WCSU exhibit features Eppridge photo chronicle of Beatles’ 1964 US visit

        
Via WCSU.edu

DANBURY, CONN. — A remarkable photographic chronicle by legendary Life Magazine photojournalist Bill Eppridge of the Beatles’ historic 1964 visit to the United States will be featured in a Western Connecticut State University Art Gallery exhibition that will open Tuesday, Jan. 19, and continue through Saturday, March 13, 2016, at the university’s Visual and Performing Arts Center.

A collection of 55 black-and-white photographs taken by Eppridge during his coverage for Life of the British rock group’s visit to New York and Washington from Feb. 7 through 12, 1964, will be shown in the exhibition, “The Beatles: Six Days That Changed the World,” sponsored by the WCSU Department of Art. An opening reception will be held from 4 to 7 p.m. on Saturday, Jan. 23, in the Art Gallery at the arts center on the WCSU Westside campus, 43 Lake Ave. Extension in Danbury. Reservations to attend the free public reception may be made on the VPAC events Web page at www.wcsuvpac.eventbrite.com.

Eppridge, who resided in New Milford in his later years, died in October 2013 in Danbury after an extraordinary career as a photojournalist spanning 60 years. He is widely recognized for capturing iconic images of contemporary history including the Beatles’ Feb. 9, 1964, appearance on “The Ed Sullivan Show” and the poignant image on June 6, 1968, of a busboy kneeling beside the mortally wounded Sen. Robert F. Kennedy in a Los Angeles hotel kitchen moments after his assassination. “You are not just a photojournalist,” he said in recalling the Kennedy image. “You’re a historian.”
Yet the WCSU exhibition of selections from his 1964 Beatles tour photo shoot, which consumed more than 90 rolls of film and 3,000 photographs, would have been impossible without the mysterious recovery of these images seven years after they went missing and the painstaking work of Eppridge’s editor and wife, Adrienne Aurichio, to review and organize this vast photo archive into a comprehensive record of the Beatles’ tour as it unfolded.

Aurichio recalled in a 2014 essay for CBS News marking the 50th anniversary of the Beatles’ “Ed Sullivan Show” appearance that the 26-year-old Eppridge found himself in the right place on the morning of Feb. 7, 1964, to draw the assignment from Life Magazine photography director Dick Pollard to cover the Beatles’ arrival that day at John F. Kennedy Airport in New York. He followed the Beatles as Life’s photo correspondent throughout the first six days of their U.S. tour, shooting spontaneous images documenting performances, rehearsals and private moments during the tour that established the group as an international rock ‘n’ roll sensation.

At the time, Life Magazine published just four of the images from Eppridge’s assignment, and the original film submitted to the Time-Life photo lab for processing could not be located when he attempted several months later to retrieve the images. By his account, at least seven years passed before the film turned up on his desk with no explanation of how it had been recovered.

Aurichio’s role in re-creating Eppridge’s Life photo chronicle of the 1964 Beatles tour began in 1993 when she came across one of his prints from the shoot while researching photographs for a magazine project. Intrigued at the prospect of discovering more photos from the Beatles visit, she soon learned the full story of Eppridge’s recovered film chronicle, which provided the images featured in the WCSU exhibition and in the book, “The Beatles: Six Days That Changed the World,” released in 2014 by Rizzoli Publishing. In his acknowledgments for the book, Eppridge noted that Aurichio played a critical part as co-editor in “piecing together my story. I relied on her vision and experience as an editor to research and unravel the photographs, and then pull them together in chronological order.”

Aurichio observed that Eppridge’s photographs of the Beatles’ 1964 visit reflect the fact that “he made pictures as they happened, never staging anything. The pictures are so personal. You know that there were other photographers and media around, but Bill had a way of focusing in on his subjects — excluding the distractions. You feel like Bill was the only photographer there.”

Born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 1938, Eppridge grew up in Wilmington, Delaware, and became interested in photography at an early age, beginning his career as a sports photographer for a local newspaper at the age of 15. In 1959 he earned his first award for photography in the National Press Photographers Association Pictures of the Year competition. The following year he graduated from the University of Missouri School of Journalism with honors as “College Photographer of the Year.” Upon graduation he landed an internship at Life Magazine, which led to a yearlong around-the-world photo assignment for National Geographic and a coveted position as staff photographer for Life from 1964 to 1972. During his tenure at Life, he covered many of the most noteworthy public figures and historical events of the era, from the Civil Rights movement and the Vietnam War to the Woodstock music festival and drug addiction in New York.

After Life closed at the end of 1972, Eppridge served as a photojournalist for other national publications including Time and Sports Illustrated magazines. The numerous professional recognitions for his work included the Joseph A. Sprague Memorial Award, the highest honor given by the National Press Photographers Association. His photographs have been shown in exhibitions across the United States, featured in a major show at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington and included in shows at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

For more information, call the Department of Art at (203) 837-8403, the Art Gallery at (203) 837-8889, or the Office of University Relations at (203) 837-8486.


Western Connecticut State University offers outstanding faculty in a range of quality academic programs. Our diverse university community provides students an enriching and supportive environment that takes advantage of the unique cultural offerings of Western Connecticut and New York. Our vision: To be an affordable public university with the characteristics of New England’s best small private universities.

Bill Eppridges' photography will be included in Monroe Gallery's exhibit at photo la, January 21 - 24, 2016; and is available on line here.

Art Shay: The man with the golden lens

Muhammad Ali in 1961, when he was still Cassius Clay. “In terms of particulars,” says documentarian Ken Hanson, “this photo is as perfect as it gets.”  Art Shay

Art Shay:


"They're ranking me one of the great photographers of the last century," he says of the Art Institute show. "I sort of agree. I'm not as dead as some."


A wonderful in-depth article about the 92-yean old prolific photographer Art Shay via the Chicagoreader.com with slideshow.

PHOTO LA 2015

Winter has set in to Santa Fe, and we are looking forward to heading west and exhibiting again at this year's edition of photo la, January 15 - 19, 2015. Monroe Gallery of Photography will be in Booth #203, just to the right of the main entrance to the fair.

To mark the forthcoming 50th anniversary of the Selma March, the gallery will showcase a very special selection of photographs from the 1965 March, alongside other iconic images from the civil rights era. We will be also exhibiting a wide variety of important photojournalism; including Stephen Wilkes iconic photograph of the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. Aditionally, we will show several of Wilkes acclaimed Day To Night collection; alongside many other classic photographs.

Be sure to attend the Photojournalism and Its Role in the Fine Art World panel discussion Sunday, Jan. 19, 11:30 - 1.



About photo la: The international photographic art exposition photo la returns for its 24th year at The REEF, located in the historic LA Mart building in downtown Los Angeles, January 15 - 18, 2015. Downtown LA has become an international destination for art patrons and enthusiasts. In addition to photo la and the LA Art Show, downtown LA will also welcome the highly anticipated opening of the new Broad Museum in 2015, along with the ongoing arrival of new cutting-edge and blue-chip galleries, such as Hauser Wirth & Schimmel. Inspired by downtown's growing vitality and creative energy, photo la relocated to The REEF for its 2014 edition, attracting an unprecedented attendance of 16,000 guests.

The 2015 edition of photo la will expand its uniquely diverse and far-reaching showcase of photographic art, ranging from 19th Century works to contemporary and innovative photography-based art. Alongside galleries, dealers, museums, and nonprofit organizations, photo la will also expand its acclaimed programming to include more lectures, roundtable discussions, special installations, and docent tours with distinguished members of the photographic/arts community. This year, photo la is pleased to honor Catherine Opie, and the fair's exclusive VIP opening gala will celebrate her lifelong contributions to the arts. Additionally, all proceeds from the opening gala will go towards photo la's 2015 beneficiary “ The United Way of Greater Los Angeles and The Painted Brain.

Buy Tickets

Concurrent events

Classic Photographs Los Angeles

The LA Art Show

Related: "I’m also glad Monroe Gallery of Photography (Booth #203) is returning this year."

Go West: New York, Santa Fe, Los Angeles

For nearly 15 years, we have been exhibiting at the Photo LA fair. We are pleased to return for the 23rd edition, this year being held at the spacious LA Mart. Please visit us through Sunday in Booth #302. Click here for the digital catalogue.

Photo L.A. Celebrates 23 Years of Image-Making

One Spot, 1000s of Images: photo l.a

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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.

 

We look forward to seeing you during the fair. Further information here, or please contact the gallery.



 

 

"To flip through the pages of this handsome book inevitably elicits a wave of nostalgia, a desire to roll back the years to a time when print was king and a dime could buy this singular curated version of the world"

Sunday Book Review


"Now comes “75 Years: The Very Best of Life,” a coffee-table behemoth weighing nearly seven pounds, featuring unforgettable photo­graphs (Alfred Eisenstaedt’s famous kiss, “V-J Day, Times Square, New York City, 1945”) as well as never-before-published photos from the archives."

Read full article here.

75 YEARS

The Very Best of Life

Illustrated. 224 pp. Life Books. $36.95

An American Girl In Italy - by David Schonauer

Ruth Orkin: An American Girl in Italy, 1951

The 60th anniverary of the making of a truly iconic photograph was recently celebrated, resulting in numerous news articles and an appearance by the subject of the photograph on the TODAY Show. David Schonauer has written on a variety of topics for Atlantic Monthly, the New York Times, Worth, Mademoiselle, Outside, and other publications. He is the former editor in chief of American Photo magazine, and here is his take.

Via The Big Picture

A Journal of the Visual Culture from David Schonauer

 

Photographer Ruth Orkin’s “American Girl in Italy” is probably one of the most widely known and loved images from the 20^th century. Orkin, who died in 1985, took the picture a little more than 50 years ago, on August 21, 1951, in the Piazza della Repubblica in Florence, a day after meeting a 23-year-old American woman who was traveling through Europe alone. Her name was Ninalee Allen, known to her friends by a childhood nickname, “Jinx.” A recent graduate of Sarah Lawrence College, she was spending the summer on a great adventure. Her carefree spirit—as well as her beauty and commanding six-foot height, caught Orkin’s attention. She thought she might take a color picture of Allen near the Arno River, which she could sell to a newspaper for a few dollars. And so the stage was set for a remarkable moment and a remarkable photograph.

The picture has beguiled and confounded the world since it was printed as a poster in the 1970s. It has been seen as a symbol of female powerlessness in a male-dominated world, which is not what Orkin intended. It also has been the subject of debate because Orkin in fact shot it twice—after recording the reaction of the men in the Piazza when Allen walked through, she asked the young woman to walk through again. It was the second entrance that became the famous photo. Did she play too fast and loose with the truth? Does it matter?

I recently wrote about the photograph for the October issue of Smithsonian magazine. (Go here to read my piece.) As part of my research, I went to the best primary source I could find—the American Girl herself. Ninalee Allen is now Ninalee Craig, age 83 and living in Toronto. She is lively, lovely, and very certain that Orkin’s picture reflects the truth of what happened that day. Here is a excerpt of my interview with her.

THE AIPAD PHOTOGRAPHY SHOW: "Where photojournalism is exhibited alongside artier and more experimental work"

Friday, March 18, 2011

The AIPAD Photography Show is in full swing as we head into the weekend. The New York Times writes: "Art fairs can seem as if they were outside of history, congested labyrinths that confuse time and place. That’s not often the case with the annual Association of International Photography Art Dealers show, where photojournalism is exhibited alongside artier and more experimental work...the real reason to visit this fair is for its wealth of older material, going back to 19th-century photographs by William Henry Fox Talbot and Eugène Atget and including classic 20th-century images by the likes of Ansel Adams, Edward Weston, Berenice Abbott and Andre Kertesz."

This juxtaposition was emphasized in yesterday's visits to our booth by Bill Eppridge (R) and Stephen Wilkes (L):

We are showing a selection of Wilkes' photography from his China and America in Detail series; and debuting the newest photograph from his stunning "Day into Night" collection:

Times Square, Day Into Night, 2010

Also featured at Monroe Gallery are several examples of Bill Eppridges's historic images of 20th Century photojournalism:

Bill Eppridge: Bobby Kennedy campaigns in IN during May of 1968, with various aides and friends: former prizefighter Tony Zale and (right of Kennedy) N.F.L. stars Lamar Lundy, Rosey Grier, and Deacon Jones

Bill Eppridge: Mrs. Chaney and young Ben, James Chaney funeral, Meridian, Mississippi, 1964

Please join us at Booth #417 through Sunday!



Rebel with a camera: Dennis Hopper's stunning photographic archive is revealed

All Photograpahs by Dennis Hopper: Ike and Tina Turner, 1965

The Independant
Saturday, 19 February 2011


When the actor and director Dennis Hopper died last year, it sparked renewed interest in his 'other' career – a chronicler of Sixties America. As his stunning photographic archive is published in a book for the first time, John Walsh pays tribute.

Jane Fonda, 1965

The film critic Matthew Hays wrote of him: "No other persona better signifies the lost idealism of the Sixties than that of Dennis Hopper". Note the word "persona" – as if the real Hopper lay forever hidden behind the image he projected, of the scary, wild-eyed, chemically enhanced, crazily enthusiastic combination of hippy visionary and serious artist.


He was born in Kansas but his parents relocated to San Diego in 1949 when he was 13. California clearly suited him. In his high-school graduate class of 1954, he was voted the Boy Most Likely To Succeed. He didn't waste much time. His film career began a year later, when he appeared in Rebel Without a Cause, the first of two films with James Dean. Hopper hero-worshipped Dean, and was with him almost every day for eight months before Dean died in a car crash. And it was Dean who encouraged him to pick up a camera.

Selma, Alabama (Full Employment), 1965 

Ironically, the death of his friend pitched Hopper into such a fever of anti-authority attitude that for years Hollywood studios refused to use him. Photography became a substitute. His first pictures were street scenes in New York, where he moved to study acting at Lee Strasberg's method school. The turn of the 1960s was an explosive time for the arts – pop music, pop art, wayward graphics, post-studio cinema, photo-realist reportage, the rise of the art super-dealer like Robert Fraser in London and Henry Geldzahler in Manhattan. Hopper lapped up all the new influences around him. He was, reputedly, the first person ever to buy a Warhol soup can (for $75). He became a self-confessed "gallery bum". And his photographs began to reflect two things he had discovered: the texture of the ordinary, and the attractions of fame.

His pictures of empty highways, graffiti and torn posters on city walls were eloquent statements of everyday decadence. When Hopper moved on to photographing people, he revealed a talent for capturing expressions. Check out the three black kids on the "Full Employment" demonstration in Alabama (above): the boy in the middle is clearly wondering if the white snapper is going to use his image for good or ill; but his friend grins sardonically as though pleased just to have his picture taken.

 Biker Couple, 1961
 

Look at the biker couple in his 1961 double portrait: the man so handsomely chiseled, his hair so back-slicked, his beard so trim, his tattoos so expressive of death, glory and rebellion as he gazes into the future – and his girlfriend so contrastingly down-to-earth, as if she's wondering just how long she can put up with this troubled, self-preening hero.

As he grew more confident and better known into the Sixties, Hopper acquired some famous friends and put them under the intelligent gaze of his lens. Paul Newman is snapped, looking grumpily like his jailbird alter ego Cool Hand Luke, behind a wire-mesh fence, so that its shadows imprison him in a net. He photographed Jane Fonda and her husband Roger Vadim in a series of loving poses, but managed to snap Jane flexing her independent muscles with a bow and arrow. He caught Ike and Tina Turner in a wonderfully ambiguous mood, amid the carnival paraphernalia of his house: Ike sitting on a kind of throne, fingering the organ keys, while Tina is left (ironically?) playing the role of washerwoman, scrubber, and cowed helpmeet (not that she looks terribly cowed).

Twins at 1712, 1966

His photography became more experimental (see Twins, above, where two bursts of strong Klieg lights blind the viewer who is trying to concentrate on the girls' bottoms) and more celebrated. In the mid-1960s, Better Homes & Gardens magazine commissioned a profile of him as "a photographer to watch" by the novelist Terry Southern, later to write Candy and The Magic Christian. By 1967, however, his photographic career was over. No longer an up-and-coming snapper, he was soon to become the hottest new director around. His counter-cultural masterpiece, Easy Rider, won a prize at Cannes, and was nominated for an Oscar (for best original screenplay). But his photographs, which capture with intelligence both street-life and the lives of famous friends, remain Hopper's vivid calling-card, announcing the arrival in town of a wild and wayward talent.

'Dennis Hopper: Photographs 1961-1967' is published on Monday by Taschen

More photos here.

NEW YORK: A PHOTOGRAPHER'S CITY

Stephen Wilkes: Washington Square Park, Day Into Night, 2009


The New York Times
Bookshelf
By Sam Roberts

Sunday, February 13, 2011

“New York: A Photographer’s City,” edited by Marla Hamburg Kennedy (Rizzoli, $45). This lush collection, which includes works by Berenice Abbott and Stephen Wilkes, offers fresh perspective on the “physical uniqueness” of the city’s familiar venues, mostly captured in color. Though identifying less familiar haunts would have been a welcome addition, the images here do succeed in going beyond the concrete to capture what Elisabeth Sussman describes in her foreword as the image of the city, both permanent and transitory, that “haunts past and present photography of New York.”

More: NYC like you have never seen her before. This stunning book showcases an unparalleled compilation of mostly unpublished photographs of New York City and its boroughs taken by established and emerging artists. "New York: A Photographer’s City is a world-class collection, featuring artists from all over the
globe, offering views, cityscapes, and vignettes that are fresh and beautifully illustrate the city’s 5 ever-changing boroughs.

The 350 images capture the avant-garde spirit of New York and the city’s appearance in the twentyfirst century. While we immediately associate black and white imagery with NYC, this new look brings out the color in the big apple and reveals the magic that continues to inspire New Yorkers and visitors



Related: The City of New York

FILM vs DIGITAL: A Conversation Continues

Zodiac - © John Neel


Via Pixiq

Before I get too many people adding prejudiced comments about the pros and cons of digital imaging verses film, I want to emphasize that I am not putting digital down. Nor am I trying to make a point for film. I am a digital photographer as well as a film photographer. This is not a pro or con discussion about film vs. digital.


Rather, I am asking if there is a difference between the kinds of images that used to be taken with film in comparison to what we are seeing with digital from a spiritual point of view. I am not alone in asking the question.

In looking at the offerings of new technology photography, I am finding very few images that have a specific quality that dominates the works of the great film photographers of film technology. Most of what I see today seems sterile, vapid and trite, by comparison. There seems to be something significant that is missing.

Somehow there is a difference that many of my contemporaries as well as myself feel is missing from the current process. I want to find out what that something is.

When we look at the works of great photographers such as Robert Frank, Mary Ellen Mark, André Kertész, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Lee Friedlander, Gary Winogrand, Ansel Adams, Atget or any of hundreds of photographers who have given us amazing images produced with film, there seems to be a magical or mystical presence that is missing from most of what I would call rather trite and unimaginative images being produced by digital means today.

When a photographer really connects with his subject, there is a transformation beyond the obvious, beyond the likeness of the subject. There is a sense of something else, which is somehow conveyed in a surprising or magical manner. A metamorphosis takes place that we as a viewer can see, feel and understand because the subject has been transformed into something bigger and more profound. The subject becomes a metaphor or symbol for deeper consideration. For me this is a necessary step in the creation or capture of a powerful image. It is photography at its finest. There is much more to the image than appearance. A deeper message is formed. Communication and learning takes place. We become bigger and smarter because the image speaks to us in a deeply articulate way.

Yet, I find this quality scarce in the digital images that I have seen of late.

Is this because there is an - difference between the two technologies, which allows the magic to be captured more easily with one medium over the other? Here again, I am not discussing the differences in technique as much as I am in the ability of the photographer to capture the essence of the subject through either process.

Surely, digital allows a more economical workflow in terms of time and effort. But is there a difference in how a moment is captured. Does film allow the capture to be more transcendent? Is there a higher possible spiritual attainment with a film camera than with a digital camera? Does one technology provide a better capability to transport us to a higher level of understanding beyond the mere representation of a subject?

Personally, I believe that there is a major difference and worth an investigation. For many photographers, film seems more genuine as a medium because to them, it has the ability in the right hands to capture something we could refer to as soul. To me, soul is an essential part of a higher form of image making. It makes the difference between a simple rendition of a subject and one that rises beyond the subject. To capture soul means capturing something deeper and much more meaningful.

It may be possible that with digital, we have not yet made the leap to a spiritual connection with our subjects. If so, could it be because we are still in the early phases of digital imaging and that "thing" will become more evident to us as we become better digital photographers? Is the task of digital imaging too easy or possibly too difficult or distracting that we fail to connect with the subject? Do we pay more attention to the camera and the technology of digital rather than the subject itself? Is it possible that we are better able to become “one” with our subjects with a less complicated medium such as film?

I believe that it is a combination of these and perhaps other circumstances that results in a failure to touch the soul of the subject. And I should say here that film alone does not produce the magic. But, there may be a valid reason that the magic is more prevalent with film.

Personally I think that it is a matter of connecting with your subject in a meditative manner. Awareness and anticipation as well as having genuine concern for the subject matter allows for a better opportunity of becoming one with your subject. I believe that this can happen with either media. It just seems to be less prevalent and more difficult to achieve with digital.

I sense a difference.

© John Neel

Is any of this important to you? If not, why not?
How do we get soul into an image? This will be a topic for another post.

EXHIBITION LOOKS TO THE BEAUTY OF ICE AND SNOW

Eddie Adams: Hill and Gully Riders, New Kensington, PA, 1958

 As January wanes and winter endures over most of the Northern hemisphere, snow is covering much of the United States and many regions will experience the coldest temperatures of the season this weekend. With one week remaining in our current "'Tis The Season" exhibition, here is a selection of classic photographs with a winter theme or setting. Bundle up!

Harold Roth: Fulton Fish Market, New York, 1946

Ruth Orkin: White Stoops, New York, 1951

Verner Reed: Trees In Snow Storm, Stowe, Vermont,1971

Peter Keetman: Self-Portrait, 1962

John Dominis: Southern Pacific Engine, Donner Pass, California, 1949

Afred Eisenstaedt: Evergreen Trees at -51 Degrees Mt. Tremblant, Canada, 1944

View the full exhibition here.

'PHOTO LA GOLD'

Via PhotoInduced

At first blush, we like to just get an overall vibe of a event.

Opening night, we let you know that there were fewer dealers and no breakout stars.
But then we knew we had to go digging for gold.

And we found some.


By the way, the Monroe Gallery from Santa Fe, had some supreme examples of the best in journalistic photography. Seriously the classics all seemed to be there, from Malcolm X taking a photo of Muhammad Ali in a diner after he beat Sonny Liston, to Marilyn Monroe singing Happy Birthday  to John Kennedy, and even George Bush synchronizing his watch with Dick Cheney.

Not cheap, but high quality.

See the full article here.

BEST OF 2010

Andreas Feininger: The Photojournalist, 1955

The web is full of year-end "Best Of" lists to commemorate the close of 2010, and pictures are a popular theme. Here is a selection of "The Best Photographs of 2010":

The Big Picture

The Top 20 Photos of 2010 (NY Daily News)

The Best Photographs From TIME 2010

SPIN'S Best Photographs of 2010

Yahoo's Iconic Images From 2010

Pictures Of The Year (Reuters)

Best Bloomberg Photographs of 2010: Images From Around World

2010: The Year in Pictures (New York Times)

2010 National Geographic Photography Contest

The world's best underwater photographs 2010 (The Guardian)

2010 Pictures Of The Year (Life.com)

NEW YORK AT NIGHT, DECEMBER 20, 1934

In our previous post, we wrote about the official beginning of the winter season. Nation Public Radio's "The Picture Show" reminded us of a truly iconic photograph, one that only could have been made on the shortest day of the year, on a fleeting moment when the city was slightly darkened, but the office lights remained on.


New York City At Night, 76 Years Ago

by Shannon Perich
© NPR



Between 4:30 and 5 p.m. on Dec. 20, 1934, Berenice Abbott's camera was hanging off an upper floor of the Empire State Building recording New York City at Night.

With a fixed artistic vision, the location scouted and exposure calculated for fifteen minutes, the independently-minded photographer captured that fleeting moment when the city was slightly darkened, but the office lights remained on.


For some, this photograph, though some 76 years old, may seem somewhat familiar with its dramatic angles, hovering perspective and workers still in their offices after dark. But for Abbott, it represented the emerging of the modern New York and new lifestyles that came with it.

Abbott was born in 1898 in Springfield, Ohio, and moved to New York in 1919. Frustrated by the commercialism and politics threatening her Greenwich Village bohemian lifestyle (like Prohibition), and intrigued by the artistic and literary of circles of Paris, she moved in 1921. Her eight years in Paris were pivotal in shaping her as a photographer.

She was versed in sculpture, drawing and writing, but it was during her employment in Man Ray's photography studio that she learned to make photographs. Ray (1890-1976) ran a famous portrait studio but in his spare time was at the vanguard of surrealist photography. He challenged the conventional approaches to photography, which provided Abbott with opportunities to become a successful portrait photographer in her own right. He also introduced her to Eugene Atget (1857-1927), a photographer noted for tirelessly documenting the architecture, urban views and landscapes of Paris.

The modernist tendency to see the city as a valid subject and as a scene for formal studies — and the appreciation for long-term documentary work — were both visible trends in Abbott's photography by the time she returned to America in Jan. 1929.

It might be difficult for our contemporary eyes and city experiences to allow us to imagine Abbott's New York City at Night as a new view of the world. In 1932, the Great Depression was still plaguing many Americans. And the Farm Security Administration was about to create a vision of America that remains seared into a shared visual history — with photos from the field like Migrant Mother.

But Abbott's cityscape offers a perspective of excitement about American technological achievements — through her ability to blend cubist visual constructions with the reality of urban modern architecture. The photograph also holds some of the romance and mystery of the night that Ella Fitzgerald sings about in Cole Porter's song, All Through The Night, from the musical Anything Goes.

This image, perhaps her most well-known, remains a visually exciting image with complex rhythms that might offer our jaded eyes a way to see the city with refreshed excitement.

Abbott's enthusiasm for documenting New York City resulted in an extraordinary documentary project that can be explored in her book Changing New York. Many of those photographs can be seen at the Museum of the City of New York, where Abbott left her archive.

The Smithsonian's Archive of Art also holds many documents related to the Federal Art Project that funded the massive photography project and Abbott’s assistant Elizabeth McCausland's papers. Abbott's legacy also continues through a photography award in her name that is given to emerging photographers with a body of work waiting to be published.

Shannon Thomas Perich is an associate curator of the Photographic History Collection at Smithsonian's National Museum of American History. Her regular contributions to The Picture Show are pulled from the Smithsonian's archives. See the original NPR article here.

BORN DECEMBER 6: ALFRED EISENSTAEDT


We celebrate and remember Alfred Eisenstaedt on the 112th anniversary of his birth. We were privileged to have first met Eisie in 1986, and he inspired and informed our path as gallerists specializing in photojournalism.

Renowned as the father of modern photojournalism, Alfred Eisenstaedt’s career as a preeminent photojournalist spanned eight decades. Born in West Prussia on December 6, 1898, “Eisie”, as he preferred to be called, began taking photographs in Germany in 1914. As a pioneer in his field, “Eisie” had few rules to follow. Diminutive in stature, he worked with minimal equipment and was known for an aggressive yet invisible style of working. Regarded as an innovator of available light photography, Eisenstaedt dispensed with flash photography early on in order to preserve the ambiance of natural lighting.

He photographed throughout Europe, Africa, and the Middle East until he came to LIFE magazine in 1936. As one of the four original staff photographers for LIFE, “Eisie” covered over 2,500 assignments and created 86 covers for the magazine. Acknowledged as one of the most published photojournalists in the world, he took photographs at the first meeting of Hitler and Mussolini, of Albert Einstein teaching at Princeton, Churchill’s campaign and re-election, children at a puppet theater in Paris, Marilyn Monroe at home, and hundreds of other significant people and events around the world. He was an editor’s dream, and his work had what became known as “Eisie’s eye”. Portrait assignments became one of  his specialties, and in the process he accumulated many little-known secrets about his subjects.

“V-J Day, Times Square, 1945”, in which a sailor, elated because the war is over, kisses a nurse amidst a New York crowd, will perhaps always be Alfred Eisenstaedt’s signature photograph. Acclaimed as one of the Ten Greatest Images of Photojournalism, it reflects “Eisie’s” keen sense of spontaneity. Many books have been written about Eisenstaedt and his career; and he authored several books including: People, Witness To Our Time, Eisenstaedt On Eisenstaedt, and Remembrances. It is unlikely that anyone could have lived during the last 50 years without having been exposed to the photographs of Alfred Eisenstaedt. “Eisie” worked almost ceaselessly until his death in 1995, even photographing President Clinton and Family in 1993.

Alfred Eisenstaedt possessed the unique talent to capture a story in a single, tell-all moment. The photographer’s job, he once wrote, “is to find and catch the storytelling moment.” “Eisie” received awards and recognition far too numerous to list. His photographs have been exhibited in prestigious museums and galleries throughout the world and are in the permanent collections of many important art institutions.

Accolades continued after his death. The Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University inaugurated the Alfred Eisenstaedt Awards for Photography. The City of New York renamed Grand Street “Alfred Eisenstaedt Place” for the occasion of a retrospective exhibition organized by Sidney S. Monroe in 1998/1999. And in December, 1999 the on-line magazine Digital Journalist named Eisenstaedt “The Photojournalist of the Century”. The career of this legendary photographer was celebrated with the exhibition “The Eye of Eisenstaedt” at Monroe Gallery July 7 – October 1, 2006.


Alfred Eisenstaedt passed away on August 25, 1995 - just 11 days after the 50th anniversary of his iconic photography "VJ-Day in Times Square".  His obituary in The New York Times was titled "Alfred Eisenstaedt, Photographer of the Defining Moment, Is Dead at 96".



Related: Alfred Eisenstaedt Master Photographer, 1983 BBC series on YouTube

New Yorker Magazine: Photo Booth: Alfred Eisenstaedt’s Century in Photographs

In March, 2010, Sidney and Michelle Monroe received the Alfred Eisenstaedt Award for Excellence in Photography "for their passion and dedication to the LIFE photographers".

Art Price Index 1: Photography 1985-2010

From the Financial Times:

"The mainstream of the photography market [central 80%] peaked in September 2008 then fell by 21% in the 18 months to March 2010. The top 10% of the market, where prices routinely climb steeply in good times, also peaked in September 2008, but by March 2010 this top sector had almost halved. All sectors of the market are now recovering fast and the long-term growth of 7% - 8% once again seems like a good bet."

More with charts here.

Related: Thoughts on the record fall auctions 

Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre (1787–1851) and the Invention of Photography

On November 18, 1787 Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre was born, and he would later create a process that would revolutionize the art world.

©Malcolm Daniel

Department of Photographs, The Metropolitan Museum of Art


On January 7, 1839, members of the French Académie des Sciences were shown products of an invention that would forever change the nature of visual representation: photography. The astonishingly precise pictures they saw were the work of Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre (1787–1851), a Romantic painter and printmaker most famous until then as the proprietor of the Diorama, a popular Parisian spectacle featuring theatrical painting and lighting effects. Each daguerreotype (as Daguerre dubbed his invention) was a one-of-a-kind image on a highly polished, silver-plated sheet of copper.


Daguerre's invention did not spring to life fully grown, although in 1839 it may have seemed that way. In fact, Daguerre had been searching since the mid-1820s for a means to capture the fleeting images he saw in his camera obscura, a draftsman's aid consisting of a wood box with a lens at one end that threw an image onto a frosted sheet of glass at the other. In 1829, he had formed a partnership with Nicéphore Niépce, who had been working on the same problem—how to make a permanent image using light and chemistry—and who had achieved primitive but real results as early as 1826. By the time Niépce died in 1833, the partners had yet to come up with a practical, reliable process.


Not until 1838 had Daguerre's continued experiments progressed to the point where he felt comfortable showing examples of the new medium to selected artists and scientists in the hope of lining up investors. François Arago, a noted astronomer and member of the French legislature, was among the new art's most enthusiastic admirers. He became Daguerre's champion in both the Académie des Sciences and the Chambre des Députés, securing the inventor a lifetime pension in exchange for the rights to his process. Only on August 19, 1839, was the revolutionary process explained, step by step, before a joint session of the Académie des Sciences and the Académie des Beaux-Arts, with an eager crowd of spectators spilling over into the courtyard outside.

The process revealed on that day seemed magical. Each daguerreotype is a remarkably detailed, one-of-a-kind photographic image on a highly polished, silver-plated sheet of copper, sensitized with iodine vapors, exposed in a large box camera, developed in mercury fumes, and stabilized (or fixed) with salt water or "hypo" (sodium thiosulphate). Although Daguerre was required to reveal, demonstrate, and publish detailed instructions for the process, he wisely retained the patent on the equipment necessary to practice the new art.

From the moment of its birth, photography had a dual character—as a medium of artistic expression and as a powerful scientific tool—and Daguerre promoted his invention on both fronts. Several of his earliest plates were still-life compositions of plaster casts after antique sculpture—an ideal subject since the white casts reflected light well, were immobile during long exposures, and lent, by association, the aura of "art" to pictures made by mechanical means. But he also photographed an arrangement of shells and fossils with the same deliberation, and used the medium for other scientific purposes as well. The journalist Hippolyte Gaucheraud, in a scoop that appeared the day before daguerreotypes were first shown to the Académie des Sciences, wrote of having been shown the image of a dead spider photographed through a solar microscope: "You could study its anatomy with or without a magnifying glass, as in nature; [there is] not a filament, not a duct, as tenuous as might be, that you cannot follow and examine." Even Arago, director of the Observatoire de Paris, was reportedly surprised by a daguerreian image of the moon.

Neither Daguerre's microscopic nor his telescopic daguerreotypes survive, for on March 8, 1839, the Diorama—and with it Daguerre's laboratory—burned to the ground, destroying the inventor's written records and the bulk of his early experimental works. In fact, fewer than twenty-five securely attributed photographs by Daguerre survive—a mere handful of still lifes, Parisian views, and portraits from the dawn of photography.

Source: Daguerre (1787–1851) and the Invention of Photography
Thematic Essay
Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History
The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Related: The Daguerreian Society

JOE McNALLY "THE REAL DEAL"

Via Joe McNally's Blog

November 8, 2010
Joe McNally

Taught again this year at the Santa Fe Photo Workshops, as I usually do. I really enjoy my occasional visits to the Southwest. Over the last few years, I’ve regularly brought my classes to the Monroe Gallery, run by Sid and Michelle Monroe. Great people, and close friends. They are the real deal.


I am very determined about this (especially when I teach young shooters who’ve never had a whiff of dektol) as a way of acquainting folks with work that is really the shoulders upon which we all stand. Digital photo fever is at an all time high, which is a great thing. It’s just important to know where we came from.

And, I have to admit, there’s the curmudgeon in me who’s determined to avoid much of the rest of the chic, super heated bubble that constitutes the Santa Fe spa/art scene, which, at least occasionally, makes me chuckle. I mean, there are so many galleries on Canyon Road, and such a cacophony of art that it veers damn close to outright tragic. I’m sure this is my own demented imagination at work, but I can conjure a day for the cognoscenti down there beginning by putting down the lemon scented loofah, removing the cucumber slices from the eyelids, rinsing off the sea salt scrub laced with all natural oatmeal and tinged with the scent of free range apricots, and chugging through gallery after gallery. In those shops are mult-hued Kokopelli statues, intricately fashioned wind chimes, and fantastically bent pieces of metalwork, many of which, to me, look like the product of a welder having a seizure. It’s all okay. Art is many things to many people.

I prefer the simple white walls and the largely monochrome environment at Monroe. Their gallery is like an oasis of unflinching, heartfelt reality in the midst of the ephemeral, land of enchantment swirl. What hangs on those walls makes a connection. Some of it entertains the eye in a delightfully kinetic way. Other pictures stir memory, nostalgia, and an echo in your head and your heart. (Where was I when this happened?) Other images up there are like a punch in the gut.

What I truly believe about a powerful picture is that after viewing it, you are never the same. You have been changed, forever. You might not realize it at that moment, but you are. There’s been an interior, seismic shift in your emotional substrata. The plates tilted, just a little bit. These pictures linger, like a persistent thought. Or, like someone shouting to you in a rainstorm, it gets your attention, even if you can’t completely make out what it’s saying. Sometimes, they’re like a wound. Photographic scar tissue.


The Monroe’s concentrate their eye and their gallery on historically important photojournalism. Even a quick pass through one of their shows is like looking at your memory of the last 50 years, right there, in one place. Currently, they have a show of Carl Mydan’s work. Carl, a diminutive, gentlemanly sort, was a giant, and a tiger with a camera in his hands. Under that affable exterior was steel. How else could he have withstood the firestorm of ego and bluster that was General Douglas MacArthur to get the pictures that he did?

Also up this fall was the work of Bill Eppridge. (Very appropriate to look at Bill’s work during campaign season, and remember that once upon a time, images of politicians had some grit, and were the product not of “photo opps,” but of real access and relationships.)

Saw Bill at Photo East, still carrying a camera. Still crusty as ever. He’s earned the right to be crusty, I can tell you. He’s done it all, and his work remains a benchmark for all of us who have ever picked up a camera with serious intent.

I won’t make a history lesson out of this, but the story of the picture above, which was on the walls of Monroe, might not be so well known. What is well known is that Epp covered RFK’s run at the presidency, and grew close with the Senator. He was there in the hotel kitchen when he was gunned down, and made that awful, famous frame of the busboy cradling the Senator’s head as he lay dying. Given the dicey light, it was a thin negative.

The Time Life photo lab, now no more, was the stuff of legend. They pulled from this neg a master, elegant print and copied it. It was from this copy neg, derived from that one print, that many, many reproductions of that moment came.

When Bill’s tenure with LIFE ended, and the weekly mag folded, he was asked if he wanted the master. In the interests of storage space, they were taking 16×20 prints and cutting them down to 11×14’s, as hard as that may seem to believe. So of course, he said yes. They said, okay, where do we ship it? Bill said nowhere, and got on a plane. He took physical possession of this legendary print, but with a profound sense of ambivalence. The night of the assassination, he did his job, magnificently. But at that terrible moment, his job entailed photographing a man he had grown close to, dying in front of him. So the print did not go on his wall. He put it out of sight, behind his couch in Laurel Canyon, California home.

Wildfires came to the canyon, and destroyed almost everything in their path. Bill’s home burned to the ground, along with just about everything in it. Except the master print, charred, as you see it above.

Some pictures just stick with you. More tk….

©Joe McNally

Related: The Albuquerque Journal: Bill Eppridge: An Eye On The Times

The Historic Master Print of Robert F. Kennedy Shot

Joe McNally: Faces of Ground Zero

Looking Back At The Great 'Life' Photographers

Looking Back At The Great 'Life' Photographers

©National Public Radio
by Claire O'Neill

LIFE really has an unfair advantage when it comes to curating art books. Because, at least in the photography category, they have one of the most extensive, impressive archives from which to cull. For decades the pages of Life were home to the best photographers; and it was just about every amateur photographer's aspiration to be in those pages.

Some of the photos you've seen: Like the sailor kissing the nurse on V-J Day in Times Square. Others you may not know, but can instantly appreciate: Kennedy and baby Caroline, Jackie Robinson rounding third base at the World Series, Picasso painting with light — and in a bathtub.

So add The Great Life Photographers to your list of holiday gift books. The paperback edition of the 2004 visual encyclopedia was released in October and contains 600 pages of Life's best photography. Daunted by the prospect of making an even smaller edit, I asked Barbara Baker Burrows, director of photography at Life books to pick some of her favorites. Her edit and commentary constitute this gallery. But you can see more Life classics on their website.

Alfred Eisenstaedt: Children at a puppet theater, Paris, 1963

Margaret Bourke-White: At the time of the Louisville Flood, 1936

Ralph Morse: Jackie Robinson rounding Third base during World series against the Yankees, 1955

See the slide show here.


Credit: From 'The Great Life Photographers'/Time Inc./Selected and with commentary by Barbara Baker Burrows, Director of Photography