Showing posts with label photo exhibits. Show all posts
Showing posts with label photo exhibits. Show all posts

Thursday, February 29, 2024

Greenwich Historical Society Exhibit Features 6 Women Photographers Whose Iconic Images for LIFE Magazine Helped Create Modern Journalism



Via Greenwich Free Press
February 29, 2024


Six pioneering women whose photographs for LIFE magazine skillfully captured events on a quickly evolving world stage will be the subject of Greenwich Historical Society’s new exhibition to debut March 6. These photographers enabled the public “to see life; to see the world; to eyewitness great events,” as described by LIFE magazine founder and editor-in-chief Henry Luce.



black and white photograph of Billy Eckstine being adored by female fans,New York, 1949


Martha Holmes, photograph from “Mr. B.,” LIFE, April 24, 1950 © LIFE Picture Collection, Dotdash Meredith Corp. Martha Holmes began photographing for LIFE in 1944. On view in the exhibition are Holmes’s 1950 photographs of mixed-race singer Billy Eckstine, including one of Eckstine being embraced by a white fan—a provocative image that Holmes felt was one of her best because she felt that it “told just what the world should be like.” Henry Luce supported this opinion.


LIFE: Six Women Photographers features iconic images from these talented women who helped create modern photojournalism through their work as featured in the pages of LIFE magazine.

On view through July 7, 2024, the exhibition presents more than 70 photographs by Margaret Bourke-White (1904-1971), Marie Hansen (1918-1969), Martha Holmes (1923-2006), Lisa Larsen (ca. 1925-1959), Nina Leen (ca. 1909-1995) and Hansel Mieth (1909-1998).

“We are thrilled to showcase the works of these talented photographers who were on the vanguard of a transformative change in how twentieth-century Americans received and understood global cultural and political events,” said Maggie Dimock, curator of exhibitions and collections at Greenwich Historical Society.

“This insightful exhibition offers a glimpse into how each of these remarkable women used their camera to capture topics that dominated American discourse through the last century, including U.S. industrial strength, the role of women and the family in modern American society, race relations, World War II, labor movements and the Cold War.”

A long-time Greenwich resident, Henry Luce (1898 – 1967) was convinced that American political, economic, and cultural power would, and should, dominate the era and that photojournalism, or “photo essays” as he coined them, could effectively shape America as an international power, inspiring its people, in his words, “to live and work and fight with vigor and enthusiasm.”

For decades, Americans saw the world through the lens of the photographers at LIFE, and the magazine’s innovative photo essays became the publication’s trademark.

Of the 101 photographers on staff at LIFE during the magazine’s run as a weekly, only six full-time photographers were women. LIFE: Six Women Photographers highlights the work of these photographers while providing insight into the process through which they worked with editors to create visual stories, through the inclusion of photographs, vintage prints, copy prints and contact sheets. Published and unpublished photographs along with select memos, correspondence and other items from Time Inc. records show the editing process behind the final, published stories.

“The topic will provide fascinating historical context to the enormous changes underway today in media,” said Greenwich Historical Society Executive Director and CEO Debra Mecky. “And it will enable us to further our mission to strengthen the community’s connection to our past, to each other and to our future. Henry Luce was a Greenwich resident during the time he was arguably the most influential media figure in the twentieth century and one of the country’s most prominent citizens.”

LIFE: Six Women Photographers has been organized by the New-York Historical Society. The exhibition is curated by Marilyn Satin Kushner, curator and head, Department of Prints, Photographs, and Architectural Collections; and Sarah Gordon, curatorial scholar in women’s history, Center for Women’s History; with Erin Levitsky, Ryerson University; and William J. Simmons, Andrew Mellon Foundation Pre-Doctoral Fellow, Center for Women’s History. The New-York Historical Society holds the research archive of Time Inc., which was acquired by the Meredith Corporation (now Dotdash Meredith Corp.) in 2018.

A series of lectures, workshops and discussions, film screenings and other activity related to the exhibition will be presented by Greenwich Historical Society throughout the duration of the exhibition, beginning with two in March:

Women of Photos and Letters: Margaret Bourke-White, Clare Booth Luce and Annie Leibovitz
Thursday, March 14 from 6:00 – 7:00 pm


In honor of Women’s History Month, Louisa Iacurci of the Connecticut Women’s Hall of Fame will explore the inspiring histories of Hall of Fame inductees whose work and lives are intertwined with social advocacy and journalistic activism, including photographers Margaret Bourke-White and Annie Leibovitz and writer, journalist and politician Clare Booth Luce.

LIFE: Six Women Photographers: A Lecture with Curator Marilyn Satin Kushner

Thursday, March 21 from 6:00 – 7:00 pm

In an illustrated lecture, Dr. Marilyn Satin Kushner, Curator and Head of the Department of Prints, Photographs, and Architectural Collections at New-York Historical Society, will expand on the curatorial process for LIFE: Six Women Photographers.

The full program schedule is available online: https://greenwichhistory.org/life-six-women-photographers/


Guided Gallery Tours:
Tours will be offered on select Sundays through June, from 1:00 – 1:30pm. Free with admission, participants will enjoy an in-depth docent-led discussion of LIFE: Six Women Photographers, that shares insightful interpretation of the photographs on view, and a modern perspective to understanding the complex social backdrop in which they would have originally been seen by magazine readers.

Dates: March 10, 24; April 7, 21; May 5, 19; June 2, 16, 30.

For more information: https://greenwichhistory.org/event/guided-gallery-tour/.

Woman and 2 childrenin fron of roadside sign "Entering New Deal Speed limit 25 mph", Montana, for LIFE magazine in 1936

Margaret Bourke-White, photograph from “Franklin Roosevelt’s Wild West,” LIFE, November 23, 1936 © LIFE Picture Collection, Dotdash Meredith Corp. Margaret Bourke-White became one of the first four staff photographers at LIFE in 1936.

This exhibition has been generously supported by Joyce B. Cowin, with additional support from Sara Lee Schupf, Jerry Speyer, Robert A.M. Stern and Northern Trust.

Support for this exhibition at the Greenwich Historical Society has been generously provided by Josie Merck and annual donors to the Greenwich Historic Trust.


 

Tuesday, February 27, 2024

Upcoming Exhibition at Montclair Art Museum: Ed Kashi - Abandoned Moments

 

Montclair Art Museum logo graphic letters MAM

Via Montclair Art Museum

Ed Kashi: Abandoned Moments

MARCH 22-MAY 19, 2024

For Ed Kashi, the abandoned moment is the consequence of a fractional instant of surrender. The photographs in this exhibition, made over a 40-year period across four continents and in both black and white and color, reveal glimpses of transitory events filled with frenetic energy–the chaos of everyday life. Embodying photography’s intrinsic power, they preserve moments that can never occur again in exactly the same time and space. In these photographs, geometry, mood, and possibility unite to create something new and magical, capturing the untamed energy of a moment with abandon. 


PREVIEW THE EXHIBITION

black and white photograph of 2 women in white head coverings and white dresses leaving a building in Armenia, Columbia

ARMENIA, COLOMBIA, 1981, From Ed Kashi Abandoned Moments. Archival pigment print, 20 x 24 in. Photograph courtesy of the artist.

Ed Kashi is a renowned photojournalist, filmmaker, speaker, and educator who has been making images and telling stories for 40 years. His restless creativity has continually placed him at the forefront of new approaches to visual storytelling. Dedicated to documenting the social and political issues that define our times, a sensitive eye and an intimate and compassionate relationship with his subjects are signatures of his intense and unsparing work. As a member of VII Photo, Kashi has been recognized for his complex imagery and its compelling rendering of the human condition.

Along with numerous journalism and photography awards and commissions, Kashi’s images have been published and exhibited worldwide. His photographs are in the collections of a number of major museums, including the George Eastman House, the International Center of Photography, the Museum of the City of New York, The Museum of Fine Arts Houston, and the New Orleans Museum of Art. His editorial assignments and personal projects have generated fourteen books.

Kashi is also a noted teacher, running photography workshops and master classes across the world. He will be offering a master workshop through the Yard School of Art beginning on April 7.

This exhibition, consisting of 29 photographs, is organized by MAM’s Executive Director, Ira Wagner. 


Plan your visit

3 South Mountain Avenue

Montclair, New Jersey 07042-1747

Thursday, June 1, 2023

Harwood Museum of Art Centennial

 Via Harwood Museum of Art


Graphic image with Harwood Museum of Art 100 text on red background


On view at the Harwood from June 2023 to January 2024, the Harwood Museum of Art Centennial exhibition will take visitors on a journey through the museum’s rich history. Touchstones will include the cultural history of the land where the museum now stands, and the many roles the property has served since it was purchased by Burt and Lucy Harwood in 1916. The property was the site for Taos’ first library and art gallery, including a permanent art collection from donors such as Mabel Dodge Luhan. It housed the Works Progress Administration’s (WPA) Taos County Project, the University of New Mexico Summer Field School of Art, and served as a nexus for the Taos Moderns.

The Harwood Museum of Art Centennial exhibition is a survey of the museum through time, the history of the town to which it is so central, and the role that art from Taos and its surroundings played in the larger artistic movements of the last century. Through unique historic and contemporary exhibition vignettes, the Centennial is a dynamic chance for guests to understand the evolution of one of the Southwest’s oldest museums. With a focus on the future, contemporary artists will be showcased through a series of community art installations and a juried artist commission.


Monroe Gallery of Photography is honored to have loaned a print by Margaret Bourke-White for the exhibition.

Native Americans on rock outcropping on the Acoma Pueblo in New Mexico, 1935. Photographed by Margaret Bourke-White for TWA
Margaret Bourke-White/©Life Picture Collection:  Acoma Pueblo, New Mexico, (for TWA), 1935


Sunday, April 23, 2023

Capturing Humanity: Photography exhibit explores snapshots of New York’s ordinary people

 

black and white photo of young Boy wearing hankerchief as a mask, New York City, c. 1946 by Sonia Handelman Meyer.


Via The Albuquerque Journal

BY KATHALEEN ROBERTS / JOURNAL STAFF WRITER

Sunday, April 23, 2023


Two pioneering women photographers who were blacklisted by the Red Scare share wall space at Santa Fe’s Monroe Gallery of Photography.

Both Sonia Handelman Meyer and Ida Wyman were members of the Photo League. The league was a collective of photographers active from 1936-1951, who believed their work could change poor social conditions and champion photography as an art form. It thrived as one of the most progressive, dynamic and creative centers for photography in the country. About one-third of its members were women.

Handelman Meyer and Wyman roamed the streets of New York, capturing the humanity of ordinary people. In some ways, their gender helped them remain invisible to the people they photographed.

“There was a great advantage to being a woman at that time, to be considered as no consequence,” gallery co-owner Michelle Monroe said.

Handelman Meyer learned about socially engaged photography in workshops by one of the Photo League founders Sid Grossman.

She captured three boys affecting tough guy poses after chasing her down the streets of Spanish Harlem demanding that she photograph them. She also shot “Boy Wearing Mask, New York City” (1946-1950), an image less mysterious that it seems.

“He was playing cops and robbers,” Monroe said. “The way he’s looking at her; there’s a lot of ambiguities about that child. Was he playing? Is it mistrust? Was it just an interruption from an adult? He’s just playing.”

Wyman photographed for Life and Business Week magazines, as well as her own enjoyment. Her work went unheralded for decades.

She was 19 and working in Manhattan as a photo printer for the Acme Newspictures agency when she photographed several men in Manhattan’s garment district in April 1945. One held up a copy of The Jewish Daily Forward, the Yiddish-language newspaper, as the others read about President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s death. Wyman’s “Looking East on 41st Street, NYC” (1947) down a canyon of skyscrapers captures the majesty and industry of the city.


black and white photo of men in the Garment District reading a newspaper in Yiddish about President Roosevelt’s Death, NYC, 1945,” Ida Wyman.

“Men of the Garment District Read of President Roosevelt’s Death, NYC, 1945,” Ida Wyman. (Courtesy of Monroe Gallery)


Before Handelman Meyer and Wyman, women were often assigned to shoot department store openings, Monroe said.

In 1947, the Photo League appeared on a long list of organizations identified with the Communist Party. Efforts to counter the allegation included a large exhibition, “This Is the Photo League.” But in 1949, Angela Calomiris, a Photo League member and F.B.I. informant, publicly testified that members of the organization were Communists. The League disbanded in 1951, a casualty of the Red Scare.

The league’s secretary at the time, Handelman Meyer answered the office phone when requests for comment about the accusations poured in from the media. She also received threatening calls.

“It got to be too much,” she told The New York Times. “They were blacklisting people. There were photographers who could not get their passports for overseas jobs. Little by little, it dissolved.”

When the league closed, Handelman Meyer put her photos and negatives in boxes and moved on with her life. They wouldn’t be opened for many years.

In the early 1940s, the list of notable photographers who were active in the league or supported their activities also included Margaret Bourke-White, W. Eugene Smith, Helen Levitt, Farm Security Administration photographer Arthur Rothstein, Beaumont Newhall, Nancy Newhall, Richard Avedon, Weegee, Robert Frank, Harold Feinstein, Ansel Adams, Edward Weston and Minor White.


‘Two Pioneering Women Photographers of the Photo League’

Sonia Handelman Meyer and Ida Wyman

WHEN: Through June 18

WHERE: Monroe Gallery of Photography, 112 Don Gaspar Ave., Santa Fe

CONTACT: 505-992-0800, monroegallery.com



screen shot of article in newspaper


Saturday, March 25, 2023

Monroe Gallery announces representation of the Sonia Handelman Meyer estate

 Via Art Daily News

March 25, 2023

black and white photograph of African-American young boy with kerchief mask seated on stoopn in New Rork City while playing "cops and robbers", circa 1946-1950
Sonia Handelman Meyer/Courtesy of Monroe Gallery of Photography
 Boy in mask, New York City, c.1946-1950. Gelatin silver print.


SANTA FE, NM.- Monroe Gallery of Photography has announced its representation of the Sonia Handelman Estate, and will exhibit a selection of lifetime and vintage prints at the 2023 AIPAD Photography Show in New York City March 31-April 2 and present a 2-person exhibit with Ida Wyman: “Pioneering Women of The Photo League” at Monroe Gallery in Santa Fe, April 21-June 18, 2023.

The Photo League was a collective of photographers active between 1936-1951 who believed their work could change poor social conditions and champion photography as an art form in the process. The Photo League thrived as one of the most progressive, dynamic and creative centers for photography in America, and was unusual in its time as many of the collective’s members were women. In the 1940s when McCarthyism started gathering momentum in the US, suspicious authorities decided to clamp down on the Photo League’s confrontational and uncensored representations of urban American society. In 1948, it was declared a subversive organization and blacklisted. As the league’s secretary at the time, Sonia Handelman Meyer answered the office phone when requests for comment about the accusations poured in from the media. “It got to be too much,” she told The New York Times. “They were blacklisting people”.

Sonia Handelman was born on Feb. 12, 1920, in Lakewood, N.J., and grew up in New York City. Her parents were Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe. After graduating college in 1941, Handelman Meyer worked during World War II in the Office of War Information for the U.S. Signal Corps in Puerto Rico, and the Office of War Information in New York, and then at a news photography agency. In 1943 she joined the Photo League, where she studied with John Ebstel and Sid Grossman. She also served as secretary (the only paid position at the League) and, in 1948-50, as chair of the Hine Committee. She participated in several group exhibitions, including "This Is the Photo League" (1948–49). Handelman Meyer collaborated with Morris Huberland on a photographic series of Sydenham Hospital in Harlem (1947) and photographed in neighborhoods throughout New York. She later documented the Weavers, the American folk group that included Pete Seeger. Her photographs appeared in The New York Times (1947–48) and U.S. Camera Annual (1947). Her photographs also appeared in the exhibition "Photographic Crossroads: The Photo League" at the International Center of Photography, New York (1978) and "The Women of Photo League" at Higher Pictures Gallery, New York (2009).

Sonia Handelman Meyer died on September 11, 2022, at her home in Charlotte, N.C., at age 102.

Sonia Handelman Meyer’s work went unrecognized for decades. In recent years, there has been a revived interest in the radical collective that contributed incomparably towards promoting early street photography as an art form.

Thursday, January 26, 2023

A show celebrating acclaimed photographer Tony Vaccaro at Santa Fe’s Monroe Gallery of Photography (112 Don Gaspar) can be viewed for five more days—through Jan. 29

 Via The Santa Fe Reporter

January 25, 2023


Honoring Vaccaro


Speaking of countdowns, a show celebrating acclaimed photographer Tony Vaccaro at Santa Fe’s Monroe Gallery of Photography (112 Don Gaspar) can be viewed for five more days—through Jan. 29. Monroe mounted two exhibitions—here and a New York pop-up last month—to honor Vaccaro’s 100th birthday; the photographer died on Dec. 28, just eight days after his centennial, which he celebrated in New York with friends at a surprise birthday dinner. 

A New York Times obituary recounts how Vaccaro became a war photographer in World War II—also the subject of a 2016 HBO documentary. After the war, he transitioned and began to make fashion, travel and celebrity photographs for the country’s leading magazines. 

Those celebrities included Georgia O’Keeffe, whom Life magazine assigned Vaccaro to photograph in 1960. O’Keeffe expected a more famous photographer and at first refused to pose: “To win her over, Mr. Vaccaro cooked a meal and made a picnic lunch. When the weather turned too windy for the picnic, he gave her a plate of Swiss cheese as she sat in the back of his car. And when she playfully peered through a hole in a piece of the cheese, Mr. Vaccaro went into action,” the obituary reads. His other famous subjects included John F. Kennedy, Pablo Picasso and Sophie Loren, to name a few. 

This quote from Vaccaro accompanies Monroe’s information on the exhibition: “We call each other German, French, Italian. There is no Italian blood. There is no French blood. It’s human blood. On this Earth there is one humanity. Let’s do something about it. Let’s live! In a way, photography was my way of telling the world, ‘We have better things to do than to kill ourselves.’”

Wednesday, December 28, 2022

Portraits from Three Exhibitions by Three American Photographers: Joel-Peter Witkin, Arthur Elgort, Tony Vaccaro

 Via Exibart

December 28, 2022

exterior street view of the Monroe Gallery Tony Vaccaro Pop Up Gallery at 21 Spring St in NYC
T



Around the corner, on Spring Street, there was the pop-up show of the Monroe Gallery dedicated to Tony Vaccaro: the exhibition in the temporary room with large windows has just ended, but the same exhibition continues until February 5 in Santa Fe.

Michelantonio Celestino Onofrio Vaccaro was born in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, on December 20, 1922, to Italian immigrant parents. His father Giuseppe Antonio Vaccaro (born October 14, 1874) was from Bonefro, Molise. In 1926, during the family's move to Italy, both parents died. With the outbreak of World War II, Vaccaro returned to the United States to avoid military service in Italy, but then fought in Normandy, Belgium, Luxembourg and Germany. Until 1949, Vaccaro photographed throughout Germany and Europe, documenting post-war life. After returning to the United States in 1949, he worked for Flair and Look before joining Life magazine. Between 1950 and 1973 Vaccaro worked extensively as a fashion photographer. Settled in the West Village in 1951 and then in Central Park West in 1955, since 1979 he has been in Long Island City both as a residence and for his studio, with his archive of hundreds of thousands of images. We had met him a few months ago at the AIPAD photo fair where, always with the gallery owners Sidney and Michelle Monroe and surrounded by his grandchildren and son, he welcomed visitors toasting with a glass of red.


Friday, December 23, 2022

Tony Vaccaro centennial exhibition on view at Monroe Gallery of Photography

 Via Art Daily

December 23, 2022

color photograph of a glowing sunset portrait of the twin towers of the World Trade Center from 1979

A glowing sunset portrait of the twin towers of the World Trade Center from 1979


SANTA FE, NM.- A new exhibitions celebrates the 100th birthday of acclaimed photographer Tony Vaccaro in Santa Fe. The show has been on view at Monroe Gallery in Santa Fe since November 25, 2022, and will end on January 29, 2023.

Vaccaro is known for his photographs of WWII, which were the subject of a 2016 HBO documentary, and his editorial work for Life, Look, Newsweek, Vanity Fair and countless other publications. The exhibitions coincide with Tony Vaccaro 100! on view at the Museum für Photographie in Braunschweig, Germany. In both locations, Tony Vaccaro: The Centennial Exhibition, juxtaposes the living legend’s powerful war images with the lyrical mid-century fashion, film, and pop culture photographs that came later.

On view are more than four dozen photographs dating from 1944-1979. From the battlefields of Europe to the rooftops of Manhattan, Vaccaro trained his inimitable lens with a sensitivity derived from early hardship as an orphan in Italy. After the war, he replaced the searing images of horror embedded in his memory, by focusing on the splendor of life and capturing the beauty of fashion and those who gave of themselves: artists, writers, movie stars, and cultural figures. From a photograph of a running soldier in 1944’s Battle of the Bulge to a shot of the actress Gwen Verdon swinging in a hammock against a New York skyline, the exhibition illustrates Vaccaro’s will to live against all odds and to advance the power of beauty. Several never-before-exhibited photographs are on view: a 1951 image of a bevy of beautiful women surrounding one in a pink dress on a balcony, a 1968 shot of Vaccaro holding up a test strip during a photo shoot, and a glowing sunset portrait of the twin towers of the World Trade Center from 1979.

As Vaccaro passed his 100th birthday on December 20, 2022, he has survived two bouts of Covid, and is one of the few people alive who can claim to have survived the Battle of Normandy and Covid. He attributes his longevity to “blind luck, red wine and determination.”

“To me, the greatest thing that you can do is challenge the world,” said Vaccaro. “And most of these challenges I win. That’s what keeps me going.”

Born in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, on December 20, 1922, Michelantonio Celestino Onofrio Vaccaro spent the first years of his life in the village of Bonefro, Italy, after his family left America under threat from the Mafia. Both of his parents had died by the time he was eight years old, and he was raised by an uncaring aunt and a brutal uncle. His love of photography began in Bonefro where at age ten, he began taking pictures with a box camera. When World War II broke out, the American ambassador in Rome ordered Vaccaro to return to the States. He settled in with his sisters in New Rochelle, N.Y., where he joined his high school camera club. His teacher and mentor Bertram Lewis guided him through a year of concentrated apprenticeship.

A year later, at the age of 21, Vaccaro was drafted into the war. He was determined to photograph the war, and had his portable 35mm Argus C-3 with him from the start. By the spring of 1944 he was photographing war games in Wales. By June, now a combat infantryman in the 83rd Infantry Division, he was on a boat heading toward Omaha Beach, six days after the first landings at Normandy. For the next 272 days, Vaccaro fought and photographed on the front lines of the war. He entered Germany in December 1944, as a private in the Intelligence Platoon, and was tasked with going behind enemy lines at night. In the years after the war, he remained in Germany to photograph the rebuilding of the country for Stars and Stripes magazine.

Returning to the States in 1950, Vacarro started his career as a commercial photographer, eventually working for virtually every major publication: Flair, Life, Look, Harper’s Bazaar, Quick, Newsweek, Town and Country, Venture, and many more. Tony went on to become one the most sought after photographers of his day, photographing everyone from Enzo Ferrari and Sophia Loren to Pablo Picasso, Peggy Guggenheim and Frank Lloyd Wright. From 1970 to 1980 he taught photography at Cooper Union.

“Il Maestro,” as the Italian press calls him, has won numerous honors and awards. These include the Art Director’s Gold Medal (New York City, 1963), The World Press Photo Gold Medal (The Hague, 1969), The Legion of Honor (Paris, 1994), The Medal of Honor (Luxembourg, 2002), Das Verdienstkreuz (Berlin, 2004), and the Minerva d’Oro (Pescara, 2014).

Since retiring in 1982, Vaccaro’s work has been exhibited world-wide over 250 times and has been published or been the subject of ten books and two major films. In 2014, the Museo Foto Tony Vaccaro was inaugurated in Bonefro, Italy.

Vaccaro’s works are in numerous private and public collections including The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe, the Centre Pompidou in Paris, and the Library of Congress in Washington, DC.

In 2016, HBO Films premiered Under Fire: The Untold Story of Private First Class Tony Vaccaro. The film tells the story of how he survived the war, fighting the enemy while also documenting his experience at great risk, developing his photos in combat helmets at night and hanging the negatives from tree branches. The film also encompasses a wide range of contemporary issues regarding combat photography such as the ethical challenges of witnessing and recording conflict, the ways in which combat photography helps to define how wars are perceived by the public, and the sheer difficulty of staying alive while taking photos in a war zone. The film has led to a career renaissance for Vaccaro.

In 2018, Vaccaro’s photographs were featured in major one-person exhibitions in Venezia, Italy; Potsdam, Germany; London, England; and Santa Fe, New Mexico. In 2019, he was inducted into the International Photography Hall of Fame in St. Louis, Mo. In 2021 the Kunsthalle Helsinki presented the exhibition Tony Vaccaro: Life Is Wonderful, a selection of 130 images from his career of nearly 80 year

Sunday, July 17, 2022

Capturing The Front Lines Through The Lens

 

screen shot of Albuquerque Journal article "Capturing the front lines through the lens" about Monroe Gallery photo exhibition "Imagine A World Without Photojournalism"
Via The Albuquerque Journal

July 17, 2022


David Butow photograph through train window of Mother a and son leaving Ukraine in March, 2022
Two of the millions of refugees fleeing the war in Ukraine, this woman and her son leave for Poland and a completely unpredictable future. (Courtesy of David Butow)

From the Depression years to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, a human through line weaves among heroism, deprivation, power and oppression.

Open at the Monroe Gallery of Photography, “Imagine a World Without Photojournalism” explores those repeated connections through a roster of 24 photojournalists and 44 prints.

The photographs cover an arc of 20th and 21st century social and political change, from the battles of World War II to the Civil Rights struggles of the 1960s, from the Dust Bowl to the devastation of climate change, from the frenzy of presidential elections to the Jan. 6 insurrection on the U.S. Capitol.

“I think of it as a survey of our 20 years in Santa Fe,” gallery co-owner Michelle Monroe said. “We’re reinforcing the power of being educated by a free press. We’re trying to draw parallels between past events and current events.”

David Butow’s haunting portrait of a Ukrainian woman and her son leaving home for an unknown future in Poland reflects the uncertainty of migrants everywhere.

“It’s the heroism of every day people,” gallery co-owner Sidney Monroe said.

“He was in Ukraine covering the exodus when millions of people were trying to evacuate. He just returned from Uvalde, Texas (the site of the latest school massacre, where a gunman killed 21 people). He was also has covered the aftermath of other tragic school shootings.”


Line of African Americans at a Red Cross relief station in front of billboard that says "There's No Way Like The American Way", following flood in Louisville, Kentucky in 1937

Margaret Bourke-White’s 1936 image of a line of African American flood victims lining up for food and clothing beneath a sign touting the “American Way” reveals her ironic and subversive intent. Similar lines formed during the ravages of COVID-19.


Steve Schaprio’s “Stop Police Killings, Selma March, 1965” could have been taken at a Black Lives Matter march.

African - American woman holding a sign that says "Stop Police Killings" during the Selma March in 1965


“It’s never changed; the concept of an armed occupier,” Michelle Monroe said. “They can’t manage power responsibly.”

A photo of floating Zanzibar primary school students holding empty water jugs leads to the treatment of women, particularly in Muslim countries.

Daily life in the Zanzibar Archipelago centers around the sea, yet the majority of girls who inhabit the islands never acquire even the most fundamental swimming skills. Conservative Islamic culture and the absence of modest swimwear have compelled community leaders to discourage girls from swimming. The rate of drowning on the African continent is the highest in the world. The swimming lessons challenge a patriarchal system that discourages women from pursuing things other than domestic tasks.

“It’s a through line to the oppression of women,” Michelle Monroe said.

color photograph of A lone man stops a column of tanks near Tiananmen Square, 1989 Beijing, China. (Jeff Widener/AP)

Associated Press photographer Jeff Widener captured the iconic photograph of a lone man standing in front of a column of tanks during the Tiananmen Square protests and massacre in 1989 Beijing.


Widener was one of just a handful of photojournalists at the site.

“There were very few that got out with their film,” Michelle Monroe said.

“He hid it and let them take other canisters in his bag to get out,” Sidney said.

“That image is completely forbidden in China now,” he continued. “That whole movement has been erased.”


‘Imagine a World Without Photojournalism’

WHEN: Through Sept. 18

WHERE: Monroe Gallery of Photography, 112 Don Gaspar, Santa Fe

INFO: monroegallery.com



Thursday, July 7, 2022

David Butow, Author of the new book "Brink", on panel discussion at Monroe Gallery July 22

 

Monroe Gallery of Photography

Friday, July 22, 5:30 PM (MDT)

In Person and Online

112 Don Gaspar, Santa Fe, NM 87501


A Panel Discussion with David Butow and Nina Berman:

Threats to Photojournalism

Zoom RSVP here.


On Occasion of Monroe's Gallery 20th Anniversary

For more information go here.


color photograph of supporters of President Donald Trump with American Flag retreating from tear gas at the Capitol, January 6, 2021
January 6, 2021. Supporters of President Donald Trump retreat from tear gas during a battle with Law Enforcement officers on the west steps of the Capitol in Washington during the attack on the day of Joe Biden’s election certification by Congress



From a dingy motel room in the swing state of Michigan, to the Oval Office, BRINK chronicles the dynamics that unfolded during the 2016 presidential election and led, finally, to the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol in January 2021. Photographer David Butow moved from the San Francisco Bay Area to Washington, D.C. in 2017 to document what he knew would be a chaotic time in U.S. politics. “While I expected the incompetence, I underestimated the treachery,” he says in the book’s Endnotes.

“Why make a book of photographs from events that overwhelmed many of us in the last four years? We lived through history minute by minute, so much so that the gravitas of what transpired is apparent only when you step back and see how the whole saga unfolded. As revisionists seek to trivialize or downplay the events of 2016-21, it's critical to maintain a record of just how close the presidency of Donald Trump brought U.S. democracy to the brink of collapse.” 

To buy the book, go to: https://www.davidbutow.com/BRINK/1

image of cover of book "Brink"

Friday, May 27, 2022

Anna Boyiazis' In World Press Photo Exhibition: Resilience – Stories Of Women Inspiring Change

 

image graphic of women floating in Indian Ocean with Exhbit Title



Via World Press Photo
May 26, 2022


The World Press Photo Foundation, the Kingdom of the Netherlands and the City of The Hague present a selection of stories, awarded in the World Press Photo Contests from 2000 to 2021, that highlight the resilience and challenges of women, girls and communities around the world.

Gender equality and justice is a fundamental human right critical in supporting cohesive societies. Yet women around the world face deeply entrenched inequality and remain underrepresented in political and economic roles. Worldwide in 2021, women represented just 26.1% of some 35,500 parliament seats, only 22.6% of over 3,400 ministers, and 27% of all managerial positions. Violence against women prevails as a serious global health and protection issue. An estimated one in three women will experience physical or sexual abuse in her lifetime.

This joint exhibition conveys the commitment of the Netherlands to women’s rights and gender equality and justice. Multiple voices, documented by 17 photographers of 13 different nationalities, offer insights into issues including sexism, gender-based violence, reproductive rights, and access to equal opportunities. The selection of stories explores how women and gender issues have evolved in the 21st century and how photojournalism has developed in the ways of portraying them.

The exhibition features Anna Boyiazis' "Finding Freedom in the Water" series.
 


Event location

Atrium City Hall

Spui 70

The Hague

The Netherlands


Visiting hours

Monday-Wednesday: 7.00 - 19.00

Thursday: 7.00 - 19.00

Friday: 7.00 - 19.00

Saturday: 9.30 - 17.00

For more information about World Press Photo, go to www.worldpressphoto.org.