Exhibition: ‘A Turbulent Lens: The Photographic Art of Virna Haffer’ at Tacoma Art Museum

Exhibition dates: 2nd July – 16th October 2011

Virna Haffer (American, 1899-1974)
Eleventh Street Bridge
c. 1930s
Woodblock print
Tacoma Art Museum, Gift of Carolyn Schneider

It is such a joy constructing this blog. I get to educate myself on these wonderful, half-forgotten photographers and then bring their photographs to you. What a life Haffer must have had: she found success as a photographer, printmaker, painter, musician, sculptor, and published writer. Independent-minded and self-sufficient, as most artists are, this is an artist I would have liked to have met!

Dr Marcus Bunyan

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

Virna Haffer (American, 1899-1974)
Abstract #2
c. 1960s
Photogram
Collection of the Washington State Historical Society, gift of the estate of Virna Haffer

Virna Haffer (American, 1899-1974)
Untitled [tree and chair]
c. 1962
From the series Aftermath
Photogram
50.8 x 40.6cm
National Gallery of Australia
Gift of the Estate of Virna Haffer 2011

Virna Haffer (American, 1899-1974)
Swirl
c. 1940
Gelatin silver print
39.4 x 31.8cm
National Gallery of Australia
Gift of the Estate of Virna Haffer 2011

Virna Haffer (American, 1899-1974)
Aftermath
c. 1962
Photogram
Collection of the Washington State Historical Society, gift of the estate of Virna Haffer

One of the most inventive Northwest artists of her time, Virna Haffer was an internationally recognised and respected Tacoma photographer who has slipped from both regional and national art history books. This summer, Tacoma Art Museum uncovers her innovative artwork.

In a career spanning more than six decades, Haffer found success as a photographer, printmaker, painter, musician, sculptor, and published writer, though she is known first and foremost as a photographer. Self-taught, she began her ambitious career in the early 1920s, both running a successful portrait studio (where she photographed the likes of the Weyerhaeuser and Chihuly families) and also exhibiting her unique artistic images around the world.

The curatorial team of Margaret Bullock, Christina Henderson, and David Martin searched through more than 30,000 of Virna Haffer’s photographic negatives, prints, and woodblocks at the Washington State Historical Society and Tacoma Public Library’s Special Collections to create this exhibition and its accompanying catalogue.

“It is an amazing opportunity to be able to bring the life and work of Virna Haffer to light once again,” said Margaret Bullock, Tacoma Art Museum’s Curator of Collections and Special Exhibitions, and a co-curator of the Haffer exhibition. “Her artistic curiosity is palpable in her work, which in itself is staggering in its volume, diversity, and range. Her role in and impact on the Northwest photographic community is just beginning to be uncovered and understood as we explore her unrivalled photographic legacy.”

Raised in the utopian community of Home Colony in South Puget Sound in the early 1900s, Haffer’s love of photography was sparked when she was just ten years old. Raised to be independent-minded and self-sufficient, she left school at the age of 15 to become a professional photographer. In 1914 she apprenticed herself to Tacoma photographer Harriette H. Ihrig where she absorbed the necessary technical skills along with the business know-how to run a commercial studio. She started exhibiting her fine art photographs in 1924.

Haffer tirelessly experimented with techniques and evolved her own rules, pushing beyond the boundaries of her medium to methodically master a variety of photographic styles and techniques. Her body of work includes images that can be classified as Pictoralist, surrealist, documentary, and modernist. She experimented with a wide range of imagery, such as multiple overlapping exposures, eccentric viewpoints, composite images, and a non-mechanical photographic process called the photogram.

“Virna Haffer has been an all too well kept Tacoma secret,” said Stephanie A. Stebich, Director of Tacoma Art Museum. “Her work has been quietly appreciated for decades awaiting reconsideration. Given her Tacoma roots, pivotal role in Tacoma’s art community throughout her career, and diverse and stunning body of work, Virna Haffer is a perfect subject for the museum’s Northwest Perspective Series, which celebrates the work of regional artists.”

Haffer’s passion for photography not only brought her success in business with her own portrait photography studio, but also international recognition. Her commercial portrait work can be found in homes all over Tacoma, while her fine art photographs can be found in the permanent collections of institutions as prestigious as the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.

Text from the Tacoma Museum of Art website

Virna Haffer (American, 1899-1974)
Mina Quevli
c. 1930
Gelatin silver print
Collection of the Washington State Historical Society, gift of the estate of Virna Haffer

Virna Haffer (American, 1899-1974)
Franz Brasz, The Artist
c. 1937
Gelatin silver print
Collection of the Washington State Historical Society, gift of the estate of Virna Haffer

Franz Brasz

Arnold Franz Brasz (July 19, 1888 – April 1, 1966) was an American painter, sculptor, and printmaker who was born in Polk County, Wisconsin on July 19, 1888. He studied at the Minneapolis School of Fine Arts and also with Robert Henri in New York. By the early 1920s, he was dividing his time between southern California and Wisconsin. He is considered a member of the Ashcan School, and his public commissions include Fruit Pickers, a 1940 mural in the city hall of Redlands, California showing four Native American farm workers. Brasz died at his home in Glendale, California on April 1, 1966.

Virna Haffer

Virna Haffer (1899-1974) was an American photographer, printmaker, painter, musician, and published author.

Born in 1899 in Aurora, Illinois, Haffer and her family moved to the utopian community of Home in South Puget Sound in Washington State in 1907. When she was 15 years old Haffer became the apprentice of the photographer Harriette H. Ihrig. She opened her own portrait photography studio in Tacoma, Washington and began publishing her photographs in 1924. Haffer was known for experimenting with unusual, quirky techniques and created her own artistic style that stretched the boundaries of artistic classifications in the early twentieth century. Haffer’s work was eccentric; she produced Pictorialist, modern, surreal, and documentary style work.

Haffer was married three times, the second time to socialist and labor advocate Paul Raymond Haffer, with whom she had one son, Jean Paul Haffer. One of her works as a commercial photographic portraitist was a childhood picture of future glass artist Dale Chihuly.

Haffer’s work was first exhibited in 1924 in the Fifth Annual F&N Salon of Pictorial Photography, and in 1928 at the Seattle Camera Club’s Fourth International Exhibition. By 1930 her work was internationally recognised, and often appeared in publications such as the American Annual of Photography. In addition, she won recognition and prizes in photographic competitions in the United States in the 1930s. In the 1960s she took an interest in producing photograms, and in 1969 she published a book about the process called Making Photograms: The Creative Process of Painting With Light. Haffer’s work was also the subject of several solo exhibitions at locations including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1960; California Museum of Science and Industry, Los Angeles, 1964; New York Camera Club, 1967 and the Museum of Contemporary Crafts, NYC, 1968. A posthumous retrospective of her work, A Turbulent Lens: The Photographic Art of Virna Haffer, was produced at the Tacoma Art Museum in 2011.

Text from the Wikipedia website

Virna Haffer (American, 1899-1974)
Old Tacoma Hotel Fire
c. 1935
Gelatin silver print
Collection of the Washington State Historical Society, gift of the estate of Virna Haffer

Virna Haffer (American, 1899-1974)
The Family
1929
Woodblock print
Collection of the Washington State Historical Society, gift of the estate of Virna Haffer

Virna Haffer (American, 1899-1974)
Hooverville
c. 1936
Gelatin silver print
Collection of the Washington State Historical Society, gift of the estate of Virna Haffer

Virna Haffer (American, 1899-1974)
Self Portrait
1929
Gelatin silver print with added pigmentation
Private collection

A Turbulent Lens: The Photographic Art of Virna Haffer catalogue cover and pages

Tacoma Art Museum
1701 Pacific Avenue
Tacoma, WA 98402

Opening hours:
Wednesday – Sunday 10am – 5pm

Tacoma Art Museum website

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Exhibition: ‘A Revolutionary Project: Cuba from Walker Evans to Now’ at the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

Exhibition dates: 17th May – 2nd October 2011

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

Walker Evans (American, 1903-1975)
Mule, Wagon and Two Men, Havana
1933
Gelatin silver print
13.8 x 21cm (5 7/16 x 8 1/4 in.)
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
© Walker Evans Archive, The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Walker Evans (American, 1903-1975)
Spectacle, Capital Steps, Possibly Independence Day
May 20, 1933
Gelatin silver print
19.7 x 25.3cm (7 3/4 x 9 15/16 in.)
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
© Walker Evans Archive, The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Walker Evans (American, 1903-1975)
Old Havana Housefronts
1933
Gelatin silver print
17.6 x 22.7cm (6 15/16 x 8 15/16 in.)
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
© Walker Evans Archive, The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Walker Evans (American, 1903-1975)
Balcony Spectators
1933
Gelatin silver print
19.8 x 25.2cm (7 13/16 x 9 15/16 in.)
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
© Walker Evans Archive, The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Exhibition Marks First Showing of Getty’s Walker Evan’s Cuban Photographs; Also on view are Cuban Revolutionary Photographs and Contemporary Work by Virginia Beahan, Alex Harris, and Alexey Titarenko

Cuba’s attempt to forge an independent state with an ambitious set of social goals, all the while moored to powerful political and economic interests, has been a source of fascination for nations, intellectuals, and artists alike. On display at the J. Paul Getty Museum, the Getty Center, May 17 – October 2, 2011, A Revolutionary Project: Cuba from Walker Evans to Now, looks at three critical periods in the island nation’s history as witnessed by photographers before, during, and after the country’s 1959 Revolution.

A Revolutionary Project juxtaposes Walker Evans’s 1933 images from the end of the Gerardo Machado dictatorship with views by contemporary foreign photographers Virginia Beahan (American, b. 1946), Alex Harris (American, b. 1949), and Alexey Titarenko (Russian, b. 1962), who have explored Cuba since the withdrawal of Soviet support in the 1990s. A third section bridging these two eras presents pictures by Cuban photographers who participated in the country’s 1959 Revolution, including Alberto Korda, Perfecto Romero, and Osvaldo Salas.

“The Museum’s collection of Walker Evans prints is the largest in the U.S., but until now, we have not shown his photographs of Cuba,” explains Judith Keller, senior curator of photographs. “This exhibition allows us the opportunity to showcase this body of work, alongside newer work in the collection.”

1933: Evans in Havana

Walker Evans (1903-1975) is one of the photographers most responsible for the way we now imagine American life in the 1930s. His distinctive photographic style, which he declared “transcendent documentary,” was nurtured in New York in the late 1920s and fully formed by his experience in Cuba in 1933. In the spring of that year, Walker Evans was asked by publisher J. B. Lippincott to produce a body of work about Cuba to accompany a book by the radical journalist Carleton Beals (1893-1979). This book, The Crime of Cuba, would be a scathing indictment of the then-current regime of Cuban President Gerardo Machado. Leaving the country less than two months before Machado was forced out of office, Evans was able to capture Cuba at the start of the revolutionary movement but almost 30 years before the 1959 Revolution.

During Evans’s time in Cuba, he made substantial strides in his photographic practice. There he worked with different format cameras, large and small, one more deliberate and descriptive, the other more spontaneous and agile. He created both close-up and wide, inclusive compositions that he could then combine in intense sequences to best communicate his response to the poverty, the ferment, and the beauty of his environment. While in Havana, Evans met the American writer, Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961), whose acclaimed avant-garde work he knew and admired. Hemingway’s terse narrative style, which he was then applying to his own Harry Morgan stories set in Havana and Key West, no doubt influenced Evans’s approach to the subject of Cuba’s current political and economic struggles. Evans’s photographs also reflect the inspiration of French photographer Eugène Atget’s Parisian pictures that Evans critiqued for an arts journal in 1931. The series that comprised Atget’s thorough study of “Old Paris” seem to have provided additional motivation for Evans’s selection of Havana subjects: the signage of urban storefronts, the abundant street offerings of fresh produce, the decorative balconies of old houses, the many studies of archaic horse-drawn wagons and carriages, and the portraits of women, some of whom appear to be prostitutes.

1958-1966: Revolution

Machado’s fall from rule in 1933 resulted in a long power struggle that culminated in the country’s 1959 socialist revolution to overthrow dictator Fulgencio Batista, anchoring Cuba to the Soviet bloc for the next thirty years and defining a relationship with the United States that still exists today. Fidel Castro, Ernesto “Che” Guevara, and their new government harnessed photography as a means of keeping the project of the Revolution at the forefront of Cuba’s collective consciousness. As both genuine records of popular insurrection and propagandistic documents used for political purposes, pictures of the Revolution and its aftermath have shaped how both Cubans and Americans understand the significance of that revolutionary moment. Photographs in the second section of the exhibition are drawn from the work of nine Cuban photographers who participated in recording the political context and triumphs of the emerging state in the years surrounding 1959.

Included in the exhibition is an iconic image of the revolutionary hero Che Guevara by Alberto Korda titled Guerrillero Heroico (March 5, 1960). One of the world’s most reproduced images, it has been adopted for political causes, appearing on countless numbers of t-shirts, banners, and street art around the globe. The print on view in the exhibition is among the earliest versions of the photograph known to exist. Made as a press print, it was used as a source to reproduce the image in media outlets a year after Korda photographed Guevara at a rally in Havana.

Also on display in the exhibition is the well-known revolutionary photograph Patria o Muerte, Cuba (Negative, January 1959; print, 1984) by Osvaldo Salas, one of Cuba’s most important photographers. Salas effectively captures and conveys the populist fervour in Cuba shortly after the movement’s triumph with an image of a patriotic sign framed by a celebratory crowd.

The photographs included in this section of the exhibition are culled from the extensive holdings of Cuban photography assembled by the Austrian collector, Christian Skrein, including a number of recent acquisitions by the Museum.

Since 1991: The Special Period

After Soviet troops began to withdraw from Cuba in September of 1991, the troubled Cuban economy suffered severe internal shortages, and Fidel Castro declared what is known as the “Special Period” (período especial), marked by food rationing, energy conservation, and a decline of public services. In the nearly twenty years since the Soviet withdrawal, Cubans have managed to survive through perseverance, the forging of new political relationships, and the easing of socialist systems. This period of transition, which continues today with the recent transfer of power from Fidel Castro to his brother Raúl, has attracted the attention of photographers from around the world who are interested in exploring the relationship between Cuba’s revolutionary past and its uncertain future. The final section of the exhibition looks specifically at the work of three contemporary photographers with diverse approaches to documenting the island in recent decades: Virginia Beahan, Alex Harris, and Alexey Titarenko.

Virginia Beahan’s work concentrates on the landscape’s relationship to history and culture. In 2001, she began a multiyear project on Cuba, photographing its topography in search of remnants of the island’s diverse past. The work resulted in a publication in 2009 called Cuba: Singing with Bright Tears. Beahan’s Cuba is a land of contradictions, full of disappointments and hope, decay and rejuvenating beauty, simultaneously anchored to the past while looking beyond the present. Born and raised in Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg), Russia, Alexey Titarenko became fascinated with Cuba in 2003, when he made his first trip to Havana. Titarenko’s goal was to represent the soul of the Cuban capital. In the artist’s photographs, the city is shown with little overt reference to its politics. Instead, Titarenko describes the conditions of life in the communist country, depicting people persevering amid varying states of ruin. Venturing out of the tourist zones of Havana into the network of dilapidated avenues beyond the old city walls, his images depict a grey metropolis whose inhabitants congregate on the streets to collect food rations, fix long-outmoded cars, and play baseball.

A former student of Walker Evans, Alex Harris made several trips to Cuba following the collapse of the eastern bloc and the dissolution of the Soviet Union, developing a powerful body of colour work that addresses the country’s cultural fabric during a period of difficult economic circumstances. His photographs focus on portraits of women whose lives are affected by the tourist-fuelled sex trade, landscapes made through the windshields of refurbished 1950s American cars, and monuments to the Cuban national hero José Martí. His study was published in the form of a book, The Idea of Cuba, in 2007. Through these distinct vantage points, Harris probed the country’s propensity for ingenuity as it underwent great transition.

Press release from the J. Paul Getty Museum website

Walker Evans (American, 1903-1975)
Citizen in Downtown Havana
1933
Gelatin silver print
22.2 x 11.7cm (8 3/4 x 4 5/8 in.)
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

Walker Evans (American, 1903-1975)
Woman on the Street, Havana
1933
Gelatin silver print
24.6 x 14.6cm (9 11/16 x 5 3/4 in.)
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
© Walker Evans Archive, The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Walker Evans (American, 1903-1975)
Woman in a Courtyard
1933
Gelatin silver print
25.3 x 16.2cm (9 15/16 x 6 3/8 in.)
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
© Walker Evans Archive, The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Walker Evans (American, 1903-1975)
Coal Dockworkers, Havana
1933
Gelatin silver print
15.6 × 21.1cm (6 1/8 × 8 5/16 in.)
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
© Walker Evans Archive, The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Walker Evans (American, 1903-1975)
Coal Dockworkers, Havana
1933
Gelatin silver print
12.7 × 17.7cm (5 × 6 15/16 in.)
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
© Walker Evans Archive, The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Walker Evans (American, 1903-1975)
Coal Dockworker, Havana
1933
Gelatin silver print
9.7 × 13.7cm (3 13/16 × 5 3/8 in.)
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
© Walker Evans Archive, The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Walker Evans (American, 1903-1975)
Coal Loader, Havana
1933
Gelatin silver print
17.1 × 12.2cm (6 3/4 × 4 13/16 in.)
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
© Walker Evans Archive, The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Walker Evans (American, 1903-1975)
Coal Stevedore, Havana
1933
Gelatin silver print
20.2 x 15.2cm (7 15/16 x 6 in.)
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
© Walker Evans Archive, The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Walker Evans (American, 1903-1975)
Stevedore
1933
Gelatin silver print
20.1 x 15.1cm (7 15/16 x 5 15/16 in.)
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
© Walker Evans Archive, The Metropolitan Museum

Walker Evans (American, 1903-1975)
Negro Child, Havana
1933
Gelatin silver print
19.5 x 14.8cm (7 11/16 x 5 13/16 in.)
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
© Walker Evans Archive, The Metropolitan Museum

Walker Evans (American, 1903-1975)
Negro Child, Havana
1933
Gelatin silver print
19.8 x 13.2cm (7 13/16 × 5 3/16 in.)
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
© Walker Evans Archive, The Metropolitan Museum

The J. Paul Getty Museum
1200 Getty Center Drive
Los Angeles, California 90049

Opening hours:
Tuesday – Friday, Sunday 10am – 5.30pm
Saturday 10am – 8pm
Monday Closed

The J. Paul Getty Museum website

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Exhibition, Films, Events and Symposia: ‘Jack Smith: A Feast for Open Eyes’ at the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA), London

Dates: 7th – 18th September 2011

Jack Smith (American, 1932-1989)
Untitled
c. 1958-1962/2011
Analog C-print hand printed from original colour negative on Fuji Crystal Archive paper
14 x 11 inches (35.6 x 27.9cm)
Copyright Estate of Jack Smith
Courtesy Gladstone Gallery, New York and Brussels

His photographic works are rare and remain largely unknown according to Wikipedia. They shouldn’t be.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

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

Jack Smith: A Feast for Open Eyes

‘The only true underground filmmaker’ – John Waters

ICA director Gregor Muir introduces the work of Jack Smith in this two week season. Jack Smith: A Feast for Open Eyes is on from 7 – 18 September 2011

Jack Smith (American, 1932-1989)
Untitled
1982
Mixed media on paper
6 1/8 x 8 7/8 inches (15.6 x 22.5cm)
Copyright Estate of Jack Smith
Courtesy Gladstone Gallery, New York and Brussels

Jack Smith (American, 1932-1989)
Untitled
c. 1958-1962/2011
Black and white gelatin silver print
10 x 8 inches (25.4 x 20.3cm)
Copyright Estate of Jack Smith
Courtesy Gladstone Gallery, New York and Brussels

“Jack Smith (November 14, 1932 in Columbus, Ohio – September 25, 1989 in New York City) was an American filmmaker, actor, and pioneer of underground cinema. He is generally acclaimed as a founding father of American performance art, and has been critically recognised as a master photographer, though his photographic works are rare and remain largely unknown.

Smith was one of the first proponents of the aesthetics which came to be known as ‘camp’ and ‘trash’, using no-budget means of production (e.g. using discarded colour reversal film stock) to create a visual cosmos heavily influenced by Hollywood kitsch, orientalism and with Flaming Creatures created drag culture as it is currently known. Smith was heavily involved with John Vaccaro, founder of The Playhouse of The Ridiculous, whose disregard for conventional theater practice deeply influenced Smith’s ideas about performance art. In turn, Vaccaro was deeply influenced by Smith’s aesthetics. It was Vaccaro who introduced Smith to glitter and in 1966 and 1967, Smith created costumes for Vaccaro’s Playhouse of The Ridiculous. Smith’s style influenced the film work of Andy Warhol as well as the early work of John Waters. While all three were part of the 1960s gay arts movement, Vaccaro and Smith refuted the idea that their sexual orientation was responsible for their art.

After his last film, No President (1967), Smith created performance and experimental theatre work until his death on September 25, 1989 from AIDS-related pneumonia.”

Text from the Wikipedia entry

Legendary American artist, filmmaker and actor Jack Smith (1932-1989), described by Andy Warhol as the only person he would ever copy and by John Waters as “the only true underground filmmaker”, is celebrated at the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) in film, performance and debate with a retrospective of Smith’s work from 7 to 18 September 2011.

Working in New York from the 1950s until his death in 1989, Smith unequivocally resisted and upturned accepted conventions, whether artistic, moral or legal. Irreverent in tone and delirious in effect, Smith’s films, such as the notorious Flaming Creatures (1963), are both wildly camp and subtly polemical. Smith is best known for his contributions to underground cinema but his influence extends across performance art, photography and experimental theatre.

A Feast for Open Eyes: Jack Smith maps out the breadth of Smith’s practice, from his collaborative film productions to his individual writings, and looks at his legacy in the UK drawing upon a generation of New York artists with whom Smith was closely involved, including Jonas Mekas and Penny Arcade, and younger artists and filmmakers whom he influenced. John Zorn, a long-term Smith collaborator selects records to accompany an installation of slides documenting Smith’s work, as he used to in collaboration with Smith in the 1970s and 80s.

The retrospective opens with a screening of Flaming Creatures introduced by Chris Dercon, Director of Tate Modern, who was a close friend of Smith’s. The film is followed by the screening of an interview, recorded exclusively for the ICA this summer, with Jonas Mekas, a founder member of Anthology Film Archives who faced obscenity charges for defending Flaming Creatures in the 1960s. The presentation is introduced by Dominic Johnson, author of the forthcoming monograph Glorious Catastrophe: Jack Smith, Performance and Visual Culture (Manchester University Press) and co-curator of A Feast for Open Eyes.

Press release from the ICA website

Jack Smith (American, 1932-1989)
Untitled
c. 1978
Mixed media on paper
13 x 20 3/4 inches (33 x 52.7cm)
Copyright Estate of Jack Smith
Courtesy Gladstone Gallery, New York and Brussels

Jack Smith (American, 1932-1989)
Untitled
c. 1958-1962
Color negative
2 1/4 x 2 1/4 inches  (5.7 x 5.7cm)
Copyright Estate of Jack Smith
Courtesy Gladstone Gallery, New York and Brussels

Institute of Contemporary Arts
The Mall,
London,
SW1Y 5AH

Opening hours:
Tuesday – Sunday 12 – 9pm
Closed Mondays

ICA website

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Exhibition: ‘The Mind’s Eye, 50 Years of Photography by Jerry Uelsmann’ at the Harn Museum of Art, Florida

Exhibition dates: 14th June – 11th September 2011

Jerry Uelsmann (American, 1934-2022)
Apocalypse II
1967
Gelatin silver print
10 3/4 x 13 5/8 in (27.2 x 34.5cm)
Collection of the artist
© Jerry Uelsmann

Uelsmann is one of my favourite artists. His unique vision and the skill required to execute that vision using multiple exposure of negatives in the darkroom (remember, this is all done with no Photoshop!) is outstanding. Observe the sensitivity to subject matter and the placement of disparate elements in the surrealist landscape. His photographs have real allegorical power and lodge in the viewer’s psyche. My particular favourites are the library and the house on the tree stump. Uelsmann achieves wonderful resolution to inner visions and then makes the dream-like tableaux accessible to the viewer. As one who started as a black and white photographer and who experimented with multiple exposures on one piece of silver gelatin paper in the darkroom, I can attest to how enormously difficult this process is.

The text on Wikipedia states:

“Uelsmann is a master printer producing composite photographs with multiple negatives and extensive darkroom work. He uses up to a dozen enlargers at a time to produce his final images … Uelsmann is a champion of the idea that the final image need not be tied to a single negative, but may be composed of many … he does not seek to create narratives, but rather allegorical surrealist imagery of the unfathomable … Today, with the advent of digital cameras and Photoshop, photographers are able to create a work somewhat resembling Uelsmann’s in less than a day, however, at the time Uelsmann was considered to have almost “magical skill” with his completely analog tools.”

I thank him for having the creative energy to be a magician.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

See another posting on this exhibition.

Many thankx to the Harn 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.

Jerry Uelsmann (American, 1934-2022)
Magritte’s Touchstone (first version)
Nd
Gelatin silver print
Collection of the artist
© Jerry Uelsmann

Jerry Uelsmann (American, 1934-2022)
Mechanical Man #2
1959
Gelatin silver print
Collection of the artist
© Jerry Uelsmann

The first critical retrospective of American photographer Jerry Uelsmann’s work will open at the Harn Museum of Art at the University of Florida on June 14, 2011. Uelsmann, known for his iconic, surreal style and his innovative composite printing techniques, has spent more than 50 years challenging and advocating for the acceptance of photography as an experimental art form. The Mind’s Eye, 50 Years of Photography by Jerry Uelsmann, organised by the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts will feature 89 works from every phase of the artist’s wide-ranging career, including a selection of rare pieces that have never before been on public view. Additional works from the artist’s collection will be on view only during this leg of the exhibition, open through September 11, 2011.

“The Harn Museum of Art is delighted to welcome this important exhibition of photographic works by the University of Florida’s own Jerry Uelsmann, a graduate research professor in the art department from 1960 to 1998,” said Rebecca Nagy, director of the Samuel P. Harn Museum of Art. “Jerry has been, and continues to be a leader in the field and we are delighted to celebrate and look back on such a long, important, and innovative career.”

The exhibition will emphasise Uelsmann’s profound influence on the field of photography through his revolutionary mastery of composite photography. Through the presentation of images from different stages of his works, viewers will gain a new understanding of the artist’s creative process and the evolution of Uelsmann’s ideas throughout his career. The pieces on view will be drawn from the artist’s personal archive of vintage materials, and are the definitive prints of the images. A few examples of the artist’s photo sculptures, artist’s books and albums will give viewers first-hand insight into Uelsmann’s creative process.

“From the beginning of his career, Uelsmann has advocated for the acceptance of photography as an experimental art form,” said Phillip Prodger, curator of photography at the Peabody Essex Museum. “Uelsmann’s photography provides a valuable touchstone for understanding new trends in photographic art. His ideas and work have become even more relevant as photography embraces Photoshop and other computer technologies for altering and manipulating photographic pictures.”

Beginning in the late 1950s, Uelsmann succeeded in combining negatives in the darkroom to create synthetic compositions that conjure the illusion of photographic truth. Although these pictures are visually convincing, they depict scenes that often have no analogue in the real world. Evocative, unsettling, and often humorous, Uelsmann’s photographs are seldom easily resolved, inviting reflection without obvious resolution. His most famous technique, seamlessly fabricating photographs from unrelated negatives to create imaginary scenes, helped build his reputation as an experimental photographer, and cemented his standing as a leader of non-literal photography.

“My visual quest is driven by a desire to create a universe capable of supporting feelings and ideas,” said Jerry Uelsmann. “I am drawn to art that challenges one’s sense of reality.”

Press release from the Harn Museum of Art website

Jerry Uelsmann (American, 1934-2022)
Untitled
1964
Gelatin silver print
13 3/4 x 10 1/4 in (34.9 x 26.1cm)
Collection of the artist
© Jerry Uelsmann

Jerry Uelsmann (American, 1934-2022)
Untitled
1976
Gelatin silver print
19 5/8 x 14 1/4 in (49.9 x 36.3cm)
Collection of the artist
© Jerry Uelsmann

Jerry Uelsmann (American, 1934-2022)
Untitled
1982
Gelatin silver print
13 1/4 x 10 3/8 in (33.8 x 26.4cm)
Collection of the artist
© Jerry Uelsmann

Jerry Uelsmann (American, 1934-2022)
Untitled
2003
Gelatin silver print
19 3/8 x 15 in (49.1 x 38cm)
Collection of the artist
© Jerry Uelsmann

Jerry Uelsmann (American, 1934-2022)
Dream Theater
2004
Gelatin silver print
Collection of the artist
© Jerry Uelsmann

Samuel P. Harn Museum of Art
SW 34th Street and Hull Road
Gainesville, Florida 32611-2700

Opening hours:
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Sunday 1 – 5pm
The museum is closed on Mondays and state holidays.

Samuel P. Harn Museum of Art website

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Exhibition: ‘Hiroshima: Ground Zero 1945’ at the International Center of Photography, New York

Exhibition dates: 20th May – 28th August, 2011

United States Strategic Bombing Survey, Physical Damage Division
[Ruins of the Hiroshima Prefectural Commercial Exhibition Hall (A-Bomb Dome)]
October 24, 1945
Gelatin silver print
© International Center of Photography

The “United States Strategic Bombing Survey, Physical Damage Division”. Don’t you just love the irony in this title? The aim of the military group who took these photographs as part of a survey on “strategic bombing” of Hiroshima was to document the physical damage that took place. As if an atomic bomb is anything other than destructive! As if an atomic bomb is anything other than catastrophic! As if an atomic bomb is anything less than death itself!

Upon this realisation, the father of the atomic bomb, J. Robert Oppenheimer, famously quoted the Bhagavad Gita after the detonation of the first bomb on July 16, 1945 in the Trinity test in New Mexico, “Now, I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.”

In saying that, military jurisprudence, that disciplinary machine of death, becomes not only the recorder of destruction but also the re-ordering of the world, thus re(c)ording the world under Foucault’s Matrix of Practical Reason:

~ Through the technologies of production, which permit us to produce, transform or manipulate things

~ Through the technologies of power, which determine the conduct of individuals and submit them to certain ends or domination, an objectivising of the subject.1

In short, the military is power; the military subjugates humans; and the military destroys at will.

The strange beauty of the Physical Damage Division photographs is that they simply document what remains. Like the “shadow” of a hand valve wheel on the painted wall of a gas storage tank, Ground Zero is burnt onto the ground glass of the camera.

Like the “shadow” these events are eternally seared into the collective memory never, ever, to be forgotten.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

1/ Foucault, Michel. “Technologies of the Self,” quoted in Martin, Luther and Gutman, Huck and Hutton, Patrick (eds.,). Technologies of the Self: A Seminar with Michel Foucault. London: Tavistock Publications, 1988, p. 18

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

United States Strategic Bombing Survey, Physical Damage Division
[View of burned-over area with Hiroshima Kirin Beer Hall at far right]
October 16, 1945
Gelatin silver print
3 11/16 x 4 9/16 in. (9.4 x 11.6cm)
© International Center of Photography
Purchase, with funds provided by the ICP Acquisitions Committee, 2006

United States Strategic Bombing Survey, Physical Damage Division
[Ruins of Shima Surgical Hospital, Hiroshima]
October 24, 1945
Gelatin silver print
4 1/8 x 6 1/16 in. (10.5 x 15.4cm)
© International Center of Photography
Purchase, with funds provided by the ICP Acquisitions Committee, 2006

United States Strategic Bombing Survey, Physical Damage Division
[Group of people near damaged trolley cars, Hiroshima]
October 31, 1945
Gelatin silver print
3 11/16 x 4 7/16 in. (9.4 x 11.3cm)
© International Center of Photography
Purchase, with funds provided by the ICP Acquisitions Committee, 2006

United States Strategic Bombing Survey, Physical Damage Division
[Distorted steel-frame structure of Odamasa Store, Hiroshima]
November 20, 1945
Gelatin silver print
© International Center of Photography

United States Strategic Bombing Survey, Physical Damage Division
[Reinforced-concrete fire shutter in cast wall of Yasuda Life Insurance Company, Hiroshima branch]
November 15, 1945
Gelatin silver print
3 11/16 x 4 3/4 in. (9.4 x 12.1cm)
© International Center of Photography
Purchase, with funds provided by the ICP Acquisitions Committee, 2006

United States Strategic Bombing Survey, Physical Damage Division
[Ruins of Chugoku Coal Distribution Company or Hiroshima Gas Company]
November 8, 1945
Gelatin silver contact print
© International Center of Photography

United States Strategic Bombing Survey, Physical Damage Division
[Remains of a school building]
November 17, 1945
Gelatin silver contact print
© International Center of Photography

Once-classified images of atomic destruction at Hiroshima will be displayed in a new exhibition Hiroshima: Ground Zero 1945 at the International Center of Photography (1133 Avenue of the Americas at 43rd Street) from May 20 to August 28, 2011. Drawn from ICP’s permanent collection, the Hiroshima archive includes more than 700 images of absence and annihilation, which formed the basis for civil defence architecture in the United States. These images had been mislaid for over forty years before being acquired by ICP in 2006.

This exhibition will include approximately 60 contact prints and photographs as well as the secret 1947 United States Strategic Bombing Survey (USSBS) report, The Effects of the Strategic Bombing on Hiroshima, Japan. It will be accompanied by a catalogue published by ICP/Steidl, with essays by John W. Dower, Adam Harrison Levy, David Monteyne, Philomena Mariani, and Erin Barnett.

After the nuclear attacks in August 1945, President Truman dispatched members of the USSBS to Japan to survey the military, economic, and civilian damage. The Survey’s Physical Damage Division photographed, analysed, and evaluated the atomic bomb’s impact on the structures surrounding the Hiroshima blast site, designated “Ground Zero.” The findings of the USSBS provided essential information to American architects and civil engineers as they debated the merits of bomb shelters, suburbanisation, and revised construction techniques.

The photographs in this exhibition were in the possession of Robert L. Corsbie, an executive officer of the Physical Damage Division who later worked for the Atomic Energy Commission. An architectural engineer and expert on the effects of the atomic bomb, he used what he learned from the structural analyses and these images to promote civil defence architecture in the U.S. The photographs went through a series of unintended moves after Corsbie, his wife and son died in a house fire in 1967.

The U.S., at war with Japan, detonated the world’s first weaponised atomic bomb over Hiroshima, a vast port city of over 350,000 inhabitants, on August 6, 1945. The blast obliterated about 70 percent of the city and caused the deaths of more than 140,000 people. Three days later, the U.S. dropped a second nuclear bomb on Nagasaki, resulting in another 80,000 fatalities. Within a week, Japan announced its surrender to the Allied Powers, effectively ending World War II.

“Once part of a classified cache of government photographs, this archive of haunting images documents the devastating power of the atomic bomb,” said ICP Assistant Curator of Collections Erin Barnett, who organised the exhibition.

Press release from the International Center of Photography website

United States Strategic Bombing Survey, Physical Damage Division
[“Shadow” of a hand valve wheel on the painted wall of a gas storage tank; radiant heat instantly burned paint where the heat rays were not
obstructed, Hiroshima]
October 14 – November 26, 1945
Gelatin silver print
© International Center of Photography

United States Strategic Bombing Survey, Physical Damage Division
[Interior of Hiroshima City Hall auditorium with undamaged walls and framing but spalling of plaster and complete destruction of contents by fire]
November 1, 1945
Gelatin silver print
© International Center of Photography

United States Strategic Bombing Survey, Physical Damage Division
[Ruins of Sumitomo Fire Insurance Company, Hiroshima branch]
October 24, 1945
Gelatin silver print
3 3/16 x 4 7/16 in. (8.1 x 11.3cm)
© International Center of Photography
Purchase, with funds provided by the ICP Acquisitions Committee, 2006

United States Strategic Bombing Survey, Physical Damage Division
[Rooftop view of atomic destruction, looking southwest, Hiroshima]
October 31, 1945
Gelatin silver print
© International Center of Photography

United States Strategic Bombing Survey, Physical Damage Division
[Burned-over landscape north of ground zero in the vicinity of Hiroshima Castle]
October 31, 1945
Gelatin silver print
3 3/4 x 4 5/8 in. (9.5 x 11.7cm)
© International Center of Photography
Purchase, with funds provided by the ICP Acquisitions Committee, 2006

United States Strategic Bombing Survey, Physical Damage Division
[Interior with heavy spalling of cement plaster by fire in combustiible floor of Yasuda Life Insurance Company, Hiroshima branch]
November 1, 1945
Gelatin silver print
3 11/16 x 4 3/4 in. (9.4 x 12.1cm)
© International Center of Photography
Purchase, with funds provided by the ICP Acquisitions Committee, 2006

United States Strategic Bombing Survey, Physical Damage Division
[Damaged turbo-generator and electrical panel of Chugoku Electric Company, Minami Sendamachi Substation, Hiroshima]
November 18, 1945
Gelatin silver print
3 13/16 x 4 7/16 in. (9.7 x 11.3cm)
© International Center of Photography
Purchase, with funds provided by the ICP Acquisitions Committee, 2006

United States Strategic Bombing Survey, Physical Damage Division
[Steel stairs warped by intense heat from burned book stacks of Asano Library, Hiroshima]
November 15, 1945
Gelatin silver contact print
© International Center of Photography

International Center of Photography
79 Essex Street, New York, NY 10002
between Delancey Street and Broome Street

Opening hours:
Wednesday – Monday 11am – 7pm
Closed: Tuesday

International Center of Photography website

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Exhibition: ‘Another Story. Photography from the Moderna Museet Collection’ at Moderna Museet, Stockholm

Exhibition dates: 1st February, 2011 – 19th February, 2012

Installation view of the exhibition Another Story at Moderna Museet, Stockholm
Photo: Albin Dahlström/Moderna Museet

A posting from an exhibition highlighting a collection of over 100,000 photographs – how lucky are they!

Dr Marcus Bunyan

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

Annika von Hausswolff (Swedish, b. 1967)
I Am the Runway of Your Thoughts
2008
Moderna Museet
© Annika von Hausswolff

In 2011, all the galleries will be successively rehung exclusively with photographic art. The chronology will be the same, but the 20th century will be presented from a partly new perspective. Moderna Museet will take a radical step, with Another Story – Photography from the Moderna Museet Collection. …

There is a growing interest in photography today, as proven by the panoply of exhibitions, fairs and festivals throughout the world. And this is hardly surprising. Nowadays, practically everyone is a photographer, at the very least snapping pictures with the camera built into most mobiles.

Moderna Museet’s collection of photography, ranging from 1840 to the present day, is one of the finest in Europe, featuring many of the most prominent names in photo history and comprising more than 100,000 photographs. The collection provides a historic background to the art of photography, and now we are sharing this with all our visitors. Moreover, several magnificent private donations have recently enriched the collection with works by famous artists practising in the field of photography.

Text from the Moderna Museet website

Another Story: Possessed by the Camera

1970-2010

Another Story: Possessed by the Camera highlighting contemporary photo-based art 1970-2010

From the 1970s, people have challenged the notion that the purpose of art is to show authentic identities. Instead, the camera is used to emphasise the potential of role-play and how identity can be constructed.

The reproduction of reality in the mass media has radically changed the conditions for our lives. The camera became an especially useful artistic tool in exploring the role-play of existence. The veracity of photography was called into question. By manipulating images and presenting them as authentic depictions, artists warned viewers to be critical and on their guard against how images are used in general.

These changes generated a broad range of photographic practices. Traditionally oriented photographers refined their aesthetic methods towards exquisitely artificial images. Robert Mapplethorpe, for instance, revived classical notions of beauty to undermine social prejudices against homosexuality.

Others experimented with digital manipulations and created new realities out of existing worlds. In the 1980s, the artistic use of photography went even further, in veritably philosophical studies of the many levels of meaning in representation. Since the late 1970s, Cindy Sherman has portrayed herself in stereotypical female disguises as a means of exploring the complexity of specific identities.

As a consequence of the dramatic innovations of the digital era, information and entertainment from far and wide are intermingled. Our formerly distinct notions of time and space have become fuzzier.

Annika von Hausswolff’s I Am the Runway of Your Thoughts from 2008 captures the feeling of trying to grasp and control something that is perceived as a vague threat. The concept of identity is no longer only linked to ethnicity, gender and class. Instead, it can be constructed out of surprising mixtures of given conditions and chosen ideals.

Text from the Moderna Museet website

Annika von Hausswolff (Swedish, b. 1967)
I Am the Runway of Your Thoughts (detail)
2008
Moderna Museet
© Annika von Hausswolff

Andreas Gursky (German, b. 1955)
Bibliothek
1999
Moderna Museet
© Andreas Gursky/BUS 2011

Candida Höfer (German, b. 1944)
The Louvre in Paris X 2005 – the caryatid hall
2005
Moderna Museet
© Candida Höfer/BUS 2011

Graciela Iturbide (Mexican, b. 1942)
Magnolia (2), Juchitán, México (Magnolia with Sombrero / Magnolia con sombrero)
1986
Gelatin silver print
Moderna Museet
© Graciela Iturbide

Thomas Ruff (German, b. 1958)
Häuser Nummer 9
1989
Moderna Museet
© Thomas Ruff/BUS 2011

Cindy Sherman (American, b. 1954)
Untitled
2008
Moderna Museet
© Courtesy of the Artist and Metro Pictures

In 2011, Moderna Museet’s new directors, Daniel Birnbaum and Ann-Sofi Noring, will launch a new presentation of the collection. Another Story gives a fresh angle on art history, based on works from the Moderna Museet collection. We will start by focusing on photography, which will gradually be given a more prominent position, only to fill the entire exhibition of the permanent collection this autumn.

If you want an art collection to develop and stay alive, it can’t remain static. You need to present it in new ways and look at it from new angles. That may sound obvious, but it is not that common. In 2011, Moderna Museet will take a radical step, with Another Story. Photography from the Moderna Museet Collection. This is possibly the most extreme re-hanging of the collection undertaken in the history of the museum.

Moderna Museet has one of Europe’s finest collections of photography, ranging from 1840 to the present day. Many of the most famous names in photographic history are represented, and the collection comprises more than 100,000 works. The re-hanging of the permanent collection exhibition will be done in three stages. In February, we will open the first part, Another Story: Possessed by the Camera, which presents contemporary photography-based art. Just before summer, we open Another Story: See the World!, presenting the period 1920-1980. This autumn, finally, we look at the early days of photography. Another Story: Written in Light presents the pioneers of photography from 1840 to the first three decades of the 20th century. In autumn 2011 and for the rest of the year, the entire permanent collection exhibition will consist of photography and photo-based art.

Text from the Moderna Museet website [Online] Cited 22/07/2011 no longer available online

Aleksandr Rodchenko (Russian, 1891-1956)
Sjukov-masten, radiomast i Moskva
1929
Gelatin silver print
Moderna Museet
© Aleksandr Rodtjenko

Another Story: See the World!

1920-1980

Another Story: See the World! focuses on the period 1920-1980.

Many documentary photographers are driven by a strong urge to portray events, places and people in their everyday surroundings. For some, it has been a life-long commitment to uncover and reveal social injustices. For others, it has represented a way of sharing experiences and developing documentary photography in a more personal and artistic direction.

The camera give photographers opportunities to approach vulnerable, sometimes hidden or forgotten, groups and environments. This presentation includes Larry Clark’s intimate and controversial photographs of his drugabusing friends in their hometown, Tulsa. The same theme is found in Nan Goldin’s raw colour portraits.

Amalias Street 5a is on the outskirts of old Riga, a wooden house with 37 inhabitants, documented by the photographer Inta Ruka since 2004. Together with Antanas Sutkus, she is a prominent figure on the Baltic photography scene that commented on and adapted itself to the Soviet Union in the 1980s and 90s, and then documented the changes in the post-Soviet era.

Christer Strömholm and his students also worked in the documentary tradition. Anders Petersen is perhaps the photographer who has most distinctly followed in Strömholm’s footsteps, as in his legendary series from Café Lehmitz in Hamburg (1967-70). Other photographers who have developed individual perspectives in their portrayals of Swedish society are JH Engström, Catharina Gotby and Lars Tunbjörk.

Throughout the history of photography, photographers have ventured for long periods into other people’s worlds and lives. To do that, however, and to earn their living while doing it, many photographers have worked simultaneously on independent projects, and on various commercial assignments. This has led to interesting links and shifts between socially oriented reportage, documentary projects, portrait photography and photographic art.

Text from the Moderna Museet website

August Sander (German, 1876-1964)
Die elegante Frau – Sekrutärin beine WDR
1927 / c. 1975
Gelatin silver print
Moderna Museet
© August Sander/BUS 2011

August Sander (German, 1876-1964)
Konditor (Pastry Cook)
1928
Gelatin silver print
Moderna Museet
© August Sander/BUS 2011

August Sander (German, 1876-1964)
Boxers
1929
Gelatin silver print
Moderna Museet
© August Sander/BUS 2011

Christer Strömholm (Swedish, 1918-2002)
Barcelona
1959
Gelatin silver print
Moderna Museet
© Christer Strömholm/Bildverksamheten Strömholm

Christer Strömholm (Swedish, 1918-2002)
Gina and Nana
1960
Gelatin silver print
Moderna Museet
© Christer Strömholm/Bildverksamheten Strömholm

Christer Strömholm (Swedish, 1918-2002)
Hiroshima
1963/1981
Gelatin silver print
Moderna Museet
© Christer Strömholm/Bildverksamheten Strömholm

Nan Goldin (American, b. 1953)
Couple in bed, Chicago
1977
Dye destruction print, Cibachrome
Moderna Museet
© Nan Goldin

Irving Penn (American, 1917-2009)
Frozen Foods with String Beans, New York, 1977
1977
Moderna Museet
© Irving Penn Foundation

Irving Penn (American, 1917-2009)
Mouth (for L’Oréal), New York, 1986
1986
Moderna Museet
© Irving Penn Foundation

Inta Ruka (Latvia, b. 1958)
Rihards Stibelis
2006
From the series Amãlija’s street 5a
Gelatin silver print
Moderna Museet
© Inta Ruka

Julia Margaret Cameron (British born India, 1815-1879)
The Mountain Nymph, Sweet Liberty
1866
Albumen print
Moderna Museet

Another Story: Written in Light

1840-1930

Another Story: Written in Light focuses on the pioneers from 1840 and up to the first three decades of the 20th century

The third part of Another Story. Photography from the Moderna Museet Collection has the subtitle Written in Light. It delineates the infancy of photography, from the moment when the Frenchman Louis Jacques Mandé Daguerre developed the photographic process of the daguerreotype in 1839, to August Sander’s fascinating project People of the Twentieth Century, black-and-white portraits of German citizens from the first half of the 20th century.

In six rooms we present several pioneering feats of photography, unique works that contribute to Moderna Museet’s exceptional position among photography-collecting institutions. The section includes Julia Margaret Cameron, who portrayed famous Brits in the 1860s, revealing both their inner and outer character.

Guillaume Berggren’s photographs from 1880s Constantinople are legendary, as are Carleton E. Watkins’ documentation of the American West a few decades earlier. In addition to portraits, landscapes, nature and architecture were typical subjects for the early photographers. A few examples of present-day photography are interspersed, for instance Tom Hunter’s series in which he explored the urban landscape in the wake of industrialism around the turn of the millennium.

What does pictorialism stand for? In one of the larger rooms, we show photographs from the late 1800s up to the outbreak of the First World War, by photographers who were primarily fascinated by optical and visual issues. A seminal figure in the field of art photography is Henry B. Goodwin, famous for his striking artist portraits, painterly nudes and softly hazy Stockholm views.

Photography literally means “written in light”. The various experiments and remarkable documentations shown here encompass Nils Strindberg’s photographs from a disastrous balloon expedition to the North Pole in 1897. Three decades later, his negatives were developed, and the resulting prints are now in the Moderna Museet collection of photography.

Text from the Moderna Museet website

Carleton Watkins (American, 1829-1916)
The Three Brothers
1861
Moderna Museet
Albumen print

Julia Margaret Cameron (British born India, 1815-1879)
Henry Taylor
October 10, 1867
Albumen print
Moderna Museet

G Félix T Nadar (France, 1820-1910) and Paul Nadar (France, 1856-1939)
Sarah Bernhardt in Pierrot, Murder of His Wife (Sarah Bernhardt dans Pierrot, assassin de sa femme)
1883/1938
Gelatin silver photograph from wet collodion negative mounted on cardboard
29.8 × 18.1cm
Moderna Museet
Purchase 1965

Nils Strindberg (Swedish, 1872-1897)
Örnen efter landningen. Ur serien Ingenjör Andrées luftfärd, 14/7 1897
The Eagle after landing. From the series Engineer Andrée’s flight, 14/7 1897
1897/1930
Moderna Museet
Gelatin silver print

Nils Strindberg (4 September 1872 – October 1897) was a Swedish photographer and scientist. He was one of the three members of S. A. Andrée’s ill-fated Arctic balloon expedition of 1897. …

Strindberg was invited to the Arctic balloon expedition of 1897 to create a photographic aerial record of the arctic. Before perishing on Kvitøya (White Island) with Andrée and Knut Frænkel, Strindberg recorded on film their long-doomed struggle on foot to reach populated areas. When the remains of the expedition were discovered by the Norwegian Bratvaag Expedition in 1930, five exposed rolls of film were found, one of them still in the camera. Docent John Hertzberg of the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm managed to save 93 of the theoretically 240 frames. A selection of these photos were published along with the diaries of the expedition as Med Örnen mot Polen (Stockholm: Bonnier (1930); British edition The Andrée diaries (1931); American edition Andrée’s Story (1932). The book credited the three explorers as its authors. In an article from 2004, Tyrone Martinsson published some digitally enhanced versions of Strindberg’s photos of the expedition, while lamenting the lack of care with which the original negatives were stored from 1944.

Text from the Wikipedia website

Henry B. Goodwin (Swedish, 1878-1971)
Katarina Lift (Katarinahissen), Slussen, Stockholm, Sweden
1918
Moderna Museet
Public domain

Moderna Museet, Stockholm

Moderna Museet is ten minutes away from Kungsträdgården, and twenty minutes from T-Centralen or Gamla Stan. Walk past Grand Hotel and Nationalmuseum on Blasieholmen, opposite the Royal Palace. After crossing the bridge to Skeppsholmen, continue up the hill. The entrance to Moderna Museet and Arkitekturmuseet is on the left-hand side.

Opening hours:
Tuesday – Sunday 10am – 6pm
Closed Mondays

Moderna Museet website

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Exhibition: ‘Series of Portraits. A century of photographs’ at Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, Hamburg

Exhibition dates: 1st April – 17th July 2011

Many thankx to Michaela Hille for her help and to Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, Hamburg for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs to view a larger version of the image.

Hermann Biow (German, 1804-1850)
Heinrich Jakob Venedey
1848
Daguerreotype
20.8 x 15.4cm
Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, Hamburg

Hermann Biow was an important German daguerreotypist in the early days of photography. Biow became known through his portrait photography during his lifetime. He portrayed politicians, celebrities and wealthy citizens, including Franz Liszt, Alexander von Humboldt and Friedrich Wilhelm IV. He is also known for his parliamentarian portraits of the first German National Assembly in the Paulskirche in Frankfurt in 1848/1849. Today Biow is primarily seen as the founder of German documentary photography.

A daguerreotype of Heinrich Jakob Venedey from 1848 made by Hermann Biow in Frankfurt. Venedey (1805-1871) was a member of the German National Assembly in Frankfurt’s Paulskirche in 1848/1849 as a deputy for Hessen-Homburg. The lawyer belonged to the factions Deutscher Hof and Westendhall of the National Assembly.

Text translated by Google Translate from the German Wikipedia website

Hermann Biow (German, 1804-1850)
Heinrich Joseph Gerhard Compes
1848
Daguerreotype
20.4 x 14.8cm
Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, Hamburg

A daguerreotype of Heinrich Joseph Gerhard Compes (that’s Gerhard Compes) from 1848 by Hermann Biow in Frankfurt. Compes was a member of the German National Assembly in Frankfurt’s Paulskirche in 1848/1849 as a deputy for the 19th province of Rhineland (Siegburg). The Cologne lawyer belonged to the Württemberger Hof faction of the National Assembly.

Text translated by Google Translate from the German Wikipedia website

August Sander (German, 1876-1964)
[Farmer, Westerwald (Bauer, Westerwald)]
1910
Gelatin silver print
© Photograph. Samml./SK Stiftung Kultur – A. Sander Archiv, Köln/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2011
Foto: Jorg Arend/Harald Dubau/Maria Thrun, Museum fur Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg
Museum fur Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg

The first section of People of the Twentieth Century is dedicated to the farmer. It begins with a Stammappe, or portfolio of archetypes. Usually three-quarter-length portraits, the photographs depict old farming men, women, and couples seated in their homes or against a natural backdrop. Each is captioned to suggest the fundamental role played by the individual in a balanced society. Sander referred to this farmer as the “earthbound man.” Other archetypes include the “philosopher,” the “fighter or revolutionary,” and the “sage.” All had female counterparts, while couples were labeled as “propriety and harmony.”

Identifying this figure as the “earthbound man,” Sander forged an implicit reference to the soil as a source of livelihood. The farmer’s hands grasp the cane, which keeps him upright and connected to the earth.

Text from the J. Paul Getty Museum website [Online] Cited 04/02/2020

August Sander (German, 1876-1964)
Jungbauern, Westerwald, 1914
1914, printed 1962
Gelatin silver print
28.5 x 21.9cm
© Photograph. Samml./SK Stiftung Kultur – A. Sander Archiv, Köln/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2011
Foto: Jorg Arend/Harald Dubau/Maria Thrun, Museum fur Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg
Museum fur Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg

August Sander (German, 1876-1964)
Notar, Köln, 1924
1924, printed 1962
Gelatin silver print
29.1 x 20.5cm
© Photograph. Samml./SK Stiftung Kultur – A. Sander Archiv, Köln/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2011
Foto: Jorg Arend/Harald Dubau/Maria Thrun, Museum fur Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg
Museum fur Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg

Helmar Lerski (Swiss, 1871-1956)
Old Working Woman from Germany (left)
1928-1931
Gelatin silver print

Helmar Lerski (Swiss, 1871-1956)
Beggar from Saxony (right)
1928-1931
Gelatin silver print

The portraits in Lerski’s Everyday Heads show unemployed workers whom the photographer met at a Berlin job centre where he hired them to sit for him. Old Working Woman from Germany 1928-1931 is a close-up shot of a woman’s face, eyes down and mouth shut as though she is quietly contemplating something outside of the picture’s frame (left, above). It is impossible to tell whether this meditative look, a common feature of his portraits, was suggested by Lerski but it is evident that he was in control of nearly every aspect of his pictures. An experienced movie cameraman, he used artificial light reflected by mirrors and screens to give his models an aura and monumentality that people would be familiar with from expressionist feature films. Oblique angles, in line with modernist sensibilities, helped to reinforce the impression of grandeur. He also cropped the images and introduced extra screens so as to eliminate the space around his models heads, and any details from what remained of the background. This also served on occasions to compromise the integrity of the subject’s face though, in other cases, he preferred to blur the contours of the face using strong shadows, as can be seen in Beggar from Saxony 1928-1931 (right, above). The results produced a general notion of everyday people rather than an endorsement of individuality as praised in traditional portraiture. Like Sander and Retzlaff, Lerski only gave the individuals’ professions in the captions, and was keen not to exemplify their class affiliation or social rank. The pictures provide no information about either, focusing instead on the face. In this way Lerski enhanced the common human dignity normally ignored in ‘everyday’ faces, and more especially in those humiliated by unemployment during the post-1929 economic crisis.

Wolfgang Brückle. “Face-Off in Weimar Culture: The Physiognomic Paradigm, Competing Portrait Anthologies, and August Sander’s Face of Our Time,” in Tate Papers No.19 Spring 2013 [Online] Cited 04/20/2020

Heinrich Riebesehl (German, 1938-2010)
Menschen im Fahrstuhl (People in the elevator)
1969
Gelatin silver print

The exhibition comprises 400 exhibits and reflects on important artistic positions in photographic portraiture. During the eventful 20th century portrait photography continually redefines itself, between dissolution of the traditional concept of the subject in the masses and the pursuit of individuality and identity – culturally, socially and in terms of gender. Portraiture is one of the traditional genres in art and was one of the driving forces behind the invention of photography in the 19th century. The image of the human being is subject to constant change, which is also reflected in photography. In postmodern society mass media create ever-changing ideals according to various requirements in tune with a quick succession of trends. Art photography responds to the changes and reflects the development sometimes with spectacular results while it questions the medium of photography itself. The exhibition presents 35 carefully chosen international artists, who through history have opened up a dialogue among themselves; they are referencing each other’s work, and are received and interpreted in ever new contexts. On show are works by Diane Arbus, Hans-Peter Feldmann, Lee Friedlander, Nan Goldin, Roni Horn, Jurgen Klauke, Annie Leibovitz, Helmar Lerski, Irving Penn, Judith Joy Ross, Thomas Ruff, August Sander, Cindy Sherman, Andy Warhol and others. An exhibition in cooperation with the Sammlung Niedersächsische Sparkassenstiftung on the occasion of the 5th Photography Triennial in Hamburg.

“The PORTRAIT-PHOTOGRAPH is a closed field of forces. Four image-repertoires intersect here, oppose and distort each other. In front of the lens, I am at the same time: the one I think I am, the one I want others to think I am, the one the photographer thinks I am, and the one he makes use of to exhibit his art.” (Roland Barthes, Camera Lucida, London, 1984, p. 13). The photographic portrait does indeed combine contrary interests. The relationship between photographer and sitter is crucial. The third factor is the viewer, who is already being considered during the process of photographing. In the knowledge of the particular psychological situation resulting from the presence of a camera, Richard Avedon laconically stated: “A photographic portrait is a picture of someone who knows he is being photographed.” The sitters’ reactions to the camera differ, depending on how experienced they are. Fact is: It is not possible to not communicate, as Paul Watzlawick’s research on communication shows. People demean themselves, even if they withdraw or turn away.

The confrontation climaxes in the principle of frontality, which remains valid today although it is constantly being tried and questioned. The project Serial Portraits invites the visitor on a journey through time starting from the beginnings with Hermann Biow’s (1804-1850) daguerreotypes, David Octavius Hill’s (1802-1870) and Robert Adamson’s (1821-1848) talbotypes up to the digital present with Michael Najjar’s (b. 1966) cyborgs, and wondering whether classical portraiture has come to its end.

The beginning includes a model case, where due to the long exposure necessary the models do not live out of the moment but into the moment, as Walter Benjamin said (Little History of Photography, 1931). Thirty-Minute Dialogue by Kyungwoo Chun (b. 1969) from 2000 is examining the synthesis of expression, which is necessitated by the models’ keeping still for so long. An exposure time of half an hour allows the work to penetrate the depths of the pictorial space.

The creativity of the 1920s and the New Vision inspires a “visual vocabulary” appropriate for modernity. Its different forms can be seen in the individual responses of photographers such as August Sander (1876-1964). Being a typical studio photographer, he works on a typology of “man of the 20th century”, beginning with the agricultural type, his Stammappe (engl.: Germinal Portfolio) being a memorial to the latter. Helmar Lerski (1871-1956) takes a different stance; having originally worked in film, he is photographing his Everyday Heads in extreme close-ups. Making use of effective lighting in his studio, he invites unknown sitters from the street and fashions characteristic heads.

Sander’s oeuvre represents a turning point for comparative vision as a genuine principle in series. Considering photography of the 1920s and questioning the photographer’s position as well as the medium itself, author-photography in the 1970s is developing a new idea of documentary. Thomas Ruff (b. 1958) is testing the limits, when he presupposes that photography can merely reflect the surface of things. Bernhard Fuchs is adding a personal touch when he is seeking out the places of his own past. The great portrait photographer Irving Penn is cornering his celebrities in a corner of his studio and allows them to find their place, according to their inclinations and abilities to self-represent.

Diane Arbus (1923-1971) is holding a one-sided dialog, certainly not giving equal weight to the photographer’s interests and that of her models. While the frontality signals the conventionally due deference, the complex composition of her pictures is dominated by the superior gaze directed at the supposedly others, the freaks of bourgeois society. Until now Arbus is misinterpreted as a documentary photographer. It is being ignored that photography inevitably presents a specific view of reality and that the viewer’s position has been carefully constructed within the picture.

Only pictures that have been taken without the awareness of those represented document a found situation at the same time as they present a monologue. Heinrich Riebesehl (1938-2010) chose this method for his series Menschen im Fahrstuhl (engl.: People in an Elevator), which he completed in just one day. In a moment of pause people can reflect and are not forced to react to being observed. In his pictures the photographer respects their individuality without judging social differences.

Examples for comparability as principle in a series can be found early on. Hermann Biow’s (1804-1850) daguerreotypes as unique copies of the members of parliament in the Paulskirche in Frankfurt from 1848/1849 were later reproduced as lithographs and distributed in portfolios. These politicians were the direct successors to the galleries of ancestral portraits in stately homes, whereby the new medium was democratic. Rudolph Duhrkoop’s Hamburgische Männer und Frauen amAnfang des XX. Jahrhunderts (engl.: Men and Women of Hamburg in the Early XXth Century) represent the citizens in this tradition.

Since 1975 Nicholas Nixon (b. 1974) is extending the series The Brown Sisters every year. His study is observing changes, while Hans-Peter Feldmann (b. 1941) is representing a century through 101 average people in his sequence 100 Jahre (engl.: 100 Years). It is fascinating, how the uniqueness of each person even if they remain anonymous is transported in the photographic portrait. Judith Joy Ross’ (b. 1946) series Protesting the U. S. War in Iraq documents a seriousness in the sitters’ faces, the political dimension of which can only be fully grasped with the information on the context. As with every photograph the title or accompanying text is part of the message.

Press release from the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, Hamburg website

Andy Warhol (American, 1928-1987)
Self-Portrait in Drag (Platinum Pageboy Wig)
1981
Foto: Christoph Irrgang, Hamburg
© 2011 The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc./Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Hamburger Kunsthalle

Andy Warhol (American, 1928-1987)
Self-Portrait in Drag
1981
Foto: Christoph Irrgang, Hamburg
© 2011 The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc./Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Hamburger Kunsthalle

Andy Warhol (American, 1928-1987)
Self-Portrait in Drag (Long Reddish-Brown Wig and Plaid Tie)
1981/1982
Foto: Christoph Irrgang, Hamburg
© 2011 The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Hamburger Kunsthalle

Thomas Ruff (German, b. 1958)
Portrait (T. Ruff)
1983
Colour Print
24 x 18cm
Thomas Ruff/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2011
Niedersachsische Sparkassenstiftung, Hannover

Thomas Ruff (German, b. 1958)
Portrait (C. Bernhard)
1985
Colour Print
24 x 18cm
© Thomas Ruff/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2011
Niedersachsische Sparkassenstiftung, Hannover

Nan Goldin (American, b. 1953)
All by Myself (detail)
1993-1996
Project installation with 89 colour slides and programmed soundtrack, running time: 5 min. 33 sec
© Nan Goldin/Courtesy Matthew Marks Gallery, New York
Foto: Christoph Irrgang, Hamburg
Hamburger Kunsthalle, Dauerleihgabe F. und W. Stiftung fur zeitgenossische Kunst in der Hamburger Kunsthalle

Rineke Dijkstra (Dutch, b. 1959)
Montemor, Portugal, May 1, 1994
1994
C-Print
35.2 x 27.8 cm
© Rineke Dijkstra
Foto/Photo: Jorg Arend/Harald Dubau/Maria Thrun, Museum fur Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg
Haus der Photographie/Sammlung F. C. Gundlach, Hamburg

Michael Schmidt (German, 1945-2014)
Aus der 81-teiligen serie Frauen
From the 81-part series Women
1997-1999
Gelatin silver print
44.1 x 29.9cm
© Michael Schmidt
Niedersachsische Sparkassenstiftung, Hannover

Michael Najjar (German, b. 1966)
Stephan_2.0 from the nexus project part I
1999
Hybrid photography, archival pigment print, aludibond, diasec
140 x 100cm / 56 x 40 in, edition of 6

Nexus Project

The series “nexus project part I” investigates the implications of the future enhancement of the human brain with miniaturised computer chips, infiltrated in the neuronal structures of the human organism.

Such a development will give birth to a new form of life – the cyborg, a hybrid compound of human and machine. A new set of questions are raised concerning issues of difference and identification between biologically correct beings and technically or genetically enhanced humans.

This development brings with it a host of new concerns: What impact will neuro-implants have on human consciousness? How will society cope with this kind of being, and what implications will they have for our social and cultural interaction?

“nexus project part I” consists of eight photographic portraits. These have undergone a digital modification of the iris, which gives the portrait faces an intimidating, almost inhuman look whilst at the same time it exerts a strong direct fascination on the viewer.

The highly charged poles of tensions and cross-tensions between fascination and intimidation also shape the para-meters in which the future development of human being to hybrid organism will take place.

Text from the Michael Najjar website [Online] Cited 04/02/2020

Kyungwoo Chun (Korean, b. 1969)
Thirty-Minute Dialogue #1
2000
Gelatin silver print
40 x 50cm
© Kyungwoo Chun

Roni Horn (American, b. 1955)
Portrait of an Image (with Isabelle Huppert)
2005
50 Fotografien (Version 1)
Colour Print
38.1 x 31.8cm
© Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth

Judith Joy Ross (American, b. 1946)
Jane C. Keller, Protesting the U.S. War in Iraq, Williamsport, Pennsylvania, from the series Protest the War
2006
Gelatin silver print

Judith Joy Ross (American, b. 1946)
Lynn Estomin, Protesting the U.S. War in Iraq, Williamsport, Pennsylvania, from the series Protest the War
2006
Gelatin silver print

Nicholas Nixon (American, b. 1947)
The Brown Sisters, East Greenwich, R.I.
1980
Gelatin silver print

Nicholas Nixon (American, b. 1947)
The Brown Sisters, Boston
2012
Gelatin silver print

Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg
Steintorplatz, 20099 Hamburg

Opening hours:
Tuesday – Sunday 10am – 6pm
Thursday until 9 pm
Closed Mondays

Museum fur Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg website

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Review: ‘American Dreams: 20th century photography from George Eastman House’ at Bendigo Art Gallery, Victoria

Exhibition dates: 16th April – 10th July 2011

Gertrude Käsebier (American, 1852-1934)
The Sketch (Beatrice Baxter)
1903
Platinum print
Gift of Hermine Turner
Collection of George Eastman House, International Museum of Photography and Film

This is a fabulous survey exhibition of the great artists of 20th century American photography, a rare chance in Australia to see such a large selection of vintage prints from some of the masters of photography. If you have a real interest in the history of photography you must see this exhibition, showing as it is just a short hour and a half drive (or train ride) from Melbourne at Bendigo Art Gallery.

I talked with the curator, Tansy Curtin, and asked her about the exhibition’s gestation. This is the first time an exhibition from the George Eastman House has come to Australia and the exhibition was 3-4 years in the making. Tansy went to George Eastman House in March last year to select the prints; this was achieved by going through solander box after solander box of vintage prints and seeing what was there, what was available and then making work sheets for the exhibition – what a glorious experience this would have been, undoing box after box to reveal these magical prints!

The themes for the exhibition were already in the history of photography and Tansy has chosen almost exclusively vintage prints that tell a narrative story, that make that story accessible to people who know little of the history of photography. With that information in mind the exhibition is divided into the following sections:

Photography becomes art; The photograph as social document; Photographing America’s monuments; Abstraction and experimentation; Photojournalism and war photography; Fashion and celebrity portraiture; Capturing the everyday; Photography in colour; Social and environmental conscience; and The contemporary narrative.

There are some impressive, jewel-like contact prints in the exhibition. One must remember that, for most of the photographers working after 1940, exposure, developing and printing using Ansel Adams Zone System (where the tonal range of the negative and print can be divided into 11 different ‘zones’ from 0 for absolute black and to 10 for absolute white) was the height of technical sophistication and aesthetic choice, equal to the best gaming graphics from today’s age. It was a system that I used in my black and white film development and printing. Film development using a Pyrogallol staining developer (the infamous ‘pyro’, a developer I tried to master without success in a few trial batches of film) was also technically difficult but the ability of this developer to obtain a greater dynamic range of zones in the film itself was outstanding.

“The Zone System provides photographers with a systematic method of precisely defining the relationship between the way they visualise the photographic subject and the final results… An expressive image involves the arrangement and rendering of various scene elements according to photographer’s desire. Achieving the desired image involves image management (placement of the camera, choice of lens, and possibly the use of camera movements) and control of image values. The Zone System is concerned with control of image values, ensuring that light and dark values are rendered as desired. Anticipation of the final result before making the exposure is known as visualisation.”1

Previsualisation, the ability of the photographer to see ‘in the mind’s eye’ the outcome of the photograph (the final print) before even looking through the camera lens to take the photograph, was an important skill for most of these photographers. This skill has important implications for today’s photographers, should they choose to develop this aspect of looking: not as a mechanistic system but as a meditation on the possibilities of each part of the process, the outcome being an expressive print.

A selection of the best photographs in the exhibition could include,

1/ An original 1923 Alfred Steiglitz Equivalent contact print – small (approx. 9cm x 12cm, see below), intense, the opaque brown blacks really strong, the sun shining brightly through the velvety clouds. In the Equivalents series the photograph was purely abstract, standing as a metaphor for another state of being, in this case music. A wonderful melding of the technical and the aesthetic the Equivalents “are generally recognised as the first photographs intended to free the subject matter from literal interpretation, and, as such, are some of the first completely abstract photographic works of art.”2

2/ Paul Strand Blind (1915, printed 1945) – printed so dark that you cannot see the creases in the coat of the blind woman with a Zone 3 dark skin tone.

3/ Lewis Hine [Powerhouse mechanic] see below, vintage 1920 print full of subtle tones. Usually when viewing reproductions of this image it is either cropped or the emphasis is on the body of the mechanic; in this print his skin tones are translucent, silvery and the emphasis is on the man in unison with the machine. The light is from the top right of the print and falls not on him directly, but on the machinery at upper right = this is the emotional heart of this image!

4/ Three tiny vintage Tina Modotti prints from c. 1929 – so small, such intense visions. I have never seen one original Modotti before so to see three was just sensational.

5/ Walker Evans View of Morgantown, West Virginia vintage 1935 print – a cubist dissection of space and the image plane with two-point perspective of telegraph pole with lines.

6/ An Edward S. Curtis photogravure Washo Baskets (1924, from the portfolio The North American Indian) – such a sumptuous composition and the tones…

7/ Ansel Adams 8″ x 10″ contact print of Winter Storm (1944, printed 1959, see above) where the blackness of the mountain on the left hand side of the print was almost impenetrable and, because of the large format negative, the snow on the rock in mid-distance was like a sprinkling of icing sugar on a cake it was that sharp.

8/ A most splendid print of the Chrysler Building (vintage 1930 print, approx. 48 x 34cm) by Margaret Bourke-White – tonally rich browns, smoky, hazy city at top; almost like a platinum print rather than a silver gelatin photograph. The bottom left of the print was SO dark but you could still see into the shadows just to see the buildings.

9/ An original Robert Capa 1944 photograph from the Omaha Beach D Day landings!

10/ Frontline soldier with canteen, Saipan (1944, vintage print) by W Eugene Smith where the faces of the soldiers were almost Zone 2-3 and there was nothing in the print above zone 5 (mid-grey) – no physical and metaphoric light.

11/ One of the absolute highlights: two vintage Edward Weston side by side, the form of one echoing the form of the other; Nude from the 50th Anniversary Portfolio 1902-1952 (1936, printed 1951), an 8″ x 10″ contact print side by side with an 8″ x 10″ contact print of Pepper No. 30 (vintage 1930 print). Nothing over zone 7 in the skin tones of the nude, no specular highlights; the sensuality in the pepper just stunning – one of my favourite prints of the day – look at the tones, look at the light!

12/ Three vintage Aaron Siskind (one of my favourite photographers) including two early prints from 1938 – wow. Absolutely stunning.

13/ Harry Callahan. That oh so famous image of Eleanor and Barbara, Chicago (vintage 1953 print) that reminds me of the work of Jeffrey Smart (or is it the other way around). The wonderful space around the figures, the beautiful composition, the cobblestones and the light – just ravishing.

14/ The absolute highlight: Three vintage Diane Arbus prints in a row – including a 15″ square image from the last series of work Untitled (6) (vintage 1971 print, see above) – the year in which she committed suicide. This had to be the moment of the day for me. This has always been one of my favourite photographs ever and it did not disappoint; there was a darkness to the trees behind the three figures and much darker grass (zone 3-4) than I had ever imagined with a luminous central figure. The joyousness of the figures was incredible. The present on the ground at the right hand side was a revelation – usually lost in reproductions this stood out from the grass like you wouldn’t believe in the print. Being an emotional person I am not afraid to admit it, I burst into tears…

15/ And finally another special… Two vintage Stephen Shore chromogenic colour prints from 1976 where the colours are still true and have not faded. This was incredible – seeing vintage prints from one of the early masters of colour photography; noticing that they are not full of contrast like a lot of today’s colour photographs – more like a subtle Panavision or Technicolor film from the early 1960s. Rich, subtle, beautiful hues. For a contemporary colour photographer the trip to Bendigo just to see these two prints would be worth the time and the car trip/rail ticket alone!

Not everything is sweetness and light. The print by Dorothea Lange Migrant Mother, Nipomo, California is a contemporary print from 2003, the vintage print having just been out on loan; the contemporary section, ‘The contemporary narrative’, is very light on, due mainly to the nature of the holdings of George Eastman House; and there are some major photographers missing from the line up including Minor White, Fredrick Sommer, Paul Caponigro, Wynn Bullock and William Clift to name just a few.

Of more concern are the reproductions in the catalogue, the images for reproduction supplied by George Eastman House and the catalogue signed off by them. The reproduction of Margaret Bourke-White’s Chrysler Building (1930, see below) bears no relationship to the print in the exhibition and really is a denigration to the work of that wonderful photographer. Other reproductions are massively oversized, including the Alfred Stieglitz Equivalent, Lewis Hine’s Powerhouse mechanic (see below) and Tina Modotti’s Woman Carrying Child (c. 1929). In Walter Benjamin’s terms (The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction) the aura of the original has been lost and these reproductions further erode the authenticity of the original in their infinite reproducability. Conversely, it could be argued that the reproduction auraticizes the original:

“The original artwork has become a device to sell its multiply-reproduced derivatives; reproductability turned into a ploy to auraticize the original after the decay of aura…”3

In other words, after having seen so many reproductions when you actually see the original – it is like a bolt of lightning, the aura that emanates from the original. This is so true of this exhibition but it still begs the question: why reproduce in the catalogue at a totally inappropriate size? Personally, I believe that the signification of the reproduction (in terms of size and intensity of visualisation) is so widely at variance with the original one must question the decision to reproduce at this size knowing that this variance is a misrepresentation of the artistic interpretation of the author.

In conclusion, this is a sublime exhibition well worthy of the time and energy to journey up to Bendigo to see it. A true lover of classical American black and white and colour photography would be a fool to miss it!

Dr Marcus Bunyan

1/ Anon. “Zone System,” on Wikipedia [Online] Cited 13/06/2011
2/ Anon. “Equivalents,” on Wikipedia [Online] Cited 13/06/2011
3/ Huyssen, Andreas. Twilight Memories: Marking Time in a Culture of Amnesia. London: Routledge, 1995, pp. 23-24

Many thankx to Tansy Curtin, Senior Curator, Programs and Access at Bendigo Art Gallery for her time and knowledge when I visited the gallery; and to Bendigo Art Gallery for allowing me to publish the text and photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

Actual size of print: 9.2 x 11.8 cm
Size of print in catalogue: 18.5 x 13.9 cm

These two photographs represent a proportionate relation between the two sizes as they appear in print and catalogue but because of monitor resolutions are not the actual size of the two prints.

Alfred Stieglitz (American, 1864-1946)
Equivalent
1923
Gelatin silver print
Collection of George Eastman House, International Museum of Photography and Film

Actual size of print: 16.9 x 11.8cm
Size of print in catalogue: 23.2 x 15.8cm

These two photographs represent a proportionate relation between the two sizes as they appear in print and catalogue but because of monitor resolutions are not the actual size of the two prints.

Lewis Hine (American, 1874-1940)
[Powerhouse mechanic]
1920
Gelatin silver print
Transfer from the Photo League Lewis Hine Memorial Committee, ex-collection Corydon Hine
Collection of George Eastman House, International Museum of Photography and Film

As it approximately appears in the exhibition (above, from my notes, memory and comparing the print in the exhibition with the catalogue reproduction)

Below, as the reproduction appears in the catalogue (scanned)

Margaret Bourke-White (American, 1904-1971)
Chrysler Building
New York City
1930
Silver gelatin photograph

An exhibition of treasures from arguably the world’s most important photographic museum, George Eastman House, has been developed by Bendigo Art Gallery. The exhibition American Dreams will bring, for the first time, eighty of some of the most iconic photographic images from the 20th Century to Australia.

The choice of works highlights the trailblazing role these American artists had on the world stage in developing and shaping the medium, and the impact these widely published images had on the greater community.

Curator Tansy Curtin, who worked closely with George Eastman House developing the exhibition commented, “Through these images we can recognise the extraordinary ability of these artists, and their pivotal role influencing the evolution of photography. Their far-reaching images helped shape American culture, and impacted on the fundamental role photography has in communications today. Even more than this we can see through these artists the burgeoning love of photography that engaged a nation.”

Through these images we can see not only the development of photography, but also as some of the most powerful social documentary photography of last century, we see extraordinary moments captured in the lives of a wide range of Americans. The works distil the dramatic transformation that affected people during the 20th century – the affluence, degradation, loss, hope and change – both personally and throughout society.

The role of photography in nation building is exemplified in Ansel Adams’ majestic portraits of Yosemite national park, Bourke-White’s Chrysler building and images of migrants and farm workers during the Depression. Tansy Curtin added, “We see the United States ‘growing up’ through photography. We see hopes raised and crushed and the inevitable striving for the American Dream.” Director of Bendigo Art Gallery Karen Quinlan said, “We are thrilled to have been given this unprecedented opportunity to work with this unrivalled photographic archive. The resulting exhibition American Dreams, represents one of the most important and comprehensive collections of American 20th Century photography to come to Australia.”

George Eastman House holds over 400,000 images from the invention of photography to the present day. George Eastman, one time owner of the home in which the archives are housed, founded Kodak and revolutionised and democratised photography around the world. Eastman is considered the grandfather of snapshot photography.

American Dreams is one of the first exhibitions from this important collection to have been curated by an outside institution. It will be the first time Australian audiences have been given the opportunity to engage with this vast archive.

Press release from the Bendigo Art Gallery

Paul Strand (American 1890-1976)
Blind woman, New York
1916
Platinum print
Collection of George Eastman House, International Museum of Photography and Film

Edward S. Curtis (American, 1868-1952)
Washo Baskets
1924
From the portfolio The North American Indian
Photogravure
Collection of George Eastman House, International Museum of Photography and Film

Tina Modotti (Italian / American / Mexican, 1896-1942)
Woman Carrying Child
c. 1929
Gelatin silver print
Collection of George Eastman House, International Museum of Photography and Film

Edward Weston (American, 1886-1958)
Pepper No. 30
1930
Vintage silver gelatin print
Collection of George Eastman House, International Museum of Photography and Film

Walker Evans (American, 1903-1975)
Torn Poster, Truro, Massachusetts
1930
Gelatin silver contact print
Purchased with funds from National Endowment for the Arts
Collection of George Eastman House, International Museum of Photography and Film

Alfred Steiglitz (American, 1864-1946)
[Georgia O’Keefe hand on back tire of Ford V8]
1933
gelatin silver print
Part purchase and part gift from Georgia O’Keefe
Collection of George Eastman House, International Museum of Photography and Film

Walker Evans (American, 1903-1975)
View of Morgantown, West Virginia
June, 1935
Gelatin silver print
Collection of George Eastman House, International Museum of Photography and Film

Dorothea Lange (American, 1895-1965)
Migrant Mother, Nipomo, California
1936, printed c. 2003
Photogravure print
Gift of Sean Corcoran
Collection of George Eastman House, International Museum of Photography and Film

Edward Weston (American, 1886-1958)
Nude
1936, printed 1951
From the Fiftieth Anniversary Portfolio: 1902-1952, c. 1952
Vintage silver gelatin print
Collection of George Eastman House, International Museum of Photography and Film

Dorothea Lange (American, 1895-1965)
Kern County California
1938
Gelatin silver print
Exchange with Roy Stryker
Collection of George Eastman House, International Museum of Photography and Film

Ansel Adams (American, 1902-1984)
Clearing Winter Storm, Yosemite National Park
c. 1938
Gelatin silver print
Collection of George Eastman House, International Museum of Photography and Film

W. Eugene Smith (American, 1918-1978)
[Frontline Soldier with Canteen at Saipan]
June 1944
Gelatin silver print
41.1 × 32.4cm
Collection of George Eastman House, International Museum of Photography and Film

Harry Callahan (American, 1912-1999)
Eleanor and Barbara, Chicago
1953
Vintage gelatin silver print
Collection of George Eastman House, International Museum of Photography and Film

Diane Arbus (American, 1923-1971)
Untitled (6)
1971
Gelatin silver print
Collection of George Eastman House, International Museum of Photography and Film

Bendigo Art Gallery
42 View Street Bendigo
Victoria Australia 3550
Phone: 03 5434 6088

Opening hours:
Bendigo Art Gallery is open daily 10 am – 5 pm

Bendigo Art Gallery website

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Exhibition: ‘Helios: Eadweard Muybridge in a Time of Change’ at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA)

Exhibition dates: 26th February – 7th June, 2011

Eadweard Muybridge (English-American, 1830-1904)
Ruins of a Church, Antigua, Guatemala
1875
Albumen print
Collection Centre Canadien d’Architecture/Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montreal

While rightly famous for his work on animal locomotion it is the first group of photographs in this posting that shine most brightly. It is often overlooked how magnificent a photographer Eadweard Muybridge was and what a brilliant eye he had. The top three photographs, especially the first one (above), are knockouts – radiant jewels in which the tensional points of the composition and the atmosphere of the scene are captured magnificently. I also love the use of human figures to give scale to the scene.

It is rare to find Eadweard Muybridge photographs other than his locomotion studies on the Internet (do a search under Google and see for yourself!), so it is a particular pleasure to post these photographs. It is something I have been wanted to do for quite a while now and finally it has come to pass; earlier iterations of this exhibition had few press images so I must heartily thank the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

Many thankx to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photograph for a larger version of the image.

Eadweard Muybridge (English-American, 1830-1904)
The Ramparts, Funnel Rock, Hole in the Wall, Pyramid, Sugar Loaf, Oil House, and Landing Cove on Fisherman’s Bay, South Farallon Island (4150)
1871
Albumen print
U.S. Coast Guard Historian’s Office

Eadweard Muybridge (English-American, 1830-1904)
Ruins of the Church of San Domingo, Panama
1875
Albumen print
Image courtesy The Board of Trustees, National Gallery of Art, Washington

Eadweard Muybridge (English-American, 1830-1904)
Bridge on the Porto Bello, Panama
1875
Albumen print
Department of Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, UCLA

Eadweard Muybridge (English-American, 1830-1904)
Tenaya Canyon. Valley of the Yosemite. From Union Point. No. 35
1872
Albumen print
Collection National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC

Eadweard Muybridge (English-American, 1830-1904)
First-Order Lighthouse at Punta de los Reyes, Seacoast of California, 296 Feet Above Sea (4136)
1871
Albumen print
U.S. Coast Guard Historian’s Office

Eadweard Muybridge (English-American, 1830-1904)
Pi-Wi-Ack. Valley of the Yosemite. (Shower of Stars) “Vernal Fall.” 400 Feet Fall. No. 29
1872
Albumen print
Collection San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; gift of Jeffrey Fraenkel and Frish Brandt

From February 26 through June 7, 2011, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) will showcase the first-ever retrospective examining all aspects of artist Eadweard Muybridge’s pioneering photography. Helios: Eadweard Muybridge in a Time of Change brings together more than 300 objects created between 1857 and 1893, including Muybridge’s only surviving zoopraxiscope – an apparatus he designed in 1879 to project motion pictures. Originally organised by Philip Brookman, Corcoran Gallery of Art chief curator and head of research, the San Francisco presentation is organised by SFMOMA Associate Curator of Photography Corey Keller.

Helios: Eadweard Muybridge in a Time of Change includes numerous vintage photographs, albums, stereographs, lantern slides, glass negatives and positives, patent models, zoopraxiscope discs, proof prints, notes, books, and other ephemera. The works have been brought together from 38 different collections and include a number of Muybridge’s photographs of Yosemite Valley, including dramatic waterfalls and mountain views from 1867 and 1872; images of Alaska and the Pacific coast; an 1869 survey of the Central Pacific and Union Pacific Railroads in California, Nevada, and Utah; pictures from the Modoc War, pictures from Panama and Guatemala; and urban panoramas of San Francisco. The exhibition also includes examples from Muybridge’s experimental series of sequential stop-motion photographs such as Attitudes of Animals in Motion (1881) and his later masterpiece Animal Locomotion (1887).

The exhibition is organised in a series of thematic sections that present the chronology of Muybridge’s career, the evolution of his unique sensibility, the foundations of his experimental approach to photography, and his connections to other people and events that helped guide his work. The sections include: Introduction: The Art of Eadweard Muybridge (1857-1887); The Infinite Landscape: Yosemite Valley and the Western Frontier (1867-1869); From California to the End of the Earth: San Francisco, Alaska, the Railroads, and the Pacific Coast (1868-1872); The Geology of Time: Yosemite and the High Sierra (1872); Stopping Time: California at the Crossroads of Perception (1872-1878); War, Murder, and the Production of Coffee: the Modoc War and the Development of Central America (1873-1875); Urban Panorama (1877-1880); The Horse in Motion (1877-1881); Motion Pictures: the Zoopraxiscope (1879-1893); and Animal Locomotion (1883-1893).

Muybridge and San Francisco

Best known for his groundbreaking studies of animals and humans in motion, Muybridge (1830-1904) was also an innovative and successful landscape and survey photographer, documentary artist, inventor, and war correspondent. Born in Kingston upon Thames, England, in 1830, Muybridge immigrated to the United States around 1851. He worked as a bookseller in New York and San Francisco and returned to London in 1860 following a serious injury. Muybridge learned photography in Britain and by 1867 returned to the United States, where began his career as a photographer in San Francisco. He gained recognition through innovative landscape photographs, which showed the grandeur and expansiveness of the American West. Between 1867 and 1871, these were published under the pseudonym “Helios.”

Muybridge spent most of his career in San Francisco and Philadelphia during a time of rapid industrial and technological growth. In the 1870s he developed new ways to stop motion with his camera. Muybridge’s legendary sequential photographs of running horses helped change how people saw the world. His projected animations inspired the early development of cinema, and his revolutionary techniques produced timeless images that have profoundly influenced generations of photographers, filmmakers, and visual artists.

Press release from the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) website [Online] Cited 02/06/2011 no longer available online

Eadweard Muybridge (English-American, 1830-1904)
Savings and Loan Society, Clay Street (340)
1869
albumen stereograph
Collection of Leonard A. Calle

Eadweard Muybridge (English-American, 1830-1904)
Contemplation Rock, Glacier Point (1385)
1872
Albumen stereograph
Collection of California Historical Society

Eadweard Muybridge (English-American, 1830-1904)
Group of Indians (489)
1868
Albumen stereograph
Collection of Leonard A. Walle

Eadweard Muybridge (English-American, 1830-1904)
The Brandenburg Album of Bradley & Rolufson “Celebrities” and Muybridge Photographs, page 104
1874
Albumen prints
Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts at Stanford University, Museum Purchase Fund

Eadweard Muybridge (English-American, 1830-1904)
Cockatoo; flying. Plate 759
1887
Collotype
Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

Eadweard Muybridge (English-American, 1830-1904)
Boxing; open-hand. Plate 340
1887
Collotype
Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

Eadweard Muybridge (English-American, 1830-1904)
Horses. Running. Phryne L. Plate 40
1879
From The Attitudes of Animals in Motion, 1881
Albumen print
Image courtesy The Board of Trustees, National Gallery of Art, Washington, Gift of Mary and Dan Solomon

Eadweard Muybridge (English-American, 1830-1904)
Studies of Foreshortenings. Horses. Running. Mahomet. Plates 143-144
1879
From The Attitudes of Animals in Motion, 1881
Albumen print
Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, VA

Eadweard Muybridge (English-American, 1830-1904)
Leland Stanford, Jr. on his pony “Gypsy” – Phases of a Stride by a Pony While Cantering
1879
Collodion positive on glass
Wilson Centre for Photography

Eadweard Muybridge (English-American, 1830-1904) 'General view of experiment track, background and cameras, Plate F, from The Attitudes of Animals in Motion' 1881

Eadweard Muybridge (English-American, 1830-1904)
General view of experiment track, background and cameras, Plate F
1881
From The Attitudes of Animals in Motion, 1881
Albumen print
Courtesy Special Collections, Stanford University Libraries

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA)
151 Third Street (between Mission + Howard)
San Francisco CA 94103

Opening hours:
Friday – Tuesday 10 am – 5 pm and Thursday 10 am – 9 pm
Wednesday Closed

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art website

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Exhibition: ‘The Photographs of Ray K. Metzker’ at The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri

Exhibition dates: 15th January – 5th June, 2011

Many thankx to The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photograph for a larger version of the image.

Ray K. Metzker (American, 1931-2014)
City Whispers, Philadelphia
1983
Gelatin silver print
The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri
© Ray K. Metzker, courtesy of the Laurence Miller Gallery

Ray K. Metzker (American, 1931-2014)
Couplets: Atlantic City/New York City
1969/1968
Gelatin silver print
The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri
© Ray K. Metzker, courtesy of the Laurence Miller Gallery

Ray K. Metzker (American, 1931-2014)
Couplets: New York City
1968
Gelatin silver print
The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri
Gift of the Hall Family Foundation
© Ray K. Metzker, courtesy of the Laurence Miller Gallery

Ray K. Metzker (American, 1931-2014)
Double Frames: Philadelphia
1965, printed 1984
Gelatin silver print
Gift of the Hall Family Foundation
© Ray K. Metzker, Courtesy of the Laurence Miller Gallery

Ray K. Metzker (American, 1931-2014)
Double Frames: Philadelphia
1965, printed 1972
Gelatin silver print
Gift of the Hall Family Foundation
The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
© Ray K. Metzker, Courtesy of the Laurence Miller Gallery

Ray K. Metzker (American, 1931-2014)
Couplets: Philadelphia
1968, printed 2002
Gelatin silver print
Gift of the Hall Family Foundation
© Ray K. Metzker, Courtesy of the Laurence Miller Gallery

Ray K. Metzker (American, 1931-2014)
Pictus Interruptus: Philadelphia
1977
Gelatin silver print
Gift of the Hall Family Foundation
© Ray K. Metzker, Courtesy of the Laurence Miller Gallery

Works by Ray K. Metzker, one of the most original and influential photographers of the last half century, will be on view from Jan. 15 to June 5, 2011, at The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. The Photographs of Ray K. Metzker will reveal Metzker’s ability to turn ordinary subjects, including the urban experience and nature, into the visual poetry of the finely crafted black-and-white print.

At the age of nearly 80, Metzker is greatly admired for his passionate engagement with both photography and the world. He has explored the use of high contrast and selective focus, the potentials of multiple and composite images, and the infinite gradations of daylight, from dazzling white to inky shadow.

This is great and lasting work – the very best of a classic form of American modernism, said Keith F. Davis, senior curator of photography at the Nelson-Atkins. Metzker has led a life of deep devotion to understanding the potential, challenge and pleasure of photographic seeing. In so doing, he has transcended any simple notion of technical experimentation or formalism to illuminate a vastly larger human realm – one of uncertainty, isolation and vulnerability, as well as of unexpected beauty, grace and transcendence.

Thanks to a major gift from the Hall Family Foundation, the Nelson-Atkins now has the largest holding of Metzker’s work (92 prints) in the United States.

Born in Milwaukee, Wis., in 1931, Metzker first took up photography as a teenager. After two years in the army, he entered the graduate program at the Institute of Design, Chicago, in the fall of 1956. His professors, Aaron Siskind and Harry Callahan, were acclaimed artists and inspiring teachers, and they emphasised the medium’s remarkable range and visual potential. Metzker’s artistic vision grew from a union of ideas: the realities of modern life, the medium’s myriad technical possibilities, and the quest for a distinctly individual vision.

Metzker has lived and worked in Philadelphia since 1962, and as he approaches the age of 80, he continues to make new pictures there.

The photographs in the exhibition feature examples from all his major series, including his earliest mature work from Chicago (1957-1959); photographs from an extended visit to Europe (1960-1961); the street activity, people, and structures of Philadelphia (from 1962 to the present); beachgoers at the New Jersey shore, Sand Creatures (1968-1977); the starkness of the Southwestern light and landscape, New Mexico (1971-1972); and the lush mysteries of the natural realm, in his Landscapes (1985-1996) from Italy, France and the United States.

The exhibition features a host of innovative and ingenious approaches to photography, including the use of the double image, Double Frame (1964-1966) and Couplets (1968-1969); single works created from an entire roll of film, Composites (1964-1966); and the creative control of focus in both Pictus Interruptus (1976-1980) and Landscapes (1985-1996).

Press release from The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art website

Ray K. Metzker (American, 1931-2014)
Chicago
1957
Gelatin silver print
Gift of Hallmark Cards, Inc.,
© Ray K. Metzker, Courtesy of the Laurence Miller Gallery

Ray K. Metzker (American, 1931-2014)
Chicago
1959, printed 1989
Gelatin silver print
Gift of Hallmark Cards, Inc.,
© Ray K. Metzker, Courtesy of the Laurence Miller Gallery

Ray K. Metzker (American, 1931-2014)
Philadelphia
1963, printed 1986
Gelatin silver print
Gift of the Hall Family Foundation
© Ray K. Metzker, Courtesy of the Laurence Miller Gallery

Ray K. Metzker (American, 1931-2014)
Man in Canoe
1961
Gelatin silver print
Gift of Hallmark Cards, Inc.,
© Ray K. Metzker, Courtesy of the Laurence Miller Gallery

Ray K. Metzker (American 1931-2014)
Philadelphia, 1963
1963
Gelatin silver print
Gift of Hallmark Cards, Inc.,
© Ray K. Metzker, Courtesy of the Laurence Miller Gallery

Ray K. Metzker (American, 1931-2014)
Philadelphia
1964, printed 1989
Gelatin silver print
Gift of Hallmark Cards, Inc.,
© Ray K. Metzker, Courtesy of the Laurence Miller Gallery

Ray K. Metzker (American, 1931-2014)
Composite: Atlantic City
1966
Gelatin silver print
Gift of Hallmark Cards, Inc.,
© Ray K. Metzker, Courtesy of the Laurence Miller Gallery

Ray K. Metzker (American, 1931-2014)
Composites: Night at the Terminal
about 1966
Gelatin silver print
The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
© Ray K. Metzker, courtesy of Lawrence Miller Gallery

Ray K. Metzker (American 1931-2014)
Philadelphia
1981
Gelatin silver print
Gift of Hallmark Cards, Inc.,
© Ray K. Metzker, Courtesy of the Laurence Miller Gallery

Ray K. Metzker (American 1931-2014)
Philadelphia, 1964
1963
Gelatin silver print
Gift of Hallmark Cards, Inc.,
© Ray K. Metzker, Courtesy of the Laurence Miller Gallery

Ray K. Metzker (American 1931-2014)
Philadelphia, 1963
1963
Gelatin silver print
Gift of Hallmark Cards, Inc.,
© Ray K. Metzker, Courtesy of the Laurence Miller Gallery

The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
4525 Oak Street
Kansas City, MO 64111

Opening hours:
Thursday – Monday 10am – 5pm
Closed Tuesdays and Wednesdays

The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art website

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