JUNE 12: LOVING DAY

Grey Villet: Richard and Mildred Loving. 1965

Via The LA Times
June 10, 2016

"Forty-nine years ago on June 12, the Supreme Court struck down laws in 16 states that banned mixed-race marriages. The decision in Loving vs. Virginia overturned the conviction of Richard and Mildred Loving, an interracial couple from Caroline County, Va., who had been arrested, jailed and banned from their home state for violating its Racial Integrity Act.

It also ushered in a new era in the American family.

For 12 years, Ken Tanabe, a Japanese-Belgian freelance graphic designer living in New York, has been working to educate Americans about what he sees as one of the most significant civil rights cases through Loving Day, the unofficial holiday that cities across the country are slowly adapting to celebrate the lives of the fast-growing multiracial population.

Now Tanabe, whose organization has tracked and sponsored many of the dozens of dance and music festivals, film screenings, picnics and forums taking place across the country in June to commemorate Loving vs. Virginia, has launched a campaign to get the holiday recognized by the federal government." Read the full LA Times article here.

Grey Villet: Mildred and Richard Loving, King and Queen County, Virginia in April 1965

Grey Villet took over 2,400 frames of the Lovings for Life in 1965 but the magazine did not run the story until March 18, 1966, when the Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals upheld the lower court ruling and the Lovings’ case headed to the U.S. Supreme Court. The tone of the piece, as well as the selected images, was cool and neutral; the three published images that include both Mildred and Richard are extremely chaste and do not capture the emotional bond between them as so many of Villet’s other images do. Life, like many other media outlets, did not want to address the topic of interracial sex directly for fear of offending popular opinion.

White House petition to establish Loving Day as a holiday.

CBS News "Sunday Morning" Almanac: June 12th,1967, 49 years ago today ... a day of triumph for a basic human right

International Center of Photography: The Loving Story: Photographs by Grey Villet

HBO Documentary The Loving Story

Feature in production: LOVING

Muhammad Ali, Titan of Boxing and the 20th Century, Dies at 74

Bob Gomel: Cassius Clay, Miami, 1964

The New York Times:  Muhammad Ali, Titan of Boxing and the 20th Century, Dies at 74

Neil Leifer:  Muhammad Ali Knocks Out Sonny Liston, Lewiston, Maine, May 25, 1965                                

A look back at selected Muhammad Ali posts from our blog:

Sonny Liston landed on canvas below Muhammad Ali’s feet on May 25, 1965, and Neil Leifer snapped a photo

On Friday, March 6, 1964, Cassius Clay became Muhammad Ali

Cassius Clay couldn’t sleep in Miami Beach after beating Sonny Liston there in the legendary 1964 bout

March 8: Today In History: 'The Fight Of The Century'

Steve Schapiro: Muhammad Ali (Cassius Clay - Monopoly), Louisville, Kentucky, 1963

Visit our Pop-Up Tribute exhibition now on view in the gallery.
Neil Leifer will be signing copies of his new book Relentless: The Stories behind the Photographs 

 in the gallery July 29, 2016
Pre-orders available

STEPHEN WILKES TED TALK

Stephen Wilkes: Coney Island, Day To Night

Via TED
Ideas Worth Spreading

"Photographer Stephen Wilkes crafts stunning compositions of landscapes as they transition from day to night, exploring the space-time continuum within a two-dimensional still photograph. Journey with him to iconic locations like the Tournelle Bridge in Paris, El Capitan in Yosemite National Park and a life-giving watering hole in heart of the Serengeti in this tour of his art and process."

See more of Stephen Wilkes' photography here.

Famed Life photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt

Alfred Eisenstaedt/©Time Inc.  Girl in surf, Jones Beach, New York, 1951

We are very pleased to share the recent CBS News feature on the gallery’s current Alfred Eisenstaedt exhibit:

"Famed Life magazine photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt's classic images are an indelible part of history. His iconic portraits of the biggest figures of the 20th century -- including Adolf Hitler, Albert Einstein, Marilyn Monroe and Winston Churchill -- along with his beautiful, poignant images of daily life made him one of the most published photojournalists in the world. He was the quintessential Life photographer with the unfailing ability to capture the defining moment."

The full feature may be viewed here.

 The exhibit continues through June 26.

 

TASCHEN: Stephen Wilkes: A Day in The Life

Stephen Wilkes: Serengeti, Day To Night, 2015

Coming from Taschen:

"Photographer Stephen Wilkes set out to rethink these iconic landmarks. Vast and extraordinarily detailed, his images capture not just the location, but rather a day in the life of that location. Wilkes’ process is intensive, waking before dawn and shooting up to 2,000 frames from a stationary vantage point, which are then painstakingly edited together to form a seamless collage. For every site, he also has to capture the same space without anyone in it. That empty image becomes, in Wilkes’ words, the “the naked plate” on which he overlays the details from all the other images."


To Pre-Order or receive more information about the limited edition of Stephen Wilkes please contact collectors@taschen.com.

The AIPAD Photography Show Recap

It was truly a pleasure seeing so many of our friends, colleagues, photographers, and collectors - and meeting so many new friends and collectors, during the AIPAD Photography Show. Thank you all for visiting us and we sincerely hope we may see you soon in the gallery in Santa Fe!


Hyperallergic

"I catch sight of Stephen Wilkes’s “Recycled Aluminum Can Study #1” at Monroe Gallery’s booth, and I am floored"

ArtNews:


See What Top Dealers Are Bringing to the AIPAD Photography Show

Collector Daily:

Every Booth at the 2016 AIPAD Photography Show, Part 4 of 4
(Monroe Gallery slide 15 of 21)

Every Booth at the 2016 AIPAD Photography Show, Part 3 of 4

Every Booth at the 2016 AIPAD Photography Show, Part 2 of 4

Every Booth at the 2016 AIPAD Photography Show, Part 1 of 4

NY Arts:

THE PHOTOGRAPHY SHOW AT PARK AVENUE ARMORY, NEW YORK

Monroe Gallery at The 2016 AIPAD Photography Show April 13 - 17

Stephen Wilkes: Lone Worker, China, 2005

Monroe Gallery of Photography is very pleased to be again exhibiting at the AIPAD Photography Show, this year April 13 – 17 in New York at the Park Avenue Amory, 643 Park Avenue. The gallery will be in booth # 104.

Celebrating its 36th year in 2016, The Photography Show features more than 80 of the world’s leading photography art galleries.

Monroe Gall ill be exhibiting specially selected photographs from the gallery's renowned collection of 20th and 21st Century master photojournalists. Among the highlights selected for this year's exhibition are: vintage prints from Spider Martin alongside other important civil rights photographs; a rare selection of never-before-seen vintage prints of photographs taken by Bill Eppridge on the night Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated;  a rare vintage print made from the original negative of the iconic image from World War II by George Silk "An Australian soldier, Private George "Dick" Whittington, is aided by Papuan orderly Raphael Oimbari, near Buna on 25 December 1942";  several large-scale color photographs from Stephen Wilkes’  acclaimed China and Day To Night collections, and an exciting previously unseen large scale photograph of David Bowie taken in New Mexico in 1975 during the filming of “The Man Who Fell To Earth” that is featured in the forthcoming book “Bowie: Photographs by Steve Schapiro” which will be published in April, 2016 by PowerHouse Books, and many other exciting new additions to the gallery’s collection.

Steve Schapiro: David Bowie,  New Mexico, 1975

(“The Man Who Fell To Earth’)

We hope to see you!

David Bowie and the Photographs of Steve Schapiro

In this previously unpublished photo, David is seen with goggles and bike. Los Angeles, 1974

©Steve Schapiro

Via TIME LightBox

Bowie, a new collection of archival photographs by Steve Schapiro, captures the fleeting moments when the mask dropped.

In addition to offering a host of iconic images from the mid-1970s, Bowie, a new collection of archival photographs by Steve Schapiro, captures the fleeting moments when the mask dropped, when the effort it took to create all of this wondrous puffery showed at the seams, when he occasionally made—unbelievable!—fashion blunders. Bowie, it turns out, looked terrible in mandals (a faux pas he made while renting a West Hollywood house previously inhabited by Frank Sinatra and Marilyn Monroe). His ghastly white toes weren’t helped by the addition of high-waisted navy blue trousers paired with purple suspenders and a plaid newsboy’s cap. Read the full article here.

At the AIPAD Photography Show April 13 - 17, Monroe Gallery of Photography will feature an exciting previously unseen large scale photograph of David Bowie taken in New Mexico in 1975 during the filming of “The Man Who Fell To Earth”. The photograph is included in the forthcoming book “Bowie: Photographs by Steve Schapiro” which will be published April 15, 2016 by PowerHouse Books.

Steve Schapiro’s Bowie is published by powerHouse Books and is available now.

A Portrait of LIFE in 1960s America by Grey Villet

Museum at Bethel Woods

April 2 - December 31, 2016

Don't miss this compelling photography exhibit of LIFE magazine photographer Grey Villet, who traveled America and the world for LIFE magazine like an observant explorer, mapping its emotional contours in the faces and lives of its people. His in-depth, personal studies of the American scene of the 1950s and ’60s illuminated the complex reality of those years with a truth that, in his own words, were "as real as real could get." His images of presidents and revolutionaries, sports heroes, and everyday people struggling for their rights tell an emotional and compelling story of an era that shaped the present. Co Curated by his wife Barbara Villet.

Barbara Villet Bio:
That I ended up being a journalist was probably bred in the bone.  My father was a j reporter   for the old NY World but in time became the Sports Editor for Fox Movietone News in the day when the weekly newsreel was the main source of visual coverage. I didn't expect to follow him, but after   Middlebury and Harvard, I found myself working on the news desk of Radio Free Europe in the middle of the Cold War.  I left that job after the Hungarian Revolution and ended up at Life as a researcher, the only opening for women there was back then. Soon enough, I was on the news desk and it was there in 1958, that I first encountered Grey Villet's work on a school bus drowning in West Virginia. I never forgot it and in l961, when I had finally earned a promotion to editor and a byline--another rarity for women back then, I met him in person in l961 on an assignment I had conceived of as part of a trilogy on Fame, Wealth and Success.  Success ended up as a benchmark essay of l6 pages in Life and is included in a volume called     Great Essays from Life.   We ended up well matched both professionally and personally, and were married the next year. Until Life folded as weekly in l972, we had what Grey described as "a great ride" working together on assignments that carried us throughout the US and abroad . In 1965, when our daughter Ann was borne, I was offered an exclusive contract to produce 3 stories a year for Life with Grey which allowed me to stay at home with Ann until both of us went off on assignment. We took her with us to England and to California when she was very small and later to South Africa when we did the World Library Book. Other books were trade productions: Viking Press picked up our work on a missionary order of nuns which was published as Those Whom God Chooses and after Life folded, I took on an extension of one of our Life essays on a Head Nurse as a book for Doubleday. More freelancing followed and I did pieces for Quest and Atlantic Monthly before taking on another book contract. Called Blood River, it was a study of South Africa in the final days of apartheid and earned a Time Notable and Book of the Year citation as well as a nomination for the Pulitzer. Grey continued to shoot for Time, Sports Illustrated and Newsweek in those years.  It has been, to quote the Stones, a Long Strange Trip, but an amazing one that tools us to 37 countries around the world, mostly for work and sometimes for fun and I have very few regrets or complaints excepting the untimely loss of the great hearted guy who was my life partner and soul mate in 2000 at age 72.  I have since spent most of my energies on preserving and advancing his historic legacy.


Each year, The Museum at Bethel Woods presents new special exhibits that explore the popular culture, politics, art, and social history of the dynamic decade of The Sixties and its legacy.

Museum information, hours, and tickets here.

Grey Villet's photographs will be included in the Monroe Gallery of Photography exhibit, booth #104, during the AIPAD Photography Show April 13 - 17, Park Avenue Armory, New York.

Happy Birthday Art Shay!

Art Shay, born March 31, 1922 in the Bronx, NY

We are very excited to wish photographer Art Shay a very Happy 94th Birthday!

For over 70 years, Art Shay has documented his life, combining his gifts of storytelling, humor and empathy.

Born in 1922, he grew up in the Bronx and then served as a navigator in the U.S. Army Air Forces in World War II, during which he flew 30 bomber missions and 22 aid missions.

From 1947-1949, while on staff as a writer for Life magazine, Shay wrote hundreds of bylines while helping out some of the greatest of Life's photographers. In 1949, Shay became a Chicago-based freelance photographer, landing thousands of assignments for Life, Time, Sports Illustrated and other national publications.

Elijah Muhammed's Grandchild sleeping with Black Muslim Sisters, 1969

Shay photographed nine US Presidents & major literary, business, entertainment, science and political figures of the 20th century.

A world class street photographer, Shay wondered countless miles throughout the 1950s exploring the city with author Nelson Algren, the winner of the first National Book Award.

Shay wrote weekly columns for various newspapers, several plays, children's books, sports books and several photo essay books including "My Florence" released in February 2015.

Shay's photography is included in the permanent collections of museums including the National Portrait Gallery, the Art Institute of Chicago and the Museum of Contemporary Photography , Chicago. His photographs are included in the current exhibition "Vintage Photojournalism" at the Monroe Gallery of Photography through April 24, 2016. Monroe Gallery will also feature several of Art Shay's photographs at the AIPAD Photography Show in New York, April 13 - 17.