Exhibition: ‘Street Photography. Lee Friedlander, Joseph Rodríguez, Garry Winogrand’ at Museum Ludwig, Cologne, Germany

Exhibition dates: 3rd May – 12th October, 2025

Curator: Barbara Engelbach

Lee Friedlander (American, b. 1934)
New York City
1966
Gelatin silver paper, print after 1966
22 x 32.9cm
Museum Ludwig, Köln
© Lee Friedlander, courtesy Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco and Luhring Augustine, New York and Luhring Augustine, New York
Repro: Historisches Archiv mit Rheinischem Bildarchiv

I know and greatly admire the presence and directness of legendary American photographer Lee Friedlander’s photographs containing fractured planes within the image construction.

I know and appreciate (if not admire) the immediacy and in your face obstinacy (shoot at all costs!) of American photographer Garry Winogrand’s photographs.

What I didn’t know was the excellent 1980s social documentary and humanist work of the American photographer Joseph Rodríguez – for me, the unexpected hero of this exhibition.

Rodríguez’s moody, high contrast photographs of humanity and street scenes pictured from behind the wheel of his taxi in New York proffer an intuitive, empathetic and subjective view of the city and its people at a time of great economic and social upheaval.

“The photographs in the Taxi series are a significant document of the 1980s in New York, a period marked by economic and social upheaval and the AIDS crisis. On his journeys crisscrossing the city, Rodríguez does not depict despair,
but rather shows people maintaining their dignity in the face of difficult and uncertain times.” (Text from Museum Ludwig)

Uncertain times, uncertain angles and perspectives, uncertain light give rise to a powerful body of work made certain by the talent of an impressive photographer. Glorious work.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

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

Lee Friedlander (American, b. 1934)
New York City
1962
Gelatin silver paper, print after 1962
22 x 32.9cm
Museum Ludwig, Köln
© Lee Friedlander, courtesy Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco and Luhring Augustine, New York
Repro: Historisches Archiv mit Rheinischem Bildarchiv

Lee Friedlander (American, b. 1934)
New York City
1963
Gelatin silver paper, print after 1963
22 x 32.9cm
Museum Ludwig, Köln
© Lee Friedlander, courtesy Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco and Luhring Augustine, New York and Luhring Augustine, New York
Repro: Historisches Archiv mit Rheinischem Bildarchiv

Lee Friedlander

(*1934 in Aberdeen, Washington, lives and works in New York City, New York)

Lee Friedlander began photographing at the age of fourteen and studied under Edward Kaminski at the Art Center School in Los Angeles until 1955. In 1956, he moved to New York, where he met Diane Arbus, Robert Frank, and Garry Winogrand. As early as the end of the 1950s, he made his first photographic forays into the streets of New York. His often humorous photographs reveal the complexity of American society, which he documented in thoughtful compositions.

In 1962, Friedlander photographed a parade in which American President John F. Kennedy also participated. His interest, however, was not in the event itself, but in the fleeting moments on the sidelines. One of the photographs taken that day shows a waiter and a boy attentively gazing out the window of a café. Upon closer inspection, it becomes clear that the crowd behind them is actually a reflection of the audience gathered outside for the parade. Due to the reflection, the café’s advertising signs also appear to be on the same plane as the signs on the opposite side of the street. Such interweaving of perspectives through reflections, as well as picture-in-picture constructions and unusual cropping, characterize Friedlander’s work of the 1960s. By focusing his camera on the often unnoticed details of daily life, capturing them with precise focus and exposure, he found a new way to depict contemporary America. His own presence, as a reflection or a shadow, in many of these images draws attention to the process of photography itself.

Friedlander does not create complete series. Each shot stands on its own as a “sharp and crudely amusing, bitterly comic observation” (Walker Evans). He initially used a Leica 35mm, whose wide angle he valued. In the early 1990s, he discovered the depth of field of the Hasselblad camera, which he also used to photograph the suburban towns of San Angelo, Texas. His subjects remained the same, only he continually reinvented them. In the 1990s, Friedlander created his photographs of flower stems trapped in glass containers and surrounded by a veil of condensation, transforming a sober detail of everyday life into a contemporary memento mori – a reminder of transience. The self-portraits, which unvarnishedly depict his ageing body, date from the same period.

Text from Museum Ludwig translated by Google Translate

Lee Friedlander (American, b. 1934)
New York City
1965
Gelatin silver paper, print after 1965
22 x 32.9cm
Museum Ludwig, Köln
© Lee Friedlander, courtesy Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco and Luhring Augustine, New York and Luhring Augustine, New York
Repro: Historisches Archiv mit Rheinischem Bildarchiv

Lee Friedlander (American, b. 1934)
Philadelphia, PA
1965
Gelatin silver paper, print after 1965
20.5 x 30.6cm
Museum Ludwig, Köln
© Lee Friedlander, courtesy Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco and Luhring Augustine, New York
Repro: Historisches Archiv mit Rheinischem Bildarchiv

Lee Friedlander (American, b. 1934)
Mount Rushmore
1969
Gelatin silver paper, print after 1969
22 x 32.9cm
Museum Ludwig, Köln
© Lee Friedlander, courtesy Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco and Luhring Augustine, New York and Luhring Augustine, New York
Repro: Historisches Archiv mit Rheinischem Bildarchiv

The street life of cities has always been a fascinating subject for photographers, who have approached it in a variety of ways, from candid images documenting urban unrest to portraits that shine a spotlight on individuals. Since the nineteenth century, cities and photography have been directly linked through the idea of modernity. With the introduction of compact cameras such as the Leica, street photography developed into its own genre in the mid-twentieth century. Small-format cameras gave photographers greater flexibility and enabled them to respond quickly while remaining discrete. They explored public space without obtruding and, in contrast to staged photography, captured candid and spontaneous moments that had previously been considered unworthy photographic subjects. Influenced by Henri Cartier-Bresson’s concept of the “decisive moment,” these photographers sought to capture the fleeting instant when light, composition, and subject aligned to convey the significance of an event.

This exhibition in the Photography Rooms at the Museum Ludwig is dedicated to three protagonists from two generations of street photography: Garry Winogrand (b. 1928 in New York, d. 1984), Lee Friedlander (b. 1934 in Aberdeen, Washington, based in New York), and Joseph Rodríguez (b. 1951 in Brooklyn, based in New York). Despite all three photographers sharing the same subject matter, each one pursues a singular approach that produces distinct results. Iconic photographs from the 1960s to the 1980s are displayed alongside lesser-known examples from each photographer’s oeuvre. All of the works on display were included in donations made by the Bartenbach Family in 2015 and Volker Heinen in 2018, or have been acquired by the Museum Ludwig since 2001.

The landmark exhibition New Documents at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1967 helped launch the careers of Winogrand and Friedlander. Their striking photographs broke with visual conventions, such as a level horizon line or a centred main subject. Winogrand frequently tilted his viewfinder, producing skewed horizon lines that offer a new view of reality and make his images appear spontaneous, as does his purposeful use of blurriness, overexposure, underexposure, and backlighting. Friedlander, in turn, created compositions in which the viewer’s gaze is hindered by obstructions, such as shadows, signs, architectural elements, and streetlights, or is disoriented by reflections.

Winogrand and Friedlander, who are represented in the exhibition with twenty images each, both use photography in a self-reflective way that brings the formal aspects of photography to the fore. This encourages an analytical gaze, producing an emotional distance between the viewer and the subject, which often results in ambivalent images where the intention of the photographer remains unclear. Winogrand and Friedlander each developed their own distinct style, embracing originality and authorship by merging documentary photography and personal expression. While they attempted to distance themselves from photojournalism and social documentary photography, eschewing event-based, narrative-focused, and emotionally charged imagery, Rodriguez’s work deliberately engages with these genres. He aspires to give visibility to marginalised people by communicating with his subjects and attempting to tell their stories. Many of his photographs are accompanied by short commentaries that provide information about the context in which each image was created. Rodríguez’s pictures employ unusual perspectives and surprising compositions, and his use of reflections emphasises the subjectivity of the photographer’s empathic gaze beyond the momentariness of the shot. The exhibition features around twenty photographs from his Taxi series.

This is the first exhibition in the new Photography Rooms at the Museum Ludwig, centrally located on the second floor.

Text / press release from the Museum Ludwig website

Installation view of the exhibition 'Street Photography. Lee Friedlander, Joseph Rodríguez, Garry Winogrand' at Museum Ludwig, Cologne, May - October, 2025

Installation views of the exhibition Street Photography. Lee Friedlander, Joseph Rodríguez, Garry Winogrand at Museum Ludwig, Cologne, May – October, 2025
Photo: Historisches Archiv mit Rheinischem Bildarchiv/Vincent Quack

Garry Winogrand (American, 1928-1984)
Coney Island, New York
1952
Gelatin silver paper, print after 1973
21.7 x 32.6cm
© The Estate of Garry Winogrand/Courtesy Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco
Repro: Historisches Archiv mit Rheinischem Bildarchiv

Garry Winogrand (American, 1928-1984)
Utah
1964
Gelatin silver paper, print after 1978
23 x 34cm
© The Estate of Garry Winogrand/Courtesy Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco
Repro: Historisches Archiv mit Rheinischem Bildarchiv

Garry Winogrand

(*1928 in New York City, New York, d. 1984)

For many years, Garry Winogrand found his subjects right on his doorstep, on the streets of his birthplace and longtime home, New York. Whether they depict individuals or groups of people, his photographs are characterised by a special dynamism, which is also the result of the unusual perspectives of his shots. Often chaotic, sometimes surreal, the images tell stories from everyday life in the big city, but also from mass events such as sporting events or political demonstrations.

Winogrand distanced himself from both the social documentary photography popular in the 1930s and 1940s and from photojournalism, with which he himself earned his living for a long time. He was concerned with shifting the perspective from the object of the photograph to the camera: “I photograph to find out what things look like when photographed.” In his photographs, Winogrand found a formal equivalent for the diverging social forces of the 1960s. He captured passersby on the streets and public squares with a wide-angle lens in such a way that the horizons tilted and a clear center of gravity was missing. His photographs of women in public often deviated from this principle. He dedicated the book Women are Beautiful to this motif, which he returned to repeatedly throughout his career, in 1975. In another project, beginning in 1969, he focused on the media world in order to – as he put it – “study the events produced in the news.” With a distanced perspective, Winogrand captured press conferences, demonstrations, open-air festivals, and the hustle and bustle of the art world – the spectacles and pseudo-events of a society in transition.

Text from Museum Ludwig translated by Google Translate

Garry Winogrand (American, 1928-1984)
New York City
1969
Gelatin silver paper, print after 1978
22.9 x 34.2cm
© The Estate of Garry Winogrand/Courtesy Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco
Repro: Historisches Archiv mit Rheinischem Bildarchiv

Garry Winogrand (American, 1928-1984)
Circle Line Statue of Liberty Ferry, New York
1971
Gelatin silver paper, print after 1973
21.7 x 32.4cm
© The Estate of Garry Winogrand/Courtesy Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco
Repro: Historisches Archiv mit Rheinischem Bildarchiv

Garry Winogrand (American, 1928-1984)
Untitled, from: Women are Beautiful
1970
Gelatin silver paper, print after 1981
21.7 x 32.4cm
© The Estate of Garry Winogrand/Courtesy Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco
Repro: Historisches Archiv mit Rheinischem Bildarchiv

Garry Winogrand (American, 1928-1984)
Untitled, from: Women are Beautiful
1973
Gelatin silver paper, print after 1973
21.7 x 32.4cm
© The Estate of Garry Winogrand/Courtesy Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco
Repro: Historisches Archiv mit Rheinischem Bildarchiv

Joseph Rodríguez (American, b. 1952)
East Village, New York
1984
Gelatin silver paper, print after 1988
25.3 x 37.4cm
© Joseph Rodríguez, Courtesy Galerie Bene Taschen
Repro: Historisches Archiv mit Rheinischem Bildarchiv

“When I drove a cab, my taxi cab was a rolling psychology office. Everybody had something to say. Sometimes it’s just light conversation like the weather or kids. Baseball. But then you get all kinds of incredible stories. I was learning the foundations of humanism in my cab.”

Joseph Rodríguez

“To drive a cab back then, you either had to have a death wish or come to the job with a biography that inured you to the danger or graced you with such intuitive empathy/curiosity that to see and hear and sometimes engage with the cavalcade of humanity sliding in and out of your backseat trumped the nightly game of Russian roulette.”

Richard Price penned these poignant words that open photographer Joseph Rodríguez’s book, Taxi: Journey Through My Windows 1977-1987

Joseph Rodríguez

(*1951 in Brooklyn, New York City, New York, lives and works there)

Joseph Rodríguez was a teenager when street photography was celebrated in New York with exhibitions such as New Documents at the Museum of Modern Art, which also brought Friedlander and Winogrand to the fore. Rodríguez studied graphic design and photography at the School of Visual Arts in New York and the New York City Technical College. In 1985, he graduated with a degree in photojournalism and documentary photography from the International Center for Photography in New York. During his studies, he worked as a taxi driver, photographing his passengers and street scenes from behind the wheel. The exhibited works are from the Taxi series. They document, on the one hand, Rodríguez’s work as a taxi driver, who has to try to secure well-paid long-distance rides to earn a living and cover the costs of his hired taxi. During his twelve-hour shifts, Rodríguez captures city life in the various neighborhoods at different times of day, from nightlife to the busy hours of the day. His shots of passersby in the rearview mirror, of a sunrise, or of someone urinating in public who believes they are unobserved, testify to the fleeting nature of the moment. Rodríguez also engages directly with his passengers. His portraits convey the openness and respect with which he treats them. Rodríguez sees himself in the tradition of social documentary photography. He advocates the goal of giving visibility to those who are overlooked. He often adds short comments to his images that shed light on what is being photographed. He also uses unusual perspectives, surprising crops, and reflections. However, these emphasize the subjectivity of his empathetic gaze beyond the momentary nature of the moment.

The photographs in the Taxi series are a significant document of the 1980s in New York, a period marked by economic and social upheaval and the AIDS crisis. On his journeys crisscrossing the city, Rodríguez does not depict despair,
but rather shows people maintaining their dignity in the face of difficult and uncertain times.

Text from Museum Ludwig translated by Google Translate

Joseph Rodríguez (American, b. 1952)
220 West Houston Street, New York
1984
Gelatin silver paper, print after 1988
25.3 x 37.2cm
© Joseph Rodríguez, Courtesy Galerie Bene Taschen
Repro: Historisches Archiv mit Rheinischem Bildarchiv

Joseph Rodríguez (American, b. 1952)
I picked him up at a club and I took him to Brooklyn. He was a happy camper, New York
1984
Gelatin silver paper, print after 1988
24.8 x 36.8cm
© Joseph Rodríguez, Courtesy Galerie Bene Taschen
Repro: Historisches Archiv mit Rheinischem Bildarchiv

Joseph Rodríguez (American, b. 1952)
At the Garage, my cab broke down, New York
1984
Gelatin silver paper, print after 1988
25.3 x 37.5cm
© Joseph Rodríguez, Courtesy Galerie Bene Taschen
Repro: Historisches Archiv mit Rheinischem Bildarchiv

Joseph Rodríguez (American, b. 1952)
Meatpacking District, I picked him up from one of the clubs. He was a drag performer and I was taking him home to Brooklyn, New York
1984
Gelatin silver paper, print after 1988
24.8 x 36.6cm
© Joseph Rodriguez, Courtesy Galerie Bene Taschen
Repro: Historisches Archiv mit Rheinischem Bildarchiv

Joseph Rodríguez (American, b. 1952)
Greenwich Village, The Anvil, New Jersey
1984
Gelatin silver paper, print after 1988
25.0 x 36.8cm
© Joseph Rodríguez, Courtesy Galerie Bene Taschen
Repro: Historisches Archiv mit Rheinischem Bildarchiv

“14th Street & West Side Highway. That’s the back of the Anvil. These guys would come outside to take a leak. And of course they’re having a conversation, so who knows what happened after that.” ~ Joseph Rodríguez

The Anvil was a gay BDSM after-hours sex club located at 500 West 14th Street, Manhattan, New York City, that operated from 1974 to 1985.

Joseph Rodríguez (American, b. 1952)
Pulaski Skyway, New Jersey
1984
Gelatin silver paper, print after 1988
24.8 x 36.8cm
© Joseph Rodríguez, Courtesy Galerie Bene Taschen
Repro: Historisches Archiv mit Rheinischem Bildarchiv

Museum Ludwig
Heinrich-Böll-Platz, 50667 Köln, Germany

Opening hours:
Tuesday through Sunday: 10am – 6pm

Museum Ludwig website

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Online exhibition: ‘Stephen Salmieri: Coney Island’ from Joseph Bellows Gallery, La Jolla, California

September 2025

Stephen Salmieri (American, b. 1945)
Coney Island
1968
Vintage gelatin silver print

I love these photographs!

What’s not to like… generously sympathetic photographs that exhibit no pretension, containing interesting backgrounds and wonderful characters. The incongruity of a muscle man in leopard skin bathers in a snowy landscape at Coney Island … no worries!

“In the images, storefront booths, midway games, carnival architecture, and the shoreline provide the backdrop to Salmieri’s descriptive and engaging portraits.”

I particularly like the wonderful photograph of the large gentleman with tattoos in a white singlet sitting at a table surrounded by a halo of light bulbs. I also like how Salmieri gives some of his portraits context by including background information in his photographs.

The artist joins a rite of passage for many American photographers in taking photographs at Coney Island – that is, to capture the magic and mystique of this theatrical, carnivalesque place – one full of history, ceremony, community, tradition, fun, drama, people, sun and sand.1

Luminaries to have photographed there include Diane Arbus, Robert Frank, Weegee, Garry Winogrand, Bruce Davidson, Lisette Model, Walker Evans, Leon Levinstein, Arlene Gottfried, Harold Feinstein and Edward J. Kelty to name just a few.

Stephen Salmieri’s charismatic photographs are strong enough to join this pantheon of stars and the “vaunted tradition” of picturing Coney Island.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

1/ Bakhtin’s idea of the carnivalesque and the carnival paradigm accords to certain patterns of play where “the social hierarchies of everyday life… are profaned and overturned by normally suppressed voices and energies.”

“The carnival offers the chance to have a new outlook on the world, to realise the relative nature of all that exists, and to enter a completely new order of things.”

Bakhtin, Mikhail. Rabelais and his World (trans. Hélène Iswolsky). Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1984, p. 34.

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

For more information on the history and photography of Coney Island please see the exhibition posting Coney Island: Visions of an American Dreamland, 1861-2008 and Forever Coney: Photographs from the Brooklyn Museum Collection at the Brooklyn Museum, New York, November 2015 – March 2016

“These spare and emotional first images of a forgotten community, now lost in time, allowed me to forge a vision at a pivotal moment in my young life.”

Stephen Salmieri

Stephen Salmieri (American, b. 1945)
Coney Island
1968
Vintage gelatin silver print

Stephen Salmieri (American, b. 1945)
Coney Island
1971
Vintage gelatin silver print

Stephen Salmieri (American, b. 1945)
Coney Island
1968
Vintage gelatin silver print

Stephen Salmieri (American, b. 1945)
Coney Island
1969
Vintage gelatin silver print

Joseph Bellows Gallery is pleased to present an online exhibition of Stephen Salmieri’s photographs of Coney Island. Made between 1967 and 1972 with an array of cameras and black and white film, these images portray a cast of beachgoers and amusement park locals within the surrounding environment of one of America’s earliest and most illustrious seashore amusement parks.

The exhibition showcases Salmieri’s finely crafted vintage black and white prints. In the images, storefront booths, midway games, carnival architecture, and the shoreline provide the backdrop to Salmieri’s descriptive and engaging portraits. In a published statement on the photographs, the artist explains his process and motivation:

“The world of Coney Island has changed dramatically since I made these photographs. It was my first self-assigned project at twenty years of age, having just graduated from the School of Visual Arts. In choosing my subject I gravitated naturally to the familiar destination of my adolescent bike adventures.

I made the hour ride to Coney Island with all my cameras in tow all year round. I carried a 4 x 5 field camera, a 6 x 6 cm and a 35 mm format, and lots of Tri-X film.

In 1969, CAMERA magazine approached me at my first exhibition at the Underground Gallery. In my naivety, I did not realise that Coney Island was also the choice territory for such luminaries as Robert Frank, Lisette Model, Leon Levinstein, and Weegee. It wasn’t until the magazine published these photographs as part of their seminal Coney Island issue in 1971 that I realised I had become part of a vaunted tradition.

These spare and emotional first images of a forgotten community, now lost in time, allowed me to forge a vision at a pivotal moment in my young life.”

Salmieri’s photographs from this body of work were also featured in the exhibition Forever Coney: Photographs from the Brooklyn Museum Collection.

Salmieri’s work is included in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York, Brooklyn Museum, New York, Smithsonian Institute, Washington D.C., Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, New York, Flint Institute, Michigan, the Museum of the City of New York, the Nelson-Atkins Museum, and the J. Paul Getty Museum. Publications include “American Grilles” (1978, Hartcourt-Brace) and “Cadillac: An American Icon” (1985, Rizzoli).

Text from the Joseph Bellows Gallery website

Stephen Salmieri (American, b. 1945)
Coney Island
1970
Vintage gelatin silver print

Stephen Salmieri (American, b. 1945)
Coney Island
1971
Vintage gelatin silver print

Stephen Salmieri (American, b. 1945)
Coney Island
1972
Vintage gelatin silver print

Stephen Salmieri (American, b. 1945)
Coney Island
1967-1972
Vintage gelatin silver print

Robert Frank (American, 1924-2019)
Coney Island
4th of July, 1958
Gelatin silver print

Edward J. Kelty (American, 1888-1967)
Harlem Black Birds, Coney Island
1930

Walker Evans (American, 1903-1975)
Couple at Coney Island, New York
1928
Gelatin silver print

Weegee (American, 1899-1968) 'Afternoon Crowd at Coney Island, Brooklyn' 1940

Weegee (Arthur Fellig) (American born Ukraine, 1899-1968)
Afternoon Crowd at Coney Island
July 21st 1940

Garry Winogrand (American, 1928-1984)
Coney Island, New York City, N.Y.
1952
Gelatin silver print

Leon Levinstein (American, 1910-1988)
Coney Island
1955
Gelatin silver print

Diane Arbus (American, 1923-1971)
Man in hat, trunks, socks and shoes, Coney Island, N.Y. 1960
1960
Gelatin silver print

Bruce Davidson (American, b. 1933)
Two Youths, Coney Island
1958
From the series Brooklyn Gang

Joseph Bellows Gallery
7661 Girrard Avenue
La Jolla, California
Phone: 858 456 5620

Opening hours:
Tuesday – Saturday 11am – 5pm and by appointment

Joseph Bellows Gallery website

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Exhibition: ‘Carrie Mae Weems: The Heart of the Matter’ at Gallerie d’Italia, Turin

Exhibition dates: 17th April – 7th September, 2025

Curator: Sarah Meister

Carrie Mae Weems (American, b. 1953) 'Welcome Home' 1978-1984 From the series 'Family Pictures and Stories' from the exhibition 'Carrie Mae Weems: The Heart of the Matter' at Gallerie d'Italia, Turin, April - Sept, 2025

Carrie Mae Weems (American, b. 1953)
Welcome Home
1978-1984
From the series Family Pictures and Stories 1978-1984
© Carrie Mae Weems and reproduced courtesy of the artist and Gladstone Gallery, New York, Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco, and Galerie Barbara Thumm, Berlin

I love artist’s that challenge your point of view, knowledge of the world, prejudices and biases – which we all have.

I love artist’s who make you think about the stories they tell, and how you relate to their intimate, constructed and memorable worlds.

Carrie Mae Weems is one such generational artist.

Weems blends the poetic and conceptual in photographs and bodies of work which investigate history, identity, racism, executive and patriarchal power from the perspectives of female / Black American.

What a fabulous artist, a guide into circumstances seldom seen, now revealed.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

Many thankx to Gallerie d’Italia, Turin for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

“I discovered that I was the reference point, and the point of view, pointing the viewer toward the likes of me in history. Later, I understood this photographic self to be a muse and a guide into the unknown.”

Carrie Mae Weems

“My work endlessly explodes the limits of tradition.”

“Weems was trained as both a dancer and a photographer before enrolling in the folklore studies program at the University of California, Berkeley, in the mid-1980s, where she became interested in the observation methods used in the social sciences. In the early 1990s, she began placing herself in her photographic compositions in an “attempt to create in the work the simultaneous feeling of being in it and of it.”2 She has since called this recurring figure an “alter-ego,” “muse,” and “witness to history” who can stand in for both the artist and audience. “I think it’s very important that as a Black woman she’s engaged with the world around her,” Weems has said, “she’s engaged with history, she’s engaged with looking, with being. She’s a guide into circumstances seldom seen.”3

Caitlin Ryan. “My work endlessly explodes the limits of tradition,” 2021 on the MoMA website [Online] Cited 06/09/2025

Carrie Mae Weems: The Heart of the Matter at Gallerie d’Italia, Turin

Installation walk through of the exhibition 17th April – 7th September, 2025

Installation views of the exhibition Carrie Mae Weems: The Heart of the Matter at Gallerie d’Italia, Turin showing work from the series Roaming, 2006

Transcending medium, chronology, and geography, Carrie Mae Weems: The Heart of the Matter puts the artist – as well as her spiritual and philosophical journeys – at the center of the discourse. Weems is a touchstone artist, renowned for her work investigating history, identity, and power. A comprehensive survey, The Heart of the Matter features generous presentations of landmark bodies of work, from Family Pictures and Stories (1978-1984) to her most recent series on the Black church. Throughout the exhibition and accompanying book, the artist’s spiritual musings provide critical insight into the iconic artist’s mind and eye. Newly commissioned essays and additional contributions from esteemed thinkers and scholars across generations underscore the singular value of Weems’s vision in grappling with the complexities and injustices of the world around us.

Text from the Aperture website

Carrie Mae Weems (American, b. 1953)
The Edge of Time – Ancient Rome
2006
From the series Roaming

Carrie Mae Weems’s “Rome Series,” titled ” Roaming” (2006), features photographs taken during her residency at the American Academy in Rome where she performed “photographic actions” contrasting her presence with grand architecture and monumental surroundings. In these works, Weems, often in her signature long black dress with her back to the camera, challenges viewers to confront power structures and historical contexts associated with the sites of Rome. The series explores themes of history, power, and the individual’s relationship to imposing edifices of authority.

AI generated text from Google

Installation views of the exhibition Carrie Mae Weems: The Heart of the Matter at Gallerie d’Italia, Turin showing work from the series Museums, 2006-ongoing

Carrie Mae Weems (American, b. 1953)
Galleria Nazionale D’Arte Moderna
2006-ongoing
© Carrie Mae Weems and reproduced courtesy of the artist and Gladstone Gallery, New York, Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco, and Galerie Barbara Thumm, Berlin

Installation view of the exhibition 'Carrie Mae Weems: The Heart of the Matter' at Gallerie d'Italia, Turin, April - September, 2025

Installation views of the exhibition Carrie Mae Weems: The Heart of the Matter at Gallerie d’Italia, Turin

Gallerie d’Italia – Torino presents the exhibition by American artist Carrie Mae Weems, open to the public from April 17 to September 7, 2025. The exhibition is organised in collaboration with Aperture and curated by Sarah Meister, former curator of the photography department at MoMA in New York. It is part of the main program of the second edition of EXPOSED Torino Foto Festival, titled Beneath The Surface, curated by Menno Liauw and Salvatore Vitale.

A major new exhibition dedicated to the internationally renowned artist Carrie Mae Weems, known for her photographic explorations of cultural identity, sexism, and class belonging.

The exhibition will feature a world premiere of a project commissioned by Intesa Sanpaolo specifically for this occasion, integrated into a powerful retrospective showcasing works from Weems’ most famous photographic series. Visitors will be guided through the artist’s entire career, following a deeply personal and spiritual journey.

The selected works highlight Carrie Mae Weems’ unique ability to address the complexities and injustices of the world around us. Her photography is rooted in spaces often excluded from mainstream narratives: artists’ studios, Southern U.S. plantations, domestic interiors, and the “invisible institutions” that emerged as places of worship for Black communities during times of oppression, juxtaposed with images of monuments and museums that have historically been sites of exclusion.

At the heart of the exhibition is Preach, a new project created specifically for this event as an original commission. This ambitious and intense installation explores religion and spirituality among African American communities across generations. The series celebrates the profound, passionate, and joyful forms of worship that define Weems’ Black Church experience while simultaneously confronting the violence and oppression that are inseparable from this history. In the new poetic text accompanying the installation, Weems writes: “Through flames and bombs, pray wherever and whenever you can, in ports and cabins, in palaces and basements, in theaters and clubs. From your secret hiding place, you have discovered new forms of worship…”. Using herself as both muse and guide, Weems invites us to join in this spiritual awakening and to condemn the persecution that has turned these sacred spaces into sites of refuge and activism. Preach intertwines early images from Harlem, San Diego, and Sea Island, Georgia, with a vast collection of new works that evoke the transcendental and secular realities of Black religious expression today.

The retrospective also includes many of Weems’ early works, such as the historic Kitchen Table Series (1990) and Museums (2006-ongoing); a selection of more recent projects, such as Scenes and Takes (2016) and Painting the Town (2021); as well as significant video installations, including The Shape of Things (2021) and Leave Now! (2022). Together, these works take visitors on a journey spanning Weems’ entire career, showcasing the depth and diversity of her artistic language.

The exhibition also benefits from the collaboration of Fondazione Compagnia di San Paolo, which has developed activities inspired by the values of inclusion and the appreciation of diversity as a source of enrichment, themes that resonate with the exhibition’s content and align with the foundation’s strategic challenges. Photography serves as a tool for storytelling, documentation, and identity-building, contributing to inclusion and community formation. Through widespread urban communication campaigns and collaboration with the public program #Inside, the foundation’s initiatives aim to promote participation and extend the exhibition’s themes to increasingly diverse audiences, particularly in light of the simultaneous presence of the EXPOSED Torino Foto Festival 2025 in the city.

The exhibition Carrie Mae Weems: The Heart of the Matter will be accompanied by a catalogue co-published by Società Editrice Allemandi / Aperture. In addition to numerous images of the American artist’s works, the catalog will feature contributions from scholars of different generations, underscoring the unique value of Weems’ vision in addressing these themes.

Aperture

Aperture is a nonprofit publisher that leads conversations around photography worldwide. From its base in New York, Aperture connects global audiences and supports artists through the acclaimed quarterly magazine, books, exhibitions, digital platforms, public programs, limited-edition prints, and awards. Established in 1952 to advance “creative thinking, significantly expressed in words and photographs,” Aperture champions photography’s vital role in nurturing curiosity and encouraging a more just, tolerant society.

Carrie Mae Weems. Biography

Carrie Mae Weems, a conceptual artist, examines and challenges perceptions of race and femininity in search of new models of life. Rooted in the specificity of her experience as a Black woman yet universal in its exploration of family relationships, cultural identity, power structures, and social hierarchy, her artistic practice is primarily photographic but also incorporates text, textiles, audio, installations, and video.

Informed by storytelling, folklore traditions, and the observational methodologies of social sciences, her approach to image-making ranges from staged and serialised narratives to the appropriation and adaptation of archival and ethnographic imagery. Weems critically addresses photography’s complicity in perpetuating dehumanising representations and the historical omission of Black women from institutions and art canons.

Weems lives in Syracuse, New York, with her husband, Jeffrey Hoone. She is currently an Artist in Residence at Syracuse University.

Text from the Gallerie d’Italia website

Installation view of the exhibition Carrie Mae Weems: The Heart of the Matter at Gallerie d’Italia, Turin showing the work North Star, 2022

In 1936 Carrie Mae Weems’s grandfather Frank Weems traveled 550 miles to Chicago on foot from Earle, Arkansas, partly with the aid of the North Star, which appears in these seven oval photographs as a cold and abstract promise. Frank Weems had been beaten after organising a labour strike to protest abysmal wages and working conditions in the cotton fields. For the artist, the abstracted world holds a tremendous yet distant possibility that her grandfather seized step by step.

Text from the Art Institute of Chicago website

Installation view of the exhibition 'Carrie Mae Weems: The Heart of the Matter' at Gallerie d'Italia, Turin, April - September, 2025 showing at left, work from the series 'Family Pictures and Stories' 1978-1984

Installation view of the exhibition Carrie Mae Weems: The Heart of the Matter at Gallerie d’Italia, Turin showing at left, work from the series Family Pictures and Stories 1978-1984

Installation view of the exhibition Carrie Mae Weems: The Heart of the Matter at Gallerie d’Italia, Turin showing the installation Preach, 2025

At the heart of the exhibition is Preach… this ambitious and intense installation explores religion and spirituality among African American communities across generations. The series celebrates the profound, passionate, and joyful forms of worship that define Weems’ Black Church experience while simultaneously confronting the violence and oppression that are inseparable from this history.

In the new poetic text accompanying the installation, Weems writes: “Through flames and bombs, pray wherever and whenever you can, in ports and cabins, in palaces and basements, in theaters and clubs. From your secret hiding place, you have discovered new forms of worship…”. Using herself as both muse and guide, Weems invites us to join in this spiritual awakening and to condemn the persecution that has turned these sacred spaces into sites of refuge and activism.

Preach intertwines early images from Harlem, San Diego, and Sea Island, Georgia, with a vast collection of new works that evoke the transcendental and secular realities of Black religious expression today.

Text from the Gallerie d’Italia Instagram web page

Carrie Mae Weems (American, b. 1953) 'Untitled' Nd from the series 'Preach' 2025

Carrie Mae Weems (American, b. 1953)
Untitled
Nd
From the series Preach
© Carrie Mae Weems and reproduced courtesy of the artist and Gladstone Gallery, New York, Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco, and Galerie Barbara Thumm, Berlin

Carrie Mae Weems (American, b. 1953)
Road Sign
1991-1992
From the series Preach
© Carrie Mae Weems and reproduced courtesy of the artist and Gladstone Gallery, New York, Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco, and Galerie Barbara Thumm, Berlin

Installation view of the exhibition Carrie Mae Weems: The Heart of the Matter at Gallerie d’Italia, Turin showing work from the Kitchen Table Series, 1990

Carrie Mae Weems (American, b. 1953) 'Untitled (Man and mirror)' 1990 From the series 'Kitchen Table'

Carrie Mae Weems (American, b. 1953)
Untitled (Man and mirror)
1990
From the Kitchen Table Series
© Carrie Mae Weems and reproduced courtesy of the artist and Gladstone Gallery, New York, Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco, and Galerie Barbara Thumm, Berlin

Carrie Mae Weems (American, b. 1953) 'Untitled (Woman and daughter with children)' 1990 From the series 'Kitchen Table'

Carrie Mae Weems (American, b. 1953)
Untitled (Woman and daughter with children)
1990
From the Kitchen Table Series
© Carrie Mae Weems and reproduced courtesy of the artist and Gladstone Gallery, New York, Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco, and Galerie Barbara Thumm, Berlin

Carrie Mae Weems (American, b. 1953) 'Untitled (Woman standing alone)' 1990 from the series 'Kitchen Table'

Carrie Mae Weems (American, b. 1953)
Untitled (Woman standing alone)
1990
From the Kitchen Table Series
© Carrie Mae Weems and reproduced courtesy of the artist and Gladstone Gallery, New York, Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco, and Galerie Barbara Thumm, Berlin

Carrie Mae Weems (American, b. 1953)
Untitled
1988
From the series Four Women
© Carrie Mae Weems and reproduced courtesy of the artist and Gladstone Gallery, New York, Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco, and Galerie Barbara Thumm, Berlin

Carrie Mae Weems (American, b. 1953)
Wilfredo, Laura and Me, I
2002
From the series Dreaming in Cuba
© Carrie Mae Weems and reproduced courtesy of the artist and Gladstone Gallery, New York, Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco, and Galerie Barbara Thumm, Berlin

Gallerie d’Italia – Torino
Piazza San Carlo, 156
10121 Turin
Phone number: 800 167 619

Opening hours:
Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday: 9.30 – 19.30
Wednesday: 9.30 – 20.30

Gallerie d’Italia – Torino website

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Exhibition: ‘The Underground Camera’ at Foam, Amsterdam

Exhibition dates: 2nd May – 1st September, 2025

Co-curators: Hripsimé Visser, former curator at Stedelijk Museum, Foam curator Claartje van Dijk, and exhibition designer Jeroen de Vries, in collaboration with NIOD Institute

Marius Meijboom (Dutch, 1911-1998)
Hunger Winter
February 1945
Marius Meijboom / Niod

Iconic photo of Henkie Holvast from the Jordaan, 9 years old

Resist!

The photograph of Henkie Holvast (February 1945, above) is an example of the famine the Nazis inflicted on the general population of the Netherlands during the last year of the Second World War.

I’ll leave you to make the correlation between these historical events and what is happening in Gaza today … and to understand the hypocrisy and evil of contemporary acts.

Like the photojournalists that are being targeted and killed for reporting the truth of the situation in Gaza, so these photographers would have been killed by the Nazis for photographing the occupation of the Netherlands if they had been caught.

“Verzet! Verzet!” (Resist! Resist!)

Dr Marcus Bunyan

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

“The exhibition The Underground Camera captures the hunger and hardship in Amsterdam during the final year of World War II, but also sheds light on the untold stories behind the images, offering fresh perspectives.”

De Volkskrant

Cas Oorthuys (Dutch, 1908-1975) 'Resistance slogans on a bomb shelter at Kwakersplein, Amsterdam' 1944-1945 from the exhibition 'The Underground Camera' at Foam, Amsterdam, May - Sept, 2025

Cas Oorthuys (Dutch, 1908-1975)
Resistance slogans on a bomb shelter at Kwakersplein, Amsterdam
1944-1945
© Cas Oorthuys / Netherlands Photo Museum

“Verzet! Verzet!” (Resist! Resist!) is spray painted boldly on a public wall, confronting the public in Cas Oorthuys’s Verzetsleuzen op een schuilbunker Kwakersplein (Resistance slogans on a bunker at Kwakersplein), taken in Amsterdam between 1944-1945. In many ways this image serves as a visual manifesto for The Underground Camera, the new exhibition at Foam Amsterdam, articulating the collective’s commitment to resistance, subversion, and the political potential of the photographic image.

The Underground Camera, a group of Amsterdam based photographers, made the life-threatening and courageous decision to photograph the Nazi occupation of Holland, specifically the famine of 1944-45 in Amsterdam as a result of the Nazis blocking food transport. The photographers, recruited by members of the Dutch resistance, were tasked with making the unseen visible. The intention was to inform the Dutch government working in exile in London to advocate for food drops on their behalf while also documenting the conditions of the occupation, creating evidence in the event the Nazis would be held accountable. A general ban on photography was implemented in 1944 by the occupation, so The Underground Camera followed through with illegal acts carried out discreetly, often hiding the cameras under their garments.

Not only was participating in illegal acts under the Nazi occupation dangerous, but being associated with the resistance otten carried dire consequences. By highlighting the potential fatality of the mission, its dangerous conditions, and the equipment that was difficult to obtain at the time and often poor quality, Foam’s exhibit allows the audience to witness a quiet rebellion. A rebellion that is often overlooked not only in the history of photography, but in history as a whole.

With this exhibit, the courageous and inspiring group finally gets their time of recognition.

The Underground Camera, initially known as the more unassuming ‘Nederland Archief’ (Netherlands Archive), significantly contributed to the retelling of history regarding Germany’s occupation during the war, viewing the camera as both a witness and a weapon. The idea of the camera as a weapon is underscored by many academic discourses surrounding documentary war photography. A camera has the potential to become a tool of war whose target is completely dependent on the intention of the one shooting, but in this case of the camera has actively deconstructed propaganda while also holding the occupiers accountable.

There are many unknowns when it comes to this group. Who were the participating photographers, were any were caught, how were they organised, how did they operate, etc. This exhibition is giving them deserved institutional and academic recognition and advocates for their story to be told. The Underground Camera is an incredible show not only because it offers rare glimpses into the realities of war, but because the photographs are a product of courageous resilience.

Georgina Laube. “Apr 24: The Underground Camera | Foam,” on the Musee magazine website, April 2th, 2025 [Online] Cited 09/05/2025

Cas Oorthuys (Dutch, 1908-1975) 'A man collects materials from a demolished building, Zwanenburgstraat' 1944 from the exhibition 'The Underground Camera' at Foam, Amsterdam, May - Sept, 2025

Cas Oorthuys (Dutch, 1908-1975)
A man collects materials from a demolished building, Zwanenburgstraat
1944
© Cas Oorthuys/Nederlands Fotomuseum

Cas Oorthuys (Dutch, 1908-1975)
Two women returning from a hunger march
Early 1945
Courtesy of Foam
© Cas Oorthuys / Nederlands Fotomuseum

Foam presents The Underground Camera, an exhibition that features work from Dutch photographers who captured the consequences of the German occupation during the 1944-45 ‘famine winter’ in Amsterdam.

The exhibition The Underground Camera is inspired by the celebrations of Amsterdam’s 750th anniversary and 80 years of liberation.

With their photographs, The Underground Camera group made a significant contribution to the image of the Second World War. The photographers were recruited by members of the resistance, with the aim of informing the Dutch government in London. They worked independently and under the dangerous conditions of an occupied city, with hard-to-obtain, often poor-quality equipment. The exhibition provides an impressive picture of the consequences of hunger and cold in the dismantled Amsterdam at the end of the war.

The group of photographers included Cas Oorthuys, Emmy Andriesse, Charles Breijer, Kryn Taconis, and Ad Windig, among others.

Text from the Foam website

Charles Breijer (Dutch, 1914-2011)
Closure of the Jewish Quarter near the Waag, Nieuwmarkt, Amsterdam
1941
© Charles Breijer / Netherlands Photo Museum

Charles Breijer (Dutch, 1914-2011)
Charles Breijer photographs a German-requisitioned building near Vondelpark from his bicycle bag. He inadvertently captures his own shadow
Spring 1945
Charles Breijer / Netherlands Photo Museum (NFM)

German guard post in front of the Kriegsmarine building at Emmaplein in Amsterdam. Visible in the foreground is the shadow of photographer Charles Breijer, operating his Rolleiflex camera from his pannier.

Charles Breijer (Dutch, 1914-2011)
Andrea Domburg distracts bystanders while Margreet Meijboom-Van Konijnenburg takes the photo from her bag
Nd
Charles Breijer / Netherlands Photo Museum

Charles Breijer (Dutch, 1914-2011)
Margreet Meijboom-van Konijnenbrug (right) demonstrates photographing from a shopping bag. Andrea Domburg, in a nurse’s uniform, accompanies her to keep an eye on the surroundings
Nd
Charles Breijer / Netherlands Photo Museum

Charles Breijer (Dutch, 1914-2011)
Joop Kuijt, a refugee, crawls into a hiding place at Oranje Nassaulaan 15, Amsterdam
1945
© Charles Breijer/Netherlands Photo Museum

Charles Breijer (Dutch, 1914-2011)
Shortly after the liberation, Cas Oorthuys demonstrates how he took illegal photographs during the occupation
1945
© Charles Breijer / Nederlands Fotomuseum

In honour of Amsterdam’s 750th jubilee and the 80th remembrance of the Netherlands’ liberation, Foam presents The Underground Camera (De Ondergedoken Camera). The exhibition showcases images captured by the group of photographers who came to be known by the same name. They photographed the harsh realities of Amsterdam during the ‘Hunger Winter’ of 1944-1945, offering a rare glimpse into the courageous missions of the resistance group and their role in documenting the Nazi occupation. The exhibition features work by renowned Dutch photographers such as Cas Oorthuys, Charles Breijer and Emmy Andriesse.

The resistance group was led by Fritz Kahlenberg and Tonny van Renterghem. In November 1944, when the German administration banned public photography, they – alongside a network of fourteen photographers – worked in secrecy to document the occupation and the resistance. Their efforts, carried out at great personal risk, preserved a crucial visual record of this era. Kahlenberg, a German Jewish filmmaker who had migrated to Amsterdam in 1933, was involved in the forgery of identity cards for the resistance. Van Renterghem had a military background and was also actively involved in resistance work. Although he was not a photographer himself, he played a crucial role in the coordination between The Underground Camera and other resistance groups. The images taken by the photographers of The Underground Camera were intended to be smuggled to London to convince the Dutch government in exile of the need for Allied food droppings in the Netherlands. Today, the photos provide a realistic perspective of daily life in Amsterdam during the last months of the German occupation.

The historical material of the group was stored in various Dutch collections in the form of negatives, original photo prints, albums and picture books. The exhibition sheds light on topics such as the Hunger Winter, the resistance, the illegal press, instances of sabotage, the transport of weapons and the liberation by the Allied Forces.

The Underground Camera is the result of a close collaboration with the NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies. A publication by the same name, written by NIOD-researchers René Kok and Erik Somers, will be released in March 2025. The exhibition has been co-curated by Hripsimé Visser, former curator of photography at Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, in collaboration with exhibition designer Jeroen de Vries.

The Mayor of Amsterdam, Femke Halsema, will open the exhibition at Foam.

The exhibition The Underground Camera is part of a research trajectory within Foam’s artistic programme, launched in early 2024 under the title The Camera as a Weapon, which included a pop-up exhibition of the same name and a symposium. In a time marked by conflict, Foam poses the question: what can photography do? Through this research line – which also includes the exhibition Sakir Khader – Yawm al-Firak – the museum responds to current events by presenting artistic practices in which the camera is used as a weapon.
In light of the national observance of Remembrance Day on 4 May and the national celebration of Liberation Day on 5 May, het Amsterdams 4 en 5 mei comité, in collaboration with Foam en NIOD, will also present an exhibition. This public exhibition will be shown from 29th of April until the 6th of May on the Museumplein.

About The Underground Camera

Kahlenberg and Van Renterghem, the driving forces behind the operation, instructed a group of photographers from their main location at the Michelangelostraat 36 in Amsterdam South from where they oversaw their resistance activities. Many of the The Underground Camera photographers would later become internationally renowned. They concealed their cameras in handbags and jackets in order for them to take the pictures unnoticed. Many used Rolleiflex cameras which had a viewfinder on top, making it easier to take pictures from hip height. Given the danger of being involved in organised resistance, the photographers did not know who else was part of the collective and worked under neutral names such as ‘Netherlands Archive’ (‘Nederlands Archief’) and ‘Central Imagery Archive’ (‘Centraal Beeldarchief’). Just a few weeks after the liberation, in early June 1945, a selection of work was showcased in the exhibition The Underground Camera located in the studio of the photographer Marius Meijboom at the Keizersgracht in Amsterdam. The exhibition brought national recognition for The Underground Camera’s work, leading the group to officially adopt this name. Now, 80 years later, their legacy returns in a new exhibition along the same canal.

UNESCO included The Underground Camera in its Dutch Memory of the World Register, making it the first photographic legacy ever to receive this prestigious distinction.

The Underground Camera consisted of Tonny van Renterghem (1919-2009), Fritz Kahlenberg (1916-1996), Emmy Andriesse (1914-1953), Carel Blazer (1911-1980), Charles Breijer (1914-2011), Cornelis Holtzapffel (1916-1984), Ingeborg Kahlenberg-Wallheimer (1920-1996), Boris Kowadlo (1912-1959), Frits Lemaire (1921-2005), Marius Meijboom (1911-1998), Margreet Meijboom-van Konijnenburg (1910-onbekend), Cas Oorthuys (1908-1975), Hans Sibbelee (1915-2003), Ben Steenkamp (1917-1967), Ad Windig (1912-1996) and Krijn Taconis (1918-1979). Taconis was the first Dutch person to become a member of renowned international photography collective Magnum.

Press release from Foam

Margaretha van Konijnenburg (1910 – d.)
Bicycle raid on the Weteringplantsoen in Amsterdam
Autumn 1944

Photographed from a shopping bag

Marius Meijboom (Dutch, 1911-1998)
Hungry
Nd
© Marius Meijboom, NIOD

Hans Sibbelee (Dutch, 1915-2003)
Children on Sarphatistraat remove the impregnated wooden blocks from between the tram rails, for the stove
March 1945

The photographer took the photo from under his jacket

Krijn Taconis (Dutch, 1918-1979)
Police officers guarding food supplies in the Amsterdam harbour to prevent looting will receive an extra meal
Nd
Krijn Taconis / Niod

Emmy Andriesse (Dutch, 1914-1953)
On the way to the soup kitchen
Nd
BBWO2 / Leiden University Library

Emmy Andriesse (Dutch, 1914-1953)
A man and a woman find some coal remains at the Weesperpoort station in Amsterdam
Spring 1945

Emmy Andriesse (Dutch, 1914-1953)
A boy eats a meal from a soup kitchen
Nd

H.R. Kettner (Dutch, 1916 – d.)
The distribution of groceries became increasingly difficult, resulting in long lines in front of, among other places, the Wijnbergh & Co. store on Middenweg
Nd

Other photographs by The Underground Camera photographers

Emmy Andriesse (Dutch, 1914-1953)
Amsterdam tijdens de hongerwinter (Amsterdam during the hunger winter) [1944-1945]
Published 1947
Bound volume
Closed: 29.21 x 22.86cm (11 1/2 x 9 in.)
Open: 29.21 x 44.45cm (11 1/2 x 17 1/2 in.)
National Gallery of Art Library, David K.E. Bruce Fund

Emmy Andriesse (Dutch, 1914-1953)

Emmy Eugenie Andriesse (Dutch, 1914-1953) was a Dutch photographer best known for her work with the Underground Camera group (De Ondergedoken Camera [nl]) during World War II. …

War years and the ‘Underground Camera’

In June 1941 Andriesse married graphic designer and visual artist Dick Elffers (a gentile with whom she had two sons, one who died young), but as a Jew during the Nazi occupation Andriesse was no longer able to publish and she was forced into hiding. At the end of 1944, with the assistance of the anthropologist Arie de Froe [nl] she forged an identity card and re-engaged in everyday life, joining a group of photographers, including Cas Oorthuys and Charles Breijer, working clandestinely as De Ondergedoken Camera. The photos that Andriesse made under very difficult conditions of famine in Amsterdam, include Boy with pan, The Gravedigger and Kattenburg Children are documents of hunger, poverty and misery during the occupation in the “winter of hunger” of 1944-1945.

Post-war

After the war, she became a fashion photographer and was an associate and mentor of Ed van der Elsken. She participated in the group show Photo ’48 and in 1952, together with Carel Blazer [nl], Eva Besnyö and Cas Oorthuys, the exhibition Photographie, both in Amsterdam’s Stedelijk Museum. Edward Steichen chose her 1947 portrait of a staid and elderly Dutch couple for the section ‘we two form a multitude’ in the Museum of Modern Art world-touring The Family of Man that was seen by an audience of 9 million. More recently (October 2006 – January 2007) she was included in a display of Twentieth Century European photography at the Barbican Art Gallery, London.

Andriesse’s last commission, the book The World of Van Gogh – published posthumously in 1953 – was not yet complete when she became ill and after a long battle with cancer, died at the age of 39.

Text from the Wikipedia website

Emmy Andriesse (Dutch, 1914-1953) 'Amsterdam tijdens de hongerwinter' (Amsterdam during the hunger winter) [1944-1945] book published 1947 (detail)

Emmy Andriesse (Dutch, 1914-1953)
Amsterdam tijdens de hongerwinter (Amsterdam during the hunger winter) (detail)
1947
Bound volume
Closed: 29.21 x 22.86cm (11 1/2 x 9 in.)
Open: 29.21 x 44.45cm (11 1/2 x 17 1/2 in.)
National Gallery of Art Library, David K.E. Bruce Fund

Steeds grauwer werd het beeld de steden. Schoeisel en kleding raakten totaal versleten.

The image of the cities became increasingly grey. Footwear and clothing became totally worn out.

De etalages waren leeg of toonden alleen vervangingsmiddelen.

The shop windows were empty or only showed substitutes.

Foam
Keizersgracht 609
1017 DS Amsterdam
The Netherlands
Phone: 31 (0)20 5516500

Opening hours:
Monday – Wednesday 10am – 6pm
Thursday – Friday 10am – 9pm
Sat – Sun 10am – 6pm

Foam website

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Exhibition: ‘Edward Weston. La matèria de les formes’ at Centro de Fotografía KBr Fundación MAPFRE, Barcelona

Exhibition dates: 12th June – 31st August, 2025

Curator: Sérgio Mah

Edward Weston (American, 1886-1958)
Surf, Bodega
1937
19 x 24cm
Gelatin silver print
Center for Creative Photography, The University of Arizona. Edward Weston Archive

Three week’s to the day since my hip replacement operation and I’m still in pain. I know, slowly slowly but it’s very frustrating…

Thus, I just have two words for you about this exhibition –

GREAT WESTERN!

Dr Marcus Bunyan

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

“Not I, nor anyone else can travel that road for you,
You must travel it for yourself.

It is not far, It is within reach,
Perhaps you have been on it since you were born, and did not know,
Perhaps it is every where on water and land.”

Walt Whitman. Part of Song of Myself from Leaves of Grass. 1855

I never try to limit myself by theories, I do not question right or wrong approach when I am interested or amazed – impelled to work. I do not fear logic, I dare to be irrational, or really never consider whether I am or not. This keeps me fluid, open to fresh impulse, free from formulae; and precisely because I have no formulae – the public who know my work is often surprised, the critics, who all, or most of them, have their pet formulae are disturbed. And my friends distressed.

I would say to any artist – don’t be repressed in your work – dare to experiment – Consider any urge – if in a new direction all the better – as a gift from the Gods not to be lightly denied by convention or a priori concept. Our time is becoming more and more bound by logic, absolute rationalism; this is a straitjacket I – it is the boredom and narrowness which rises directly from mediocre mass thinking.

The great scientist dares to differ from accepted ‘facts’ -think irrationally – let the artist do likewise.

Edward Weston 28 January, 1932 from The Daybooks of Edward Weston. Vol. ll Horizon Press, New York 1966

Edward Weston (American, 1886-1958)
Guadalupe Marín de Rivera
1924
20.8 x 17.9cm
Gelatin silver print
Center for Creative Photography, The University of Arizona. Gift of Ansel and Virginia Adams

Strongly linked to the landscape and to North American cultural history, Edward Weston’s work, in its extreme simplicity and originality, allows us to appreciate a unique perspective on the process of consolidation of photography as an artistic medium and its relevant role in the context of modernity in the visual arts. The exhibition Edward Weston. La matèria de les formes (Edward Weston. The Matter of Forms) is conceived as an anthology that covers the different phases of the artist’s photographic production.

A pioneer in the use of a modern photographic style, his use of the large-format camera gives rise to richly detailed black and white images of extraordinary clarity. His technical expertise and his affection for nature and form led to the development of a body of work in which iconic images of still lifes, nudes, landscapes and portraits stand out. His images are essential for understanding the new aesthetic and new American lifestyle that emerged in the United States between the wars.

The exhibition, curated by Sergio Mah, consists of around two hundred photographs grouped into seven sections. The exhibition tour is completed with numerous documentary material and is conceived from a European perspective on the legacy of modern American photography. An aesthetic and conceptual counterpoint to the photographic modernism in Europe that emerged with the first avant-garde of the 20th century.

The emancipation of photography

Edward Weston was one of the pioneers, along with Alfred Stieglitz and Paul Strand, in defending the emancipation of photography from other artistic disciplines. In this sense, his work contributed decisively to demonstrating, in this early period of photography, the aesthetic and perceptual dimension of the medium, the capacity to express aesthetic qualities in the same way as painting or sculpture.

Figuration and abstraction

The technical mastery of the photographic medium leads Weston to a formalism in which framing becomes one of the most relevant elements of his work. Weston eliminates any anecdotal aspect and focuses on the motif that interests him, and does so with such realism and exaltation of the two-dimensional nature of photography, which often results in an abstract image. In this way, the artist shows that figuration and abstraction do not exempt one from the other, but are perfectly compatible.

Exhibition organised with the support of the Center for Creative Photography at the University of Arizona, Tucson.

Text from the Fundación MAPFRE website translated from the Spanish by Google Translate

Edward Weston (American, 1886-1958)
Two Shells
1927, print about 1933
24.1 x 18.4cm
Gelatin silver print
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

Edward Weston (American, 1886-1958)
Pepper No. 30
1930
22.8 x 17.7cm
Gelatin silver print
Courtesy by Trockmorton Fine Art

Highlights

Fundación MAPFRE presents the exhibition Edward Weston. The Matter of Forms, dedicated to the five decades of the career of this North American artist, one of the most important figures in modern photography. In addition, through the work of the artist himself, the exhibition aims to offer a pedagogical reflection on the history of the medium and its relevance as an aesthetic and perceptive discipline, apart from the more traditional plastic arts; specifically, painting.

Key points

The emancipation of photography

Edward Weston was one of the pioneers, along with Alfred Stieglitz and Paul Strand, in defending the emancipation of photography from other artistic disciplines. In this sense, his work is essential to understanding the aesthetic and perceptive capacity of the medium in its beginnings. This capacity allows photography to express aesthetic qualities such as beauty, pain or ugliness at the same level as painting or sculpture.

Figuration and abstraction

The technical mastery of the photographic medium leads Weston to a formalism where framing becomes one of the most relevant elements of his work. In this sense, he eliminates any anecdotal aspect and focuses on the motif that interests him, and he does so with such realism and with such exaltation of the two-dimensional character of photography that he ends up obtaining an abstract image as a result. In this way, the artist shows that figuration and abstraction do not exclude each other, but are perfectly compatible.

Pepper No. 30

Edward Weston took this photograph, one of the most representative of his entire career, at the beginning of August 1930. It was not the first time he had photographed a vegetable, nor a pepper. The artist himself spoke about this image: “It is a fully satisfactory classic: a pepper, but more than a pepper. It is abstract, in the sense that it exists completely outside the subject. It has no psychological attributes, it does not awaken human emotions: this new pepper takes us beyond the world we know in the conscious mind.” In the light of this photograph and the artist’s words, the innovative character of his work can be distinguished, which transcended not only modern American photography, but also European photography.

The exhibition

Weston’s work, strongly linked to the landscape and to North American cultural history, in its extreme simplicity and originality, reveals a unique perspective on the process of consolidation of photography as an artistic medium and its relevant role in the context of modernity in the visual arts. The exhibition Edward Weston. The Matter of Forms is conceived as an anthology that covers the different phases of the artist’s photographic production. From his initial interest in Pictorialist approaches to his consolidation as one of the central figures in the affirmation of the poetic and speculative value of direct photography. A pioneer in the use of a modern photographic style, his work is characterised by the use of a large-format camera, which allows him to offer richly detailed black and white images of extraordinary clarity. His mastery of technique, together with his love of nature and form, led him to develop a photographic production in which iconic images of still lifes, nudes, landscapes and portraits stand out. As a co-founder of the photography collective Group f/64, his images are key to understanding the new North American aesthetic and lifestyle that emerged in the United States between the wars.

The exhibition, grouped into seven sections and curated by Sérgio Mah, consists of around 200 photographs and a large amount of documentary material. The exhibition is conceived as a European look at the legacy of modern North American photography. An aesthetic and conceptual counterpoint to the modern photography that emerged in Europe with the first avant-garde of the 20th century.

Edward Weston (American, 1886-1958)
Prologue to a Sad Spring
1920
23.8 x 18.7cm
Platinum print
Center for Creative Photography, The University of Arizona. Johan Hagemeyer Collection/Purchase

1 /

Edward Weston began photography very early, thanks to a Kodak Bulls-Eye No. 2 camera that his father gave him when he was just sixteen. Although he was practically self-taught, in 1911 he opened his first photographic establishment in a suburb of Los Angeles. His early works reveal the influence of the Pictorialist atmosphere of the time: impressionistic views and pastoral subjects with soft or slightly blurred focus, scenography and expressive poses.

Edward Weston (American, 1886-1958)
Janitzio, Mexico
1926
20.4 x 25.2cm
Gelatin silver print
Center for Creative Photography, The University of Arizona. Edward Weston Archive/Gift of the Heirs of Edward Weston

2 /

Weston’s dissatisfaction with this artistic approach to photography, which sought to assimilate itself to painting, coincided with the appearance of other photographers with similar ideas, such as Alfred Stieglitz and Paul Strand, whom he met in New York in 1922. In 1923 he set sail for Mexico accompanied by one of his sons and the photographer Tina Modotti. There he found a true renaissance of the arts and culture, and he came into contact with artists such as Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo and Rafael Sala. He expanded his visual horizon and tackled new themes, photographing objects, figures and motifs far from their original context, turning them into suggestive and extraordinary elements. It was then that he realised that true photographic art is intuitive and immediate, that the elimination of everything that is accessory constitutes the essence of his creative talent.

Edward Weston (American, 1886-1958)
Excusado, Mexico
October 1925
24.1 x 19.1cm
Gelatin silver print
Center for Creative Photography, The University of Arizona. Edward Weston Archive

3 /

From 1927, influenced by the humanism of Walt Whitman and his work Leaves of Grass, he felt attracted, in the words of Sérgio Mah, by “the extraordinariness of banality”. Fruits, shells and vegetables became the protagonists of his works, and he made one of his most famous photographs: a toilet, an unusual object as an artistic subject, with the title Excused. In these images, Weston accentuated the two-dimensionality of the motifs, since it was one of the characteristics of photography that interested him. He looked for details as a way of fragmenting, isolating and approximating the photographed object, eliminating the sense of depth, a technique particularly notable in still lifes with dark backgrounds, as is the case with his photographs of peppers.

Edward Weston (American, 1886-1958)
Floating Nude
1939
19.3 x 24.2cm
Gelatin silver print
Center for Creative Photography, The University of Arizona. Edward Weston Archive

4 /

From 1926, after leaving Mexico, Weston photographed several sets of nudes. In these nudes, the photographer’s gaze varies depending on the model. In some cases, the frame is wide and even shows the face, while in others the gaze is more segmented and focuses on parts of the body as a way of cutting out and accentuating the shapes within the frame. It must be recognized that eroticism is a quality present in some of these photographs. However, it is incorrect to conclude that this type of gaze prevails in most of the nudes he photographed. Above all, Weston observes the body as a formal reality. The beauty and sensuality that these bodies suggest is reflected in the play of lines, shadows and contours they offer.

Edward Weston (American, 1886-1958)
Clouds, Death Valley
1939
20.4 x 25.2cm
Gelatin silver print
Center for Creative Photography, The University of Arizona. Edward Weston Archive

5 /

From the late 1920s and into the following decades, landscape became a central element in Weston’s work. The artist photographed in the desert near Palm Springs, California, as well as in New Mexico, Arizona, and other Californian areas near his home in Carmel. In these works, the horizon and the depth of the background become a structural part of his works: the panoramic shots highlight the sublime character of the landscape. It was also during this period that Weston began to be interested in meteorological phenomena such as rain, the configuration of clouds, and the aridity of the territory.

Edward Weston (American, 1886-1958)
Crescent Beach, North Coast
1939
24.3 x 19.2cm
Silver print mounted on board
The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens

6 /

Over the years, Weston’s work increasingly acquired a “dense and melancholic” patina, an aspect that is accentuated by the tones that the images acquire. This characteristic is particularly evident in the photographs he took in 1941 to illustrate Leaves of Grass, a project for which he traveled throughout much of the United States for nearly two years. The images he captured in cemeteries in Louisiana and Georgia stand out, as well as those of abandoned, destroyed and burned buildings where the interest in formal aspects predominates and in which a critical and disillusioned commentary on reality and American society can already be seen.

Edward Weston (American, 1886-1958)
Drift Stump, Crescent Beach
1937
20.3 x 25.2cm
Gelatin silver print
Center for Creative Photography, The University of Arizona. Edward Weston Archive

7 /

In the vicinity of Point Lobos, California, was the log cabin built by his son Neil on Wildcat Hill, where Weston moved in 1938. In this area of California, the artist found the wild nature that he had sought in distant places. His images from this period denote less compositional and formal rigidity and show the cycles of nature in the territory, the wild beauty, the trees, stones and rocky landscapes that seem to arise and remain in a time that is stopped. These images express a certain melancholy and solitude, while allowing the viewer to rediscover nature in all its splendour.

Edward Weston (American, 1886-1958)
Dunes, Death Valley
1938
20.4 x 25.1cm
Gelatin silver print
Center for Creative Photography, The University of Arizona. Edward Weston Archive

Catalogue

The catalogue accompanying this exhibition reproduces all the photographs on display. In addition, it includes essays by Sérgio Mah, its curator, by Rebecca Senf, who discusses the artist’s relationship with Mexico, and by Jason Weems, who focuses on Weston’s landscapes and vegetable photographs. It also includes a series of reflections by the artist himself on photography taken from his diaries.

The publication of the catalogue, published in Spanish and Catalan by Fundación MAPFRE, also has a co-edition in Italian published by Dario Cimorelli Editore.

Text from Fundación MAPFRE translated from the Spanish by Google Translate

Edward Weston (American, 1886-1958)
Nude
1936
23.4 x 19.1cm
Gelatin silver print
Center for Creative Photography, The University of Arizona. Gift of the Estate of A.Richard Diebold, Jr.

Author of a vast and diverse body of work spanning five and a half decades, Edward Weston (1886-1958) is one of the great figures in the history of modern photography, partly because his work allows us to reflect on the distinctive qualities of photography as a technical, aesthetic and perceptual category.

His first creative experiments reveal a momentary adherence to the pictorialist tendencies of the time, but he would later stand out as one of the protagonists of a new generation of American photographers who sought to refocus the artistic axis of photography based on its exceptional capacity to represent the most diverse subjects in the world with rigor, clarity and sobriety.

With their extreme simplicity and originality, the exceptional quality of Weston’s images also lies in the way in which he was able to rethink and articulate the extraordinary realistic and objective capacity of photography with its aesthetic, poetic and phenomenological potential, contributing to expanding the horizon of the subjective experience of the image. In this way, Weston enunciated the unique role of photography in the panorama of the visual arts of his time.

Weston was an immensely prolific photographer and his work brings together a whole series of photographic themes, types and genres: portraits, nudes, still lifes, natural and urban landscapes, object photography, architecture… This anthological exhibition aims to cover the entirety of Weston’s photographic career, which began at the beginning of the 20th century and was uninterrupted until the end of the 1940s. The selection of works aims to go well beyond the period in which Weston took most of the images that gave him wide critical and institutional recognition. The truth is that a more complete and heterogeneous approach to his work allows us to summon other layers of aesthetic appreciation, broadening the understanding of the depth and articulations that Weston developed in the various fields he explored. Furthermore, it offers the opportunity to point out the aspects and affinities (in the gaze, in the construction of the image or in its peculiar relationship with certain themes) present throughout his career, emphasizing the coherence of his imagery, as well as the nuances and moments of transition that occurred in it.

Sérgio Mah
Curator

Text from Fundación MAPFRE translated from the Spanish by Google Translate

Edward Weston (American, 1886-1958)
Dunes, Oceano
1936
24.1 x 18.9cm
Silver print mounted on board
The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens

From an early age, Edward Weston showed an interest in developing a creative side of photography apart from his commercial work. His early experiments show the influence of painting and reveal his attention and attachment to the pictorialist atmosphere of the time. These photographs include impressionistic views, pastoral subjects with soft or slightly blurred focus, numerous staged portraits that explore expressive poses and combinations with shadows and graphic elements of the environment.

The two periods he spent in Mexico, between 1923 and 1924 and then between 1925 and 1926, were decisive in Edward Weston’s creative career. There he began to explore new themes and genres and his visual horizon expanded significantly. He covered a wide variety of subjects, types of places, figures and things, parts of things, appropriate objects, motifs taken from their original context and repositioned in another interpretative framework. At the same time, his visual style completely sheds any reminiscence of the Pictorialist phase. A photography of great technical, formal and compositional rigour was consolidated. Weston realised that he had the capacity to transform trivial things into suggestive and extraordinary. He was clear that the art of photography lies fundamentally in the moment of making the image, in the way in which the photographer contemplates the subject and makes decisions according to the variables inherent in the photographic device. For him, the process is instinctive. This way of seeing – intuitive, intense and immediate – which seeks to isolate the subject, eliminating the accessory, the unnecessary, anything that could divert or attenuate the intensity of the photographic vision, constitutes the essence of Weston’s creative talent.

From 1927, Weston began a series of still life photographs. In these images he fully reveals the principles and characteristics of his work: the desire to represent the timeless essence of a natural object and, correlatively, to emphasise the duplicative and perceptive capacities of the photographic medium.

The compositions are carefully conceived. In the space of the image, there is a calculated conformity between the dimension of the forms and the format of the image. Here it is important to reiterate the focus on detail as a defining aspect of Weston’s imagery, evident in these still lifes and also in other aspects of his work. Weston understands the vision of detail as a way of fragmenting, isolating and bringing our gaze closer to certain things, accentuating the two-dimensional character of the image, its closed and opaque nature, without depth or horizon, evident above all in still lifes with dark backgrounds, such as photographs of peppers, but also in the various images of plants, trees, rocks and stones that he has been making since the early 1930s.

Weston left Mexico in 1926. In the following years, he made several series of nudes. This is not a new subject. He had already made some important ones before, including one of Anita Brenner’s back and another of her son Neil, whose torso is cut out in an image that evokes ancient Greek statues. In the nudes, the photographer’s gaze varies depending on the model. In some cases, the framing is wide and even shows the face, while in others the gaze is more segmented and focuses on parts of the body as a way of cutting out and accentuating the shapes within the frame. We can recognise that eroticism is a quality present in some of these photographs. It is incorrect, however, to conclude that this gaze prevails in most of his nudes. Weston observes the body mainly as a formal reality. The beauty and sensuality that these bodies suggest are based above all on the play of lines, shadows and contours that they provide.

From the late 1920s, and with greater intensity in the following decades, the landscape genre occupies a central place in Weston’s photographic production. In 1927, the artist takes photos in the Californian desert near Palm Springs. In the following years, he travels through New Mexico, Arizona and other areas of California, such as Oceano, Death Valley, Yosemite, the Mojave Desert and Point Lobos, near his home in Carmel. In these various places, he captures wide views of inhospitable territories in which there are no signs of human presence or intervention. The horizon line and the breadth of the territory become structuring motifs in his work. The impetus for these images is a feeling of admiration for the epic and immeasurable nature of these natural landscapes. Beyond his choice of panoramic shots, the images reveal other aspects and elements of nature, such as meteorological phenomena, rain, cloud formations and variations in sunlight, often in conjunction with their visual effect on the arid land or the vegetation and unique morphology of these territories. It is a vision sensitive to the transformative nature of the landscape, subject to environmental and geological changes.

Gradually, and with greater intensity from the 1940s onwards, Edward Weston’s imagery became denser and more melancholic, not only in terms of the selection of subjects, but also in the tonalities of the images. This tendency is particularly evident in the photographs he takes for an edition of Leaves of Grass, the masterpiece of the poet Walt Whitman. He travels throughout the United States for two years. He revisits many of the recurring themes in his work, but the large number of images he takes of cemeteries in Louisiana and Georgia stand out. These are photographs in which his interest in formal aspects, texture and light predominates. All the subjects are seen as an integral part of a geography that is at once physical, social and mental. On the other hand, there are a lot of images of abandoned, destroyed and burnt buildings, of rubbish and things destined to disappear. We can identify that the themes of finitude and death contribute to an imagery increasingly characterised by loneliness, melancholy, and decadence. For the first time in his work, the images suggest a disillusioned and critical commentary on American reality, on the relationship between nature and culture, continuity and change, alienation and social tension.

In 1938, Weston moved with Charis Wilson to the wooden house built by his son Neil on Wildcat Hill, near Point Lobos, California. The artist spent long periods taking photos in this coastal region. He wandered through areas that he knew well. The images show a nature permeated with cycles, rhythms and forces, a macrocosm where Weston found the material to continue his work. At Point Lobos, Weston encountered a wild, dazzling and ineffable beauty that he had always sought in distant places. In the trees, forests, stones and rocky landscapes, the photographer found a vital energy that led perception towards a diffuse time, contrary to the linearity of history, alien to modernity. Nature then emerged as a theme and setting that allowed him to think and experience a renewed gaze (spontaneous, intuitive, aesthetic), a gaze that was both concrete and metaphysical that allowed him to rediscover nature.

Text from Fundación MAPFRE translated from the Spanish by Google Translate

Edward Weston (American, 1886-1958)
Charis, Lake Ediza
1937
19.1 x 24.1cm
Silver print mounted on board
The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens

KBr Fundación MAPFRE
Av. del Litoral, 30 08005 Barcelona
Phone: +34 932 723 180

Opening hours:
Tuesdays – Sundays (and public holidays) 11am – 8pm

Fundación MAPFRE website

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Exhibition: ‘Auto-Photo: A Life in Portraits’ at RMIT Gallery, Melbourne

Exhibition dates: 5th June – 16th August, 2025

Curated by Catlin Langford with Christopher Sutherland and Jessie Norman (Metro Auto Photo)

Installation view of the exhibition Auto-Photo: A Life in Portraits at RMIT Gallery, Melbourne, June – August, 2025
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Dream Maker

This is one of the most joyous photography exhibitions that I have seen in a very long time.

The exhibition “introduces us to Alan Adler (2932-2024), who while little known, was the oldest and longest serving photobooth technician in the world… For over 50 years, Adler maintained a fleet of photobooths across Melbourne / Narrm, most notably the site at Flinders Street Station.”

Through the strip self-portraits Adler took while servicing and then testing the photobooths that he operated in Melbourne, Australia we become immersed in an archive of his world, the exhibition becoming a joyous ode to a man who devoted his life to photography (not in the traditional sense): in turns humorous and historical, a travelogue, his travelogue, through time and space.

We see Adler growing older and ageing; we see historic events such as the COVID pandemic with him wearing a mask; we see him travelling the world to picture other photobooths in situ; we see him goofing and performing for the camera; and we see the people he met along the way. I particularly like the photograph of Adler having his photo taken on the “Photo Ride: Take “5” with Chuckie” where he imitates the smile of his fellow traveller (see below)

The exhibition is also historical – there is a short section on the history of the photobooth – contemporary – there are contemporary works by Australian artists who use the photobooth as the basis for their art – and lost and found – where “lost” photobooth strips that Adler diligently collected in the hope of one day reuniting them with their owner are displayed.

There is an absolutely wonderful video by Christopher Sutherland titled Alan (extract below) which gives you good insight into the man. He seems part magician, keeping those old photobooths going, and part artist – Adler’s workshop reminding me so much of the basement of the American artist Joseph Cornell (1903-1972, see photo below) where he used to keep all the treasures he scavenged from around New York that he used to make his magical boxes. Adler’s photobooths were his magical boxes kept going by his bits and pieces, booths of happiness and memories, tales of a life in portraits.

In this exhibition the spirit of this man shines through in gloriously irreverent black and white and colour self-portraits, and fun, adventurous photographs from overseas. One of the best pure photography exhibitions I have seen this year.

What a life, well honoured.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image. All installation photographs © Marcus Bunyan

Entrance

Wall text from the exhibition 'Auto-Photo: A Life in Portraits' at RMIT Gallery, Melbourne, June - August, 2025

Installation view of the exhibition Auto-Photo: A Life in Portraits at RMIT Gallery, Melbourne, June – August, 2025
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

Gallery 1

Christopher Sutherland (Australian)
Alan (extract)
2025-ongoing
Digital film

This is part of an ongoing film project by Christopher Sutherland on Alan Adler, which began in 2018 when they first met.

Cornell’s basement studio, 3708 Utopia Parkway, Flushing, New York, 1964
Collection Duff Murphy and Janice Miyahira
© Terry Schutté

Installation views of the exhibition Auto-Photo: A Life in Portraits at RMIT Gallery, Melbourne, June – August, 2025
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

Gallery 2

Wall text from of the exhibition 'Auto-Photo: A Life in Portraits' at RMIT Gallery, Melbourne, June - August, 2025

Installation views of the exhibition Auto-Photo: A Life in Portraits at RMIT Gallery, Melbourne, June – August, 2025
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

Auto-Photo: A Life in Portraits introduces us to Alan Adler (1932-2024), who while little known, was the oldest and longest serving photobooth technician in the world.

For over 50 years, Adler maintained a fleet of photobooths across Melbourne / Narrm, most notably the site at Flinders Street Station. As part of his weekly service, he would take a strip of test shots, now forming an extraordinary visual archive of over a thousand self-portraits.

Adler’s story shows a fascinating dedication to repetitious image making and is supported by the artworks of Melbourne creatives who have passionately used his photobooths.

Marking 100 years of the photobooth, Auto-Photo is one of many worldwide events that celebrate the centenary and reflect on the significance of this analogue machine.

Auto-Photo: A Life in Portraits features Adler’s extensive archive, alongside additional exhibits and works of art from the collections of Katherine Griffiths, Mark Holsworth, Kyle Archie Knight, Ruth O’Leary, Nicky Makin, Jesse Marlow, Brian Meacham, Metro Auto Photo, Patrick Pound and Joshua Smith.

Auto-Photo: A Life in Portraits is a Centre for Contemporary Photography (CCP) exhibition, presented in partnership with RMIT Culture.

Text from the RMIT Gallery website

Gallery 3

A Selected Visual History (in vitrine)

Photobooth portraits with the same background (c. 1930-1950) (in vitrine)

Julie Mac Photobooth Portraits 1970s (in vitrine)

Vitrine text from the exhibition 'Auto-Photo: A Life in Portraits' at RMIT Gallery, Melbourne, June - August, 2025

Installation view of Julie Mac's 'Photobooth Portraits' 1970s from the exhibition 'Auto-Photo: A Life in Portraits' at RMIT Gallery, Melbourne, June - August, 2025

Mark S. Holsworthy Photo Booth – readymade in 3 minutes 1984-continuing (in vitrine)

Installation view of Mark S. Holsworth's 'Photo Booth - readymade in 3 minutes' (1984 - continuing) from the exhibition 'Auto-Photo: A Life in Portraits' at RMIT Gallery, Melbourne, June - August, 2025

Installation views of the exhibition Auto-Photo: A Life in Portraits at RMIT Gallery, Melbourne, June – August, 2025
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

Gallery 4

Joshua Smith Flinders Street Photobooth 2019

Installation view of Joshua Smith's 'Flinder Street Photobooth' (2019) from the exhibition 'Auto-Photo: A Life in Portraits' at RMIT Gallery, Melbourne, June - August, 2025

Installation views of the exhibition Auto-Photo: A Life in Portraits at RMIT Gallery, Melbourne, June – August, 2025
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

RMIT Gallery
344 Swanston St,
Melbourne VIC 3000

Opening hours:
11am – 5pm Tuesday to Friday
12pm – 4pm Saturday
Closed on public and University holidays

RMIT Gallery website

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Photograph: Marcus Bunyan. ‘Corfe Castle and graveyard, Dorset’ 1994

August 2025

Marcus Bunyan (Australian, b. 1958)
Corfe Castle and graveyard, Dorset
1994
Gelatin silver print

Apologies

There will be no posting on Art Blart this week as I continue to recover from hip replacement surgery last weekend.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

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Photographs: Anonymous 1960s medium format Kodak Ektachrome slides of Australia

July 2025

Unknown photographer (Australian)
The Nobbies, Phillip Island, Victoria, Australia
1960s
Ektachrome medium format transparency scanned

Further Australian photographs from scans of 73 medium format Kodak Ektakchrome slides found in a country town in Victoria, Australia taken in Australia, Mexico, United States of America and Canada in the mid-1960s. I believe that the photographer was an Australian who was on holiday in Mexico, United States of America and Canada.

In nearly 40 years of being a photographer I have never seen colour medium format slides from the 1960s. There was no colour fading to the slides. The person who took the photographs was shooting medium format colour in the 1960s so they would have been a photographic aficionado. Just by holding the slides up to the light I could see the photographs were compositionally very interesting. Whoever the photographer was they had a great eye!

There are some beautiful photographs of the Australian landscape here. And the Australian “light” and colour are so different from the rest of the photographs (see part 1 of the posting).

I have also included an example of how incredibly dirty these slides were, see Untitled (Australian landscape) (detail uncleaned and cleaned) 1960s (below), and note how much work and many hours were required to bring these images back into a state of grace … and preservation.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

All photographs © Marcus Bunyan. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image. See Part 1 of the posting.

Unknown photographer (Australian)
Untitled (Australian landscape)
1960s
Ektachrome medium format transparency scanned

The fault at left appears in several other slides in these Ektachromes and must have been in the camera as it’s not in the slide itself…

Unknown photographer (Australian)
Untitled (Australian landscape)
1960s
Ektachrome medium format transparency scanned

There is a Mini panel van on the causeway!

Unknown photographer (Australian)
Untitled (Australian landscape)
1960s
Ektachrome medium format transparency scanned

The same landscape as the two photographs below

Unknown photographer (Australian)
Untitled (Australian landscape)
1960s
Ektachrome medium format transparency scanned

Unknown photographer (Australian) 'Untitled (Australian landscape)' 1960s (detail uncleaned and cleaned)

Unknown photographer (Australian)
Untitled (Australian landscape) (detail uncleaned and cleaned)
1960s
Ektachrome medium format transparency scanned

Unknown photographer (Australian)
Untitled (Man holding his movie camera, Australia)
1960s
Ektachrome medium format transparency scanned

Australian built Ford XR Falcon station wagon

Unknown photographer (Australian)
Unknown woman
1960s
Ektachrome medium format transparency scanned

I don’t know where this is but it feels Australian to me, especially the fashion…

Unknown photographer (Australian)
Untitled (Australian landscape, possibly South Point, Wilson’s Prom, Victoria)
1960s
Ektachrome medium format transparency scanned

Australian coastal she oak and tea tree.

Unknown photographer (Australian)
Untitled (Australian landscape)
1960s
Ektachrome medium format transparency scanned

Wonderful photograph of the Australian landscape…

Unknown photographer (Australian)
Untitled (Australian landscape)
1960s
Ektachrome medium format transparency scanned

Max Dupain (Australian, 1911-1992)
Silos through windscreen
1935
Gelatin silver print

Unknown photographer (Australian)
Untitled (Australian landscape)
1960s
Ektachrome medium format transparency scanned

The second photograph taken through the windscreen of a car

Unknown photographer (Australian)
Untitled (Australian landscape)
1960s
Ektachrome medium format transparency scanned

Unknown photographer (Australian)
Untitled
1960s
Ektachrome medium format transparency scanned

I’m not sure what they are doing or where this is (possibly Australia) but I like the photo!

Unknown photographer (Australian)
Untitled
1960s
Ektachrome medium format transparency scanned

A geologist hammer in his hand?

Unknown photographer (Australian)
Untitled (Visitors must not leave pathway)
1960s
Ektachrome medium format transparency scanned

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Photographs: Anonymous 1960s medium format Kodak Ektachrome slides of the United States of America, Canada and Mexico

July 2025

Unknown photographer (Australian)
Hawaii
1960s
Ektachrome medium format transparency scanned

State of grace

I was very excited by the discovery in a country town in Victoria, Australia of 73 medium format Kodak Ektakchrome slides taken in Australia, Mexico, United States of America and Canada in the mid-1960s. I believe that the photographer was an Australian who was on holiday in Mexico, United States of America and Canada.

I can date the slides to late 1966 / early 1967. This is because of the unknown photograph of the construction of John F. Kennedy’s grave at Arlington National Cemetery (below). Construction began in 1965 and was completed on July 20, 1967. Since JFK’s grave is 2/3rds complete this would date the photograph to late 1966 / early 1967. This would also help date all the other Ektachrome slides that I have scanned as well.

The has been a journey of (self) discovery.

Firstly, I made the conscious decision not to look at the slides before scanning them but rather to randomly pick up whichever slide came next … then to take us on a journey in time and space from my studio in Melbourne – to Canada, Mexico, United States of America and different parts of Australia, in the mid-1960s.

Together, through these photographs, we can travel the planet, traversing time back to the 1960s where we can witness historic places of that era – John F. Kennedy’s grave under construction; George Washington’s house in Mount Vernon; the White House closer than you can ever get today in our paranoid era of protection.

In some ways it was a more open society in those days, more trusting and available; in others, it was more prejudiced against, for example, women, migrants, colour and difference. War never changes. Not everything changes for the better, but some things do.

Scanning these slides was a journey of self discovery. I immersed myself in their worlds… staring for hours at the scans and at the dots and scratches on the screen – cleaning up the slides and colour balancing them (see Metropolitan Opera House, Lincoln Center, New York City 1960s below for an example) to make them presentable. It was as much a meditative practice and an acceptance of self to keep going that was so rewarding, especially for the peace it brings my bipolar and depression. Peace and self acceptance.

I lived and breathed these images back into existence after nobody had seen them for so many years. I saved them for prosperity, from the eternity of loss of all unseen images – to not have eyes look at them for that moment of recognition, when the language of the image can be decoded and understood. When the feeling of that image impacts the senses.

I hope you enjoy this series of images, that it reaches you in all its wonderful, effervescent glory. Whoever the photographer was I want to thank them for their vision – for they have taken us to places and times we could never have gone.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

PS. Look at the two hands in the photograph Untitled (Mexican scene?) 1960s (below). It perfectly sums up a moment caught through the energy of the photographer, the camera … and the cosmos. The open hand, the shielded hand.

Just a bit about these scans: scanned at 1200dpi, 21.3Mb. Each image takes on average 1.5 hours of cleaning and balancing to achieve the end result. 300dpi jpg made from scans.

All photographs © Marcus Bunyan. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image. See Part 2 of the posting.

“A good image is created by a state of grace. Grace expresses itself when it has been freed from conventions, free like a child in his early discovery of reality. The game is then to organise the rectangle.” [or the square in this case!]

Sergio Larraín Echeñique

Ektachrome transparency box

United States of America

Unknown photographer (Australian)
Grand Canyon
1960s
Ektachrome medium format transparency scanned

Unknown photographer (Australian)
Snow in the Grand Canyon
1960s
Ektachrome medium format transparency scanned

Unknown photographer (Australian?)
Grand Canyon with snow
1960s
Ektachrome medium format transparency scanned

Unknown photographer (Australian)
John looking bored, Father and Sylvia at Aunt Jemima’s Kitchen, Disneyland
1960s
Ektachrome medium format transparency scanned

Unknown photographer (Australian)
Wedding day (USA?)
1960s
Ektachrome medium format transparency scanned

What a wonderful composition from a low vantage point. Not sure where it is but it feels USA to me…

The girl at left looking at the bride and groom, his white gloves one on one off, her yellow bride’s bouquet and the relationship to the yellow of the bridesmaid’s dress, and the two girls at right… one looking at the couple and one at the camera. Magic!

I wonder what happened to them, how long they were together. Was it a happy marriage? Did they had children and where are they now? And now all these years later to see this mnemonic device, this photograph of associations, designed to recover fragmentary memories of a happy time…

Unknown photographer (Australian)
Wedding day (USA?)
1960s
Ektachrome medium format transparency scanned

Unknown photographer (Australian)
Untitled (USA)
1960s
Ektachrome medium format transparency scanned

I am pretty sure this image is connected to the wedding photos above.

Unknown photographer (American)
Hawaii? California? coastline
1960s
Ektachrome medium format transparency scanned

Definitely not Australia…

Unknown photographer (American)
Hawaii? California? coastline
1960s
Ektachrome medium format transparency scanned

Unknown photographer (Australian)
Untitled [coastline]
1960s
Ektachrome medium format transparency scanned

I think this is the Hawaiian or Californian coastline, but unsure… the telephone pole is definitely not Australian!

Unknown photographer (Australian)
Untitled
1960s
Ektachrome medium format transparency scanned

No idea where this is (not Australia!) or what the structures are. Obviously shot out of a moving car or possibly train/bus. An interesting image nonetheless.

Unknown photographer (Australian)
Untitled [Desert scene, California?]
1960s
Ektachrome medium format transparency scanned

A wonderful photograph shot contre-jour which is a photographic technique in which the camera is pointing directly toward a source of light.

Unknown photographer (Australian)
George Washington’s home, Mount Vernon
1960s
Ektachrome medium format transparency scanned

Thank you to Colin Vickery who informed me this is George Washington’s home, Mount Vernon.

Unknown photographer (Australian)
John F. Kennedy’s gravesite under construction at Arlington Cemetery (foreground) with Memorial Bridge and the Lincoln Memorial in the background. View from Arlington House
Late 1966 / early 1967
Ektachrome medium format transparency scanned

An important photograph! An unknown photograph of the construction of John F. Kennedy’s grave at Arlington National Cemetery.

Construction began in 1965 and was completed on July 20, 1967. Since JFK’s grave is 2/3rds complete this would date the photograph to late 1966 / early 1967. This would also help date all the other Ektachrome slides that I am scanning.

Unknown photographer (Australian)
Grave of John F. Kennedy, Arlington National Cemetery, Washington
1960s
Ektachrome medium format transparency scanned

Another important photograph of the temporary grave of John F. Kennedy at Arlington National Cemetery with the construction of Kennedy’s new grave ongoing in the background.

Around the grave are the caps of the services with what I think are dog leads in between? In the background in the centre is a wreath from a Boy Scout Troop. And of course, the flame…

Unknown photographer (Australian)
Arlington National Cemetery, Washington
1960s
Ektachrome medium format transparency scanned

This was a poor exposure and about the best I could do with the scan.

Unknown photographer (Australian)
Arlington National Cemetery, Washington
1960s
Ektachrome medium format transparency scanned

Unknown photographer (Australian)
Road to Arlington National Cemetery, Washington
1960s
Ektachrome medium format transparency scanned

A wonderful vista with Arlington National Cemetery in the distance…

Unknown photographer (Australian)
The White House, Washington, DC
1960s
Ektachrome medium format transparency scanned

Unknown photographer (Australian)
Untitled States Capitol, Washington, D.C.
1960s
Ektachrome medium format transparency scanned

What a great image, shot out of the front of a bus driving towards the United States Capitol, love all the old cars!

Unknown photographer (Australian)
Untitled States Capitol, Washington, D.C.
1960s
Ektachrome medium format transparency scanned

I love the perspective, the shadows of the old cars, the path leading the eye towards the building and the trees framing the vista.

Unknown photographer (Australian)
Abraham Lincoln, Lincoln Memorial, Washington, D.C.
1960s
Ektachrome medium format transparency scanned

Unknown photographer (Australian)
Metropolitan Opera House, Lincoln Center, New York City
1960s
Ektachrome medium format transparency scanned

The top image has not been colour corrected, as scanned.

Unknown photographer (Australian)
1040 Fifth Avenue NY
1960s
Ektachrome medium format transparency scanned

Some photos are winners, some are losers… but they are all interesting. The fifteenth floor of 1040 Fifth Avenue NY was home to Jackie Onassis from 1964 to 1994.

The cars are a Super 88 Oldsmobile, 1965 Plymouth Fury Suburban S/W and 1964/65 Buick Special 4dr.

This slide was so underexposed it was very hard to get a usable scan. Colour correction was difficult.

Unknown photographer (Australian)
Untitled (American landscape)
1960s
Ektachrome medium format transparency scanned

A lovely image. Whoever took these photographs had a really good eye.

Unknown photographer (Australian)
Untitled (American landscape)
1960s
Ektachrome medium format transparency scanned

Unknown photographer (Australian)
Untitled (California)
1960s
Ektachrome medium format transparency scanned

I think this is California?

A classic 1960s photograph. The photographer had a good eye. Los Castillo artesanos on the left hand side, a Kodak sign, and a Chevrolet if I’m not mistaken.

Unknown photographer (Australian)
American landscape with cars, perhaps Malibu, California?
1960s
Ektachrome medium format transparency scanned

Great photo!

Unknown photographer (Australian) 'Main Str Cinema, Disneyland' 1960s

Unknown photographer (Australian)
Main Str Cinema, Disneyland, California
1960s
Ektachrome medium format transparency scanned

I don’t know what the fault is at top left, it’s in the transparency itself – so obviously something inside the camera got ‘recorded’ on film

Unknown photographer (Australian) 'Mickey Mouse, Disneyland'
1960s

Unknown photographer (Australian)
Mickey Mouse, Disneyland, California
1960s
Ektachrome medium format transparency scanned

Unknown photographer (Australian)
General view over Universal Studios including my plane, Tammy’s houseboat, Warner Brothers in background, California
1960s
Ektachrome medium format transparency scanned

The photograph was taken from a “Glamor Tram” travelling around the lot. These were introduced in July, 1964. “The iconic red and white Glamor Trams, with their ruffled awnings, were staged five times a day, each lasting just over two hours, Monday through Friday.”

The handwritten inscription on the slide reads:

“General view over Universal Studios including my plane, Tammy’s houseboat, Warner Brothers in background”

“My plane” seems to be a North American P-51 Mustang. According to John Lovaas on Facebook he is “pretty sure the green space is Lakeside Golf Club, and the plane and cars in the foreground are on Universal Studios property. How many P-51s has Universal ever had on their lot? A finite number!”

He states that the P-51 is most likely the plane 44-72739 N44727 “Man O War” which was the plane at Universal Studios between 1955-1970. I can’t see a houseboat at all!

Unknown photographer (Australian)
‘Battle Hymn’ North American P-51 Mustang
1960s
Ektachrome medium format transparency scanned

A closer look at the North American P-51 Mustang that featured at a distance in the slide above.

The text written on the slide reads: “Me and plane used in “Battle Hymn”.”

“‘Battle Hymn’ is a 1957 American war film directed by Douglas Sirk and starring Rock Hudson as Lieutenant Colonel Dean E. Hess, a real-life United States Air Force fighter pilot in the Korean War who helped evacuate several hundred war orphans to safety… Hess promises her he won’t see combat, since he will be the senior USAF advisor / Instructor Pilot to the Republic of Korea Air Force, only serving as a teacher and flying F-51D Mustangs. …

In order to replicate the ROK unit, the 12 F-51D Mustangs of 182nd Fighter Squadron, 149th Fighter Group of the Texas Air National Guard were enlisted by the USAF to provide the necessary authentic aircraft of the period. During filming, an additional surplus F-51 was acquired from USAF stocks to be used in an accident scene where it would be deliberately destroyed.”

Text from the Wikipedia website

Unknown photographer (Australian)
Sylvia and ship used for McHale’s Navy, Universal Studios
1960s
Ektachrome medium format transparency scanned

The title was written on the slide.

Unknown photographer (Australian) 'San Francisco with Golden Gate Bridge' 1960s

Unknown photographer (Australian)
San Francisco with Golden Gate Bridge (in the background)
1960s
Ektachrome medium format transparency scanned

Unknown photographer (Australian)
View over San Francisco
1960s
Ektachrome medium format transparency scanned

Unknown photographer (Australian)
Untitled (Car and river, USA)
1960s
Ektachrome medium format transparency scanned

Lovely photo, great shadows. I have no idea where this is…

Unknown photographer (Australian) 'Untitled (woman and car)' 1960s

Unknown photographer (Australian)
Untitled (woman and car)
USA, 1960s
Ektachrome medium format transparency scanned

Left hand drive car so this must be the United States of America.

Canada

Unknown photographer (Australian)
Place Ville Marie, Montreal
1960s
Ektachrome medium format transparency scanned

Unknown photographer (Australian)
Cathédrale Basilique Marie Reine du Monde, Montreal
1960s
Ektachrome medium format transparency scanned

Unknown photographer (Australian)
Interior, Cathédrale Basilique Marie Reine du Monde, Montreal
1960s
Ektachrome medium format transparency scanned

Unknown photographer (Australian)
Downtown Montreal, intersection of Blvd de Maisonneuve Ouest and Metcalfe St, looking toward Mont Royal
1960s
Ektachrome medium format transparency scanned

Mexico

Unknown photographer (Australian)
Cuernavaca Cathedral, Morelos, Mexico
1960s
Ektachrome medium format transparency scanned

Unknown photographer (Australian)
Chapultepec Castle, Mexico City
1960s
Ektachrome medium format transparency scanned

This is Chapultepec Castle, site of the National History Museum, México City. The soldiers are wearing Mexican helmets of the M1 pattern with regimental insignia on the front.

Unknown photographer (Australian)
Untitled (Mexico)
1960s
Ektachrome medium format transparency scanned

Unknown photographer (Australian)
Hotel Borda, Cuernavaca
1960s
Ektachrome medium format transparency scanned

A view of the “Hotel Borda” which still exists in Cuernavaca a town just south of Mexico City.

Unknown photographer (Australian)
Untitled (Mexico)
1960s
Ektachrome medium format transparency scanned

I can make out the words “Gloria”, “Dios”, and “Paz” in the sign on the right hand side.

Unknown photographer (Australian)
Untitled (Mexican scene?)
1960s
Ektachrome medium format transparency scanned

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Exhibition: ‘Australian Tonalism: A selection from the John and Peter Perry Collection’ at the Town Hall Gallery, Hawthorn, Melbourne

Exhibition dates: 7th May – 27th July, 2025

Edgar Finlay (Australian, 1893-1974) 'Untitled Streetscape' 1919 from the exhibition 'Australian Tonalism: A selection from the John and Peter Perry Collection' at the Town Hall Gallery, Hawthorn, Melbourne, May - July, 2025

Edgar Finlay (Australian, 1893-1974)
Untitled Streetscape
1919
Oil on board
32.2 x 27.2cm

This is a near perfect exhibition of Australian Tonalist paintings from the John and Peter Perry Collection at the Town Hall Gallery, Hawthorn, Melbourne.

From the beautiful colour of the gallery walls which compliments the art work to the subtle grouping of the paintings to the individual nuances in style of each artist’s work … this is a stunning exhibition which envelops the viewer in the paintings sublime, minimalist intimacies.

From portrait to landscape, from cityscape to still life, I was enraptured by the presence of each painting. Blow Monet or Cezanne, here is Australian colour, context, identity, place, perspective at its suffused finest!

I have always adored the work of Clarice Beckett (Australian, 1887-1935) ever since I saw her paintings at Lauraine Diggins Fine Art way back in 2015, and normally she would be the start of the show … but not here. Here she is surrounded by visions / visionaries of equal stature, led by the redoubtable painter and teacher Max Meldrum (Australian, 1875-1955).

The wall of five of his paintings of trees (see installation photo below) including The Glade, Eltham (c. 1920, below), The Pool (1923, below), The Bottom of the Hill (Eltham Reserve) (1925, below) is one of the most rigorous conceptual investigations into that subject I have seen in Australian painting, yet at the same time I was emotionally moved by their subtle nuances of form, tone and inhabitation. It was as though the artist had internalised the transcendence of his subject.

Believe me when I say that I inhaled the canvases in this exhibition, I breathed their suffused glow.

It was a real privilege to see the exhibition and to be able to construct this post. There are not many reproductions of Australian Tonalist paintings online by many of these artists so here is a record their achievement, and that of John and Peter Perry for having the foresight and perspicacity to collect them.

Enveloped in a pall of opaque density I see clearly.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

Installation view of the exhibition Australian Tonalism: A selection from the John and Peter Perry Collection at the Town Hall Gallery, Hawthorn, Melbourne, May – July, 2025 showing at left, George Coates’ portrait of Max Meldrum, c. 1895 (below); at centre, Edgar Finlay’s Untitled Streetscape 1919 (above); and at right, three paintings by Clarice Beckett (below)

Australian Tonalism

Australian Tonalism is characterised by a particular “misty” or atmospheric quality created by the Meldrum painting method of building “tone on tone”. Tonalism developed from Meldrum’s “Scientific theory of Impressions”; claiming that social decadence had given artists an exaggerated interest in colour and, to their detriment, were paying less attention to tone and proportion. Art, he said, should be a pure science based on optical analysis; its sole purpose being to place on the canvas the first ordered tonal impressions that the eye received. All adornments and narrative and literary references should be rejected.

Tonalism opposed Post-Impressionism and Modernism, and is now regarded as a precursor to Minimalism and Conceptualism. The whole movement had been under fierce controversy and they were without doubt the most unpopular group of artists, in the eyes of most other artists, in the history of Australian art. Influential Melbourne artist and teacher George Bell described Australian Tonalism as a “cult which muffles everything in a pall of opaque density”.

Text from the Wikipedia website

George Coates (Australian, 1869-1930)
Max Meldrum
c. 1895
Oil on canvas
49.7 x 39.5cm

Clarice Beckett (Australian, 1887-1935)
The Solitary Bathing Box
c. 1933
Oil on beaver board
22.7 x 30cm

Clarice Beckett (Australian, 1887-1935)
Street Scene (Collins Street)
c. 1931
Oil on canvas board
17.6 x 24cm

Clarice Beckett (Australian, 1887-1935)
(Beaumaris Coast)
c. 1927
Oil on academy board
17.7 x 23.5cm

'Australian Tonalism' wall text The John and Peter Perry Collection

Wall text from the exhibition Australian Tonalism: A selection from the John and Peter Perry Collection at the Town Hall Gallery, Hawthorn, Melbourne, May – July, 2025

Carl Hampel (Australian, 1891-1940) 'At Eltham' 1920 from the exhibition 'Australian Tonalism: A selection from the John and Peter Perry Collection' at the Town Hall Gallery, Hawthorn, Melbourne, May - July, 2025

Carl Hampel (Australian, 1891-1940)
At Eltham
1920
Oil on prepared board
30.5 x 23cm

Carl Hampel (Australian, 1891-1940) 'Coming Light' c. 1924 and 'Evening' 1920

Carl Hampel (Australian, 1891-1940)
Coming Light
c. 1924
Evening
1920

A E Newbury (Australian, 1891-1941) 'White Gum and Pines' 1919; 'Morning Light' 1919; and 'The Old Garden' 1919

A E Newbury (Australian, 1891-1941)
White Gum and Pines
1919
Morning Light
1919
The Old Garden
1919

A E Newbury (Australian, 1891-1941)
The Old Garden
1919
Oil on prepared board
30.5 x 23cm

William Frater (Scottish, 1890-1974)
Untitled Landscape
c. 1920
Oil on canvas
30 x 41.5cm

William Frater (Scottish, 1890-1974)
Olympus
c. 1928
Oil on canvas on board
32 x 46cm

William Frater (Scottish, 1890-1974)
Tree forms on the Yarra
c. 1926
Oil on canvas on board
30.5 x 39cm

William Frater (Scottish, 1890-1974)
The River (Homage to Cezanne)
1930
Oil on board
43 x 54.5cm

Installation views of the exhibition Australian Tonalism: A selection from the John and Peter Perry Collection at the Town Hall Gallery, Hawthorn, Melbourne, May – July, 2025

Discover the artistic legacy of Max Meldrum (1875-1955) in this exhibition showcasing the lifelong dedication of John and Peter Perry to collecting works by this pioneering Australian artist and his influential school. Meldrum, a key figure in 20th-century Australian art, revolutionised the painting scene between the two World Wars, creating a distinctive style that has left a lasting imprint on the nation’s artistic landscape.

The exhibition features a selection of works from a collection of over 320 pieces, including paintings, sculptures, drawings, and etchings. Highlights include landscapes from both France and Australia, still lifes, portraits and animal studies – all embodying the unique approach of Meldrum and his followers. The ‘Meldrumites’ – a talented group of artists such as A M E Bale, Clarice Beckett, Colin Colahan and Polly Hurry – were deeply influenced by Meldrum’s teachings, and their works are also prominently featured. Many of these artists either lived or worked in the area now known as the City of Boroondara.

Also on display are fascinating studio artifacts, including plaster casts, palettes and photographs, offering a deeper insight into the artists’ creative processes. The exhibition will be accompanied by a limited-edition publication, providing further context and reflection on this significant collection.

Featuring: A M E Bale, Clarice Beckett, Colin Colahan, Archie and Amalie Colquhoun, Polly Hurry, John Farmer, Alma Figuerola, Justus Jorgensen, William Frater, Carl Hampel, Percy Leason, Max Meldrum, Jim Minogue, A E Newbury, Arnold Shore and others.

Text from the Boroondara Arts website

Installation view of the exhibition Australian Tonalism: A selection from the John and Peter Perry Collection at the Town Hall Gallery, Hawthorn, Melbourne, May – July, 2025

A D Colquhoun (Australian, 1894-1983)
Self Portrait
c. 1922
Oil on oak panel
21 x 15.8cm

L August Cornehls (Australian, 1887-1962)
Self Portrait
c. 1924
Oil on canvas on cardboard
26.7 x 22cm (oval)

Alma Figuerola (Australian, 1902-1970)
Self Portrait
c. 1926
Oil on cardboard
19.5 x 15cm

John Farmer (Australian, 1897-1989)
Self portrait
c. 1926
Oil on canvas
20.5 x 15.3cm

Australian Tonalism wall text Meldrum’s Painting Theory

Installation views of the exhibition Australian Tonalism: A selection from the John and Peter Perry Collection at the Town Hall Gallery, Hawthorn, Melbourne, May – July, 2025 showing the work of Max Meldrum

Max Meldrum (Scottish, 1875-1955) 'Brume' (Mist) c. 1907 and 'Study, Le Clocher' c. 1908

Max Meldrum (Scottish, 1875-1955)
Brume (Mist)
c. 1907
Study, Le Clocher
c. 1908

Max Meldrum (Scottish, 1875-1955)
Lever de Soleil (Sunrise)
1910
Oil on canvas
35 x 26.8cm

Max Meldrum (Scottish, 1875-1955)
Chene et Peupliers (Oak Tree and Poplars)
c. 1907
Oil on canvas
33.5 x 32cm

Max Meldrum (Scottish, 1875-1955) 'Esquisse' (Sketch) c. 1904 and 'Haystacks, Brittany' c. 1908

Max Meldrum (Scottish, 1875-1955)
Esquisse (Sketch)
c. 1904
Haystacks, Brittany
c. 1908

Australian Tonalism wall text Meldrum in France

Max Meldrum (Scottish, 1875-1955)
Pont de Grenelle, Paris
1929
Oil on canvas sketching panel
33.3 x 40.5cm

Max Meldrum (Scottish, 1875-1955)
The Glade, Eltham
c. 1920
Oil on canvas on board
44 x 42cm

Max Meldrum (Scottish, 1875-1955)
The Pool
1923
Oil on canvas on board
34 x 37.5cm

Max Meldrum (Scottish, 1875-1955)
The Bottom of the Hill (Eltham Reserve)
1925
Oil on canvas on board
32.5 x 42cm

Installation view of the exhibition Australian Tonalism: A selection from the John and Peter Perry Collection at the Town Hall Gallery, Hawthorn, Melbourne, May – July, 2025

Max Dupain (Australian, 1911-1992)
Photograph of Max Meldrum
1937
Gelatin silver photograph
47.5 x 33.7cm (image)

Installation views of the exhibition ‘Australian Tonalism: A selection from the John and Peter Perry Collection’ at the Town Hall Gallery, Hawthorn, Melbourne, May – July, 2025 showing the work of Colin Colahan

Colin Colahan (Australian, 1897-1987)
Bridge Road, Evening
c. 1929
Oil on linen on board
33 x 40.8cm

Colin Colahan (Australian, 1897-1987)
Untitled (Streetscape)
1919
Oil on cardboard
32.2 x 23cm

Colin Colahan (Australian, 1897-1987)
Kings Road, Chelsea
1940
Oil on board
46 x 38cm

Colin Colahan (Australian, 1897-1987)
The Green Fence
1930
Oil on canvas on board
45.3 x 38cm

Colin Colahan (Australian, 1897-1987)
Swanston Street, Melbourne
c. 1930
Oil on canvas on board
45 x 37.7cm

Colin Colahan (Australian, 1897-1987) 'Swanston Street, Melbourne' c. 1930 (detail)

Colin Colahan (Australian, 1897-1987)
Swanston Street, Melbourne (detail)
c. 1930
Oil on canvas on board
45 x 37.7cm

Tone, Proportion and Colour: A Brief Overview of the Exhibition

John R. Perry, March 2025

In 1974 Peter and I purchased a small sketch of a Brittany sunset by Max Meldrum. We have continued collecting works by Meldrum and painters associated with him for over forty-five years. Our aim has been to develop a representative, well composed collection of quality work by Australian Tonalists. The emphasis has been on Meldrum’s earlier works and those of his early associates. His work was at its most sensitive and his influence greatest in this period.

We have in this exhibition some of Meldrum’s rare early French landscapes including several by his brother-in-law Charles Nitsch. There are also works which I believe to be the first truly modern Australian paintings, produced at Eltham in 1917. Meldrum developed a simplified approach to his art and two works, The Three Trees (1917) and Cloudy Summer Afternoon, Eltham (1917) illustrate this progress. They give a true sense of space and atmosphere, all the more striking when seen with what a direct and simple means these effects are obtained. These compact and luminous studies show us the first evidence of the painter putting his perceptual theory into practice.

William Frater and Arnold Shore were major figures in the development of the modern movement in Melbourne and are included in this exhibition to illustrate the influence Meldrum had on these two under-appreciated painters…

The works of Clarice Beckett and Polly Hurry are generally one of soft-focus, for these lovers of mist and crepuscular fogs pay homage to the painters Eugene Carriere and James McNeill Whistler. The works of John Farmer, A E Newbury and to some degree Richard McCann, evolved into their respective personal styles which owe more to Camille Corot than to Meldrum. Their landscapes of subtle delicacy and feathery texture elicit many comparisons with the work of the great French Barbizon School painters…

Having both decided early on our collecting paths, that conventional collecting was not for us, we decided to be more objective, learning to appreciated and admire the work of the Australian Tonalists. As our collection grew, we were willing to leave the beat track, avoiding art dealers, art writers and critics, committing ourself to dealing directly with those painters associated with the Tonalist movement.

Like John Constable, Meldrum believed that, “… in such an age as this, painting should be understood, not looked on with blind wonder, nor considered only as a poetic aspiration, but as a pursuit legitimate, scientific and mechanical.”2

John Constable, quoted in The Letters of John Constable, ed. by R.B. Beckett (London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1955), p. 530.

Alice Marian Ellen Bale (Australian, 1875-1955)
Self portrait
1925
Oil on canvas
75 x 62.5cm
Town hall Gallery Collection

Australian Tonalism Alice Bale self portrait wall text

A M E Bale (Australian, 1876-1955)
Interior (83 Walpole Street, Kew)
c. 1928
Oil on board
31 x 23.5cm

A M E Bale (Australian, 1876-1955)
Pompon Dahlias
c. 1936
Oil on canvas
56 x 46cm

A M E Bale (Australian, 1876-1955)
In Castlemaine Gardens (The Wall of Poplars)
1922
Oil on canvas
28.5 x 23cm

Richard McCann (Australian, 1889-1970) 'The Cottage' 1919; 'Eltham' c. 1920; 'Heyington from Hawthorn' 1927; and 'Pont Neuf & Henri IV, Paris' 1924

Richard McCann (Australian, 1889-1970)
The Cottage
1919
Eltham
c. 1920
Heyington from Hawthorn
1927
Pont Neuf & Henri IV, Paris
1924

Richard McCann (Australian, 1889-1970)
Eltham
c. 1920
Oil on academy board
24.5 x 39.5cm

Richard McCann (Australian, 1889-1970)
Heyington from Hawthorn
1927
Oil on cedar panel
24 x 35cm

Richard McCann (Australian, 1889-1970)
The Cottage
1919
Oil on academy board
24 x 30.5cm

Justus Jorgensen (Australian, 1893-1975)
On the way to Toulon, Cassis
1927
Oil on canvas on flyboard
32.5 x 40.5cm

Justus Jorgensen (Australian, 1893-1975)
Cassis
1927
Oil on canvas on board
40.5 x 33cm

John Rowell (Australian, 1894-1973) 'The Roadway' c. 1920 and William Rowell (Australian, 1898-1946) 'The Barn' 1926

John Rowell (Australian, 1894-1973)
The Roadway
c. 1920
Oil on canvas on flyboard
21.7 x 21.5cm

William Rowell (Australian, 1898-1946)
The Barn
1926
Oil on academy board
28.5 x 30.5cm

Charles Nitsch (French, 1882-1972)
Picherit’s Farm, Pace, Brittany
c. 1910
Oil on cotton on board
32.5 x 40cm

Australian Tonalism wall text Charles Nitsch

A D Colquhoun (Australian, 1894-1983) 'The Avenue de l'Observatoire' 1925 and 'The Fountain in the Luxembourg Gardens' c. 1925

A D Colquhoun (Australian, 1894-1983)
The Avenue de l’Observatoire
1925
The Fountain in the Luxembourg Gardens
c. 1925

A D Colquhoun (Australian, 1894-1983)
The Avenue de l’Observatoire
1925
Oil on wood panel
16 x 21.6cm

A D Colquhoun (Australian, 1894-1983)
The Fountain in the Luxembourg Gardens
c. 1925
Oil on board
15.8 x 21.5cm

John Farmer (Australian, 1897-1989) 'Misty Morning, London' 1934 (detail)

John Farmer (Australian, 1897-1989)
Misty Morning, London (detail)
1934
Oil on canvas on board
19 x 24cm

Town Hall Gallery
360 Burwood Road Hawthorn VIC 3122
Phone: (03) 9278 4770

Opening hours:
Mon to Fri, 9am – 5pm
Saturday, 12pm – 4pm

Boroondara Arts website

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