Showing posts with label Monroe Gallery. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Monroe Gallery. Show all posts
Friday, January 1, 2016
Friday, January 16, 2015
Photojournalism and Its Role in the Fine Art World
Photojournalism and Its Role in the Fine Art World
Photo la 2015 panel, Sunday, January 18 11:30 - 1 PM
Once relegated to the front pages of newspapers, images created for photojournalistic purpose can now be found among collections belonging to prestigious institutions and discerning collectors throughout the world. Creative Consultant Debra Weiss leads a discussion that will explore the shift in perception of this incredible and important photographic genre. Join Debra and guests for what promises to be an informative and entertaining conversation.
Moderator: Debra Weiss, Creative Consultant
Panelists:
Sara Terry: Photographer, Founder and Director, The Aftermath Foundation
John Bailey: Collector, Cinematographer & Director
Sid Monroe: Gallerist, Owner Monroe Gallery, Santa Fe
Tickets - $10
All photo la programs
Thursday, April 24, 2014
Finding Vivian Maier screening at Cinematheque in Santa Fe
Finding Vivian Maier
“Compelling … haunting … captivating.”–Variety
John Maloof discovered the work of an amazing photographer—a nanny whom, over the course of 40 years, took more than 100,000 photographs. As Vivian Maier’s work is discovered, in storage lockers and thrift stores, she is being recognized as one of the 20th century’s most prolific and gifted street photographers. Using her unseen photographs and 8mm films, and interviews with dozens who thought they knew her, Maloof tells the story of an unsung master of 20th century expression. (U.S., 2013, 83m, DCP, IFC Films)
Synopsis: Who is Vivian Maier? Now considered one of the 20th century's greatest street photographers, Vivian Maier was a mysterious nanny who secretly took over 100,000 photographs that went unseen during her lifetime. Since buying her work by chance at auction, amateur historian John Maloof has crusaded to put this prolific photographer in the history books. Maier's strange and riveting life and art are revealed through never-before-seen photographs, films, and interviews with dozens who thought they knew her.
Starts April 25 at CCA
Showtimes:Fri-Thurs April 25-May 1: 2:15p, 5:15p*
*After the 5:15pm show on Sunday, April 27 there will be a skype Q&A with co-director, Charlie Siskel, moderated by Michelle Monroe of Monroe Gallery of Photography.
Saturday, April 12, 2014
AIPAD: The Weekend
The AIPAD Photography Show continues today, 11 - 7, and tomorrow, Sunday, 11 - 6.
We hope to see you in booth #421!
Collector Daily: Every Booth at the 2014 AIPAD Photography Show, Part 1 of 4
Wall Street Journal : It's a Photo, A Video, A Painting
Gallerist: At the AIPAD Photography Show, Bits of Museum Shows, Past and Present
Must-See Booths at the AIPAD Photography Show (featuring Steve Schapiro)
Video: 60 Works in 60 Seconds at AIPAD 2014 (featuring Stephen Wilkes)
via BLOUIN ARTINFO
The New York Times: Experimental Strategies at Aipad’s Photography Show
L'Oeil de la Photographie: Video - New York Apaid 2014: Opening night Gala
Wednesday, April 9, 2014
Friday, March 21, 2014
Free photography viewing for young collectors at the AIPAD Photography Show, Friday April, 11
The AIPAD Photography Show
| Friday, April 11 6:00 - 8:00 PM | |
| Where: | Park Avenue Armory 643 Park Avenue New York, New York 10065 United States |
| Contact: | AIPAD info@aipad.com Phone: 202-367-1158 |
| Registration Information |
|---|
| Online registration is available until: 4/11/2014 Register » |
6:00 p.m.
Check In
In Each guest will receive:
Entry to the Show from 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.
Complimentary cocktail
Welcome Bag, including the AIPAD catalogue and On Collecting Photography guide
6:20 p.m.
Welcome Address from AIPAD's Board President
6:30 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.
View the Show, visit exhibitors, and meet artists
.Monroe Gallery of Photography will be located in Booth #421.
Check In
In Each guest will receive:
Entry to the Show from 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.
Complimentary cocktail
Welcome Bag, including the AIPAD catalogue and On Collecting Photography guide
6:20 p.m.
Welcome Address from AIPAD's Board President
6:30 p.m. – 8:00 p.m.
View the Show, visit exhibitors, and meet artists
.Monroe Gallery of Photography will be located in Booth #421.
Wednesday, February 19, 2014
"Michelle and Sidney Monroe are here to [s]cool you"
The Monroes strike a cool pose. - ENRIQUE LIMÓN
Via The Santa Fe Reporter
February 19, 2014
It’s no secret that Monroe Gallery of Photography houses some of the coolest art around. Owners Michelle and Sidney Monroe are taking their edge to the next level with When Cool Was King, an exhibit focused entirely around the concept of cool, which graces their walls through April 20.
The Don Gaspar Avenue spot is centered on black and white photography, and as Sid puts it, “even more specifically on photojournalism.”
“It took a few years to put together,” Sid continues. “It was inspired from us meeting Alfred Eisenstaedt.”
“The Stars of Ocean’s 11 stage a fight, Hollywood, 1960” by Sid Avery.
© MPTVIMAGES
“There was a window in the late ‘80s early ‘90s when Eisenstaedt was in his 90s, he had no living relatives, and he still kept an office in the Time-Life building,” the gallery owner reminisces.
The encounter cemented the couple’s passion for photojournalism, and seeded what would eventually become Monroe Gallery.
“We were extremely passionate about his work and his colleagues’ work and he knew that we really got it,” Michelle says. “We left our respective jobs and decided to open a gallery and he agreed to join us—which was crazy because we were in our 20s.”
That same spirit lives on in When Cool, with shots depicting everyone from Andy Warhol and Edie Sedgwick, to the Rat Pack, Jane Fonda as “Barbarella” and Steve McQueen relaxing at home while aiming a pistol.
The term “iconic” comes to mind, though it’s clear, at the time, the people behind the lens were just doing their jobs.
“It’s interesting,” Sid says of the images that compose the show. “Because we’ve spoken to these photographers and in the day, in the moment, it wasn’t iconic.”
He cites chatting with veteran newsmen covering the Civil Rights Movement and other major events across US history, who didn’t realize in the moment what the transcendence of the moments they were recording would one day have.
“They didn’t know those images would go viral, so to speak,” Michelle says.
Carlo Bavagnoli ©Time Inc
“Cool was really a rejection of the paradigms that were available to men and women,” she continues on the show’s theme. “It was a rejection of either the white-collar job, the blue-collar job, stay at home, raise your family and go to church America..cool was a very dangerous rejection of those shapes and that conformity.”
Expect images that defined a generation and put cool front and center—images developed way before what she calls “an American pushback on free press.”
One that is “extremely frightening and shocking.”
Just don’t hold your breath for any twerking shots.
“Miley Cyrus is not cool,” Sid says. “She’s great. She’s pushing boundaries and making people feel uncomfortable, but that’s not cool.”
More than a stagnant time capsule, the Monroes hope the exhibit serves as a jolt of energy and a reminder that documentary photography, like any other branch of the arts, should be buttressed.
“It was supported,” Sid says of the photography of that time gone by represented in When Cool. “You had institutions like LIFE magazine or the institute at CBS News; these were trusted institutions that employed journalists both visual and reporters.”
“It was a source of great American pride,” Michelle points out. “Our press was free, our press was dynamic and revolutionary…where is that now?”
Expect for the black and white shots to be peppered with some equally cool color stills.
“Our younger photojournalists, of course, they have to work digitally and they have to work in color,” Michelle says of the sign on the times. “You can’t be a photojournalist now without being able to transmit your images immediately.”
She pauses and continues her reflection: “The black and white happens to represent the history of photojournalism, but that is not our singular devotion. Sid says we like to preach the gospel of photojournalism—not only as an art form—but frankly, as the hands that hold civilization together because most great photojournalism is revealing something you’re not meant to know.”
WHEN COOL WAS KING
Exhibition continues through April 20, 2014
Monroe Gallery of Photography
112 Don Gaspar Ave.,
992-0800
Exhibition continues through April 20, 2014
Monroe Gallery of Photography
112 Don Gaspar Ave.,
992-0800
Sunday, January 12, 2014
Monroe Gallery at Photo LA 2014 January 16 - 19
Monroe Gallery of Photography will be exhibiting at the 23rd edition of photo l.a. January 16 - 19 in a new location: downtown at the L.A. Mart, 1933 Broadway. The exhibition opens Thursday with an opening Gala benefitting Inner-City Arts, tickets available here.
We'll be in booth #302 featuring an important selection of 20th and 21st Century photojournalism and classic black and white photography. We will be bringing significant photographs by the great LIFE magazine photographes Bill Eppridge and John Dominis.
Additionally, we we be exhibiting a rare oversize example of Ernst Haas' classic "Route 66, Albuquerque, New Mexico, 1969" and recent Day To Night photographs by Stephen Wilkes.
Over the weekend, the city's new cultural hub is celebrating the arts in a major way. As the LA Times calls it, January 15th-19th will be an absolute "Artapalooza."
In celebration of Arts Month Los Angeles, photo l.a., the LA Art Show, and a number of Downtown galleries and museums are coming together to celebrate the arts and culture not only of LA, but of the world at large. Photograph magazine writes: Southern California not only has sunny skies, but a wealth of photography exhibits and fairs. GQ agrees: Downtown LA has simply become the place to be - and don't miss the Classic Photographs show.
In celebration of Arts Month Los Angeles, photo l.a., the LA Art Show, and a number of Downtown galleries and museums are coming together to celebrate the arts and culture not only of LA, but of the world at large. Photograph magazine writes: Southern California not only has sunny skies, but a wealth of photography exhibits and fairs. GQ agrees: Downtown LA has simply become the place to be - and don't miss the Classic Photographs show.
Wednesday, October 2, 2013
Listen Live: Ernest Withers Exhibition Discussion on The Morning Show
Michelle Monroe will be a guest on Julia Goldberg's acclaimed The Morning Show, Thursday, October 3, 2013. Tune in to KVSF 101.5, The Voice of Santa Fe, at 8:30 AM. Michelle Monroe will be discussing the exhibition "Ernest C. Withers: A Life's Work", and be sure to join us for the opening reception Friday, Oct. 4, from 5 - 7 PM.
Julia Goldberg is the former editor of the Santa Fe Reporter and is one of the most respected journalists in town. She’s brash, informed, honest, funny and opinionated and her two hours in the morning promise to be a wild ride!
Listen to KVSF live here.
Or listen later by podcast.
Friday, July 5, 2013
Exhibition explores extraordinary people who have influenced the course of modern history
Via artdaily.org
SANTA FE, NM.- Monroe Gallery of Photography, 112 Don Gaspar, is pleased to announce “Those Who Dared”, a major exhibition of compelling and provocative photographs depicting brave, courageous, intrepid, and audacious people and personalities that celebrates the human spirit of daring, drive, and determination to make a difference. The exhibition opens with a public reception on Friday, July 5, from 5 to 7; the exhibition will continue through September 22.
“Those Who Dared” explores the characterization of extraordinary people who have influenced the course of modern history. The more than 50 photographs in the exhibit depict major personalities, historical figures, and everyday people who, through words, actions, and endeavors have made a difference; explored our world; made life-changing scientific discoveries, and inspired us all. These people broke records, broke ground, blazed trails, and suffered trials, shattering ceilings of glass and even tougher stuff. While some are obvious and some obscure, all acted to increase our liberty, safety, prosperity, and imaginations, often enduring an agonizing cycle of hope, progress, and crushing setback.
Photographs depict people "who have dared", including: Amelia Earhart, Ann San Suu Kyi, Charles Lindbergh, Gandhi, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, Rosa Parks, Al Weiwei, Robert F. Kennedy, Eleanor Roosevelt, Indira Gandhi, Anwar Sadat, a lone protester stopping tanks at Tiananmen Square in Beijing, 1989, protesters in Tahir Square in 2011; Nobel Laureate Dr. James Watson, co-discoverer of the DNA molecule, Jonas Salk, discoverer of the first successful polio vaccine, astronauts; Albert Einstein, Simone de Beauvoir, Jean Paul Sartre, Muhammad Ali, Jackie Robinson, Cesar Chavez, Simon Wiesenthal, and many others.
Photographers in the exhibition include world-renowned photojournalists such as Eddie Adams, Harry Benson, Bill Eppridge, Paul Fusco, Margaret Bourke White, Robert Capa, John Dominis, Alfred Eisenstaedt, Burt Glinn, Yuri Kozyrev, Carl Mydans, Martin Parr, Ken Reagan, Steve Schapiro, Jeff Weidner, and others.
Monroe Gallery of Photography was founded by Sidney S. Monroe and Michelle A. Monroe. Building on more than four decades of collective experience, the gallery specializes in classic black & white photography with an emphasis on humanist and photojournalist imagery. The gallery also represents a select group of contemporary and emerging photographers.
Monday, January 28, 2013
The AIPAD Photography Show To Be Held in New York on April 4-7 at the Park Avenue Armory
Frieke Janssens, Ringlings, 2011. Digital chromogenic dye print mounted to plexi, 35 x 35 inches. Courtesy Catherine Edelman Gallery, Chicago
Via artdaily.org
January 27, 2013
NEW YORK, NY.- The AIPAD Photography Show New York, one of the world’s most
important annual photography events, will be held April 4-7, 2013, at the Park
Avenue Armory. Presented by The Association of International Photography Art
Dealers (AIPAD), the fair is the longest-running and foremost exhibition of fine
art photography.
More than 70 of the world’s leading fine art photography galleries will present a wide range of museum-quality work including contemporary, modern, and 19th-century photographs, as well as photo-based art, video, and new media. The 33rd edition of the show will commence with an opening night gala on April 3, 2013, to benefit inMotion, which provides free legal services to low-income women.
“AIPAD continues to be at the forefront of the photography market,” noted Catherine Edelman, President AIPAD, and Director, Catherine Edelman Gallery. “Known for their scholarship and expertise, AIPAD galleries are shining light on extraordinary photographs by modern masters and emerging artists, images made in the last year by some of the most important artists working today, as well as relatively unknown work that is ripe for public exhibition. New and established photography collectors are anticipating another extraordinary exhibition.”
EXHIBITORS
Exhibitors will include galleries from across the U.S. and around the world, including Europe, Asia, and South America. Six galleries will exhibit at AIPAD for the first time: Brancolini Grimaldi, London; Fifty One Fine Art Photography, Antwerp; Klompching Gallery, Brooklyn; M97 Gallery, Shanghai; P.P.O.W., New York; and Sage Paris. An exhibitor list is available at aipad.com/photoshow.
EXHIBITION HIGHLIGHTS
A solo exhibition of work by James Welling will be exhibited by David Zwirner, New York. Welling has been questioning the norms of representation since the 1970s, exploring and experimenting with the elemental components of the photographic medium. His work is held in major museum collections including The Museum of Modern Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, all in New York.
Lisa Sette Gallery, Scottsdale, will offer a one-person exhibition of work by British photographer Damion Berger, who was once as an assistant to Helmut Newton. Berger’s recent series, Black Powder, documents firework celebrations from around the world. He uses glass plate negatives, multiple exposures, and unusual combinations of focus and aperture for the results, which are as dramatic as the pyrotechnic explosions.
A number of riveting portraits at AIPAD will be on view, including a series by Belgian artist Frieke Janssens entitled Smoking Kids. The digital chromogenic dye prints of children smoking were inspired by a YouTube video of a chain-smoking Indonesian toddler. As the artist notes, “I felt that children smoking would have a surreal impact upon the viewer and compel them to truly see the acts of smoking, rather than making assumptions about the person doing the act.” The work will be exhibited by Catherine Edelman Gallery, Chicago. No real cigarettes were used to make the images. Instead, chalk and sticks of cheese were used as props, while candles and incense provided the wisps of smoke.
P.P.O.W., New York, will offer portraits and work by Martha Wilson, Carolee Schneemann, and David Wojnarowicz, all of it inspired by the human body. M97 Gallery, Shanghai, will show portraits by Luo Dan, who uses the collodion wet plate photographic process invented in 1850. Spending several months traveling with a portable darkroom in remote and mountainous regions of China’s southern Yunnan Province, Luo Dan depicts people living in China’s undeveloped regions, where the way of life has remained largely intact for hundreds of years. Yu Xiao’s surreal images of children from the 2012 Nursery Rhymes series will be shown at 798 Photo Gallery, Beijing.
Extraordinary landscapes from around the globe will on view at AIPAD, including work showing the effects of Hurricane Sandy. An image by Stephen Wilkes, of a roller coaster standing in the ocean at Seaside Heights, New Jersey, will be exhibited by Monroe Gallery of Photography, Santa Fe. Work by Matthew Brandt from his recent Lakes and Reservoirs series can be seen at Yossi Milo Gallery, New York. The L.A.-based artist photographs lakes and reservoirs around the western United States, then submerges each resulting C-print in water collected from the subject of the photograph. Matthew Brandt’s images are included in the collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Edward Burtynsky’s life’s work is to document humanity’s impact on the planet, so when he shoots a photograph, it is often from an airplane or helicopter. His new riveting geometric aerial landscapes from the Texas Panhandle showing irrigation systems in the high plains will be exhibited by Howard Greenberg Gallery, New York.
Since 2005, Robert Burley has traveled across North America and Europe documenting the exteriors and interiors of the buildings that manufactured traditional film products such as Kodak and Polaroid. Burley’s mastery of large-format photography is a fitting tribute to a once thriving industry laid quickly to waste by digital technology. The work will be on view at Stephen Bulger Gallery, Toronto, and can be seen in a new book, The Disappearance of Darkness, published by Ryerson Image Centre and Princeton Architectural Press.
A portrait by Mariana Cook of one of the world’s most prominent political prisoners, Aung San Suu Kyi, will be exhibited by Lee Marks Fine Art, Shelbyvile, IN. Cook traveled to Burma in 2011 shortly after the Nobel Peace Prize winner was freed from house arrest. The portrait will be included in the upcoming book Justice: Faces of the Human Rights Revolution by Cook, which captures pioneers of the human rights movement from around the globe.
Edward Weston’s The Marion Morgan Dancers, California, 1921, will be on view at Galerie Johannes Faber, Vienna. The elegant composition of the nude dancers was made in collaboration with Margrethe Mather – whom Weston called “the first important person in my life” – and reflects Weston’s early pictorialist style and Mather’s sensitive eye. A pensive Frida Kahlo is the subject of Manuel Alvarez Bravo’s gelatin silver print from the 1940s at Throckmorton Fine Art, New York. Seydou KeĆÆta’s charming portrait Three Malian Women, 1957-60, will be offered by Charles Isaacs Photographs, Inc., New York. KeĆÆta is considered to be the first generation of African photographers to cater to the needs of a populace that was transitioning from French-colonial governance to independence, experiencing population increases and economic growth.
Early work from the birth of photography will also be a highlight at AIPAD. James Hyman Photography, London, will focus on three great French photographers of the 19th century: Edouard Baldus, Gustave Le Gray, and Charles Negre. Hans P. Kraus Jr. Fine Photographs, New York, will show great masters of British and French 19th-century photography, including William Henry Fox Talbot, Linnaeus Tripe, and Gustave Le Gray.
More than 70 of the world’s leading fine art photography galleries will present a wide range of museum-quality work including contemporary, modern, and 19th-century photographs, as well as photo-based art, video, and new media. The 33rd edition of the show will commence with an opening night gala on April 3, 2013, to benefit inMotion, which provides free legal services to low-income women.
“AIPAD continues to be at the forefront of the photography market,” noted Catherine Edelman, President AIPAD, and Director, Catherine Edelman Gallery. “Known for their scholarship and expertise, AIPAD galleries are shining light on extraordinary photographs by modern masters and emerging artists, images made in the last year by some of the most important artists working today, as well as relatively unknown work that is ripe for public exhibition. New and established photography collectors are anticipating another extraordinary exhibition.”
EXHIBITORS
Exhibitors will include galleries from across the U.S. and around the world, including Europe, Asia, and South America. Six galleries will exhibit at AIPAD for the first time: Brancolini Grimaldi, London; Fifty One Fine Art Photography, Antwerp; Klompching Gallery, Brooklyn; M97 Gallery, Shanghai; P.P.O.W., New York; and Sage Paris. An exhibitor list is available at aipad.com/photoshow.
EXHIBITION HIGHLIGHTS
A solo exhibition of work by James Welling will be exhibited by David Zwirner, New York. Welling has been questioning the norms of representation since the 1970s, exploring and experimenting with the elemental components of the photographic medium. His work is held in major museum collections including The Museum of Modern Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, all in New York.
Lisa Sette Gallery, Scottsdale, will offer a one-person exhibition of work by British photographer Damion Berger, who was once as an assistant to Helmut Newton. Berger’s recent series, Black Powder, documents firework celebrations from around the world. He uses glass plate negatives, multiple exposures, and unusual combinations of focus and aperture for the results, which are as dramatic as the pyrotechnic explosions.
A number of riveting portraits at AIPAD will be on view, including a series by Belgian artist Frieke Janssens entitled Smoking Kids. The digital chromogenic dye prints of children smoking were inspired by a YouTube video of a chain-smoking Indonesian toddler. As the artist notes, “I felt that children smoking would have a surreal impact upon the viewer and compel them to truly see the acts of smoking, rather than making assumptions about the person doing the act.” The work will be exhibited by Catherine Edelman Gallery, Chicago. No real cigarettes were used to make the images. Instead, chalk and sticks of cheese were used as props, while candles and incense provided the wisps of smoke.
P.P.O.W., New York, will offer portraits and work by Martha Wilson, Carolee Schneemann, and David Wojnarowicz, all of it inspired by the human body. M97 Gallery, Shanghai, will show portraits by Luo Dan, who uses the collodion wet plate photographic process invented in 1850. Spending several months traveling with a portable darkroom in remote and mountainous regions of China’s southern Yunnan Province, Luo Dan depicts people living in China’s undeveloped regions, where the way of life has remained largely intact for hundreds of years. Yu Xiao’s surreal images of children from the 2012 Nursery Rhymes series will be shown at 798 Photo Gallery, Beijing.
Extraordinary landscapes from around the globe will on view at AIPAD, including work showing the effects of Hurricane Sandy. An image by Stephen Wilkes, of a roller coaster standing in the ocean at Seaside Heights, New Jersey, will be exhibited by Monroe Gallery of Photography, Santa Fe. Work by Matthew Brandt from his recent Lakes and Reservoirs series can be seen at Yossi Milo Gallery, New York. The L.A.-based artist photographs lakes and reservoirs around the western United States, then submerges each resulting C-print in water collected from the subject of the photograph. Matthew Brandt’s images are included in the collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Edward Burtynsky’s life’s work is to document humanity’s impact on the planet, so when he shoots a photograph, it is often from an airplane or helicopter. His new riveting geometric aerial landscapes from the Texas Panhandle showing irrigation systems in the high plains will be exhibited by Howard Greenberg Gallery, New York.
Since 2005, Robert Burley has traveled across North America and Europe documenting the exteriors and interiors of the buildings that manufactured traditional film products such as Kodak and Polaroid. Burley’s mastery of large-format photography is a fitting tribute to a once thriving industry laid quickly to waste by digital technology. The work will be on view at Stephen Bulger Gallery, Toronto, and can be seen in a new book, The Disappearance of Darkness, published by Ryerson Image Centre and Princeton Architectural Press.
A portrait by Mariana Cook of one of the world’s most prominent political prisoners, Aung San Suu Kyi, will be exhibited by Lee Marks Fine Art, Shelbyvile, IN. Cook traveled to Burma in 2011 shortly after the Nobel Peace Prize winner was freed from house arrest. The portrait will be included in the upcoming book Justice: Faces of the Human Rights Revolution by Cook, which captures pioneers of the human rights movement from around the globe.
Edward Weston’s The Marion Morgan Dancers, California, 1921, will be on view at Galerie Johannes Faber, Vienna. The elegant composition of the nude dancers was made in collaboration with Margrethe Mather – whom Weston called “the first important person in my life” – and reflects Weston’s early pictorialist style and Mather’s sensitive eye. A pensive Frida Kahlo is the subject of Manuel Alvarez Bravo’s gelatin silver print from the 1940s at Throckmorton Fine Art, New York. Seydou KeĆÆta’s charming portrait Three Malian Women, 1957-60, will be offered by Charles Isaacs Photographs, Inc., New York. KeĆÆta is considered to be the first generation of African photographers to cater to the needs of a populace that was transitioning from French-colonial governance to independence, experiencing population increases and economic growth.
Early work from the birth of photography will also be a highlight at AIPAD. James Hyman Photography, London, will focus on three great French photographers of the 19th century: Edouard Baldus, Gustave Le Gray, and Charles Negre. Hans P. Kraus Jr. Fine Photographs, New York, will show great masters of British and French 19th-century photography, including William Henry Fox Talbot, Linnaeus Tripe, and Gustave Le Gray.
Friday, October 5, 2012
The DC Fine Art Photography Fair: "I want to encourage people to educate their eyes”
Via The Washington Post
Photography fair offers opportunity for collectors
By Michael O’Sullivan
Friday, October 5, 2012
With the (e)merge art fair’s exclusive focus on up-and-coming artists, the organizer of another art fair hopes there’s room in the spotlight this weekend for more established names.
On Saturday and Sunday, Washington photography dealer Kathleen Ewing will unveil the inaugural DC Fine Art Photography Fair, featuring 15 booths by photography dealers she invited from across the country, each of whom specializes in more traditional imagery than one can expect to see at (e)merge.
Ewing will offer a wide range of prints, including a $12,000 photograph by the great Edward Weston (1886-1958) and a $450 image by MacDuff Everton, a contemporary photographer based in California. Washington’s Hemphill Fine Arts also will showcase a diverse mix of artists, including Colby Caldwell, William Christenberry, Don Donaghy, Godfrey Frankel, Max Hirshfeld, Franz Jantzen, Tanya Marcuse, Kendall Messick, Anne Rowland, Hiroshi Sugimoto and Julie Wolfe.
Dealers include the far-flung and the homegrown. San Francisco’s Scott Nichols Gallery, which is known for handling work by Ansel Adams and other members of the famous Group f/64, will participate, along with Multiple Exposures, a contemporary cooperative gallery based at Alexandria’s Torpedo Factory Art Center.
Ewing says visitors to the fair should expect something completely different than the edgy (e)merge and FotoWeek DC, a photography festival -- returning next month for its fifth year -- that’s known more as a broad celebration of all things photographic than as a breeding ground for collectors. Ewing says she thinks that with Washington’s educated, culturally connected and visually sophisticated population -- not to mention its booming economy -- the time is ripe for a commercial fair offering a range of price points for both the aspiring and the established collector.
“I want to encourage people to educate their eyes,” says Ewing, who hopes her fair will introduce the “passion of possessing beautiful works of art” to a new generation. To that end, the fair will feature a free panel discussion on collecting Saturday at 11 a.m.
Event Information
Information:
202-986-0105
» Web site
Price:
Free
2801 16th St. NW
Washington, DC
Washington, DC
Thursday, August 2, 2012
What could we possibly have to say to the readers of this blog?
We were a bit intimidated to have been asked to write a guest blog.....but here it is:
The Photoshop Insider Blog
Scott Kelby teaches Photoshop & Photography at KelbyTraining.com. He is Editor-in-Chief for Photoshop User magazine and hosts shows at KelbyTV.com.It’s Guest Blog Wednesday featuring Sid and Michelle Monroe!
"We were flattered and honored when asked to write a guest blog – and, we were told, we could write about whatever we wanted. But, we wondered, why us? What could we possibly have to say to the readers of this blog?" Full post here.
Friday, December 23, 2011
The Weather Outside Is Frightful....
But very beautiful. Please join us this evening 4 - 6 to celebrate our 10th Anniversary in Santa Fe and the Holidays.
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
PHOTO DISTRICT NEWS PHOTO OF THE DAY: GREY VILLET - LITTLE ROCK NINE
© Grey Villet. Above: The Little Rock Nine enter a classroom to register after escort from Army’s 101st Airborne Division, September 25, 1957.
March 15, 2011
A daily selection by the editors of Photo District News
Posted on Tuesday, March 15th, 2011 at 11:00 am ET by Amber Terranova
Grey Villet was a master of the classic “fly on the wall” style of photojournalism and he was the absolute master of the 180mm f/2.8 Sonnar. In addition to covering the news in Little Rock, Arkansas, in 1957 — when a group of high school students attempted to enroll in Little Rock Central High School and were initially prevented by Governor Orval Faubus who called on the National Guard to stop the school’s integration, his assignments included the 1958 arrest of Martin Luther King Jr, Fidel Castro’s triumphant drive into Havana, Jackie Robinson’s daring steal of home base in the 1955 World Series, and the now classic LIFE photo essay “Going Under” about farm foreclosures in the 1980s. Villet’s work will be on display with the Monroe Gallery at the AIPAD Photography Show New York, March 17-20, 2011, at the Park Avenue Armory.- AIPAD. To see more of Villet’s work click here.
Previous post: E-Photo Newsletter Names its List of The Most Influential Photography Sources In 2010-2011
Monroe Gallery of Photography is located at Booth #417 during the AIPAD Photography Show
Monday, August 2, 2010
SUMMER GALERY SCENE IN SANTA FE, NEW MEXICO
APhotoEditor
Summer Gallery Scene In Santa Fe, NM
©APhotoEditor
Correspondent Jonathan Blaustein is back with a report from the summer gallery shows in Santa Fe.
Since the last article I wrote for APE, I’ve spent the summer doing the usual things. Making new photographs for “The Value of a Dollar,” weeding in the yard, and running after my young son. Average summer duties. Beyond that, I released a limited edition print to benefit the UN World Food Programme through the collect.give, had the opportunity to hear public lectures by Jonathan Torgovnik, Mary Virginia Swanson, Christopher James, Cig Harvey through the Santa Fe Workshops.
But unlike New York, which quiets down in Summer, in Northern New Mexico it’s high Season. That means busloads of tourists. And tourists like art. So many of the big blockbuster photo exhibitions take place now, rather than in the Fall or Spring. The book designer and blogger Elizabeth Avedon did a blog post previewing the Santa Fe summer scene a couple of months ago, so I thought I’d go see what was on the wall, and report back to the APE audience.
I began my little adventure at photo-eye, which is undoubtedly the photography institution in Santa Fe. The owner, Rixon Reed and his crew recently celebrated their 30th Anniversary. They offer a lot to the community, including a great photo-book store, a sleek photo gallery, and a program of public events and artist salons. The current exhibit in the gallery is a three-person show featuring work by Edward Ranney, Mitch Dobrowner, and Chris McCaw. All three work in black and white, and have differing perspectives on the landscape.
Edward Ranney, a long time NM resident, just published a book with Lucy Lippard that investigates the nearby Galisteo Basin. It was home to pre- and post-Columbian Native American culture for centuries. Ranney’s stark photos are printed without heavy or dramatic contrast, and create the impression of timelessness. Some images depict remnants of earlier cultures, and some do not. Together, they give the impression that the land, with its volcanoes and rocky cliffs, works with a timeframe that mocks the ephemeral.
Mitch Dobrowner’s large-scale landscape prints, by comparison, are dramatic and literal. They’re very beautiful, to be sure, but lack imagination. One exception, a triptych of clouds moving across Shiprock, in the Navajo Nation, is tremendous. Particularly if one has traveled through the Four Corners, as the natural beauty juxtaposes against a hard-core culture of poverty and isolation.
Chris McCaw’s photographs have been exhibited widely of late in NYC, LA, and SF. His work is original and visually engaging, and was recently collected by the Metropolitan Museum of Art. McCaw uses a large format camera, and allows the sun to burn its way through photographic paper that takes the place of film, utilizing long exposures. So the paper will show the literal mark of the sun, which shares the rectangle with land & oceanscapes. The balance of creation and destruction is timely and visceral. Killer stuff.
Andrew Smith, at his eponymous gallery, has the other major old-school place in town. The gallery had an installation on the wall by William Christenberry that I was excited to see. There were 20 small prints, in frames, leaning against the wall in two horizontal rows, (one above the other,) sitting on a wooden rail. Like much of his work, the images were made of the same subject, re-photographed over time. In this case, it was an old sharecropper’s house in Alabama, shot between 1978 and 2005. In early images, an old blue car is parked in front of the house, and in some an African-American family is standing on the front porch. As the sequence resolves itself, the car and family disappear, and the house slowly degrades to ruin. It’s a powerful depiction of the cold efficiency of time, and a strong metaphor for the problems facing rural society in the United States.
Smith’s gallery also has a ridiculous display of historical work, hung salon-style, in several rooms on two floors. I’ve never been anywhere like it, outside of a major museum. Ansel Adams, Carleton Watkins, Muybridge, William Henry Jackson, Steichen, Friedlander, Eliot Erwitt, and many other legends of photography are well represented. It’s so full, in fact, that I spotted a vintage print by Walker Evans of the Alabama tenant farmer’s wife, the image that Sherri Levine appropriated years later. It was a foot and a half off the floor, down in a corner by a door-frame. That tells you a bit about how much of photography’s history is crammed into this space. Not to be missed.
Verve Gallery, on Marcy St, has a huge following in Santa Fe. I’ve seen several shows there, and they tend to have three person exhibitions, from what I can tell. The work leans towards photo-journalism and documentary photography, with some exceptions. They are currently showing two documentarians, Jeffrey Becom and Nevada Wier, alongside digital conjurer Maggie Taylor. The former offerings were not super-interesting to me, but Taylor’s work is fantastic, and worth a visit. She creates surreal images that layer taken and found photographs, arriving at an original vision with a unique color palette. Taylor has been working this way for a while, and ten years ago, before Photoshop’s ubiquity, there would have been a “how did she do that” quality that is no longer to be mined. But the photographs are compelling, creating a stream of characters out of a Greek Mythology, with rams heads and rhinos and fish men.
Monroe Gallery is another of Santa Fe’s photo spots that has a national reputation, as they show historical photojournalism from the early to mid-20th Century. It’s a different period and style than you see at Andrew Smith, but equally relevant to American photography lovers. This Summer, they’ve got an exhibition in the front room by Bill Eppridge. One wall focused on photos of Robert Kennedy during his campaign for the Democratic Nomination in 1968. Very Iconographic. One image showed Kennedy riding in an open convertible with NFL greats the “Fearsome Foursome.” It stopped me, due to the reference to his brother’s assassination, of course, but also because it seemed like such an anachronism. Can anyone imagine a scene like that transpiring in 2010?
The back room of the gallery had several walls of classic photographs of famous people, hung salon-style. It’s a strange, fascinating mash-up of Marilyn Monroe, Winston Churchill, JFK, MLK, Ganhdi, Jackson Pollock, Pablo Picasso, Stravinsky, Frank Sinatra, Albert Einstein and more, photographed by the likes of Robert Capa, Alfred Eisenstaedt, Margaret Bourke-White, and Arnold Newman. History; commodified.
Eight Modern is a relative newcomer, compared to the SF institutions mentioned above. It’s a contemporary art gallery in an old adobe building, just off of Canyon Road.
While they often show painting and sculpture in a beautiful setting, the June/July show was by the Chicago conceptual artist Jason Salavon. He uses the computer to make original work from historical masterpieces, and shows digital projections, video installation, abstract prints, and digital C-prints, which I’d classify as photographs.
The front room contained two pieces that were haunting, smart and original. Salavon created montages of portraits by Velasquez and van Dyck that show just the ghostly suggestion of classical portrait sitters to create a meta-portrait. The layers of brown and ochre, and the subtle look of under-painting, are rendered digital and morphed into hyper-real. The spot where the face resides is not recognizable, per se, but is lighter in color in just the way to suggest what it was. It was probably the best work I saw on my gallery crawl. (But that bespeaks my bias towards the contemporary and conceptual, obviously.)
Finally, I saw one show down I-25 in Albuquerque at the Richard Levy Gallery. I’m including it because why not, as Levy shows contemporary international work in a great downtown space. (And I happened to be in ABQ briefly one day.) His current exhibition is by Manjari Sharma, the Mumbai and New York based photographer whose “Shower Series” has gotten lots of exposure on the web. (Burn Magazine, Lensscratch, Fraction Magazine’s blog & more.) While I’ve seen the jpegs many times, it was good to experience the large prints on the wall. She’s photographed a mix of attractive, multi-racial people who agree to take a shower in her apartment. None of the photos depict the subjects looking at the camera. They’re caught in what appear to be private, contemplative moments. So while the work is visually engaging, I was interested in the way it called attention to the artificial nature and forced intimacy of photographer/sitter relationship.
Well, that was a lot of information, I know. If you’ve made it this far into the article, you’re obviously interested in photography, or Santa Fe, or both. That, or it’s quiet today and you have some time to kill. Regardless, I’d encourage a trip out to New Mexico if you’ve not been before. All the above galleries show high quality work on a regular basis, and you can add Site Santa Fe, the NM Museum of Art, James Kelly Contemporary, Zane Bennett Contemporary Art, and the NM History Museum to the list. And in case you were wondering, I’m not a covert member of the Chamber of Commerce. I assure you.
Summer Gallery Scene In Santa Fe, NM
©APhotoEditor
Correspondent Jonathan Blaustein is back with a report from the summer gallery shows in Santa Fe.
Since the last article I wrote for APE, I’ve spent the summer doing the usual things. Making new photographs for “The Value of a Dollar,” weeding in the yard, and running after my young son. Average summer duties. Beyond that, I released a limited edition print to benefit the UN World Food Programme through the collect.give, had the opportunity to hear public lectures by Jonathan Torgovnik, Mary Virginia Swanson, Christopher James, Cig Harvey through the Santa Fe Workshops.
But unlike New York, which quiets down in Summer, in Northern New Mexico it’s high Season. That means busloads of tourists. And tourists like art. So many of the big blockbuster photo exhibitions take place now, rather than in the Fall or Spring. The book designer and blogger Elizabeth Avedon did a blog post previewing the Santa Fe summer scene a couple of months ago, so I thought I’d go see what was on the wall, and report back to the APE audience.
I began my little adventure at photo-eye, which is undoubtedly the photography institution in Santa Fe. The owner, Rixon Reed and his crew recently celebrated their 30th Anniversary. They offer a lot to the community, including a great photo-book store, a sleek photo gallery, and a program of public events and artist salons. The current exhibit in the gallery is a three-person show featuring work by Edward Ranney, Mitch Dobrowner, and Chris McCaw. All three work in black and white, and have differing perspectives on the landscape.
Edward Ranney, a long time NM resident, just published a book with Lucy Lippard that investigates the nearby Galisteo Basin. It was home to pre- and post-Columbian Native American culture for centuries. Ranney’s stark photos are printed without heavy or dramatic contrast, and create the impression of timelessness. Some images depict remnants of earlier cultures, and some do not. Together, they give the impression that the land, with its volcanoes and rocky cliffs, works with a timeframe that mocks the ephemeral.
Mitch Dobrowner’s large-scale landscape prints, by comparison, are dramatic and literal. They’re very beautiful, to be sure, but lack imagination. One exception, a triptych of clouds moving across Shiprock, in the Navajo Nation, is tremendous. Particularly if one has traveled through the Four Corners, as the natural beauty juxtaposes against a hard-core culture of poverty and isolation.
Chris McCaw’s photographs have been exhibited widely of late in NYC, LA, and SF. His work is original and visually engaging, and was recently collected by the Metropolitan Museum of Art. McCaw uses a large format camera, and allows the sun to burn its way through photographic paper that takes the place of film, utilizing long exposures. So the paper will show the literal mark of the sun, which shares the rectangle with land & oceanscapes. The balance of creation and destruction is timely and visceral. Killer stuff.
Andrew Smith, at his eponymous gallery, has the other major old-school place in town. The gallery had an installation on the wall by William Christenberry that I was excited to see. There were 20 small prints, in frames, leaning against the wall in two horizontal rows, (one above the other,) sitting on a wooden rail. Like much of his work, the images were made of the same subject, re-photographed over time. In this case, it was an old sharecropper’s house in Alabama, shot between 1978 and 2005. In early images, an old blue car is parked in front of the house, and in some an African-American family is standing on the front porch. As the sequence resolves itself, the car and family disappear, and the house slowly degrades to ruin. It’s a powerful depiction of the cold efficiency of time, and a strong metaphor for the problems facing rural society in the United States.
Smith’s gallery also has a ridiculous display of historical work, hung salon-style, in several rooms on two floors. I’ve never been anywhere like it, outside of a major museum. Ansel Adams, Carleton Watkins, Muybridge, William Henry Jackson, Steichen, Friedlander, Eliot Erwitt, and many other legends of photography are well represented. It’s so full, in fact, that I spotted a vintage print by Walker Evans of the Alabama tenant farmer’s wife, the image that Sherri Levine appropriated years later. It was a foot and a half off the floor, down in a corner by a door-frame. That tells you a bit about how much of photography’s history is crammed into this space. Not to be missed.
Verve Gallery, on Marcy St, has a huge following in Santa Fe. I’ve seen several shows there, and they tend to have three person exhibitions, from what I can tell. The work leans towards photo-journalism and documentary photography, with some exceptions. They are currently showing two documentarians, Jeffrey Becom and Nevada Wier, alongside digital conjurer Maggie Taylor. The former offerings were not super-interesting to me, but Taylor’s work is fantastic, and worth a visit. She creates surreal images that layer taken and found photographs, arriving at an original vision with a unique color palette. Taylor has been working this way for a while, and ten years ago, before Photoshop’s ubiquity, there would have been a “how did she do that” quality that is no longer to be mined. But the photographs are compelling, creating a stream of characters out of a Greek Mythology, with rams heads and rhinos and fish men.
Monroe Gallery is another of Santa Fe’s photo spots that has a national reputation, as they show historical photojournalism from the early to mid-20th Century. It’s a different period and style than you see at Andrew Smith, but equally relevant to American photography lovers. This Summer, they’ve got an exhibition in the front room by Bill Eppridge. One wall focused on photos of Robert Kennedy during his campaign for the Democratic Nomination in 1968. Very Iconographic. One image showed Kennedy riding in an open convertible with NFL greats the “Fearsome Foursome.” It stopped me, due to the reference to his brother’s assassination, of course, but also because it seemed like such an anachronism. Can anyone imagine a scene like that transpiring in 2010?
The back room of the gallery had several walls of classic photographs of famous people, hung salon-style. It’s a strange, fascinating mash-up of Marilyn Monroe, Winston Churchill, JFK, MLK, Ganhdi, Jackson Pollock, Pablo Picasso, Stravinsky, Frank Sinatra, Albert Einstein and more, photographed by the likes of Robert Capa, Alfred Eisenstaedt, Margaret Bourke-White, and Arnold Newman. History; commodified.
Eight Modern is a relative newcomer, compared to the SF institutions mentioned above. It’s a contemporary art gallery in an old adobe building, just off of Canyon Road.
While they often show painting and sculpture in a beautiful setting, the June/July show was by the Chicago conceptual artist Jason Salavon. He uses the computer to make original work from historical masterpieces, and shows digital projections, video installation, abstract prints, and digital C-prints, which I’d classify as photographs.
The front room contained two pieces that were haunting, smart and original. Salavon created montages of portraits by Velasquez and van Dyck that show just the ghostly suggestion of classical portrait sitters to create a meta-portrait. The layers of brown and ochre, and the subtle look of under-painting, are rendered digital and morphed into hyper-real. The spot where the face resides is not recognizable, per se, but is lighter in color in just the way to suggest what it was. It was probably the best work I saw on my gallery crawl. (But that bespeaks my bias towards the contemporary and conceptual, obviously.)
Finally, I saw one show down I-25 in Albuquerque at the Richard Levy Gallery. I’m including it because why not, as Levy shows contemporary international work in a great downtown space. (And I happened to be in ABQ briefly one day.) His current exhibition is by Manjari Sharma, the Mumbai and New York based photographer whose “Shower Series” has gotten lots of exposure on the web. (Burn Magazine, Lensscratch, Fraction Magazine’s blog & more.) While I’ve seen the jpegs many times, it was good to experience the large prints on the wall. She’s photographed a mix of attractive, multi-racial people who agree to take a shower in her apartment. None of the photos depict the subjects looking at the camera. They’re caught in what appear to be private, contemplative moments. So while the work is visually engaging, I was interested in the way it called attention to the artificial nature and forced intimacy of photographer/sitter relationship.
Well, that was a lot of information, I know. If you’ve made it this far into the article, you’re obviously interested in photography, or Santa Fe, or both. That, or it’s quiet today and you have some time to kill. Regardless, I’d encourage a trip out to New Mexico if you’ve not been before. All the above galleries show high quality work on a regular basis, and you can add Site Santa Fe, the NM Museum of Art, James Kelly Contemporary, Zane Bennett Contemporary Art, and the NM History Museum to the list. And in case you were wondering, I’m not a covert member of the Chamber of Commerce. I assure you.
Monday, June 21, 2010
STEPHEN WILKES - ELLIS ISLAND: GHOSTS OF FREEDOM
June 26 through October 10, 2010
Stephen Wilkes: Corridor #9, Ellis Island
Fred Beans Gallery - James A. Michener Art Museum
It's hard to imagine a place that says more about the American experience than Ellis Island. For twelve million people, Ellis Island was the doorway to a new life. The hopes and dreams of several generations of immigrants began and sometimes ended there, and there are few American families who can't trace their heritage back to someone whose first footsteps on American soil happened at Ellis Island. For five years, renowned photographer Stephen Wilkes had free reign of the island's hospital complex. Neglected for nearly fifty years, the buildings were in an extreme state of disrepair: lead paint peeled from the ceilings and walls, vines and trees grew through the floorboards of once cramped wards. In these long-abandoned spaces, Wilkes discovered an unyielding solitude, yet also found undeniable evidence of life, not only in the implicit remembrances of the people who resided there, but in the radiant, beckoning light in which these scenes were captured.
Organized by the Michener Art Museum with the cooperation the George Eastman House, Rochester, and ClampArt Gallery, New York, this exhibition presents a selection of Wilkes's evocative contemporary images of Ellis Island as well as a group of vintage prints from the Eastman House collection by the legendary photographer Lewis Hine (1874-1940), who began documenting the immigrant experience around 1904 and produced a major body of work focusing specifically on Ellis Island.
View the full collection of Stephen Wilkes' Ellis Island photographs here.
James A. Michener Art Museum
138 South Pine Street
Doylestown, PA
Tuesday through Friday: 10 am to 4:30 pm
Saturday: 10 am to 5 pm
Sunday: 12 pm to 5 pm
More information
Map here
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
NEW YORK IN REVIEW - PART THREE: GREY VILLET
Another highlight of our week in New York was meeting with Barbara Villet, widow of the late LIFE magazine photographer Grey Villet.
In an era before any digital tinkering with his results was possible,Villet's was a technique that required intense concentration, patience and understanding of his subjects joined with a technical mastery that allowed rapid use of differing cameras and lenses to capture and compose the "right stuff" on film as it happened.
Grey Villet was born in a sheep herding center called Beaufort West in the Karoo desert of South Africa in 1927. While he was still a boy his doctor father moved the family to Cape Town where he grew up. His father expected him to follow him into medicine and Grey was duly enrolled in the pre-med program at Cape Town University. It didnt take; he spent most of his time at a cafe downtown where there was music and a lot of smoke...At about this time his sister's fiance gave him a camera and that did take...It was the excitment of seeing his own pictures emerge in a friend's dark room that set the course of his life.
By the late 1940's, his despairing father sent him to London to study photography---but after a few months Grey left school to earn a meager living doing wedding snaps outside the Registry while living in a trucker's stop hostel. At 20 he landed a job on the Bristol Evening News--and within 2 years had moved up to Reuters International in London on the strength of his newspaper work. At 24 he returned to South Africa and a job at the country's leading newspaper, the Johannesburg Star--but the pomposity of management's objection to his disheveled look after a night of chasing a rough news story decided his future. Already determined to become a "magazine photographer" he quit the Star on the spot and soon set off for New York hoping to land a chance at LIFE magazine. With no connections, little money, and a new wife who was expecting a child. he spent most of his time bending iron for a furniture wholesaler until he approached the personnel department at Time Inc. with his portfolio...They sent him to see John Bryson, then picture editor at Life who saw talent in his work and gave him the test assignment still titled in LIFE records as "Pigeon Man"
So it was that Grey's Villet’s career with LIFE magazine began in April of l954 on the outer ledge of a Manhattan skyscraper high above 42nd Street and 5th Avenue. He had come to this perilous perch when that trial assignment from Bryson to photograph a man said to feed thousands of pigeons at the New York Public Library had proven worthless. With hopes of working for the magazine in jeopardy, he had taken himself to a a nearby office building, ridden the elevator to a 55th floor and asked a group of office workers on lunch break to “take a picture out the window.” Folding his 6’4”frame out onto the narrow ledge,he leaned forward to shoot straight down over his dangling feet before horrified office workers could pull him to safety. Bryson found the resulting 3 images on the single contact sheet that the newcomer from South Africa turned in later that day. What he saw was not just a stunning image that LIFE week as its “Speaking of Pictures,” but precisely the sort of resourcefulness the editors looked for in photographers. In retrospect, Grey’s sensational edge of the ledge image could be viewed as a metaphor for what was to follow. Not only did it speak of the courage, ambition, and inventiveness that would carry him to the top of his chosen profession, but of the heightened perspective that working for LIFE would afford him for decades to come.
Within a year of being added to LIFE’s legendary roster of photographers in 1955, he won photojournalism’s most prestigious award when he was named Magazine Photographer of the Year. Other honors followed, including multiple firsts from NPPA and Gold from World Press Photo, but by the time Grey and I met on assignment in 1961 on the celebrated essay, Lash of Success, and began a working relationship that led to our subsequent marriage, he had largely abstained from competitions to focus entirely on the quality of the images he was producing rather than personal recognition. Unwilling to promote himself, he modestly rejected the idea of organizing his own retrospective only months before his sudden death in 2000. “The work will tell” he told me then, “the work will tell.” Self effacing, quiet, Grey was truly a quintessential photojournalist in the service of truth , and the work still "tells" powerfully. -- Barbara Villet
The New York Times Lens Blog published a wonderful feature on Grey Villet, edited by Stephen Crowley. Barbara Villet is hard at work on a book about her husband; she has become a determined advocate for her husband's tremendous legacy of photojournalism. We are extremely pleased to represent a select collection of vintage prints from her collection, and look forward to sharing more news about this very important photographer with our readers in the near future.
New York in Review - Part One: The Alfred Eisenstaedt Award
New York in Review - Part Two: The AIPAD Photography Show
Grey Villet
In an era before any digital tinkering with his results was possible,Villet's was a technique that required intense concentration, patience and understanding of his subjects joined with a technical mastery that allowed rapid use of differing cameras and lenses to capture and compose the "right stuff" on film as it happened.
Grey Villet was born in a sheep herding center called Beaufort West in the Karoo desert of South Africa in 1927. While he was still a boy his doctor father moved the family to Cape Town where he grew up. His father expected him to follow him into medicine and Grey was duly enrolled in the pre-med program at Cape Town University. It didnt take; he spent most of his time at a cafe downtown where there was music and a lot of smoke...At about this time his sister's fiance gave him a camera and that did take...It was the excitment of seeing his own pictures emerge in a friend's dark room that set the course of his life.
By the late 1940's, his despairing father sent him to London to study photography---but after a few months Grey left school to earn a meager living doing wedding snaps outside the Registry while living in a trucker's stop hostel. At 20 he landed a job on the Bristol Evening News--and within 2 years had moved up to Reuters International in London on the strength of his newspaper work. At 24 he returned to South Africa and a job at the country's leading newspaper, the Johannesburg Star--but the pomposity of management's objection to his disheveled look after a night of chasing a rough news story decided his future. Already determined to become a "magazine photographer" he quit the Star on the spot and soon set off for New York hoping to land a chance at LIFE magazine. With no connections, little money, and a new wife who was expecting a child. he spent most of his time bending iron for a furniture wholesaler until he approached the personnel department at Time Inc. with his portfolio...They sent him to see John Bryson, then picture editor at Life who saw talent in his work and gave him the test assignment still titled in LIFE records as "Pigeon Man"
Grey Villet photographing "The Pigeon Man", 1954
So it was that Grey's Villet’s career with LIFE magazine began in April of l954 on the outer ledge of a Manhattan skyscraper high above 42nd Street and 5th Avenue. He had come to this perilous perch when that trial assignment from Bryson to photograph a man said to feed thousands of pigeons at the New York Public Library had proven worthless. With hopes of working for the magazine in jeopardy, he had taken himself to a a nearby office building, ridden the elevator to a 55th floor and asked a group of office workers on lunch break to “take a picture out the window.” Folding his 6’4”frame out onto the narrow ledge,he leaned forward to shoot straight down over his dangling feet before horrified office workers could pull him to safety. Bryson found the resulting 3 images on the single contact sheet that the newcomer from South Africa turned in later that day. What he saw was not just a stunning image that LIFE week as its “Speaking of Pictures,” but precisely the sort of resourcefulness the editors looked for in photographers. In retrospect, Grey’s sensational edge of the ledge image could be viewed as a metaphor for what was to follow. Not only did it speak of the courage, ambition, and inventiveness that would carry him to the top of his chosen profession, but of the heightened perspective that working for LIFE would afford him for decades to come.
Within a year of being added to LIFE’s legendary roster of photographers in 1955, he won photojournalism’s most prestigious award when he was named Magazine Photographer of the Year. Other honors followed, including multiple firsts from NPPA and Gold from World Press Photo, but by the time Grey and I met on assignment in 1961 on the celebrated essay, Lash of Success, and began a working relationship that led to our subsequent marriage, he had largely abstained from competitions to focus entirely on the quality of the images he was producing rather than personal recognition. Unwilling to promote himself, he modestly rejected the idea of organizing his own retrospective only months before his sudden death in 2000. “The work will tell” he told me then, “the work will tell.” Self effacing, quiet, Grey was truly a quintessential photojournalist in the service of truth , and the work still "tells" powerfully. -- Barbara Villet
The New York Times Lens Blog published a wonderful feature on Grey Villet, edited by Stephen Crowley. Barbara Villet is hard at work on a book about her husband; she has become a determined advocate for her husband's tremendous legacy of photojournalism. We are extremely pleased to represent a select collection of vintage prints from her collection, and look forward to sharing more news about this very important photographer with our readers in the near future.
New York in Review - Part One: The Alfred Eisenstaedt Award
New York in Review - Part Two: The AIPAD Photography Show
"Going Under," an examination of farm foreclosures in the 1980's, published in Life.
Friday, January 1, 2010
MONROE GALLERY AT PHOTO LA: The 19th Annual International Los Angeles Photographic Art Exposition; January 14-17, 2010
Monroe Gallery of Photography is pleased to exhibit at the 2010 edition of this venerable Photography Fair. We will be exhibiting specially selected work from the gallery's collection: several new acquisitions, new photographs from Stephen Wilkes, and introducing the work of the acclaimed photojournalists Guy Gillette, Irving Haberman, and Richard C. Miller. (As always, please contact Monroe Gallery if you would like to arrange for us to bring any particular photograph from the gallery to the show.)
Returning to the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium, photo l.a. 2010, the 19th Annual International Los Angeles Photographic Art Exposition moves back to it's former home at 1855 Main Street, Santa Monica, California. Conveniently located, just off of the 10 Freeway and two blocks from the beach.
The opening night reception will benefit the Wallis Annenberg Photography Department at LACMA and is hosted by noted photographer David LaChapelle and actor /photographer Chris Lowell. To order tickets visit: www.lacma.org/art/photola.aspx or email photola@lacma.org Please check their website for LACMA’s curated lecture program programming schedule.
Over the past eighteen years photo l.a. has earned a reputation as one of the foremost art fairs and the leading photo-based events in the country. Presenting the finest galleries from around the globe, this 19th edition of photo l.a. promises to be the best ever. We are very proud to be presenting a preview installation of the upcoming Museum of Latin American Art (MoLAA) exhibition: Changing the Focus: Latin American Photography (1990-2005), the first survey exhibition to be presented in the Los Angeles area of Latin American photography and photo-based art generated between 1990 and 2005. The curator, Idurre Alonso, will give a talk about the exhibition and will lead an on-site collecting seminar. Gordon Baldwin, former Curator of Photography at the Getty Institute, will also conduct an on-site collecting seminar.
Los Angeles continues to be home for more and more artists and it has become a major creative center for the production of photography and photo-based art," says Stephen Cohen, producer of Photo L.A., owner of the Stephen Cohen Gallery in Los Angeles. "Photo L.A. 2010 presents an international array of galleries and artists giving to curators, collectors, critics and art enthusiasts the opportunity to enjoy the best photography that our city and the world have to offer. Now in its 19th year, it is the longest running art fair in Los Angeles, and it will be a major cultural event in the Los Angeles fine art landscape."
Photo L.A. will feature the photographic art from the earliest 19th-century photographic experiments to the most contemporary photography and photo-based art. Many of the world's leading galleries and private dealers representing international and U.S. artists will display work at photo l.a. 2010. International galleries, including Galeria Sicart (Spain), Queensland Centre (Australia), Gallery Suite 59 (Netherlands), Czech Center for Photography (Czech Republic) and MR Gallery (Beijing), will participate in the fair. Contemporary Works/Vintage Works will also return once again to the fair, along with such major dealers as Halsted Gallery, Monroe Gallery, Susan Spiritus Gallery, Stephen White Gallery, Scott Nichols Gallery and DNJ Gallery--among many others.
Phase One of the La Brea Matrix project will debut at photo l.a. 2010. The project is produced by The Lapis Press and Schaden.com with the support of the Goethe Institut and MAK Center for Art and Architecture.
Opening Night Reception
Benefitting the Wallis Annenberg Photography
Department at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art
January, 14th 6 - 9 pm
Hosted by
David La Chapelle & Chris Lowell
Santa Monica Civic Center
1855 Main Street
Santa Monica, CA 90401
Buy Tickets Online
Photo L.A. will be open to the general public on Friday, January 15th, and Saturday, January 16th, from 11 am to 7 pm, and Sunday, January 17th, from 11 to 6 pm. Tickets are $20 for a one-day pass, $30 for a three-day pass and $10 for lectures. All exhibition, lecture and opening night benefit reception tickets are available for purchase in advance or at the door. For additional information on Photo L.A. 2010, including the opening benefit reception and advance ticket sales, visit http://www.photola.com/ .
Buy tickets for regular admission.
Portions Copyright © 2010 I Photo Central, LLC
MONROE GALLERY OF PHOTOGRAPHY
112 Don Gaspar
Santa Fe, NM 87501
505.992.0800
505.992.0810 (fax)
info@monroegallery.com
http://www.monroegallery.com/
Blog: http://monroegallery.blogspot.com/
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