Tuesday, May 31, 2011

HAPPY (85th) BIRTHDAY MARILYN MONROE



Marilyn Monroe,
Richard C. Miller: Marilyn Monroe, "Some Like It Hot"



Marilyn Monroe (1926-1962) was born June 1 in Los Angeles (as Norma Jean Mortensen).


The Norma Jeane Portfolio - Limited edition boxed set of twelve
Richard C. Miller: Norma Jean Dougherty, 1946



Marilyn Monroe, Hollywood, 1953
Alfred Eisenstaedt: Marilyn Monroe, Hollywood, 1953


Irving Haberman: Marilyn Monroe at a New York Yankees game, c. 1954

 


Marilyn Monroe Singing
Bill Ray: Marilyn Monroe singing "Happy Birthday" to President John F. Kennedy,
Madison Square Garden, New York, May 19, 1962



Sunday, May 29, 2011

MEMORIAL DAY






Eric Smith: "In the American Midwest, communities are bonded by patriotism, heartbreak, and war"

 
Memorial Day, which is observed on the last Monday of May, commemorates the men and women who died while in the military service. In observance of the holiday, many people visit cemeteries and memorials, and volunteers often place American flags on each grave site at national cemeteries. A national moment of remembrance takes place at 3:00 p.m. local time.

Related: Memorial Day, 2010

Friday, May 27, 2011

Photojournalist Bill Eppridge Has Devoted His Life to Covering "Wars, Riots, and Revolutions"-- and a whole lot more

The News Times

Fairfield Museum hosts photojournalist Eppridge show
Phyllis A.S. Boros, Staff Writer
Published 06:15 p.m., Thursday, May 26, 2011

Robert F. Kennedy in front of a poster of his brother, Columbus, Ohio, 1968

In this photograph by Bill Eppridge, Sen. Robert F. Kennedy stands in front of a poster of his late brother, President John F. Kennedy, at a Democratic fundraiser at the Ohio Fairgrounds, Ohio, in 1966. This image ran on the cover of Life magazine on Nov. 18, 1966. The renowned New Milford photojournalist is now being honored with a retrospective at the Fairfield Museum and History Center.



Intrepid in his desire to document the world around him, photojournalist Bill Eppridge has devoted his professional life to covering "wars, riots and revolutions" -- and a whole lot more.

In a career that has spanned more than 50 years, Eppridge has managed to capture extraordinary moments in America's political and cultural history for the likes of National Geographic, Life magazine and Sports Illustrated.

His iconic 1968 photos of a dying Robert Kennedy -- lying in a pool of blood on the kitchen floor of the Ambassador Hotel seconds after being shot by Sirhan Sirhan -- are part of the American experience.

Also familiar to millions of Americans are his photos from numerous Winter Olympic games, as well as those from such seminal events from the 1960s and '70s as the Beatles' first visit to America, the Woodstock music festival, the Vietnam War and the funeral of civil right activist James Chaney in Mississippi.



The Chaney family as they depart for the burial of James Chaney, Meridian, Mississippi, August 7, 1964

The Life magazine photograph by Bill Eppridge captures the Chaney family leaving for the burial of James Chaney in Meridian, Miss., in August 1964. James Chaney was one of three young civil rights volunteers who went missing in Mississippi in June 1964, abducted by the Klu Klux Klan. Their bodies were found several weeks later in an earthen dam. A retrospective honoring Eppridge, of New Milford, is on view at the Fairfield Museum through Aug. 28


His landmark photo essay for Life that focused on Manhattan's former so-called "Needle Park" inspired the Al Pacino movie "Panic in Needle Park."

And now the renowned photographer has turned his attention to the evocative beauty of old barns found in and around New Milford, where he and his wife live.

More than 65 images from these and other phases of Eppridge's career are now the subject of a three-gallery retrospective at the Fairfield Museum and History Center. The exhibit will be on view through Aug. 28 as part of the museum's Images 2011 celebration.

Motorcycle race, Mojave desert


New Milford photojournalist Bill Eppridge captured this 1971 photo for Life magazine at the start of the Barstow-to-Las Vegas motorcycle race, with 650 entrants, by standing on the skid outside of a helicopter at 500 feet above ground. The photo is included in Images 2011 at the Fairfield Museum through Aug. 28.


In addition to the Eppridge retrospective, Images 2011 also includes the museum's third annual Juried Photography Exhibition, featuring one gallery devoted to more than 70 photos -- all deemed noteworthy by a panel of four judges that included Eppridge --in student and professional/serious amateur adult divisions.

Born on March 20, 1938, in Argentina to American parents (his father was stationed there as a chemical engineer for DuPont), Eppridge spent his formative years growing up in Richmond, Va.; Nashville, Tenn.; and Wilmington, Del.

During a recent telephone chat, Eppridge said that he first became interested in photography at about age 10 for reasons that were anything but altruistic.

"Sibling rivalry -- that's the reason. I have this older sister who has always been a very fine artist. She draws, paints, sculpts -- and I can't draw a straight line. I wanted to do something (creative) so I could compete with her. So I went to her and asked her to show me how to use a camera, and she begrudgingly agreed," he recalled, laughing.

By high school, his interest in photography had blossomed into a full-blown passion. After a short stint at the University of Toronto, Eppridge headed for the University of Missouri's School of Journalism, where he graduated with a major in photojournalism in 1959.

In that same year, while still a student, good fortune would visit Eppridge -- and shape his life for years to come.

"I had this friend who was a horse" at a nearby farm, Eppridge said, as he began a story about shooting an award-winning photo for the cover of this college newspaper's farm supplement.

"This horse knew me . . .Whenever I would drive by, I'd always give him a lump of sugar." So Eppridge headed to the farm to photograph "his friend" when the newspaper's editor announced that he was in desperate need of a last-minute photograph. "But when I got out of the car, I slipped and I spooked him -- and he took off running."

Eppridge had the opportunity to shoot just one photo -- and that photo would become "Stormy, Columbia, Missouri, 1959," a dramatic photograph of a white horse charging through a field with "tornadic" storm clouds in the distance.

That photo won him the National Press Photographer's Award/First Prize Pictorial. And that award, plus the distinction of being named College Photographer of the Year, caught the attention of Life photography director Roy Rowan -- subsequently leading to his long affiliation with the magazine.

"Hard to say whether I made luck happen, or whether luck happened to me," he said, again laughing.

Eppridge said that he has always gotten great joy from plying his art and craft no matter the subject. But he noted that one of the most fascinating periods of his life was spending more than a year on the road with Bobby Kennedy, covering his presidential campaign for Life magazine. He says he came to admire Kennedy enormously -- "I thought he was the right man for the time" -- and documenting his assassination was terribly sad.

But Eppridge said he has remarkable eye-hand coordination (a product he said from playing lots of pinball in college) and shooting those iconic photos of a fallen Kennedy were instinctual.

Renowned in recent years as a teacher devoted to mentoring a new generation of photojournalists, Eppridge says he advises students to "never put that camera down . . . it always has to be with you. And you really, really have to want to do this.

"This is an extraordinary time in history . . . with ideas traveling around the world with incredible speed. It all has to be documented. It has to be done, and as photojournalists, we have to do it."


ANNUAL PHOTOGRAPHY SHOW

More than 650 images from about 220 photographers were submitted for consideration in this year's photography show. From that pool of entries, 71 works from 50 photographers were chosen to be featured in Images 2011 in six categories: abstract, architecture, landscape, nature, photojournalism and portraiture. A regional competition, the event is open to those who work or live in Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts and New York.

Joining Eppridge on the judge's panel were photo editor Adrienne Aurichio, of New Milford; photographer Stephen Wilkes, of Westport; and photographer/teacher Thomas Mezzanotte, who was Fairfield Arts Center's 2010 Artist of the Year.

Taking top honors in the professional/serious amateur category is Sandy Gennirch, of Stamford, who presented two works: a nature photo, "Horseshoe Crab Ritual," and an abstract "Dry Docked." Her prize is a 10-day exhibition at Southport Galleries at a yet undetermined date.

Winner in the student division is Daria Lombroso, of New Rochelle, who submitted three portraits while a senior at Wesleyan University in Middletown. Her three photos are titled: "Jaime, White Plains," "Tomato and Cheese Sandwich, White Plains" and "Jorge and Andrew, Scarsdale." Lombroso will receive a professional review of her work by Wilkes.

UPCOMING EVENTS

In conjunction with Images 2011, the Fairfield Museum has scheduled several upcoming events including the following:

Screening of PBS American Experience/"Freedom Riders," about the civil rights movement, post-film discussion with artist Tracy Sugarman; Thursday, June 2, 7 to 9 p.m.; free.

"The Soiling of Old Glory: The Power of a Photograph" lecture by Louis Masur of Trinity College, Hartford; Thursday, July 14, 7 to 9 p.m.; $8, students $5.

Behind the Lens guided tours; Thursdays June 23, July 28 and Aug. 18; 10 to 11 a.m.; included with regular admission.

Family Day, with special activities for children, Sundays July 31 and Aug. 21, noon to 4 p.m.; included with regular admission.

The Fairfield Museum and History Center is at 370 Beach Road, behind Fairfield's Independence Hall (exit 22 off Interstate 95). Hours are Monday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., weekends noon to 4 p.m. Admission is $5, $3 for students 6 through 22 years of age and senior citizens; free for children 5 and younger. Call 203-259-1598 or visit http://www.fairfieldhs.org/.

Thursday, May 26, 2011

"Over 40 years ago, in 1968, I photographed for LIFE a great tragedy"



Robert Kennedy
Bill Eppridge: Robert F. Kennedy addresses a jubilant crowd, The Ambassador Hotel, June 5, 1968
©Time Inc.


The Westport News
Out of the Woods
Woody Klein

Published 10:10 a.m., Tuesday, May 24, 2011

I saw Bobby Kennedy -- again -- last weekend. The stunning collection of vivid black and white photos by famed photographer Bill Eppridge at the Fairfield Museum brought the late Democratic senator back to life for me.


The photos, which I never saw before, were published in Life magazine shortly after Kennedy was shot to death in Los Angeles on June 6, 1968, at the age of 42. It is not an exaggeration to share with you the fact that these moving images reignited mixed feelings about this complex man.

There is no better way to explain my feelings than to repeat here the words of Eppridge on a placard as you enter the museum. Eppridge wrote:

"Over 40 years ago, in 1968, I photographed for LIFE a great tragedy, and a vision of it has stayed with me for all of this time. Our country was going off course with a war overseas, racial inequality and far too much poverty in relation to the amount of wealth that existed. A man emerged to lead us out of this: Robert F. Kennedy. For the short amount of time that he existed on earth he inspired a generation who to this day remember the excitement and hopes that he brought. He died too young, too tragically."

Just after midnight on June 5, 1968, Bobby Kennedy was shot in the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles following his victory in the California presidential primary that clinched his Democratic nomination for president. He died 26 hours later.

My thoughts always turn to Bobby Kennedy at this time every year. His death, which will be commemorated on Monday, June 6, became a memorable part of my life as a reporter in October of 1965 when I was working as a TV journalist for WCBS. I managed to get an exclusive interview with him on a visit to what was then called "the worst slum building" in New York City -- 311 East 100th Street.

Kennedy's staff arranged for the interview specifically because of the reputation of this one building which, I pointed out, deserved symbolic attention from a man who had spent the latter part of his political life focusing on the poor. Prior to that time, I had never met him.

He picked me up in his two-door car at WCBS on West 57th Street. He was sitting in the passenger seat up front. I got in the back directly behind him. He greeted me with barely a smile, then turned has head towards me as we made our way up the East Side Drive.

"What's in this for me?" he asked, staring directly at me.

"A story and photo of you showing you care about the poor," I answered directly.

"And what's in this for you?" he continued.

"An exclusive TV story for tonight's news with Bobby Kennedy," I replied.

"Fine," he said in his clipped tone. That seemed to satisfy him.

When we arrived at East 100th Street, we got out of his car and I pointed the building out to him. Before going in, however, he immediately reached for a football inside his car and began to toss it around to some of the Puerto Rican kids on the street. There was a lot of excitement.

Obviously, they knew who he was. When I told him I'd like to interview him, he dropped the football and climbed atop his car, extending his hand for me to follow. I made it up there, microphone in hand while my crew waited patiently nearby.

I turned to him and asked him a question. Before answering, however, he grabbed the mike and pointed it towards his face rather than mine. "This is the way you do it, Woody," he told me, knowing that I had left the New York World Telegram & Sun after a decade and was just starting as an on-air TV reporter.

Momentarily embarrassed, I conducted our interview on the roof of his car for a few minutes. Without warning, he jumped to the ground and told me to follow him up the stairs of the run-down tenement. No sooner had he arrived at the front step when he saw a little boy with the strings to both of his shoes untied. Kennedy got down on one knee and carefully tied bows on each shoe, knowing the cameras were rolling. This guy is a real pro and a showman, I thought to myself. Our interview aired that evening and I got a few "atta-boys" at the WCBS studios.

Segue now, if you will, to a few months later in January 1966. I was playing a new role as press secretary to New York Mayor John V. Lindsay. The Transport Workers Union, led by the fiery Mike Quill, had gone on strike at midnight New Year's Eve. The first weeks were chaotic as New Yorkers tried to find ways to get to work. On January 12, Lindsay called me on our intercom and told me: "Bobby Kennedy's secretary called me and said he may be coming in sometime this afternoon to try and help solve the strike. Let's clear the decks for him."

Less than a half hour later, Kennedy made his way through the swarming press crowd and into the mayor's outer office. I walked in and sat down next to him.

"Hello, Senator, it's good to see you again," I said shaking his hand. After several awkward minutes, I found myself saying something quite personal to him: "I just want to tell you, Senator, in case I never get another opportunity, that I had a great deal of admiration and respect for your brother." He replied, turning to me: "Thank you," in a barely audible voice.

After we had waited for about 10 minutes, Kennedy said, matter-of-factly: `Tell your boss that I am not going to cool my heels out here much longer. Either we go in now or I leave." I quickly got up and delivered that ultimatum to Lindsay, who was sitting behind his desk deliberately, I thought, keeping Kennedy waiting.

When I delivered Kennedy's message Lindsay told me to usher him in. We entered Lindsay's office, Lindsay extended his hand and smiled to Kennedy: "Hello, Bob, it's good to see you again." That was exactly the opposite of how Lindsay felt, I knew, because the media already had speculated that the two politicians would be running for president against each other someday. (Kennedy ran in 1968, Lindsay, as a Democrat, unsuccessfully, in 1972.)

Kennedy spoke first. --"Well, tell me what it is all about, John. How has it been going?"

Lindsay then recited all the reasons why the strike occurred and paced the floor of his office as Kennedy sat motionless, firing questions at him. He told the senator that he thought the strike would last for another day or two.

In fact, there was an agreement with the union the very next day. The ensuing press conference was brief, not especially informative, and cold.

That was the last time I saw or talked with Bobby Kennedy.

Related: Bill Eppridge: An American Treasure

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

BOB DYLAN AT 70




Bill Eppridge: Bob Dylan with Pete Seeger, Newport Folk Festival, 1964


Bob Dylan and Suze Rotolo, New York, 1963
Don Hunstein: Bob Dylan and Suze Rotolo, New York, 1963



Elliot Landy: Bob Dylan, Infrared, Woodstock, 1968



Elliot Landy: Bob Dylan, Woodstock, (Nashville Skyline), 1969



Bob Dylan,  1975
Ken Regan: Bob Dylan, 1975




Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen Meeting For First Time, Backstage, New Haven, Ct, 1975
Ken Regan: Bob Dylan and Bruce Sprinsteen meet for the first time, backstage, New Haven, CT, 1975




Bob Dylan and Allen Ginsberg at Jack Kerouac's grave, Lowell, MA, 1975
Ken Regan: Bob Dylan and Allen Ginsberg at Jack Kerouac's grave, Lowell, MA, 1975

For 50 years, Bob Dylan has inspired musicians and songwriters, politicians and protesters, presidents and popes. Robert Allen Zimmerman was born in St. Mary's Hospital on May 24, 1941, in Duluth, Minnesota.  Explaining his change of name in a 2004 interview, Dylan remarked: "You're born, you know, the wrong names, wrong parents. I mean, that happens. You call yourself what you want to call yourself. This is the land of the free".



Monday, May 23, 2011

Remembering ICP's Founder Cornell Capa today on the anniversary of his death


Cornell Capa by Alfred Eisenstaedt

"The idea that photography can't be personal is madness!...I see something, it goes through my eye, brain, heart, guts. I choose the subject. What could be more personal than that?" -- Cornell Capa (April 10, 1918 – May 23, 2008)

Via Magnum Photos

Accomplished Magnum photographer Cornell Capa passed away early on the morning of May 23rd at home in New York.


Cornell Capa was born Cornell Friedmann to a Jewish family in Budapest. In 1936 he moved to Paris, where his brother Andre (Robert Capa) was working as a photojournalist. He worked as his brother's printer until 1937, then moved to New York to join the new Pix photo agency. In 1938 he began working in the Life darkroom. Soon his first photo-story - on the New York World's Fair - was published in Picture Post.

In 1946, after serving in the US Air Force, Cornell became a Life staff photographer. After his brother's death in 1954, he joined Magnum, and when David 'Chim' Seymour died in Suez in 1956 Capa took over as president of Magnum, a post he held until 1960.

Capa made an empathetic, pioneering study of mentally retarded children in 1954, and covered other social issues, such as old age in America. He also explored his own religious tradition. While working for Life, Capa made the first of several Latin American trips. These continued through the 1970s and culminated in three books, among them Farewell to Eden (1964), a study of the destruction of indigenous Amazon cultures.

Capa covered the electoral campaigns of John and Robert Kennedy, Adlai Stevenson and Nelson Rockefeller, among others. His 1969 book, New Breed on Wall Street, was a landmark study of a generation of ruthless young entrepreneurs keen on making money and spending it fast.

In 1974 Capa founded New York City's influential International Center of Photography, to which for many years he dedicated much of his considerable energy as its director.

Saturday, May 21, 2011

The Art Market: Copyright or Wrong?

Via The Financial Times

By Georgina Adam
Published: May 20 2011 22:23


Copyright infringement is a hot issue today with Britain poised for a radical shake-up of its law on the subject. In the art market – and in the law courts – it is already squarely on the agenda as more artists incorporate “appropriation” (read: copying) into their practice. Photographers, in particular, are protesting and, in a recent high-profile case, both Richard Prince (king of appropriation) and his gallery Gagosian were found guilty of violating photographer Patrick Cariou’s rights. Prince made collages using Cariou’s images of Jamaican Rastafarians but barely changed them. An appeal is pending.

Matters went the other way in another case just settled. The European court in The Hague has thrown out a suit brought by the French luxury goods group LVMH against Nadia Plesner, a Dutch art student. In her painting “Darfurnica”, Plesner showed a starving African child clutching a swanky Louis Vuitton “Audra” handbag. Inspired by Picasso’s “Guernica”, the work is designed to draw attention to the conflict in Darfur and western indifference to it. It was put on sale in a Danish gallery for €67,000.

Vuitton accused Plesner of copyright infringement and won the initial case against her in January. She was fined almost €500,000 for continuing to display the painting. Vuitton had previously stopped Plesner showing a similar image on T-shirts and posters. But this time the artist fought back and the court has reversed the decision, ruling that the artist’s freedom of expression outweighed the importance of Vuitton’s protection of property. Plesner doesn’t have to pay the fine, the picture can be exhibited publicly and Vuitton has to pay part of her costs. “We [artists] have won back our freedom to make reference to the modern society we live in,” said Plesner. Her painting is currently on display at the small Herning Museum of Contemporary Art in Denmark. Because of the increased public interest, the show has been extended to June 19.

Related: APPROPRIATION: PHOTOGRAPHY, ART, AND "STEALING"

Friday, May 20, 2011

Freedom Riders museum opens in Montgomery, Alabama

Paul Schutzer: Freedom Riders Julia Aaron & David Dennis sitting on board interstate bus as they and 25 others are escorted by 2 National Guardsmen holding bayonets, on way from Montgomery, AL to Jackson, MS, May, 1961

The Associated Press

Friday, May 20, 2011
4:43 a.m.

Montgomery's former Greyhound Bus Station is reopening as a museum honoring the Freedom Riders on the 50th anniversary of the day they were attacked in the capital city.

The Alabama Historical Commission has prepared the museum in downtown Montgomery and says several of the original Freedom Riders, including Georgia Rep. John Lewis, are scheduled to attend the dedication at 10 a.m. Friday. (Full schedule here.)

The Freedom Riders were trying to integrate Southern bus stations when they arrived in Montgomery on May 20, 1961. They were beaten by an angry white mob because no law enforcement officers were on hand.

The new museum is a few blocks from some of Montgomery's other civil rights attractions, including the Rosa Parks Library, the Civil Rights Memorial and the Dexter Avenue King Memorial Baptist Church.



----On the 50th anniversary of a night when a savage mob trapped Riders and others in a church in Montgomery, Alabama -- with no guarantee that they would not torch the church and everyone inside -- LIFE.com looks back at one of the most terrifying, and pivotal, moments

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Malcolm X was born Malcolm Little on May 19, 1925 in Omaha, Nebraska

Malcolm X Addressing Black Muslim Rally in Chicago, 1963
Gordon Parks: Malcolm X Addressing Black Muslim Rally in Chicago, 1963

"May 19th is the date one of the most influential and greatest African Americans in history was born, El Haaj Malik El-Shabazz, known to us as Malcolm X.


Today marks what would be the civil rights activist's 86th birthday. He was many things to many people, but he was nothing short of legendary. He is credited with pushing for democracy in modern Black America, spreading Islam in black communities and boosting the morale of African Americans.

He once said he wanted 'to bring about the complete independence of people of African descent here in the western hemisphere...and bring about the freedom of these people by any means necessary.'"

-- The Oficial Malcolm X Website


Black Muslim leader Malcolm X photographing Cassius Clay, Miami, 1964
Bob Gomel: Black Muslim leader Malcolm X photographing Cassius Clay, Miami, 1964






Tuesday, May 17, 2011

The Man with a Camera: A Night with Bill Eppridge



Bill Eppridge runs alongside a car carrying Robert Kennedy
 © Burton Berinksy.





Fairfield Museum and History Center
Thursday, May 19 7-9:00 pm

$8; Members and Students, $5
To register in advance, call 203-259-1598.

Take a march through time as former Life magazine photographer Bill Eppridge shares stories about his illustrious career spanning more than five decades. Eppridge’s iconic images are a testament to the importance of photojournalism in documenting history and range from the Civil Rights movement to the powerful image of a dying Robert F. Kennedy cradled in the arms of a busboy. His stories will inspire young and old along with a new generation of photographers.



At 8:32 Sunday Morning, May 18, 1980, Mount St. Helens Erupted

Mt. St. Helen's Survivors, July, 1980
Bill Eppridge: Mt. St. Helen's Survivors, July, 1980



Shaken by an earthquake measuring 5.1 on the Richter scale, the north face of this tall symmetrical mountain collapsed in a massive rock debris avalanche. In a few moments this slab of rock and ice slammed into Spirit Lake, crossed a ridge 1,300 feet high, and roared 14 miles down the Toutle River.


The avalanche rapidly released pressurized gases within the volcano. A tremendous lateral explosion ripped through the avalanche and developed into a turbulent, stone-filled wind that swept over ridges and toppled trees. Nearly 150 square miles of forest was blown over or left dead and standing.

At the same time a mushroom-shaped column of ash rose thousands of feet skyward and drifted downwind, turning day into night as dark, gray ash fell over eastern Washington and beyond. Wet, cement-like slurries of rock and mud scoured all sides of the volcano. Searing flows of pumice poured from the crater. The eruption lasted 9 hours, but Mount St. Helens and the surrounding landscape were dramatically changed within moments.

A vast, gray landscape lay where once the forested slopes of Mount St. Helens grew. In 1982 the President and Congress created the 110,000-acre National Volcanic Monument for research, recreation, and education. Inside the Monument, the environment is left to respond naturally to the disturbance.
--Mt. St. Helens National Volcanic Monument

Monday, May 16, 2011

Museum Exhibit Surveys Relationship of Painting to Photography



Picture
Jackie, 1964.

Acrylic and silkscreen ink on linen, 20 x 16 inches.
The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh. Founding Collection,
Contribution The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc.
© 2010 The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc./Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

 

Shared Intelligence: American Painting and the Photograph

May 20, 2011 - September 11, 2011
The Georgia O'Keeffe Museum
Curators: Jonathan Weinberg and Barbara Buhler Lynes



Shared Intelligence will be the first major museum exhibition to survey the fraught but highly productive relationship of painting to photography in 20th-Century American Art. It brings together approximately 75 photographs and paintings by such artists as Robert Bechtle, Chuck Close, Thomas Eakins, Sherrie Levine, Georgia O’Keeffe, Cindy Sherman, Charles Sheeler, Ben Shahn, Edward Steichen, and Alfred Stieglitz for whom the two mediums were essential to their practices.


In opposition to Modernist critics such as Clement Greenberg and John Szarkowski, who have tried to establish the autonomy of painting and photography, a crucial theme of this exhibition is the way in which the two mediums have always intersected and spilled into each other. The camera has been used repeatedly to reinvigorate painting, even as photography has been frequently enriched by a dialogue with painting.

Whereas in the beginning of the 20th Century photographers felt obligated to justify their use of the camera as a means of expression, today the question is no longer, can photography be the equal of painting but rather has the photograph, and photo-based images, supplanted painting’s position in the hierarchy of the art world. Certainly it is nearly impossible to imagine a contemporary artist whose work is untouched by the camera, if only as a means of reproduction. And yet the photograph’s role in modern art goes far beyond reproduction or even as a source of subject matter. Photographic seeing, the way the lens freezes, flattens, enlarges and crops the world conditions all visual representations. Above all there is no way of escaping the photographic archive, the camera’s service to the vast legal, scientific and economic systems of knowledge that categorize and regulates modern existence itself.

Central to the exhibition will be the role of the crop and the close up in the modernist figurative tradition. O’Keeffe’s early work cannot be separated from the photographic practice of her husband, Alfred Stieglitz and the other photographers he represented. Her use of the close up in her paintings, while not literally based on particular photographs, responded to and influenced the photographs of Stieglitz and of Paul Strand. Certainly Stieglitz and his collaborator, Edward Steichen, were profoundly influenced by contemporary painting and collage (Steichen began his career as a painter).

The exhibition will pair paintings and photographs in which the visual relationship is both compelling and intrinsic to the creative process. How did Ben Shahn translate his photographs of a store window into a painting of the same subject? What elements did David Hockney take from his photographs of pools and swimmers in order to create a painting of a boy diving into the water? How does Chuck Close obsessively grid out and copy his source material so that in the end the process itself becomes an essential part of the work’s meaning? The aggregate result of the exhibit will be to refute the idea that painting from a photograph is some sort of failure of imagination or technique—rather the two mediums enrich each other. Ultimately, the exhibition will emphasize the role of the artist as picture maker, rather than as either painter or photographer.

Museum information and tickets here.

Sunday, May 15, 2011

MAY 17, 1954: BROWN vs BOARD OF EDUCATION DECIDED

Brown Sisters Walk to School, Topeka, Kansas, 1953. Photograph by Carl Iwasaki

Linda Brown (L), the 10 years old, who was refused admission to white elementary school, and her 6-yr-old sister Terry Lynn walking along railroad tracks to bus which will take them to segregated Monroe Elementary School.

Carl Iwasaki's assignment for LIFE magazine was to photograph the Brown Sisters starting school during the time of the Brown vs. Board of Education trial. This essay ultimately was one of Iwasaki's most poignant and significant. The remarkable photograph of Linda Brown and her younger sister walking to school is one of the more iconic photographs representing the early civil rights struggles of the 1950s. Recently, Iwasaki, now 87,  remarked about this photo, "I distinctly remember tagging along with Linda and her sister on their 20-minute walk to school. I spent two days on the assignment and recall that it seemed curious that there was virtually no other photo coverage of the Brown family. I had a hunch as I worked that I was covering a history-making story."

In this landmark court case, Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Earl Warren delivered the unanimous ruling that State-sanctioned segregation of public schools was a violation of the 14th Amendment and was therefore unconstitutional. Handed down on May 17, 1954, the unanimous (9–0) decision stated that "separate educational facilities are inherently unequal."

This historic decision marked the end of the "separate but equal" precedent set by the Supreme Court nearly 60 years earlier and served as a catalyst for expanding the civil rights movement during the decade of the 1950s and paved the way for significant opportunities for African Americans in our society—especially for equal justice, fairness and education.


Japanese-American Carl Iwasaki took up photography as a middle school student and began receiving assignments for the student newspaper and yearbook as he entered high school. His development, though, was interrupted when he and his family were forced into a prison camp in Wyoming by the War Relocation Authority. This arm of the government was designed to protect American soil during WWII from potentially dangerous Japanese infiltrators and locked thousands of people up for no other reason than their race.

While the experience was not a pleasant one, it did put Iwasaki in line for his first commission. Upon his release, in 1943, he was hired to take photographs for the WRA, chronicling life inside the camps and the relief experienced upon release. Working from Denver, he took over 1300 photographs for the project and gained enough on-the-job training to pursue a full-time photography career after the war. Iwasaki worked for Life, Time and Sports Illustrated, often drawn to stories about the marginalized and disenfranchised; his photos of the civil rights movement are some of the most affecting.

Friday, May 13, 2011

WARHOL TO THE RESCUE!




Bill Ray: Andy Warhol with Polaroid camera, New York, 1980




The dust has not yet settled from this week's Contemporary auctions, but work by Andy Warhol was clearly one of the big highlights - especially photo-based paintings. The top lot was Andy Warhol’s 1963-64 “Self- Portrait,” made of four photo-booth-strip images in different shades of blue. It went for $38.4 million, above the $30 million high estimate, after a tortuous -- some dealers said tedious -- bidding war between private art dealer Philippe Segalot and a telephone client of Brett Gorvy, deputy chairman and international head of postwar and contemporary art at Christie’s. The price was an auction record for a Warhol portrait. (Via Bloomberg)




"Self-Portrait" (1963-1964) by Andy Warhol, acrylic and silkscreen ink on canvas.
Source: Christie's via Bloomberg


"The market for important works by Andy Warhol, the reigning king of Pop, continued to reach new heights at Christie’s New York tonight, as bidders chased two iconic self-portraits by the artist, setting a new world auction record for a Warhol portrait in the process." Artdaily.org




"Sixteen Jackies" by Andy Warhol, silk screen on canvas.
Source: Sotheby's via Bloomberg


At the Sotheby's sale on Tuesday evening, a Warhol from 1964, "Sixteen Jackies" (est. $20-30 million), featuring a mixed composition of several Jacqueline Kennedy portraits in blue, brown, and white sold to an anonymous telephone bidder for $20,242,500 . Most experts thought that excessive estimates dampened enthusiasm at Sotheby's $128 Million Contemporary Art Auction.
 
The four images of Jacqueline Kennedy, each repeated four times, were enlargements of news photographs that appeared widely and continually in the media after the assassination. Taken from issues of Life magazine, the images depict, from top to bottom: Jackie stepping off the plane upon arrival at Love Field in Dallas; stunned at the swearing-in ceremony for Lyndon B. Johnson aboard Air Force One after the president's death; grieving at the Capitol; and smiling in the limousine before the assassination. 16 Jackies combines a number of themes important in Warhol's work, such as his fascination with American icons and celebrities, his interest in the mass media and the dissemination of imagery, and his preoccupation with death.





Bill Ray: Andy Warhol with 20 x 24 Polaroid Camera, New York, 1980


The more you look at the same exact thing, the more the meaning goes away and the better and emptier you feel."--Andy Warhol, 1975


Related: Composing The Artist: Photographs of Artists and Writers

History, One Photo at a Time




The Wall Street Journal
May 11, 2011

When my grandmother passed away a few years ago, it fell to me to clean out her apartment—after the good stuff was divided among family members or sold—and decide what should be thrown out and what kept. It was also up to me to preserve things such as photographs, some dating back to the 19th century, and postcards. The latter ranged from black-and-white scenes of Eastern European capitals in the 1920s to a view of the Empire State Building before it got its antenna to a 1940 color photograph of the brand new Pennsylvania Turnpike.

My mother was pretty good at being able to identify many of the faces in the photographs from the '20s and '30s—friends and relatives relaxing at the beach, having a picnic, going out for a spin in a roadster and my grandmother proudly posing alongside her cowboy tour guide during my grandparents' first trip to the U.S., in 1938.

There were also some people my mother couldn't recall, but that her parents surely would. Short of death, there are few things that remind one of the evanescence of life as profoundly as the realization that when loved ones go they often take with them, and forever, information they would have had at their fingertips.

I was also surprised that I seemed almost the only one in the family who had any interest in preserving all this stuff. I'm not sure what to chalk it up to—possibly sentimentality, a hoarding instinct or the belief that it remains important, though for reasons I can't quite articulate.

In any case, it's hard enough keeping track of this material across a couple of generations, let alone five of them, as the Meserve-Kunhardt Foundation, which I visited recently, has been able to do. And theirs aren't family photos, either. Started by Frederick Hill Meserve, the family patriarch, in the 1890s, and comprising more than 200,000 items, the collection constitutes one of the nation's greatest archives of Civil War and Abraham Lincoln photographs, taken by the likes of Matthew Brady and Alexander Gardner. The trove includes a lock of Lincoln's hair (with an accompanying handwritten note from Dorothy Meserve Kunhardt, Frederick's daughter, explaining its provenance) and the battered wooden boxes Matthew Brady took into the field for storing his negatives.

[GARDNER2]

Gordon Parks/The Gordon Parks Foundation
The foundation has Gordon Parks photos of such luminaries as Muhammad Ali, pictured in 1970.


Furthermore, Meserve-Kunhardt owns the photographic archive of Gordon Parks, the celebrated Life magazine photographer. Mr. Parks, who died in 2006, was a civil rights trailblazer as Life's first African-American photographer. And he was a close friend of Philip Kunhardt, a managing editor at Life, and Mr. Meserve's grandson. "Gordon Parks, who was an old friend of our family and spent Thanksgiving at our home, was so impressed by this family keeping its collection together he decided he wanted the Gordon Parks Foundation to be established as a division of Meserve-Kunhardt," explained Peter Kunhardt Jr., the foundation's current director and Frederick Hill Meserve's great-great-grandson. "He was incredibly close with my grandfather on a personal level. That's a big reason why we have the Gordon Parks collection."

Within the last few years the Meserve-Kunhardt Foundation has also acquired the archive of another Life magazine photographer, Edward Clark, whose most famous image is that of the tear-streaked face of Graham Jackson, a Navy accordion player, taken as FDR's hearse passed on the way to the train station in Warm Springs, Ga. Meserve-Kunhardt's copy of the print is autographed by Messrs. Jackson and Clark.

The experience of visiting the foundation—located at SUNY Purchase in Westchester—is nothing short of thrilling, though one wouldn't normally associate sifting through old photographs with high excitement. (Then again, maybe I'm not the right person to ask, as I decided we had to save the pictures from the '30s of my grandmother flirting with her ski instructor in St. Moritz.) Open any drawer and you're pretty much guaranteed to get—please, oh, please forgive me, Henry Steele Commager, James MacGregor Burns, Shelby Foote, etc.—a Jell-O shot of American history.

[GARDNER1]
The Meserve-Kunhardt Foundation

The foundation has a trove of Lincoln photos.

It starts with the Lincoln portraits. Indeed, there are so many of them that in 2009 the Kunhardts published "Lincoln Life-Size" a monograph devoted entirely to studies of Lincoln's face across a 20-year span from 1846 to 1865. But Lincoln is just the tip of the iceberg. While I fully understand that the earliest image of Lincoln ever taken might make stand the hairs on the back of the neck of a presidential historian but not excite everyone, who can resist Ed Clark's image of JFK taking a break from the pressures of the presidency to check in on baby Caroline in her crib?

The Kennedys apparently so liked the image that President Kennedy was photographed holding a framed copy of the picture. And Jackie Kennedy sent Mr. Clark a thank-you note in 1964 describing the picture as one of her favorites and adding, "I shall treasure it forever—as a reminder of such happy days—when we were all together…." The note is also part of the collection.

However, it's the Gordon Parks connection that lends the foundation much of its glamour—attested by the fact that the honorees at a June 1 gala for the Gordon Parks Foundation include Spike Lee, Karl Lagerfeld and Arianna Huffington, with Iman serving as mistress of ceremonies. Among the Parks works are intimate portraits of celebrities taken over the course of his eventful career and ranging from the likes of Aaron Copeland and Ingrid Bergman, in the throes of her love affair with Roberto Rossellini, to Muhammad Ali.

Cataloging the images has been a monumental undertaking, the Parks material just now reaching completion after a four-year process, the Ed Clark archive barely begun. And then there's "Pat The Bunny," the venerable children's book written by Dorothy Meserve Kunhardt, Frederick's Meserve's daughter and Peter Jr.'s great-grandmother. The Dorothy Meserve Kunhardt Collection includes manuscripts, drawings and the original, handmade 1940 prototype.

It also serves to remind that Meserve-Kunhardt remains very much a family affair. Indeed, Peter Jr. grew up with the Foundation's 1863 Alexander Gardner imperial albumen portrait of a seated Lincoln. "It hung in the living room over the fireplace," he remembered, "until we realized it shouldn't be in that environment."

Write to Ralph Gardner at ralph.gardner@wsj.com

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Charles Moore: Civil Rights and Beyond

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Via La Lettre de la Photographie


Charles Moore (1931- 2010) is the most important civil rights era photographer. His searing images of conflict between demonstrators and law enforcement helped propel landmark civil rights legislation.


Moore, the son of a Baptist preacher and car salesman, was born in Hackleburg, Alabama, not far from the birthplace of Helen Keller. In 1958, at 27 years old, as a photographer for the Montgomery Advertiser in Alabama, Moore was on hand to photograph the arrest of the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. by two policemen. His photos of the event were distributed nationwide by the Associated Press, and one was published in Life magazine. This photo pushed the regional story into a national debate. It also launched Moore’s long, historic career producing images of the civil rights movement for a nation that would be “shocked and shaken in their conscience” by the images Moore put in their hands.

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Over the next seven years, Moore made some of the most significant pictures of the civil rights movement. As a contract photographer for Life magazine, Moore traveled the South to cover the evolving struggle. His photographs helped bring the reality of the situation to the magazine’s huge audience, which at the time comprised over half the adults in the United States.

Some of the major civil rights era events that Moore covered:

the early efforts of Dr. King to desegregate Montgomery, Alabama, 1958-60;

the violent reaction to the enrollment of James Meredith as the first black student at the University of Mississippi, 1962;

the Freedom March from Tennessee to Mississippi, 1963;

the campaign to desegregate Birmingham, Alabama, 1963;

voter registration drives in Mississippi, 1963-1964;

Ku Klux Klan activities in North Carolina, 1965;

and the marches from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, 1965.

Moore also photographed the civil war in the Dominican Republic, political violence in Venezuela and Haiti, and the Vietnam conflict. In 1989, Charles Moore received the Kodak Crystal Eagle Award for Impact in Photojournalism. Moore died in March 2010, at age 79, in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida.

His work is in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Metropolitan Museum, New York; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; the Chrysler Museum, Norfolk; the High Museum, Atlanta; the National Portrait Gallery, Washington, DC; The Menil Collection, Houston; and many others.

Recently, the Steven Kasher gallery in New York present the most comprehensive exhibition of photography by Charles Moore ever undertaken by a gallery or museum. The exhibition, Charles Moore: Civil Rights and Beyond, featured approximately 60 prints, mostly vintage, drawn from the photographer’s estate.


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Tuesday, May 10, 2011

PBS "FREEDOM RIDERS" DOCUMENTARY TO BROADCAST MAY 16


Paul Schutzer: Freedom Riders Julia Aaron & David Dennis sitting on board interstate bus as they and 25 others are escorted by 2 National Guardsmen holding bayonets, on way from Montgomery, AL to Jackson, MS, May, 1961




Kennedys, King Recall 1961’s Freedom Riders
Via Bloomberg


With a thriller’s pace and the emotional heft of a battlefield journal, PBS’s remarkable new documentary “Freedom Riders” recounts the bloody anti- segregation bus rides of 1961 that helped kill Jim Crow in the Deep South.

Combining new interviews with the aging riders with harrowing footage of their brave, battered younger selves, “Freedom Riders” brings to vivid life a wrenching moment in American history. Fifty years on and with the movement’s successes long charted, this installment of PBS’s “American Experience” reconstructs those tense weeks with edgy momentum.

In May 1961, civil rights activists, both black and white, boarded several Greyhound and Trailways buses in Washington D.C., en route to New Orleans. At various points, including Birmingham, Alabama, and Jackson, Mississippi, the nonviolent participants would challenge state laws by ignoring signs separating “whites” and “coloreds” at bus-station waiting areas and diners.

Though hardly naive, the riders (and, quickly enough, the nation) were stunned by the savage response. In Anniston, Alabama, a full bus was torched and the riders attacked with baseball bats as they disembarked. Birmingham police, led by the defiantly racist Bull Connor, looked away as the local Ku Klux Klan beat male and female civil-rights activists senseless.

Call From Kennedys

“Freedom Riders” also delves beyond the history-book basics, revealing behind-the-scenes machinations of the nation’s most powerful men.

President John Kennedy and his brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy, consumed and distracted by Cold War politics, were drawn inexorably into the headline-making Southern chaos. Martin Luther King, at first opposed to the dangerous campaign, soon became a symbol of the movement, even as younger activists questioned his relevance.

With a thorough roster of interviewees, writer and director Stanley Nelson weaves together various strands and perspectives into propulsive storytelling. Among the participants: John Patterson, the governor of Alabama who refused a telephone plea for help from the Kennedys, and John Seigenthaler, an administrative assistant to Robert Kennedy sent to quell the violence.

But the story belongs to the riders: Charles Person, a Morehouse College student and youngest member of the first wave of activists; Diane Nash, a student leader in Nashville, Tennessee, who organized replacements when the initial riders were beaten and arrested; and Jim Zwerg, a white student from Wisconsin attacked by Klansmen.

Those three are just a few of the more than 400 people who eventually boarded the nation’s buses that summer in the name of civil rights. Nelson does them all justice.

“Freedom Riders” airs May 16 on PBS at 9 p.m. New York time. Check your local listings.

(Greg Evans is a critic for Muse, the arts and leisure section of Bloomberg News. Opinions expressed are his own.)

To contact the writer on the story: Greg Evans at gregeaevans@yahoo.com

Monday, May 9, 2011

2011: WOMEN IN PHOTOGRAPHY

Two seemingly disparate blog posts caught our attention today:





Hillary Clinton, Audrey Tomason go missing in Situation Room photo in Der Tzitung newspaper

The Washington Post
By Melissa Bell


Update: Der Tzitung responded in an emailed statement, that the photo editor did not read the fine print on the picture and the newspaper has since apologized to the White House and State Department. “In accord with our religious beliefs, we do not publish photos of women, which in no way relegates them to a lower status... Because of laws of modesty, we are not allowed to publish pictures of women, and we regret if this gives an impression of disparaging to women, which is certainly never our intention. We apologize if this was seen as offensive.” Read the full statement at the bottom of this post.



Why Is a Photojournalist’s Gender Relevant to Their Work?

Black Star Rising
by Paul Melcher
I’ve never been able to identify a photojournalist’s gender from the photos she takes. Have you?


When Margaret Bourke-White photographed the Nazi death camps for Life magazine, no one cared if she was a woman or not. Her images told the story and that was that.

So why is it so important for some photographers to define themselves as “women photojournalists,” rather than simply as “photojournalists”?   Full post here. One rebuke here.


We are not sure if there is a broader context to these two posts....your thoughts?

New York Photo Festival - May 11-15, 2011



Photo: Balazs Gardi






New York Photo Festival - May 11-15, 2011


CURATED BY ENRICO BOSSAN AND ELISABETH BIONDI


Taking place throughout DUMBO, Brooklyn.

Ticket information here. Tickets will also be available at 1 Main Street Storefront, starting Thursday, May 12 @ 11am


Exhibition Hours
Wednesday, May 11 - 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.
Thursday, May 12 - 12:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m.
Friday, May 13 - 11:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m.
Saturday, May 14 - 11:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m.
Sunday, May 15 - 11:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m.

https://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/172633


Full details here

This year’s main exhibitions, curated by Enrico Bossan and Elisabeth Biondi (on show at the 81 Front Street Storefront) are presented under the shared rubric PHOTOGRAPHY NOW: engaged, personal, and vital. They offer distinct perspectives on a shared theme: the state of documentary photography today.

Bossan’s show, entitled Hope, features the work of young photographers who, in his words, "neither provide a faithful representation of reality nor create an illusion, but who have impressed me with their ability to capture the essential aspects of life." These artists include Olivia Arthur, Clemence de Limburg, Matt Eich, Simona Ghizzoni, Andrea Gjestvang, Sean Lee, Margo Ovcharenko, Andy Spyra, Mikhael Subotzky, Ali Taptik and Peter van Agtmael. Bossan grants that photography can portray the world at its bleakest, but suggests that it can also—and, in fact, must—remain oriented toward what lies ahead.

Curated by Elisabeth Biondi, Subjective/Objective argues that documentary photography today is remarkably vibrant and creatively thriving, despite the bleak financial picture and vanishing support from a publishing industry challenged by digital media. She has selected photographers who refract reality through their own distinct visions, often venturing into more personal visual languages. Subjective/Objective will include the work of Alejandro Chaskielberg, Stefano De Luigi, Carolyn Drake, Martine Fougeron, Balazs Gardi, Jessica Hines, Ethan Levitas, Irina Werning and A Yin.

In addition to their respective exhibitions, Bossan and Biondi are jointly curating a room of work by photographers Shaul Schwarz and Richard Mosse that reveals the common ground in the curators’ perspectives.

A separate venue, located at 30 Washington Street, will feature multimedia works by artists CIA DE FOTO and Ben Lowy, as well as six viewing booths featuring work by such industry luminaries as MediaStorm and Panos Pictures.

About the New York Photo Festival

Designed to be a New York counterpart and thematic successor to the prestigious European photo festivals Les Rencontres d’Arles, PHotoEspaƱa, Perpignan and Visa pour l’Image—and American festivals such as FotoFest in Texas—the New York Photo Festival creates an international atmosphere of inspiring visual installations, professional and aficionado fellowship and camaraderie, and news-worthy staged presentations, awards ceremonies, and symposia over the course of four-and-a-half days during the busiest photography month in New York City.

The festival was founded by Daniel Power and Frank Evers. The inaugural NYPH (May 14–18, 2008) proved an astounding success, with over 15,000 tickets sold, 2,500 industry professionals and artists, 1,000 members of the international press, packed seating for all day and evening programming events at St. Ann’s Warehouse (450 capacity), 20 countries represented in curated and satellite pavilions, 85,000 clicked site visits, 47,000 blog posts, 2.5 million unique visits to www.nyphotofestival.com, 49 media partners, and over 3,000 submissions from 87 countries for the New York Photo Awards (www.newyorkphotoawards.com). Each year, the New York Photo Festival has been bigger in all respects.

The festival is headquartered in DUMBO, Brooklyn, NY.

Sunday, May 8, 2011

MOTHER'S DAY, 2011


Nina Leen: Housewife Marjorie McWeeney under Helene Curtis brand hairdryer as she has a manicure while keeping an eye on her baby beside her in his bassinet at beauty parlor. Rye, NY, June 1947

Saturday, May 7, 2011

...AND THEY'RE OFF!

Neil Leifer: The 1965 Kentucky Derby, with Lucky Debonaire and Bill Shoemaker, Churchill Downs, May 1, 1965.




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Neil Leifer: The First Turn,  1965 Kentucky Derby
 


It’s really easy to name the most incredible athlete I’ve ever seen, and I always say it was Muhammad Ali, but when you really sit down to think about it, I’m not so sure that the most incredible performance I’ve ever seen was at an Ali fight. I’ve never photographed Tiger Woods, but watching Tiger on television in 2000 gave you the same feeling as watching Secretariat run away with the Triple Crown races in 1973. This picture was taken at the finish line of the Kentucky Derby. Look closely at it: have you ever seen a more powerful-looking athlete, or should I say a horse? It also clearly shows how convincing Secretariat’s Derby victory was, and this victory wasn’t nearly as convincing as the one he would pull off at the Belmont Stakes five weeks later. The picture is also very different from the traditional under-the-rail finish line shot. I forgot about the famed spires for this picture and isolated Secretariat. It was a gamble, but it worked out beautifully. I had no idea how great Secretariat was, and what a legend he would become. Five weeks later everyone knew. People had always talked about a Triple Crown winner when I was growing up, but it seemed like it would never happen again. Then along came Secretariat, and not only did it happen, but in a style so convincing that it was hard to believe that any single athlete/horse could be so better than his competition.
 -- Neil Leifer

Neil Leifer: Secretariat, The Kentucky Derby, Churchill Downs, Louisville, KY, May 5, 1973


The Kentucky Derby Website

Friday, May 6, 2011

COMPOSING THE ARTIST

Rene Magritte, MOMA, New York, 1965
Steve Schapiro: Rene Magritte, Museum of Modert Art, New York, 1965


Monroe Gallery of Photography, 112 Don Gaspar, is pleased to announce "Composing The Artist", an extensive survey of more than 50 classic photographs portraying iconic personalities from the arts as captured by renowned photographers. The exhibition opens with a reception on Friday, May 6, from 5 to 7 PM. "Composing The Artist" will continue through June 26.


The common definition of an "artist" is one who is able, by virtue of imagination and talent or skill, to create works of aesthetic value, especially in the fine arts. Photographs of artists and writers across the centuries have shaped our sense of what they do. Photographs in the exhibit include images of visual artists and classic writers, at work, in quiet contemplative moments and in portraiture. In these photographs the essential personality of the artist is revealed, and an image of the past becomes visual history. Other pictures also brilliantly match artworks with the personality and appearance of their creators: they are not just at one with their working environment, they are their work.

View the exhibit here.


Related: Guardian Newspaper Series: Photographer Steve Schapiro's Best Shot

Thursday, May 5, 2011

THEN, AND NOW: GROUND ZERO



Ground Zero, New York City, September 14, 2001
Eric Draper: Ground Zero, New York City, September 14, 2001



May 5, 2011: On a morning so clear, so blue and so sunny that it recalled the morning of September 11, 2011, President Barrack Obama arrived in New York  to lay a wreath at the 9/11 Memorial and meet with families of September 11 victims and, along the way, to meet with firefighters at a Midtown firehouse that lost 15 men on September 11.

fire station
Doug Mills/The New York Times



Image: Barack Obama
President Obama laid a wreath at ground zero on Thursday, May 5, 2011
AP