel Meyerowitz (American, b. 1938)
Cape Cod
1963

 

Joel Meyerowitz (American, b. 1938) 'Pool, Dusk, Sun in Window, Florida' 1978

 

Joel Meyerowitz (American, b. 1938)
Pool, Dusk, Sun in Window, Florida
1978

 

Joel Meyerowitz (American, b. 1938) 'Bay Sky, Provincetown, Massachusetts' 1985

 

Joel Meyerowitz (American, b. 1938)
Bay Sky, Provincetown, Massachusetts
1985

 

Joel Meyerowitz (American, b. 1938) 'Five more found, New York City' 2001

 

Joel Meyerowitz (American, b. 1938)
Five more found, New York City
2001

 

 

NRW-Forum Kultur und Wirtschaft
Ehrenhof 2, 40479 Düsseldorf
Phone: +49 (0)211 – 89 266 90

Opening hours:
Tuesday to Sunday 11.00 – 18.00
Thursday until 21.00

NRW-Forum Kultur und Wirtschaft website

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Exhibition: ‘Eyes Wide Open: 100 Years of Leica Photography’ at Deichtorhallen Hamburg

Exhibition dates: 24th October 2014 – 11th January 2015

Curator: Hans-Michael Koetzle

 

Oskar Barnack (Germany, 1879-1936) 'Wetzlar Eisenmarkt' 1913

 

Oskar Barnack (Germany, 1879-1936)
Wetzlar Eisenmarkt
1913
© Leica Camera AG

 

 

A photographic revolution. So much more than just photojournalism… and it has a nice sound as well.

“Indiscreet discretion” as the photographer F. C. Gundlach puts it.

There are some memorable photographs here.

Marcus


Many thankx to the Deichtorhallen Hamburg for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

 

 

Ernst Leitz (German, 1843-1920) 'New York II' 1914

 

Ernst Leitz (German, 1843-1920)
New York II
1914
© Leica Camera AG

 

Just a few months before the outbreak of the First World War, Ernst Leitz II travelled to the USA. While there, he was able to capture photos, using a second model of the “Liliput” camera developed by Oskar Barnack, which most certainly would be found in a history of street photography.

 

Oskar Barnack (Germany, 1879-1936) 'Flood in Wetzlar' 1920

 

Oskar Barnack (Germany, 1879-1936)
Flood in Wetzlar
1920
© Leica Camera AG

 

From around the time of 1914, Oskar Barnack must have carried a prototype camera with him, particularly during his travels – the camera first received the name Leica in 1925. Perhaps his most famous sequence of images, because it has been shown continually since, is the striking series of the floods in Wetzlar, Germany, in 1920

 

'Ur-Leica' 1914

 

Ur-Leica
1914
© Leica Camera AG

 

Oskar Barnack invents the Ur-Leica

Designed by Oskar Barnack, the first functional prototype of a new camera for 35 mm perforated cinema film stock was completed in March 1914. The camera consisted of a metal housing, had a retractable lens and a focal plane shutter, which is not overlapped, however. A bolt-on lens cap that was swivelled during film transport, prevented incidental light. For the first time film advance and shutter cocking were connected to a camera – double exposures were excluded. The camera has gone down in the history of photography under the name Ur-Leica.

 

Ilse Bing (German, 1899-1998) 'Self-portrait in Spiegeln' 1931

 

Ilse Bing (German, 1899-1998)
Self-portrait in Spiegeln
1931
© Leica Camera AG

 

Anton Stankowski (German, 1906-1998) 'Greeting, Zurich, Rüdenplatz' 1932

 

Anton Stankowski (German, 1906-1998)
Greeting, Zurich, Rüdenplatz
1932
© Stankowski-Stiftung

 

Henri Cartier-Bresson (French, 1908-2004) 'Behind the Gare Saint-Lazare, Paris' 1932

 

Henri Cartier-Bresson (French, 1908-2004)
Behind the Gare Saint-Lazare, Paris
1932
Gelatin silver print

 

Alexander Rodchenko (Russian, 1891-1956) 'Girl with Leica' 1934

 

Alexander Rodchenko (Russian, 1891-1956)
Girl with Leica
1934
Gelatin silver print

 

Jewgenija Lemberg, shown here, was a lover of the photographer Alexander Rodchenko for quite some time. In 1992, a print of this photo brought in a tremendous 115,000 British pounds at a Christie’s auction in London. Alexander Rodchenko was continually capturing Jewgenija Lemberg in new, surprising and bold poses – until her death in a train accident. 

 

Heinrich Heidersberger (German, 1906-2006) 'Laederstraede, Copenhagen' 1935

 

Heinrich Heidersberger (German, 1906-2006)
Laederstraede, Copenhagen
1935
Gelatin silver print
© Institut Heidersberger

 

Robert Capa (Hungarian-American, 1913-1954) 'Loyalist Militiaman at the Moment of Death, Cerro Muriano, September 5, 1936' 1936

 

Robert Capa (Hungarian-American, 1913-1954)
Loyalist Militiaman at the Moment of Death, Cerro Muriano, September 5, 1936
1936
Gelatin silver print

 

At the age of 23 and equipped with his Leica, Robert Capa embedded himself in the Spanish Civil War while on assignment for the French press. On 5 September 1936, he managed to capture the perhaps most well-known war photo of the 20th century. 

 

Henri Cartier-Bresson (French, 1908-2004) 'Sunday on the banks of the River Marne' Juvisy France 1938

 

Henri Cartier-Bresson (French, 1908-2004)
Sunday on the banks of the River Marne
Juvisy, France 1938
Gelatin silver print

 

This photo was taken two years after the large-scale strikes that ultimately led to a fundamental improvement in social conditions. Against this backdrop, the picnic in nature is also, above all, a political message – convincing in a formal, aesthetic way, and inherently consistent and suggestive at the same time.

 

Evgeny Khaldey (Russian, 1917-1997) 'The Flag of Victory' 1945

 

Evgeny Khaldey (Russian, 1917-1997)
The Flag of Victory
1945
Gelatin silver print
© Collection Ernst Volland and Heinz Krimmer, Leica Camera AG

 

Although this scene was staged, it loses none of its impact as an image and in no way hampers the resounding global response that it has achieved. The Red Army prevailed – there’s nothing more to convey in such a harmonious picture.

 

Alfred Eisenstaedt (American, born Germany 1898-1995) 'VJ Day, Times Square, NY, 14. August 1945' 1945

 

Alfred Eisenstaedt (American, born Germany 1898-1995)
VJ Day, Times Square, NY, 14. August 1945
1945
Gelatin silver print
© Alfred Eisenstaedt, 2014

 

This photo appeared on the cover of Life magazine and grew to become one of Alfred Eisenstaedt’s most well-known images. “People tell me,” he once said, “that when I am in heaven they will remember this picture.”

 

W. Eugene Smith (American, 1918-1978) 'Guardia Civil, Spain' 1950

 

W. Eugene Smith (American, 1918-1978)
Guardia Civil, Spain
1950
Gelatin silver print
25.1 x 32.1 cm

 

W. Eugene Smith’s image of Guardia Civil is also a symbol of an imperious, backward Spain under the rule of Franco. For two months, W. Eugene Smith went scouting for a village and photographed it with the residents’ consent. What he shows us is a strange world: rural, archaic, as if on another planet. 

 

Inge Morath (American born Austria, 1923-2002) 'London' 1950

 

Inge Morath (American born Austria, 1923-2002)
London
1950
Gelatin silver print

 

Inge Morath’s photo titled “London” is well spotted, clearly composed and yet complicated in its arrangement. It also tells of a structure of domination, of hierarchies and traditions which certainly were more stable in England than in other European countries. 

 

Franz Hubmann (Austrian, 1914-2007) 'Regular guest at the Café Hawelka, Vienna' 1956/1957

 

Franz Hubmann (Austrian, 1914-2007)
Regular guest at the Café Hawelka, Vienna
1956/1957
Gelatin silver print
© Franz Hubmann. Leica Camera AG

 

We shall never discover who the man is in this photo. Franz Hubmann, more or less while walking by the table, captured the guest gently balancing a cup with the tips of his fingers – viewed from above without the use of flash, without any hectic movement, and not at all staged.

 

Frank Horvat (French, 1928-2020) 'Givenchy Hat For Jardin des Modes, Paris' 1958

 

Frank Horvat (French, 1928-2020)
Givenchy Hat For Jardin des Modes, Paris
1958
Gelatin silver print
Abzug 1995 / Haus der Photographie / Sammlung F.C. Gundlach Hamburg

 

F.C. Gundlach (German, 1926-2021) 'Fashion reportage for 'Nino', Port of Hamburg' 1958

 

F.C. Gundlach (German, 1926-2021)
Fashion reportage for ‘Nino’, Port of Hamburg
1958
Gelatin silver print
© F.C. Gundlach

 

Hans Silvester (German, b. 1938) 'Steel frame assembly' about the end of the 1950s

 

Hans Silvester (German, b. 1938)
Steel frame assembly
about the end of the 1950s
Silver gelatin, vintage print
© Hans Silvester / Leica AG

 

 

100 Years of Leica Photography | Euromaxx

 

 

The exhibition EYES WIDE OPEN: 100 YEARS OF LEICA PHOTOGRAPHY illuminates across fourteen chapters various aspects of recent small-format photography, from journalistic strategies to documentary approaches and free artistic positions, spanning fourteen chapters. Among the artists whose work will be shown are Alexander Rodchenko, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Capa, Christer Strömholm, Robert Frank, Bruce Davidson, William Klein, William Eggleston, René Burri, Thomas Hoepker and Bruce Gilden. Following its premiere in the House of Photography at the Deichtorhallen Hamburg, the exhibition will travel to Frankfurt, Berlin, Vienna and Munich.

Some 500 photographs, supplemented by documentary material, including journals, magazines, books, advertisements, brochures, camera prototypes and films, will recount the history of small-format photography from its beginnings to the present day. The exhibition, which is curated by Hans-Michael Koetzle, follows the course of technological change and photographic history.

According to an entry in the workshop records, by March 1914 at the latest, Oskar Barnack, who worked as an industrial designer at Ernst Leitz in Wetzlar, completed the first functional model of a small-format camera for 35mm cinema film. The introduction of the Leica (a combination of “Leitz” and “Camera”) which was delayed until 1925 due to the war, was not merely the invention of a new camera; the small, reliable and always-ready Leica, equipped with a high-performance lens specially engineered by Max Berek, marked a paradigm shift in photography. Not only did it offer amateur photographers, newcomers and emancipated women greater access to photography; the Leica, which could be easily carried in a coat pocket, also became a ubiquitous part of everyday life. The comparatively affordable small-format camera stimulated photographic experimentation and opened up new perspectives. In general, visual strategies for representing the world became more innovative, bold and dynamic. Without question, the Leica developed by Oskar Barnack and introduced by Ernst Leitz II in 1924 was something like photography’s answer to the phenomenological needs of a new, high-speed era.

The exhibition EYES WIDE OPEN: 100 YEARS OF LEICA PHOTOGRAPHY will attempt for the first time to offer a comprehensive overview of the change in photography brought about by the invention and introduction of the Leica. Rather than isolating the history of the camera or considering it for its own sake, it will examine the visual revolution sparked by the technological innovation of the Leica. The exhibition will take an art- and cultural-historical perspective in pursuit of the question of how the photographic gaze changed as a result of the Leica and the small-format picture, and what effects the miniaturisation of photography had on the work of amateurs, artists and photojournalists. Not least, it will also seek to determine what new subjects the camera addressed with its wide range of interchangeable lenses, and how these subjects were seen in a new light: a new way of perceiving the world through the Leica viewfinder.

Among the featured photographers are those who are internationally known for their work with Leica cameras as well as amateurs and artists who have not yet been widely associated with small-format photography, including Ilja Ehrenburg, Alfons Walde, Ben Shahn and George Grosz. Important loans, some of which have never been shown before, come from the factory archives of Leica Camera AG in Wetzlar, international collections and museums, as well as private lenders (Sammlung F. C. Gundlach, Sammlung Skrein, Sammlung WestLicht).

Press release from the Deichtorhallen Hamburg website

 

Robert Lebeck (German, 1929-2014) 'The stolen sword, Belgian Congo Leopoldville' 1960

 

Robert Lebeck (German, 1929-2014)
The stolen sword, Belgian Congo Leopoldville
1960
Gelatin silver print
© Robert Lebeck/ Leica Camera AG

 

When a young Congolese man grabs the king’s sword from the backseat of an open-top car on 29 June 1960, Robert Lebeck manages to capture the image of his life. The photo became a metaphor for the end of the descending dominance by Europeans on the African continent. 

 

Christer Strömholm (Swedish, 1918-2002) 'Nana, Place Blanche, Paris' 1961

 

Christer Strömholm (Swedish, 1918-2002)
Nana, Place Blanche, Paris
1961
Gelatin silver print
© Christer Strömholm/Strömholm Estate, 2014

 

Ulrich Mack (German, 1934-2024) 'Wild horses in Kenya' 1964

 

Ulrich Mack (German, 1934-2024)
Wild horses in Kenya
1964
Gelatin silver print
© Ulrich Mack, Hamburg / Leica Camera AG

 

Ulrich Mack travelled to Africa to discover the continent as a reporter – a continent that had been battered by warmongers and massacres. But all this changed: as if in a state of ecstasy, Ulrich Mack photographed a herd of wild horses, virtually throwing himself down under the animals

 

Claude Dityvon (French, 1937-2008) '"L'homme à la chaise", Bd St. Michel, 21 May 1968' 1968 [The main the chair]

 

Claude Dityvon (French, 1937-2008)
“L’homme à la chaise”, Bd St. Michel, 21 May 1968 [The man in the chair]
1968
Gelatin silver print
© Chris Dityvon, Paris

 

Fred Herzog (German, 1930-2019) 'Man with Bandage' 1968

 

Fred Herzog (German, 1930-2019)
Man with Bandage
1968
Courtesy of Equinox Gallery, Vancouver
© Fred Herzog, 2014

 

Lee Friedlander (American, b. 1934) 'Mount Rushmore, South Dakota' 1969

 

Lee Friedlander (American, b. 1934)
Mount Rushmore, South Dakota
1969
Gelatin silver print
Haus der Photographie / Sammlung F.C. Gundlach Hamburg

 

Nick Út (Vietnamese-American, b. 1951) / Associated Press. 'Napalm attack in Vietnam' 1972

 

Nick Út (Vietnamese-American, b. 1951) / Associated Press
Napalm attack in Vietnam
1972
Gelatin silver print
© Nick Út/AP/ Leica Camera AG

 

Elliott Erwitt (American, 1928-2023) 'Felix, Gladys and Rover' New York City, 1974

 

Elliott Erwitt (American, 1928-2023)
Felix, Gladys and Rover
New York City, 1974
Gelatin silver print

 

Elliott Erwitt’s passion focused on dogs – for him, they were the incarnation of human beings, with fur and a tail. His photo titled “New York City” was taken for a shoe manufacturer. 

 

René Burri (Swiss, 1933-2014) 'San-Cristobál' 1976

 

René Burri (Swiss, 1933-2014)
San-Cristobál
1976

 

Martine Franck (British-Belgian, 1938-2012) 'Swimming pool designed by Alain Capeilières' 1976

 

Martine Franck (British-Belgian, 1938-2012)
Swimming pool designed by Alain Capeilières
1976
Gelatin silver print

 

Wilfried Bauer (German, 1944-2005) From the series 'Hong Kong' 1985

 

Wilfried Bauer (German, 1944-2005)
From the series Hong Kong
1985
Gelatin silver print
Originally published in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung # 307, 17.01.1986
© Nachlass Wilfried Bauer/Stiftung F.C. Gundlach

 

Rudi Meisel (German, b. 1949) 'Leningrad' 1987

 

Rudi Meisel (German, b. 1949)
Leningrad
1987
Gelatin silver print

 

Jeff Mermelstein (American, b. 1957) 'Sidewalk' 1995

 

Jeff Mermelstein (American, b. 1957)
Sidewalk
1995
© Jeff Mermelstein

 

Michael von Graffenried (Swiss, b. 1957) From the series 'Night in Paradise', Thielle (Switzerland) 1998

 

Michael von Graffenried (Swiss, b. 1957)
From the series Night in Paradise, Thielle (Switzerland)
1998
Gelatin silver print
© Michael von Graffenried

 

Bruce Gilden (American, b. 1946) 'Untitled', from the series "GO" 2001

 

Bruce Gilden (American, b. 1946)
Untitled, from the series “GO”
2001
Gelatin silver print
© Bruce Gilden 2014/Magnum Photos

 

Bruce Gilden is an avid portrait photographer, without his photos ever appearing posed or staged. His image of humanity arises from the flow of life, the hectic everyday goings-on or – like in “Go” – the deep pit of violence, the Mafia and corruption. 

 

François Fontaine (French, b. 1968) 'Vertigo' from the 'Silenzio!' series 2012

 

François Fontaine (French, b. 1968)
Vertigo from the Silenzio! series
2012

 

Julia Baier (German, b. 1971) From the series 'Geschwebe' 2014

 

Julia Baier (German, b. 1971)
From the series Geschwebe
2014
Gelatin silver print
© Julia Baier

 

 

Deichtorhallen Hamburg
House of Photography
Deichtorstr. 1-2
D – 20095 Hamburg

Opening hours:
Tuesday – Sunday 11am – 6pm
Every first Thursday of the month 11am – 9pm

Deichtorhallen Hamburg website

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