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Exhibition: ‘Detroit Experiences: Robert Frank Photographs, 1955’ at Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit

Exhibition dates: 3rd March – 4th July, 2010

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019) 'Assembly Plant, Detroit' 1955 from the exhibition 'Detroit Experiences: Robert Frank Photographs, 1955' at Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, March - July, 2010

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019)
Assembly Plant, Detroit
1955
Gelatin silver print
8 7/8 × 13 1/8 inches (22.5 × 33.3cm)
Founders Society Purchase, Coville Photographic Fund
© Robert Frank, from The Americans. Detroit Institute of Arts

Many thankx to Pamela Marcil and the Detroit Institute of Arts for allowing me to reproduce the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

Marcus

“I am always looking outside, trying to look inside, trying to say something that is true. But maybe nothing is really true. Except what’s out there. And what’s out there is constantly changing.”

Robert Frank, 1985

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019) 'Belle Isle' 1955 from the exhibition 'Detroit Experiences: Robert Frank Photographs, 1955' at Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, March - July, 2010

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019)
Belle Isle – Detroit
1955, printed between 1966-1968
Gelatin silver print
12 5/8 × 18 7/8 inches (32.1 × 47.9cm)
Museum Purchase, Ernest and Rosemarie Kanzler Foundation Fund, Forum for Prints, Drawings, and Photographs Purchase Fund, and General Art Purchase Fund
© Robert Frank, from The Americans. Detroit Institute of Arts

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019) 'Detroit River Rouge Plant' 1955 from the exhibition 'Detroit Experiences: Robert Frank Photographs, 1955' at Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, March - July, 2010

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019)
Detroit River Rouge Plant
1955, printed 1970s
Gelatin silver print
9 1/8 × 13 7/8 inches (23.2 × 35.2cm)
Founders Society Purchase, Coville Photographic Fund
© Robert Frank. Detroit Institute of Arts

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019)
Drive-In Movie, Detroit
1955, printed 1977
Gelatin silver print
8 1/4 × 12 1/2 inches (21 × 31.8cm)
Founders Society Purchase, Tina and Lee Hills Graphic Arts Fund
© Robert Frank, from The Americans. Detroit Institute of Arts.

Detroit Experiences: Robert Frank Photographs, 1955 showcases more than 50 rare and many never-before-seen black-and-white photographs taken in Detroit by legendary artist Robert Frank. The exhibition will be on view at the Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA) March 3 – July 4, 2010. The exhibition is free with museum admission.

In 1955 and 1956 Robert Frank traveled the U.S. taking photographs for his groundbreaking book The Americans, published in 1958. With funding from a prestigious Guggenheim grant, he set out to create a large visual record of America, and Detroit was one of his early stops. Inspired by autoworkers, the cars they made, along with local lunch counters, drive-in movies and public parks such as Belle Isle, Frank transformed everyday experiences of Detroiters into an extraordinary visual statement about American life.

According to Frank, The Americans included “things that are there, anywhere, and everywhere … a town at night, a parking lot, the man who owns three cars and the man who owns none … the dream of grandeur, advertising, neon lights … gas tanks, post offices and backyards …” The exhibition includes nine Detroit images that were published in The Americans, as well as, for the first time, an in-depth body of work representative of Frank’s Detroit, its working-class culture and automotive industry.

Frank was drawn to Detroit partly by a personal fascination with the automobile, but also saw its presence and effect on American culture as essential to his series. Frank was one of the few photographers allowed to take photographs at the famous Ford Motor Company River Rouge factory, where he was amazed to witness the transformation of raw materials into fully assembled cars. In a letter to his wife he wrote, “Ford is an absolutely fantastic place … this one is God’s factory and if there is such a thing – I am sure that the devil gave him a helping hand to build what is called Ford’s River Rouge Plant.” Frank spent two days taking pictures at the Ford factory, photographing workers on the assembly lines and manning machines by day, and following them as they ventured into the city at night.

Whether in the disorienting surroundings of a massive factory or during the solitary and alienating moments of individuals in parks and on city streets, the Swiss-born photographer looked beneath the surface of life in the U.S. and found a culture that challenged his perceptions and popular notions of the American Dream. Further accentuating his view of America, Frank developed an unconventional photographic style innovative and controversial in its time. Photographing quickly, Frank sometimes tilted and blurred compositions, presenting people and their surroundings in fleeting and fragmentary moments with an unsentimental eye.

Beat poet Jack Kerouac expressed the complex nature of the artist and his work in a passage from his introduction to The Americans stating, “Robert Frank, Swiss, unobtrusive, nice, with that little camera that he raises and snaps with one hand he sucked a sad poem right out of America onto film, taking rank among the tragic poets of the world.”

Born in 1924 in Zurich, Switzerland, Frank emigrated to the U.S. in 1947. He worked on assignments for magazines from 1948–53, but his photographic books garnered the highest acclaim. After publishing The Americans, he began filmmaking and directed the early experimental masterpiece Pull My Daisy, in collaboration with Jack Kerouac in 1959. Frank continues to work in both film and photography and has been the subject of many traveling exhibitions in recent years. The National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. established Frank’s photographic archive in 1990 and organised his first traveling retrospective, “Moving Out, in 1995” as well as a 2009 exhibition “Looking In: Robert Frank’s “The Americans”.” Frank lived in Mabou, Nova Scotia, and New York City with his wife, artist June Leaf.

Press release from the Detroit Institute of Arts website [Online] Cited 24/06/2019 no longer available online

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019)
Untitled
1955, printed c. 1970s
Gelatin silver print
10 3/4 × 15 7/8 inches (27.3 × 40.3cm)
Founders Society Purchase with funds from Founders Junior Council
© Robert Frank, from The Americans. Detroit Institute of Arts

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019)
Ford River Rouge Plant
1955, printed c. 1970s
Gelatin silver print
13 13/16 × 9 1/8 inches (35.1 × 23.2cm)
Founders Society Purchase, Coville Photographic Fund
© Robert Frank. Detroit Institute of Arts

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, b. 1924) 'Assembly Plant, Ford, Detroit' 1955

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019)
Assembly Plant, Ford, Detroit
1955, printed c. 1960s
Gelatin silver print
12 7/8 × 8 1/2 inches (32.7 × 21.6cm)
Founders Society Purchase, Coville Photographic Fund
© Robert Frank. Detroit Institute of Arts

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019)
Drugstore, Detroit
1955, printed c. 1960s
Gelatin silver print
23 1/4 × 15 3/4 inches (59.1 × 40cm)
Founders Society Purchase, with funds from the Founders Junior Council
© Robert Frank, from The Americans. Detroit Institute of Arts

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019)
Detroit
1955, printed c. 1960s
Gelatin silver print
9 1/16 × 13 1/2 inches (23 × 34.3cm)
Founders Society Purchase, Coville Photographic Fund
© Robert Frank, from The Americans. Detroit Institute of Arts

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019) 'Detroit - Belle Isle' 1955

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019)
Belle Isle – Detroit
1955, printed between 1960 and 1979
Gelatin silver print
12 1/2 × 18 3/4 inches (31.8 × 47.6cm)
Museum Purchase, Ernest and Rosemarie Kanzler Foundation Fund, Forum for Prints, Drawings, and Photographs Purchase Fund, and General Art Purchase Fund
© Robert Frank, from The Americans. Detroit Institute of Arts

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019)
Rodeo – Detroit
1955, printed 1960s
Gelatin silver print
6 1/2 × 9 7/8 inches (16.5 × 25.1cm)
Museum Purchase, Ernest and Rosemarie Kanzler Foundation Fund, Forum for Prints, Drawings, and Photographs Purchase Fund, and General Art Purchase Fund
© Robert Frank, from The Americans. Detroit Institute of Arts

In 1955, Swiss-born photographer Robert Frank traveled across the United States photographing how Americans live, work, and spend their leisure time. Detroit was a critical stop on his itinerary, as the Motor City was world renowned for its automobiles along with its factories and labor force. Frank spent several days in Detroit at its legendary Ford Motor Company Rouge Plant and visited dime-store lunch counters, drive-ins, and public parks as well. He may have found Stetson-wearing spectators at a local rodeo an unlikely and uncharacteristic subject for Detroit – a large, industrial, midwestern city. Nonetheless he included Rodeo – Detroit, in addition to eight other photographs taken in the city, as part of the 83 images found in his ground-breaking photo book The Americans from 1958. The book brought Frank great acclaim for his critical commentary on America during the boom years following World War II.

From Bulletin of the Detroit Institute of Arts 89 (2015)

Robert Frank (Swiss-American, 1924-2019)
Detroit
1956
Gelatin silver print
© Robert Frank, from The Americans. Detroit Institute of Arts

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Main Line: 313.833.7900

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Exhibition: ‘Harry Callahan: American Photographer’ at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Exhibition dates: 21st November 2009 – 3rd July, 2010

Harry Callahan (American, 1912-1999) 'Eleanor, Chicago' 1949 from the exhibition 'Harry Callahan: American Photographer' at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Nov 2009 - July 2010

Harry Callahan (American, 1912-1999)
Eleanor, Chicago
1949
Gelatin silver print
Courtesy Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

I admire the use of strong horizontals and verticals in the work of Harry Callahan and the exquisite sense of space, stillness and sensuality he creates within the image plane. A true American master. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

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

Harry Callahan (American, 1912-1999) 'Eleanor and Barbara' 1953 from the exhibition 'Harry Callahan: American Photographer' at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Nov 2009 - July 2010

Harry Callahan (American, 1912-1999)
Eleanor and Barbara
1953
Gelatin silver print
Courtesy Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Harry Callahan (American, 1912-1999) 'Eleanor and Barbara, Lake Michigan' 1953 from the exhibition 'Harry Callahan: American Photographer' at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Nov 2009 - July 2010

Harry Callahan (American, 1912-1999)
Eleanor and Barbara, Lake Michigan
1953
Gelatin silver print
Courtesy Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Harry Callahan (American, 1912-1999)
Eleanor and Barbara
c. 1954
Gelatin silver print
Courtesy Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Harry Callahan (American, 1912-1999)
Eleanor, Chicago
1953
Gelatin silver print
Courtesy Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Harry Callahan (American, 1912-1999)
Detroit
1943
Gelatin silver print
Courtesy Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

The brilliant graphic sensibility of Harry Callahan (1912-1999), a major figure in American photography, is the focus of Harry Callahan: American Photographer at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA). Debuting November 21, the exhibition features approximately 40 photographs that survey the major visual themes of the artist’s career. It celebrates the Museum’s important recent acquisitions – by both purchase and gift – of Callahan’s photographs and showcases significant examples of his artistry from the collections of friends of the MFA. The many sensitive pictures that Callahan made of his wife Eleanor, his depictions of passers-by on the street, his carefully composed landscapes and close-ups from nature, and experimental darkroom abstractions reveal a wide-ranging talent that was enormously influential.

“Harry Callahan was one of the most innovative photographers working in America in the mid 20th-century,” said Malcolm Rogers, Ann and Graham Gund Director of the MFA. “His elegantly spare, introspective photographs demonstrate his lyricism and the originality of his sense of design.”

The Detroit-born photographer, whose career spanned six decades, became interested in the camera in the late 1930s while working as a Chrysler Corporation shipping clerk. He was largely self-taught, and attracted admiration early on for his originality. By 1946, Callahan was hired as a photography instructor by the Hungarian-born artist László Moholy-Nagy for the Institute of Design, a Bauhaus-inspired school of art and design in Chicago. In 1961, Callahan was invited to head the photography program at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), where he was based until retiring to Atlanta two decades later.

“Harry Callahan’s approach helped shape American photography in the second half of the 20th-century,” said Anne Havinga, Estrellita and Yousuf Karsh Senior Curator of Photographs, who organised the exhibition. “His way of seeing inspired countless followers and continues to feel fresh today.”

Callahan concentrated on a handful of personal subjects in his work, exploring each theme repeatedly throughout his career. These include portraits of his wife Eleanor, depictions of anonymous pedestrians, expressive details of the urban and natural landscape, and experimental darkroom abstractions. The MFA exhibition is organised into five themes: Eleanor, Pedestrians, Architecture, Landscapes, and Darkroom Abstractions …

Press release from the MFA website [Online] Cited 20/06/2010. No long available online

Harry Callahan (American, 1912-1999)
Eleanor
1948
Gelatin silver print
Courtesy Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Harry Callahan (American, 1912-1999)
Chicago
1950
Gelatin silver print
Courtesy Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Harry Callahan (American, 1912-1999)
Eleanor, Chicago
1949
Gelatin silver print
Courtesy Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Harry Callahan (American, 1912-1999)
Eleanor and Barbara (baby carriage)
1952
Gelatin silver print
Courtesy Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

In 1936, around the time that Callahan began to explore photography, he married Eleanor Knapp, who served as one of his first and most frequent subjects. Callahan’s portraits of his wife, characterised by their intimate yet detached poetry, have become a landmark in the history of photography. In the photograph Eleanor (about 1948, see second photograph above), Callahan portrays his wife in a private interior setting, facing away from the camera. After the birth of their daughter Barbara in 1950, she too entered these family pictures, which capture the intimate moments of daily life as seen in the photograph, Eleanor and Barbara (1953, see photograph second from top).

Callahan photographed the natural landscape throughout his career, focusing on its evocative forms and textures. In images such as Aix-en-Provence, France (1957), he explored the visual effects that he could create either through high contrast or closely related tonalities. Callahan also utilised a range of different experimental darkroom techniques – from photographing the beam of a flashlight in a darkened room, to developing one print from multiple negatives. Many of his multi-exposure pictures were made by superimposing images from popular culture onto studies of urban life. Callahan’s openness to experimentation was stimulating for the many students who worked with him.

Callahan made many of his best known images during his 15 years in Chicago, where he also began his role as an influential teacher. During the 1950s, the photographer embarked on a series of close-ups of anonymous pedestrians in the streets of Chicago, most of them women. Using a 35mm camera with a pre-focused telephoto lens, he captured passersby unaware of his presence, resulting in snapshot-like images that record unsuspecting subjects absorbed in private thought or action, such as Chicago (1950, see photograph above), a close-up of a preoccupied woman’s face. Callahan returned to this theme frequently, working in both black and white and colour.

Callahan was repeatedly drawn to architectural and urban subjects. Prior to moving to Chicago, he explored the spaces of Detroit, photographing the formal patterns he discovered there. In Detroit (1943, see photograph above), Callahan depicts a street scene, with the people in transit appearing as a pattern. He experimented with colour in these pictures as early as the 1940s, but he worked more extensively in colour later in his career, from the 1970s onward.

Text from the Art Tatler website [Online] Cited 20/06/2010. No long available online

Harry Callahan (American, 1912-1999)
Chicago
1961
Gelatin silver print
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Gift of Barbara and Gene Polk
© The Estate of Harry Callahan, courtesy Pace/MacGill, NY
Courtesy Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Harry Callahan (American, 1912-1999)
Eleanor
about 1947
Gelatin silver print
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Gift of Barbara and Gene Polk
© The Estate of Harry Callahan, courtesy Pace/MacGill, NY
Courtesy Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Harry Callahan (American, 1912-1999)
Cape Cod
1972
Gelatin silver print
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Gift of Barbara and Gene Polk
© The Estate of Harry Callahan, courtesy Pace/MacGill, NY
Courtesy Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Harry Callahan (American, 1912-1999)
Cape Cod
1972
Gelatin silver print
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Polaroid Foundation Purchase Fund
© The Estate of Harry Callahan, courtesy Pace/MacGill, NY
Courtesy Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

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Avenue of the Arts
Boston, Massachusetts 02115-5523
617-267-9300

Opening hours:
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Closed Tuesday and Wednesday

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston website

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Exhibition: ‘European Masters: Städel Museum 19th – 20th Century’, Winter Masterpieces at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne

Exhibition dates: 19th June – 10th October 2010

Media opening of European Masters: Städel Museum 19th – 20th Century, Winter Masterpieces at the National Gallery of Victoria
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

A huge posting – and another ‘you saw it here first’ on Art Blart!

A simple, spacious hang shows off some wonderfully vibrant paintings in the new Winter Masterpieces blockbuster at the NGV. The use of strong yellow and pale grey wall colour compliments the paintings. Conversely, other rooms have a dark brown and very dark grey wall colour. Some people will like the effect but I found the dark grey a little too sombre and heavy in the room dedicated to the work of Max Beckmann. Overall a fantastic range of paintings, especially those by the German Expressionists and a luminous painting by Odilon Redon. To see them in Australia is a joy to behold.

Note on the photographs: All the photographs were taken with a timed exposure with the camera on a tripod. While this leads to ghosting as people walk through the shot it also adds a sense of the exhibition as a living entity. I find it preferable to the use of flash photography as flash destroys any ambience that the rooms possess. The photographs are in chronological order, proceeding from the beginning of the exhibition to the end.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

Many thankx to Dr Ted Gott, Senior Curator of International Art, Sue Coffey and all the media team and the National Gallery of Victoria for allowing me to photograph the exhibition and publish the photographs online. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image. All installation photographs © Marcus Bunyan and the National Gallery of Victoria.

PS. Thankx to the many people who have emailed me saying that they love the photographs, especially to Sue Coffey who said the posting looked superb = it makes it all worthwhile!

Media opening of European Masters: Städel Museum 19th – 20th Century, Winter Masterpieces at the National Gallery of Victoria
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Installation view of Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Tischbei's panting 'Goethe in the Roman countryside' 1787 at the exhibition 'European Masters: Städel Museum 19th – 20th Century', Winter Masterpieces at the National Gallery of Victoria

Installation views of Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Tischbei’s panting Goethe in the Roman countryside 1787 at the exhibition European Masters: Städel Museum 19th – 20th Century, Winter Masterpieces at the National Gallery of Victoria
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Tischbein (German, 1751-1829) 'Goethe in the Roman countryside' (Goethe in der römischen Campagna) 1787 from the exhibition 'European Masters: Städel Museum 19th – 20th Century', Winter Masterpieces at the National Gallery of Victoria, June - October, 2010

Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Tischbein (German, 1751-1829)
Goethe in the Roman countryside (Goethe in der römischen Campagna)
1787
Oil on canvas
161.0 x 197.5cm
Städel Museum, Frankfurt am Main
Acquired in 1878 as a gift by Baroness Salomon von Rothschild

Installation view of 'European Masters: Städel Museum 19th - 20th Century', Winter Masterpieces at the National Gallery of Victoria

Installation view of the exhibition European Masters: Städel Museum 19th – 20th Century, Winter Masterpieces at the National Gallery of Victoria
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Installation views of the exhibition European Masters: Städel Museum 19th – 20th Century, Winter Masterpieces at the National Gallery of Victoria
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

Alfred Sisley (English, 1839-1899) 'Banks of the Seine in Autumn' 1879 (installation view) from the exhibition 'European Masters: Städel Museum 19th – 20th Century', Winter Masterpieces at the National Gallery of Victoria, June - October, 2010

Alfred Sisley (English, 1839-1899)
Banks of the Seine in Autumn (installation view)
1879
Oil on canvas
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Installation view of Charles-Francois Daubigny (French 1817-1878) 'French Orchard at Harvest Time' (Le verger) 1876 at the exhibition 'European Masters: Städel Museum 19th – 20th Century', Winter Masterpieces at the National Gallery of Victoria, June - October, 2010

Installation view of Charles-Francois Daubigny (French 1817-1878) 'French Orchard at Harvest Time' (Le verger) 1876

Installation views of Charles-Francois Daubigny (French 1817-1878) French Orchard at Harvest Time (Le verger) 1876 at the exhibition European Masters: Städel Museum 19th – 20th Century, Winter Masterpieces at the National Gallery of Victoria
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

Charles-Francois Daubigny (French 1817-1878) 'French Orchard at Harvest Time' (Le verger) 1876 (installation view) from the exhibition 'European Masters: Städel Museum 19th – 20th Century', Winter Masterpieces at the National Gallery of Victoria, June - October, 2010

Charles-Francois Daubigny (French, 1817-1878)
French Orchard at Harvest Time (Le verger) (installation view)
1876
Oil on canvas
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Pierre Auguste Renoir (French 1841-1919) 'After the luncheon' (La fin du déjeuner) 1879 (installation view) at the exhibition 'European Masters: Städel Museum 19th – 20th Century', Winter Masterpieces at the National Gallery of Victoria, June - October, 2010

Installation views of Pierre Auguste Renoir (French 1841-1919) After the luncheon (La fin du déjeuner) 1879 at the exhibition European Masters: Städel Museum 19th – 20th Century, Winter Masterpieces at the National Gallery of Victoria
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

Pierre Auguste Renoir (French 1841-1919)
After the luncheon (La fin du déjeuner)
1879
Oil on canvas
100.5 x 81.3cm
Städel Museum, Frankfurt am Main
Acquired in 1910

Odilon Redon (French 1840-1916) 'Christ and the Samaritan Woman' (Le Christ et la Samaritaine) c. 1895 (installation view) at the exhibition 'European Masters: Städel Museum 19th – 20th Century', Winter Masterpieces at the National Gallery of Victoria

Installation view of Odilon Redon (French 1840-1916) Christ and the Samaritan Woman (Le Christ et la Samaritaine) c. 1895 at the exhibition European Masters: Städel Museum 19th – 20th Century, Winter Masterpieces at the National Gallery of Victoria
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Odilon Redon (French, 1840-1916)
Christ and the Samaritan Woman (Le Christ et la Samaritaine)
c. 1895
Oil on canvas
64.8 x 50.0cm
Städel Museum, Frankfurt am Main
Acquired in 1960

Installation view of the exhibition European Masters: Städel Museum 19th – 20th Century, Winter Masterpieces at the National Gallery of Victoria
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

“The appeal of the Städel Institute lies in the tremendous energy filling that confined space. Virtually all of the great emotions that have lived in the souls of the peoples of Europe are there, and all in superb works.”

Alfred Lichtwark, Director the Hamburg Museum, 1905

One of the world’s finest collections of 19th and 20th century art is showing exclusively in Melbourne as the seventh exhibition in the hugely popular Melbourne Winter Masterpieces series at the National Gallery of Victoria.

European Masters: Städel Museum, 19th-20th Century brings together almost 100 works by 70 artists from one of Germany’s oldest and most respected museums, the Städel Museum in Frankfurt.

Dr Gerard Vaughan, NGV Director, said: “European Masters presents a comprehensive overview of the Städel Museum’s holdings of painting and sculpture from the last two centuries of European art. This blockbuster exhibition provides a superb survey of the key artistic movements of the time, including Realism, Impressionism and Post Impressionism, German Romanticism, Expressionism and Modernism, and French Symbolism.”

The exhibition opens with a series of large-scale romantic German paintings, including Johann H.W. Tischbein’s iconic Goethe in the Roman Campagna from 1787. Visitors will also be treated to magnificent examples of 19th century French art from Corot and Courbet’s Realist landscapes to well-known beautiful Impressionist works by Monet, Renoir, Degas and Cézanne.

European Masters then traces the development of German art, introducing audiences to rarely seen Realist and Symbolist masterpieces from artists such as Max Liebermann and Franz von Stuck.

A major highlight of the exhibition is a powerful selection of German Expressionist paintings, with ten poignant works by Max Beckmann, including The synagogue in Frankfurt am Main and his powerful Double Portrait, all of which have left the Städel for the first time to be shown outside of Europe.

The exhibition also includes a breathtaking selection of Swiss, Belgian and Dutch works by artists such as Arnold Böcklin, Fernand Khnopff and Vincent Van Gogh.

“Exclusive to Melbourne, European Masters provides an unprecedented opportunity to see a spectacular group of masterpieces spanning the dynamic and transformative years of the 19th and 20th centuries. There is something in this exhibition for everyone, from the beauty and immediacy of French Impressionism to the raw power of German Expressionism. This is a once-in-a-lifetime chance to see superb pictures that rarely travel outside of Europe,” said Dr. Vaughan.

Founded in 1816 by the Frankfurt financier Johann Friedrich Städel, the Städel Museum has one of the world’s finest art collections. The collection boasts 2700 paintings, 600 sculptures and over 100,000 prints and drawings documenting the development of European art and culture.

The Melbourne Winter Masterpieces series began in 2004 with The Impressionists: Masterpieces from the Musée d’Orsay, continued in 2005 with Dutch Masters from the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, followed by Picasso in 2006, Guggenheim Collection: 1940s to Now in 2007, Art Deco 1910-1939 in 2008 and Salvador Dalí: Liquid Desire in 2009.

This year Melbourne Winter Masterpieces includes European Masters: Städel Museum, 19th-20th Century at the NGV, and Tim Burton at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image.

Press release from the National Gallery of Victoria website

Installation view of Max Liebermann (German 1847-1935, lived in France 1874-78) 'Samson and Delilah' (Simson und Delila) 1901 at the exhibition 'European Masters: Städel Museum 19th – 20th Century', Winter Masterpieces at the National Gallery of Victoria

Installation views of Max Liebermann (German 1847-1935, lived in France 1874-78) Samson and Delilah (Simson und Delila) 1901 at the exhibition European Masters: Städel Museum 19th – 20th Century, Winter Masterpieces at the National Gallery of Victoria
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

Max Liebermann (German, 1847-1935, lived in France 1874-1878)
Samson and Delilah (Simson und Delila)
1901
Oil on canvas
151.2 x 212.0cm
Städel Museum, Frankfurt am Main
Acquired in 1910

Max Klinger (German, 1857-1920)
Portrait of a Roman woman on a flat roof (Bildnis einer Römerin auf einem Dach in Rom)
1891
Oil on canvas
182 x 182cm
Städel Museum, Frankfurt am Main
Acquired in 1926 as a gift in commemoration of Walther Rathenau

Installation view at left of Max Klinger (German 1857-1920) Portrait of a Roman woman on a flat roof (Bildnis einer Römerin auf einem Dach in Rom) 1891 at the exhibition European Masters: Städel Museum 19th – 20th Century, Winter Masterpieces at the National Gallery of Victoria
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Max Beckmann room, installation view of 'European Masters: Städel Museum 19th - 20th Century', Winter Masterpieces at the National Gallery of Victoria

Max Beckmann room, installation view of European Masters: Städel Museum 19th – 20th Century, Winter Masterpieces at the National Gallery of Victoria
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

Max Beckmann. 'Female dancer' (Tanzerin) c. 1935 (installation view)

Max Beckmann (German 1884-1950, worked in the Netherlands 1937-1947, United States 1947-1950)
Female dancer (Tanzerin) (installation view)
c. 1935
Bronze
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Installation views of European Masters: Städel Museum 19th – 20th Century, Winter Masterpieces at the National Gallery of Victoria
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (German, 1880-1938)
Reclining woman in a white chemise (Liegende Frau im weiβen Hemd)
1909
Oil on canvas
95.0 x 121.0cm
Städel Museum, Frankfurt am Main
Acquired in 1950

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Review: ‘Cloud’ by Guan Wei at Arc One Gallery, Melbourne

Exhibition dates: 1st June – 29th June, 2010

Guan Wei (China, b. 1957)
Buddha’s hand
2010

The exhibition Cloud by Australian artist Guan Wei at Arc One Gallery in Melbourne contains two bodies of work that are outstanding: the series of paintings on paper titled Buddha’s Hand and the series of five figurative sculptures titled Cloud. Each body of work compliments and informs the other.

The small Buddha’s Hand paintings (see below) are the most delicate of creatures – sensual, poetic almost fetishistic in their composition and utterly beguiling in their beauty. Referencing the history of cave paintings of the Buddha, Wei updates the ancient allegories expressing his message of harmony and leisure, identity and place through visual symbolic representation. These works are profoundly moving, the figurative compositions balanced masterfully through colour, shape and form, studded with the punctum of red bindi-like energy centres arising from the faceless yogic figures.

Sitting on white pedestals and positioned close to the Buddha’s Hand paintings in the gallery are the series of five Cloud figures (see below). Made of bronze that has been spray painted white these are wonderful sculptures, full of delicious humour and vibrancy. There is a sensuality and delicacy about the figures that is emphasised by their snowy whiteness, a whiteness that subverts the tactility, colour and weight that one usually associates with the metal bronze. Here the figure has, variously, it’s head in the clouds while pensively crossing arms; bearing the weight of the world on the back while the vacant mouth is open; preparing to throw the cloud as Zeus would a thunderbolt; reclining while balancing the cloud on one foot and with one foot stuck in the earth that is cloud. The cloud becomes a metaphor for thought and action in the world, acting on the world. In these sculptures there is no creed nor race, no ideology or nation and I believe that Wei attains his stated aim to redefine our relationship with one another and nature by transcending both. I am not alone in liking these sculptures – they have proved very popular and all five sculptures in editions of five have already sold out!

Other work in the exhibition is more prosaic – a multi-panelled screen, the On Cloud and Zodiac series never seem to breathe the same rarefied air as the above two bodies of work. They are disappointments that only serve to illuminate how brilliant holding the Buddha’s hand and living your life with your head in the clouds can be.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

Many thankx to Angela Connor and Arc One Gallery for allowing me to reproduce the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

Guan Wei (China, b. 1957)
Buddha’s hand
2010

“I hope that we will be able to transcend the restrictions imposed on us by such notions as nation, ethnicity, ideology, cultural and history, and redefine our relationship with one another and nature.”

Guan Wei

Guan Wei is an adept storyteller who masterfully engages his audiences. Retaining the humour, wisdom and cross-cultural knowledge that have become characteristics of his ongoing oeuvre, his work breathes an awareness of our current social and environmental dilemmas exploring ideas of immigration, colonisation, identity politics and cultural tolerance.

Flirtatious and aesthetically whimsical, Guan Wei’s works are instantly recognisable. In this latest exhibition, Cloud, Guan Wei fuses sculpture, drawings and paintings to form what is part of his most beguiling trademark – ‘the art of idleness’. For the first time since returning to China, he will present new sculptures that employ his ongoing preoccupation with the figure and the figure in relation to the natural form. These sculptures are Guan Wei’s personal visual symbols of harmony and leisure. They form the thread for the four series of works in this exhibition.

During the past fifteen years, Guan Wei has help change the identity of Australian Art. He draws on his own experience as a Chinese national who migrated to Australia from China in the period following the Tiananmen Square massacre (1989). Guan Wei has spent twenty years living and working as an artist raising the awareness of Australia being a multicultural country. He has had over 40 solo exhibitions, been the recipient of numerous awards and included in every major collection. In 2009, Guan Wei was selected for the prestigious Clemenger Contemporary Art Award at the National Gallery of Victoria.

Press release from the Arc One Gallery website [Online] Cited 10/06/2010 no longer available online

Guan Wei (China, b. 1957) 'Cloud No.4' 2009 from the exhibition 'Cloud' by Guan Wei at Arc One Gallery, Melbourne, June 2010

Guan Wei (China, b. 1957)
Cloud No.4
2009
Bronze statue
edition of 5
39 x 30 x 25cm

Guan Wei (China, b. 1957)
Cloud No.5
2009
Bronze statue
edition of 5
47 x 35 x 35cm

Arc One Gallery
45 Flinders Lane
Melbourne, 3000
Phone: +61 3 9650 0589

Opening hours:
Tuesday – Saturday 11am – 5pm

Arc One Gallery website

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Exhibition: ‘Paul Graham – a shimmer of possibility’ at Foam Fotografiemuseum, Amsterdam

Exhibition dates: 2nd April – 16th June 2010

Many thankx to Fenna Lampe and the Foam Fotografiemuseum Amsterdam for allowing me to publish the photographs in the post. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

Paul Graham (English, b. 1956) 'Las Vegas, 2005' from the series 'a shimmer of possibility' from the exhibition Exhibition: 'Paul Graham - a shimmer of possibility' at Foam Fotografiemuseum, Amsterdam, April - June 2010

Paul Graham (English, b. 1956)
Las Vegas, 2005
2005
From the series a shimmer of possibility
© Paul Graham

Paul Graham (English, b. 1956) 'New Orleans 2004 (Woman Eating)' from the series 'a shimmer of possibility' from the exhibition Exhibition: 'Paul Graham - a shimmer of possibility' at Foam Fotografiemuseum, Amsterdam, April - June 2010

Paul Graham (English, b. 1956)
New Orleans 2004 (Woman Eating)
2004
From the series a shimmer of possibility
© Paul Graham

Paul Graham (English, b. 1956) 'New Orleans 2004 (Woman Eating)' from the series 'a shimmer of possibility'

Paul Graham (English, b. 1956)
New Orleans 2004 (Woman Eating)
2004
From the series a shimmer of possibility
© Paul Graham

a shimmer of possibility is the latest project by influential British photographer Paul Graham. This work was created during Graham’s many travels through the United States since 2002. a shimmer of possibility consists of twelve sequences varying in number: from just a few images to more than ten. Each sequence offers an informal look at the life of ordinary, individual Americans – from a woman eating to a man waiting for the bus. The sequences focus attention on very ordinary things, which Graham has photographed with affection and curiosity.

Each sequence is a short, casual encounter, where we consider for a moment something that attracts our attention. Then life goes on, full of new possibilities. The way Graham presents the diverse sequences in the exhibition is crucial. Instead of being shown in a linear fashion, a sequence fans out over the wall like a cloud. Due to the carefully considered and inventive structure, no viewing direction or predominant hierarchy is imposed on the individual images. The eye of the viewer wanders over the photos, offering the opportunity to make personal connections in an associative manner.

a shimmer of possibility can be seen as the ultimate antithesis of what Henri Cartier-Bresson called ‘the decisive moment’. This French master endeavoured to record exactly those moments where subject matter and formal aspects combined perfectly in a single image. Paul Graham, by contrast, defends how we normally look around us. We move through the world and look from left to right, see something that grabs our attention, move towards it, glance to the side while en route, pass that by and continue on our way. Observation is a never-ending series of ‘non-decisive moments’, full of potential for anyone who is open to see it.”

Text from the Foam website [Online] Cited 06/06/2010 no longer available online

Paul Graham (English, b. 1956) 'California 2006 (Sunny Cup)' from the series 'a shimmer of possibility'

Paul Graham (English, b. 1956)
California 2006 (Sunny Cup)
2006
From the series a shimmer of possibility
© Paul Graham

Paul Graham (English, b. 1956) 'New Orleans 2005 (Cajun Corner)' from the series 'a shimmer of possibility' from the exhibition Exhibition: 'Paul Graham - a shimmer of possibility' at Foam Fotografiemuseum, Amsterdam, April - June 2010

Paul Graham (English, b. 1956)
New Orleans 2005 (Cajun Corner)
2005
From the series a shimmer of possibility
© Paul Graham

Graham walked the streets of residential neighbourhoods in Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Louisiana, and the sidewalks of New Orleans, Las Vegas, and New York, and when he encountered someone who caught his eye, he photographed them: an older woman retrieving her mail; a young man and woman playing basketball at dusk; a couple returning from the supermarket. Graham followed people navigating their way through crowded city sidewalks, and tracked and photographed lone figures crossing a busy roadway, unaware of the camera.

Reviewing several trips’ worth of photographs on the large, flat screen of his computer, Graham realised that the more or less randomly gathered pictures could be united into multipart works. As in a poem, where language and rhythm organise words, lines, and stanzas into an imaginative interpretation of a subject, Graham’s imposed yet open-ended structures imply – through close-ups, crosscutting, and juxtapositions of people and nature-specific narratives and overarching ideas. Images of people placed in tandem with other people and with nature suggest the flow of life, pointing to the unknown and the possibility of change, with nature acting as a balm, whether as raindrops, trees silhouetted against a burning sunset, or the bright green grass on a highway meridian.

In his reconstruction of the world in pictures, Graham describes an America at odds with itself, filled with contradictions and inconsistencies. Yet, through the gloom, the small felicities of life peek through. Fluid, filled with desire, and marked by extremes, his view is what the late curator, critic, and photographer John Szarkowski called, in another context, a “just metaphor” for our times.

Text from the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) website [Online] Cited 14/08/2019

Paul Graham (English, b. 1956) 'Pittsburgh 2004 (Lawnmower Man)' from the series 'a shimmer of possibility'

Paul Graham (English, b. 1956)
Pittsburgh 2004 (Lawnmower Man)
2004
From the series a shimmer of possibility
© Paul Graham

Inspired by Chekhov’s short stories – and by his own contagious joy in the book form – photographer Paul Graham has created A Shimmer of Possibility, comprised of 12 individual books, each a photographic short story of everyday life. Some are simple and linear – a man smokes a cigarette while he waits for a bus in Las Vegas, or the camera tracks an autumn walk in Boston. Some entwine two, three or four scenes – while a couple carry their shopping home in Texas, a small child dances with a plastic bag in a garden. Some watch a quiet narrative break unexpectedly into a sublime moment – as a man cuts the grass in Pittsburgh it begins to rain, until the low sun breaks through and illuminates each drop. Graham’s filmic haikus shun any forceful summation or tidy packaging. Instead, they create the impression of life flowing around and past us while we stand and stare, and make it hard not to share the artist’s quiet astonishment with its beauty and grace. The 12 books gathered here are identical in trim size, but vary in length from just a single photograph to 60 pages of images made at one street corner.

Text from the Mack website [Online] Cited 14/08/2019

Paul Graham (English, b. 1956)
Las Vegas (Smoking Man)
2005
From the series a shimmer of possibility, 2003-2006
Colour coupler print
© Paul Graham

a shimmer of possibility by Paul Graham
12 volumes
376 pages, 167 colour plates
24.2 cm x 31.8 cm
12 cloth covered hardbacks
Limited edition of 1,000 sets
MACK
ISBN: 9783865214836
Publication date: October 2007

Foam Fotografiemuseum Amsterdam
Keizersgracht 609
1017 DS Amsterdam
Phone: + 31 (0)20 551 6500

Opening hours:
Monday – Wednesday 10.00 – 18.00
Thursday – Friday 10.00 – 21.00
Saturday – Sunday 10.00 – 18.00

Foam website

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Exhibition: ‘Lincoln, Life-Size’ at The Bruce Museum, Greenwich, Connecticut

Exhibition dates: 13th February – 6th June, 2010

Curators: Peter W. Kunhardt, Jr., Director of the Meserve-Kunhardt Foundation, and Robin Garr, Director of Education, Bruce Museum

Many thankx to Mike Horyczun, Director of Public Relations and the Bruce Museum for allowing me to publish the images in the posting. Please click on the photographs for even larger version of the image.

Marcus

Alexander Hesler (American, 1823-1895)
Abraham Lincoln
June 3, 1860 Springfield, Illinois

Alexander Hesler or Hessler (1823-1895) was an American photographer active in the U.S. state of Illinois. He is best known for photographing, in 1858 and 1860, definitive iconic images of the beardless Abraham Lincoln. …

Hesler’s known portraits include photographs of the two chief Illinois political figures of his day, Lincoln and federal senator Stephen A. Douglas. In the 1860 presidential election, Lincoln’s friends took steps to have Hesler’s images copied and recirculated, cementing their stature as works of Lincoln image-making.

Hesler was an award-winning photographer whose goal was to create photographs of lasting artistic value. He was recognised for the quality of both his portrait work and his outdoor photography. Upon Hesler’s retirement in 1865, he transferred his Chicago studio and negatives to a fellow photographer, George Bucher Ayres. Several of Hesler’s best-known images of Lincoln are platinum prints produced by Ayres from Hesler negatives.

Text from the Wikipedia website

Preston Butler
Abraham Lincoln
August 13, 1860 Springfield, Illinois
Ambrotype
Plate 5 3/4 x 4 1/2 in
Library of Congress

Abraham Lincoln as candidate for United States president. Half-length portrait, seated, facing front.

Thought to be the last beardless portrait of Lincoln, this photo was “made for the portrait painter, John Henry Brown, noted for his miniatures in ivory. … ‘There are so many hard lines in his face,’ wrote Brown in his diary, ‘that it becomes a mask to the inner man. His true character only shines out when in an animated conversation, or when telling an amusing tale. … He is said to be a homely man; I do not think so.'” (Source: Ostendorf, p. 62)

Published in: Lincoln’s photographs: a complete album / by Lloyd Ostendorf. Dayton, OH: Rockywood Press, 1998, pp. 62-63.

Between 1856, the year of Preston Butler’s arrival in Springfield, and Feb. 11, 1861, when President-elect Abraham Lincoln departed from Springfield, Butler took at least 8 photographs of Lincoln and at least 1 photograph of Mary, Willie and Tad Lincoln. Also, in 1857 or 1858, Butler photographed each of the 4 sides of Springfield’s public square. These photographs are the primary source of information about the appearance of the public square in Lincoln’s Springfield.

Abraham B. Byers (American, 1836-1920)
Abraham Lincoln
May 7, 1858 Beardstown, Illinois
Ambrotype

The Bruce Museum in Greenwich, Connecticut, presents its newest exhibition Lincoln, Life-Size, from February 13, 2010, through June 6, 2010. The exhibition features photographs of Abraham Lincoln reproduced full size, hanging alongside original 19th-century images and artefacts that tell the story of Lincoln’s tumultuous presidency. The exhibition is drawn from the Meserve-Kunhardt Collection which it has on loan from the Meserve-Kunhardt Foundation. Lincoln, Life-Size is supported by Fieldpoint Private Bank & Trust, New England Land Company, Ltd., a Committee of Honor co-chaired by Tom Clephane and Nat Day, and the Charles M. and Deborah G. Royce Exhibition Fund.

Lincoln, Life-Size is organised by guest curator Peter W. Kunhardt, Jr., Director of the Meserve-Kunhardt Foundation, and Robin Garr, Director of Education, Bruce Museum. Peter W. Kunhardt, Jr., is the great-great-grandson of Frederick Hill Meserve one of this country’s premiere Lincoln collectors. Frederick Hill Meserve’s passion for Lincoln was ignited in the 1880s when his father, William Neal Meserve, who had served in the Civil War, asked him to hunt for photographs to illustrate his handwritten war diary. Five generations of the family have preserved this massive historical record over the past century.

The exhibition chronicles the toll of war etched into the face of our 16th president. Life-size enlargements of Lincoln’s portraits circle the entire central gallery. Visitors will experience what it was like to stand before him and look into his eyes. Beneath this facial timeline of his presidency is a selection of photographs of people who touched his life and events that nearly wore him out.

The show explores the time from Abraham Lincoln’s arrival in Washington in 1857 through his assassination in 1865. Photographs chronicle events as the war unfolds, his son dies, and he struggles with generals and mounting death tolls. In the photographs, Lincoln is revealed in a variety of poses, each bearing a significance that attests to the historic nature of his life, be it as he is grappling with emancipation or drafting words that would become sacred; serving as husband and father or being pulled in all directions by his constituents; and ultimately as he holds the country together throughout the turbulent times of the Civil War.

Highlights of the exhibition include Leonard Volk’s bronze life mask of Lincoln’s head and hands, glass negatives by Mathew Brady, original albumen war prints by Alexander Gardner and Timothy O’Sullivan, and carte-de-visites of Lincoln, his family, his cabinet, and his generals. Viewers can study official government war maps, view a Thomas Nast drawing depicting the slavery issue, and walk around an early “triptych” photograph that portrays Lincoln, Grant, or Sherman, depending on where the viewer stands. An oversize “imperial” print shows Lincoln just days before delivering his Gettysburg address. In another imperial print a lab technician’s thumb print obliterates Lincoln at his second inaugural, but what is visible is a spectator in the crowd who appears to be John Wilkes Booth. Another photograph of Booth has these words written on the back side: “Recognize him and kill him.” Lincoln, Life-Size also include artefact related to Lincoln and his era.

“We have presented these works so that viewers can see how the toll the war and personal tragedies aged him during his years in office,” said Peter W. Kunhardt, Jr. “In fact, he was just 56 years old when he was assassinated.” This is the first museum exhibition dedicated to the collection of the Meserve-Kunhardt Foundation, which is now housed on the campus of SUNY Purchase. The recent book, Lincoln, Life-Size, co-authored by Phillip B. Kunhardt III, Peter W. Kunhardt and Peter W. Kunhardt, Jr. is available in the Bruce Museum Store. A full array of exhibition programming related to the exhibition is scheduled.

Text from the Bruce Museum website [Online] Cited 01/06/2010. No longer available online

Mathew B. Brady (American, c. 1822-1896)
Abraham Lincoln
January 8, 1864 Washington, DC
National Archives and Records Administration

Anthony Berger (American born Germany, 1832 – after 1897)
Abraham Lincoln
February 9, 1864 Washington, DC
Collodion negative
Quarter-plate glass transparency
10.9 x 8.7cm (case)
Brady’s National Photographic Portrait Galleries
Library of Congress

This is one of a series of photographs that Anthony Berger took of President Abraham Lincoln at the Brady Gallery in Washington in the winter of 1864, as the Civil War dragged on. Modern albumen print from 1864 wet-plated collodion negative. National Portrait Gallery.

“The Famous Profile” by Anthony Berger, manager of Brady’s Gallery, Washington D.C., made direct from an original collodion negative in the Meserve collection (M-82). One of seven poses taken by Berger on Tuesday February 9, 1864, it is perhaps the most familiar of Lincoln profiles, a more handsome pose than its companion view (0-89) because Lincoln’s profile is less severe and his left eyebrow is more visible.

Alexander Gardner (Scottish 1821-1882; emigrated America 1856)
Abraham Lincoln
November 8, 1863 Washington, DC
Library of Congress

Alexander Gardner (Scottish 1821-1882; emigrated America 1856)
Abraham Lincoln
February 5, 1865 Washington, DC
Library of Congress

Alexander Gardner was a Scottish photographer who immigrated to the United States in 1856, where he began to work full-time in that profession. He is best known for his photographs of the American Civil War, U.S. President Abraham Lincoln, and the execution of the conspirators to Lincoln’s assassination.

This is one of the last photos taken of Lincoln, who was assassinated ten weeks later, on April 14, 1865.

Alexander Gardner (Scottish 1821-1882; emigrated America 1856)
Abraham Lincoln (detail)
February 5, 1865 Washington, DC
Library of Congress

The Bruce Museum
1 Museum Drive in Greenwich, Connecticut, USA.

Opening hours:
Tuesday – Sunday 10am – 5pm
Closed Mondays and major holidays

The Bruce Museum website

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Exhibition: ‘Birthmark’ by Owen Leong at Anna Pappas Gallery, Prahran

Exhibition dates: 13th May – 5th June, 2010

Owen Leong (Australian, b. 1979)
Chi
2009-2010
Pigment print on archival paper
73 x 73cm, edition of 5
Courtesy of the artist and Anna Pappas Gallery

Apologies for the late posting on this exhibition but I only received the images for the posting today.

A strong body of work by Owen Leong, twelve portraits of Asian-Australians, their faces digitally overlaid with the unique wing patterns of the Bogong moth, an insect often seen as a pest in Australia. Uniformly lit, of consistent size and presented in modern white frames the series hangs quietly but impressively in the upstairs space of the Anna Pappas Gallery. Here the uniqueness of human physiognomy (and attendant modifications such as scars, piercings and tattoos) is symbiotically paired with that of the moth – it is almost as though one breathes the other – with the eyes of the humans occluded, becoming blackened pits.

The slightly amateurish digital blacking out of some of the eyes is my only point of contention: perhaps this was intentional (?) but sharp shape selections in Photoshop do not make for a good blend between layers of information. Be that as it may, Leong’s practice of selective breeding applied to humans has produced some beautiful, eloquent photographs that promote difference and diversity through a palpable intimacy with the subject matter.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

Many thankx to Anna Pappas, Leah Crossman and the Anna Pappas Gallery for allowing me to use the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

Owen Leong (Australian, b. 1979) 'Jac' 2009-2010 from the exhibition 'Birthmark' by Owen Leong at Anna Pappas Gallery, Prahran, May - June, 2010

Owen Leong (Australian, b. 1979)
Jac
2009-2010
Pigment print on archival paper
73 x 73cm, edition of 5
Courtesy of the artist and Anna Pappas Gallery

Owen Leong (Australian, b. 1979) 'Justin' 2009-2010 from the exhibition 'Birthmark' by Owen Leong at Anna Pappas Gallery, Prahran, May - June, 2010

Owen Leong (Australian, b. 1979)
Justin
2009-2010
Pigment print on archival paper
73 x 73cm, edition of 5
Courtesy of the artist and Anna Pappas Gallery

Owen Leong (Australian, b. 1979)
Raina
2009-2010
Pigment print on archival paper
73 x 73cm, edition of 5
Courtesy of the artist and Anna Pappas Gallery

Anna Pappas Gallery

Open by appointment only
Phone: +613 9521 7300

Anna Pappas Gallery website

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Exhibition: ‘Romy Schneider. Wien – Berlin – Paris’ at Deutsche Kinemathek – Museum for Film and Television, Berlin

Exhibition dates: 5th December 2009 – 29th August, 2010

Heinz Köster (German, 1917-1967) 'Romy Schneider, Berlin 1962' from the exhibition 'Romy Schneider. Wien – Berlin – Paris' at Deutsche Kinemathek – Museum for Film and Television, Berlin, December 2009 - August 2010

Heinz Köster (German, 1917-1967)
Romy Schneider, Berlin 1962
1962
Gelatin silver print
© Foto: Heinz Köster
Quelle: Deutsche Kinemathek

I seen to have become a little smitten by Romy Schneider. What charisma!

Marcus

Many thankx to the Deutsche Kinemathek – Museum for Film and Television for allowing me publish the images in the posting. Please click on the images for a larger version.

Heinz Köster (German, 1917-1967)
Romy Schneider, Berlin 1962
1962
Gelatin silver print
© Foto: Heinz Köster
Quelle: Deutsche Kinemathek

Max Scheler (German, 1928-2003) 'Romy Schneider, Venice 1957' from the exhibition 'Romy Schneider. Wien – Berlin – Paris' at Deutsche Kinemathek – Museum for Film and Television, Berlin, December 2009 - August 2010

Max Scheler (German, 1928-2003)
Romy Schneider, Venice 1957
1957
Während Dreharbeiten zu SISSI – SCHICKSALSJAHRE EINER KAISERIN
R: Ernst Marischka, A 1957
Gelatin silver print
© Foto: Max Scheler
Quelle: Max Scheler Estate, Hamburg

The exhibition documents the eventful career of Romy Schneider, who by the late 1950s no longer wanted to be Sissi, and by the 1970s was a celebrated star of French cinema. A large number of unknown photographs of Romy Schneider, her film partners, and family from the 1950s and 1960s will be on display from the collections of the Deutsche Kinemathek. The exhibition will also present loans from private individuals and institutions from France and Austria …

The exhibition Romy Schneider. Wien – Berlin – Paris, which the Museum für Film und Fernsehen will present beginning on December 5th, documents the varied and wide-ranging career of Romy Schneider, who no longer wanted to be “Sissi” at the end of the 1950s and was celebrated as a star of French cinema in the 1970s.

Romy Schneider publicly bemoaned her roles in Germany and went to Paris to play women who did justice to her acting abilities and her expectations. She settled in France at the beginning of the 1970s, where she advanced to one of the biggest stars of French cinema. She won several awards and made films with nearly all the great directors and actors of that period. The paparazzi followed the actress at every turn, documenting her strokes of fate for the international popular press, and throughout her life Romy Schneider considered herself to be their victim. Romy Schneider died in Paris in May 1982. To this day, she is admired by millions of fans around the world as one of cinema’s international stars.

This homage, which can be seen in 450 sq. m. of exhibition space at the Filmhaus, treats both the diverse roles and changing image of the actress, as well as her representation in the media.

Pictures from films, the press and her private life are grouped according to recurring motifs and combined with film clips. Media installations show the interplay between projection and active self-promotion. Posters, costumes, correspondence and fan souvenirs will augment the presentation.

Numerous photographs from the 1950s and 1960s of Romy Schneider, her film partners and her family, largely unknown until now, originate from the collections of Deutsche Kinemathek. Loans from other institutions and private individuals will also be on view, for instance from the photographers F. C. Gundlach and Robert Lebeck, as well as from the personal archives of the film director Claude Sautet.

Press release from the Museum für Film und Fernsehen website [Online] Cited 25/05/2010 no longer available online

Installation view of the exhibition 'Romy Schneider. Wien – Berlin – Paris' at Deutsche Kinemathek – Museum for Film and Television, Berlin

Installation views of the exhibition Romy Schneider. Wien – Berlin – Paris at Deutsche Kinemathek – Museum for Film and Television, Berlin
Photos © Marian Stefanowski

F. C. Gundlach (German, b. 1926) 'Romy Schneider, Hamburg 1961'

F. C. Gundlach (German, 1926-2021)
Romy Schneider, Hamburg 1961
1961
Gelatin silver print
© Foto: F. C. Gundlach

F. C. Gundlach (Franz Christian Gundlach) was a German photographer, gallery owner, collector, curator und founder. In 2000 he created the F.C. Gundlach Foundation, since 2003 he has been founding director of the House of Photography – Deichtorhallen Hamburg.

Alain Delon and Romy Schneider in 'La Piscine'/'Der Swimmingpool' 1969

Alain Delon and Romy Schneider in La Piscine/Der Swimmingpool
R- Jacques Deray, F/I 1969
Gelatin silver print
Foto/Quelle: Filmarchiv Austria, Wien

Romy Schneider and Alain Delon in 'La Piscine'/'Der Swimmingpool' 1969

Romy Schneider and Alain Delon in La Piscine/Der Swimmingpool
R- Jacques Deray, F/I 1969
Gelatin silver print
Foto/Quelle: Deutsche Kinemathek

Georges Pierre (French, 1927-2003)
Romy Schneider, 1972
1972
© Foto: Georges Pierre
Quelle: Cinemémathèque française

Robert Lebeck (German, 1929-2014)
Romy Schneider, Berlin 1976
1976
Während der Dreharbeiten zu PORTRAIT DE GROUPE AVEC DAME/GRUPPENBILD MIT DAME
R: Aleksandar Petrovic, F/BRD 1976
Gelatin silver print
© Foto: Robert Lebeck

Romy Schneider and Claude Sautet during the shooting of UNE HISTOIRE SIMPLE / A SIMPLE STORY
1978
Gelatin silver print
Foto/Quelle: Yves Sautet, Paris

Claude Sautet

Claude Sautet (23 February 1924 – 22 July 2000) was a French author and film director. Born in Montrouge, Hauts-de-Seine, France, Sautet first studied painting and sculpture before attending a film university in Paris where he began his career and later became a television producer. He filmed his first movie, Bonjour Sourire, in 1955.

He earned international attention with Les choses de la vie, which he wrote and directed, like the rest of his later films. It was shown in competition at the 1970 Cannes Festival, where it was well received. The film also revived the career of Romy Schneider; she acted in several of Sautet’s later films. In his next film Max et les Ferrailleurs (1971) she played a prostitute, while in César et Rosalie (1972) she portrayed a married woman who copes with the reappearance of an old flame.

Vincent, Paul, François, et les Autres (1974) is one of Sautet’s most acclaimed films. Four middle-class men meet in the country every weekend mainly to discuss their lives. The film featured a cast of major stars of French cinema: Michel Piccoli, Yves Montand, Gérard Depardieu, and Stéphane Audran. He achieved even further critical success with Mado (1976).

His 1978 film A Simple Story (Une Histoire simple) was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. The film featured Schneider again, this time as a dissatisfied working woman in her 40s. She won the César Award for Best Actress for her performance.

Text from the Wikipedia website

Deutsche Kinemathek – Museum für Film und Fernsehen
Potsdamer Straße 2
10785 Berlin

Opening hours:
Monday: 10.00 – 18.00
Tuesday: Closed
Wednesday: 10.00 – 18.00
Thursday: 10.00 – 20.00
Friday – Sunday: 10.00 – 18.00

Deutsche Kinemathek – Museum for Film and Television website

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Exhibition: ‘Miroslav Tichý’ at Michael Hoppen Gallery, London

Exhibition dates: 28th April – 29th May 2010

A camera of Miroslav Tichý

These are fascinating photographs (and in part, more than a little what? marginal, disturbing, poetic, beautiful, creepy, voyeuristic, misogynist).

Tichy’s camera is such an amazing construction (click on the image above to see a larger version).

Dr Marcus Bunyan

Many thankx to Jim Edwards and the Michael Hoppen Gallery for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting.

“Women are just a motif to me. The figure – standing, bending, or sitting. The movement, walking. Nothing else Interests me. The erotic is just a dream anyway. The world is only an illusion, our illusion.”

“Everything is decided by the earth, which is turning. You can only live as long as the earth keeps turning. That is predetermined.

.
Miroslav Tichý

Miroslav Tichý (Czech, 1926-2011) 'Untitled' c. 1960s from the exhibition Exhibition: 'Miroslav Tichý' at Michael Hoppen Gallery, London, April - May, 2010

Miroslav Tichý (Czech, 1926-2011)
Untitled
c. 1960s
Unique Silver gelatin print
Courtesy Michael Hoppen Gallery
© Miroslav Tichy

The recently unknown photographic work of Czech artist Miroslav Tichý has become a noteworthy presence in the worlds of photography and contemporary art over the last few years. Timeless and uncategorisable, Tichý’s work captures the women of Kijov, from the artist’s native city in Moravia. On 28 April 2010, the Michael Hoppen Gallery will bring together unique photographs, previously unseen in the UK, created in the 1960’s by Tichý with his makeshift cameras and enlargers.

Marginal and exceptionally voyeuristic, in his methods Tichý could be described as an “art brut photographer” yet he is marked by many classical influences. Though his images are produced with poor-quality equipment and carelessly shot, they offer an idiosyncratic and almost hallucinatory vision of a fantastical, eroticised reality. With his endless return to the same subject and the volume and regularity of his production, Tichý’s work draws many parallels to certain practices of conceptual art during the same period.

For thirty years Tichý took up to one hundred photographs each day, pursuing his artistic obsession with the female form. Dressed in rags and using a homemade camera, Tichy captured the universe of the people in the small town of Brno in the Czech Republic. This discovery of photography saved him from madness and the claustrophobia of political dictatorship. Though his work today is widely exhibited, Tichý worked for years as an unknown artist in complete isolation on the periphery of the art world.

A student at the Academy of Arts in Prague, Tichý left following the communist overthrow of 1948. Unwilling to subordinate to the political system he spent some eight years in prison and psychiatric wards for no reason, other than he was ‘different’ and considered subversive. Upon his release he became an outsider, occupying his time by obsessively taking photographs of the women of his home town, using homemade cameras constructed from tin cans, children’s spectacle lenses, rubber bands, scotch tape and other junk found on the streets.

He captured images of their ankles, faces and torsos whilst out strolling or sunbathing, shop-girls behind the counter, mothers pushing prams, and any others who caught his eye, sometimes finding himself in trouble with the police. These small objects of obsession, which might appear to the casual viewer to be simply voyeurism, are simultaneously melancholic and poetic.

Tichý’s work surfaced in July 2005, when he won the ‘New Discovery Award’ at Arles. Within a year he had already been featured in two solo museum exhibitions, at the Wintertaur in Zurich and the Rudolfinum, Prague, and his work has been purchased by the Victoria & Albert Museum here in London. Tichý has now exhibited in museums from Holland to Canada, Finland to Ireland and Tokyo. In 2009, a seminal show was held at the Centre Pompidou in Paris where it received rave reviews. Since then, Tichý’s work has recently been on show at ICP in New York where The New York Times reviewed his work as … ‘intensely fascinating’. American artist Richard Prince wrote an essay for the catalogue. In his signature smart-aleck, red-blooded-male persona, Prince links Tichý to Bettie Page, Swanson’s TV dinners and the short stories of John Cheever.  Tichý’s work will also appear at Tate Modern later this year as part of their Voyerism, Surveillance and Camera exhibition in May 2010.

Press release from the Michael Hoppen Gallery website [Online] Cited 21/05/2010 no longer available online

Miroslav Tichý (Czech, 1926-2011)
Untitled
c. 1960s
Unique Silver gelatin print
Courtesy Michael Hoppen Gallery
© Miroslav Tichy

Miroslav Tichý

Miroslav Tichý (Czech, November 20, 1926 – April 12, 2011) was a photographer who from the 1960s until 1985 took thousands of surreptitious pictures of women in his hometown of Kyjov in the Czech Republic, using homemade cameras constructed of cardboard tubes, tin cans and other at-hand materials. Most of his subjects were unaware that they were being photographed. A few struck beauty-pageant poses when they sighted Tichý, perhaps not realising that the parody of a camera he carried was real.

His soft focus, fleeting glimpses of the women of Kyjov are skewed, spotted and badly printed – flawed by the limitations of his primitive equipment and a series of deliberate processing mistakes meant to add poetic imperfections. Of his technical methods, Tichý has said, “First of all, you have to have a bad camera”, and, “If you want to be famous, you must do something more badly than anybody in the entire world.”

During the Communist regime in Czechoslovakia, Tichý was considered a dissident and was badly treated by the government. His photographs remained largely unknown until an exhibition was held for him in 2004. Tichý did not attend exhibitions, and lived a life of self-sufficiency and freedom from the standards of society. Tichý died on April 12, 2011 in Kyjov, Czech Republic. …

An essay in Artforum International describes Tichý as “practically reinventing photography from scratch”, rehabilitating the soft focus, manipulated pictorial photography of the late 1800s,

“… not as a distortion of the medium but as something like its essence. What counts for him is not only the image – just one moment in the photographic process – but also the chemical activity of the materials, which is never entirely stable or complete, and the delimitation of the results via cropping and framing.”

Director Radek Horacek of the Brno House of Art, which held an exhibition of Tichý’s photographs in 2006, describes them thus:

“They are all very careful observations of women from Kyjov and of everyday trivial activities. But soon you realise that these trivial situations such as someone sitting on a bench, women waiting for a bus, someone taking a T-shirt off at a swimming pool, are somehow extraordinary. Tichý managed to give this banality a feeling of exceptionality and rarity. Just part of a female body in his pictures can look very esoteric. There are so many magazines that offer much more nudity than Tichý but his photographs are different. A woman’s tights between a knee and a skirt or a swimming costume in his pictures look somehow mysterious.”

Text from the Wikipedia website

Miroslav Tichy – “Tarzan Retired”

Miroslav Tichý (Czech, 1926-2011)
Untitled
c. 1960s
Unique Silver gelatin print
Courtesy Michael Hoppen Gallery
© Miroslav Tichy

Michael Hoppen Gallery
Unit 10, Pall Mall Deposit
124-128 Barlby Road
London W10 6BL
Phone: +44 (0)20 7352 3649

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Michael Hoppen Gallery website

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Vale Mari Funaki

May 2010

It is with great sadness that I hear of the passing of Mari Funaki on the 13th May 2010.

I met Mari many times and she was always wonderfully generous with her energy, knowledge and enthusiasm. She was an amazing artist, I loved her work especially the stunning anamorphic black bracelets and the fact that she used photography of Bernd and Hiller Becher as part of her inspiration. My conversation with Mari in 2006 and photographs of her work can be found on the Notes from a Conversation with Mari Funaki posting.

Vale Mari Funaki

“A memorial will be held on Tuesday June 1st, 2010 at 11.00am in THE GREAT HALL of the National Gallery of Victoria, International.“