BRIAN HAMILL REMEMBERS JOHN LENNON

John Lennon: The Dakota Rooftop, February 24, 1975

In our previous post, we wrote about what would have been John Lennon's 70th birthday October 9, and the new film, LENNONNYC.

Photographer Brian Hamill photographed John Lennon on three occasions. Like many of his generation, Brian has profound memories of John's influence on his life and the times. Here, he shares some of his thoughts on the anniversary of John's 70th birthday.

 JOHN LENNON

There are three crucially important events that happened in my life where I can remember clearly who I was with and what I was doing when they happened. The whole world was a witness to all three of them. They were all defining moments in our global history. Unfortunately, they all involved the death of good people.

The assassination of JFK on 11/22/1963.
The assassination of John Lennon on 12/8/1980.
The assassination of more than 2,752 people at the World Trade Center buildings on 9/11/2001.

If you were alive with a working memory during all three you will probably feel as I do and remember most of the sad details. I can also throw in, with the same importance and feeling of “coming together” in our grief afterward, the assassination of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy too. It is very sad to have to remember and celebrate great people in this way, but because of this unique time in our troubled history, a big part of me does exactly that--that’s just the way it goes.

I am not going to give you any new perspective or cultural insight into John Lennon, although I will say that for my generation, for many generations, he was a major musical force and a phenomenal creative icon of the 20th century who influenced the world. No doubt about that. Everybody knows.


But I will always remember John Lennon as a quick-witted, vulnerable, stand-up, soft-spoken but unafraid guy. In my short time hanging with him, he spoke only the truth. I only spent time with him twice. I photographed him three times. They were all as memorable in my brain and in my heart as the awful day when he got murdered by a two-bit swine.  On  the night of 12/8/80, I was sitting in a rocking chair of my living room at my country house in Rhinecliff, NY, holding my three week old infant daughter Cara in my arms, just the two of us were there, listening to music together on the radio, me with the goofy faces and smiles and the baby talk, when suddenly the music was interrupted by a bulletin stating that John Lennon had been murdered. Projectile tears instantly shot out of my eyes onto my beautiful daughter. I had never cried like that. They were such immediate, forceful tears. I will never forget the combination, a one-two punch on the chin, of celebrating the wonderful joy of fatherhood one moment that was completely shattered in a split second moment by that painful, horrible news bulletin. John Lennon, dead!? Nooooooooooo!

John Lennon never got to fully mature as a man. The dude was only forty years old! He never really got to bring his full genius to all of us. Although, he certainly brought us some real genius. He never got to share more of that fun and laughter and wackiness with Yoko that we all were lucky enough to glimpse in a small way, and you certainly know a lot more of that was on their horizon. He never got to spend a lot of quality time with his nice sons. Yet he gave us all so much. Those John Lennon tears of mine will never fully dry.

He will be missed forever.

IMAGINE?

John Lennon: Madison Square Garden, New York, August 30, 1972

More photographs by Brian Hamill here.

Join us Friday, October 22 5 - 7 as we welcome Brian with a reception in conjuction with the Santa Fe Film Festival

HAPPY 70th BIRTHDAY JOHN LENNON

October 9, 2010 would have been John Lennon's 70th Birthday.

Brian Hamill: John Lennon, New York

Across the world, special events will recognize what would have been John Lennon's 70th birthday, October 9th, 2010. In New York's Central Park, home of the John Lennon "Imagine" memorial, a free, public screening of the American Masters film “LENNONYC” will be held on October 9th, 2010.

The screening, which will be first-come, first served, will take place at Rumsey Playfield in Central Park (best reached by entering the park at 69th Street and Fifth Avenue). The screening, which will take place rain or shine, will include picnic style seating so viewers are encouraged to bring blankets. People interested in attending should visit www.thirteen.org/lennon for more information. The screening will start at 7:00 p.m. and doors open at 6:00 p.m. People are encouraged to line up early given there will be limited seating.

The Santa Fe Film Festival has announced a screening of LENNONNYC during the 11th edition of the film festival (October 22-24) at the Center for Contemporary Arts (CCA). Tickets for all Santa Fe Film Festival films go on sale October 8 here.  The film will air nationally on PBS on November 22 at 9pm.

Brian Hamill: John Lennon, The Dakota, New York

In conjunction with the Santa Fe Film Festival, Monroe Gallery of Photography is honored to welcome Brian Hamill to Santa Fe for a very special exhibition of his intimate photographs of John Lennon; as well as his photographs from the sets of classic movies. Brian Hamill will join us Friday, October 22, from 5-7 pm for a public reception. (The photographs are on exhibit now)

Brian Hamill was born in Brooklyn, NY and studied photography at the Rochester Institute of Technology. In the late 1960s, Hamill began a career as a photojournalist covering the Rock & Roll scene as well as the boxing world. He also worked as an assistant to several top fashion photographers.

In the early 1970s he traveled to Northern Ireland to photograph the troubles there, and widened his scope into unit still photographer jobs on movie sets. Since then he has worked as a unit still photographer on over seventy-five movies including twenty-six Woody Allen films, resulting in the much acclaimed coffee table photo book entitled “Woody Allen At Work: The Photographs of Brian Hamill” (Harry N. Abrams, 1995).

Hamill’s work has also appeared in numerous other books, publications and exhibitions including a one-man show at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 1995.

See Brian Hamill's photographs here.

Related: Other John Lennon photographs here, and Beatles photographs here.



CARL MYDANS: WITNESS TO HISTORY

On the 6:25 from Grand Central to Stamford, CT, November 22, 1963

"All of us live in history, whether we are aware of it or not, and die in drama. The sense of history and of drama comes to a man not because of who he is or what he does, but flickeringly, as he is caught up in events, as his personality reacts, as he sees for a moment his place in the great flowing river of time and humanity. I cannot tell you where our history is leading us, or through what suffering, or into what era of war or peace. But wherever it is, I know men of good heart will be passing there". -- Carl Mydans

"Chain Gang" of New York Stock Exchange Officers Carries Traded Securities Each Day to Banks and Brokerage Houses, New York, 1937 

See the exhibit "Carl Mydans: The Early Years" here.

Berenice Abbott, Margaret Bourke-White, Walker Evans: Amon Carter Museum Showcases a Special Documentary Photography Exhibition

Margaret Bourke-White: You Have Seen Their Faces: Little boy and hound dog, 1936 Gelatin silver print  ©Time Inc.

FORT WORTH, TX.- On October 2, the Amon Carter Museum of American Art presents American Modern: Abbott, Evans, Bourke-White. This special exhibition explores the work of three of the foremost photographers of the twentieth-century and the golden age of documentary photography in America. American Modern will be on view through January 2, 2011; admission is free.

Berenice Abbott (1898–1991), Manhattan Bridge Looking Up, 1936. Gelatin silver print. The Art Institute of Chicago, Works Progress Administration Allocation, 1389.1943

Featuring more than 140 photographs by Berenice Abbott (1898–1991), Margaret Bourke-White (1906–1971) and Walker Evans (1903–1975), American Modern was co-organized by the Amon Carter Museum of American Art and the Colby College Museum of Art in Waterville, Maine. The exhibition is the result of a unique partnership between three curators: Jessica May and Sharon Corwin of the Carter and Colby, respectively, and Terri Weissman, assistant professor of art history at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Together, the three curators present the works of these three artists as case studies of documentary photography during the Great Depression and demonstrate how three factors supported the development of documentary photography during this important period in American history: first, the expansion of mass media; second, a new attitude toward and acceptance of modern art in America; and third, government support for photography during the 1930s.

Walker Evans (1903–1975), People in Downtown Havana, 1933. Gelatin silver print © Walker Evans Archive, The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

“This exhibition considers the work of three of the best-loved American photographers in a new light, which is very exciting,” says curator Jessica May. “Abbott, Evans, and Bourke-White are undisputed masters of the medium of photography, but they have never been shown in relation to one another. This exhibition offers viewers an opportunity to see works together that have not been shown as such since the 1930s.”

In addition to vintage photographs from over 20 public and private collections, the exhibition also features rare first-edition copies of select books and periodicals from the 1930s. American Modern, May says, “reminds us that documentary photography was very much a public genre—this was the first generation of photographers that truly anticipated that their work would be seen by a vast audience through magazines and books.”

More from the Amon Carter Museum here.

©ArtDaily.com

55 YEARS AGO: JAMES DEAN DIED

Richard C. Miller: James Dean besides his car during the filming of "Giant"

En route to compete in a race in Salinas, James Dean was killed in a highway accident on September 30, 1955.

James Dean was a legendary hero with a legendary story; live fast and die young. For over half a century, he has captured the world with his casual style, unflinching look and rebel attitude. James Dean has defined the essence of cool and without-a-cause for generations. His star continues to shine brighter and brighter.


Never has there ever been, never will there ever be. The one, the only, James Dean. (See the official James Dean site here.)

James Dean was a photographer's dream subject, resulting in many now-iconic images.

Sid Avery: James Dean on the set of "Rebel Without A Cause", 1955

Richard C. Miller worked for This Week, Liberty, Family Circle, Parents, American Weekly, Colliers, Life, and Time; as well as documenting Hollywood. For seven decades, he made a living working for North American Aviation and later as stringer for Globe Photos, which kept him circulating in the universe of stars; and he covered more than seventy films.


His first on-location assignment was for Giant (1955), where his job was to shadow James Dean. When Dean died, many pictures of him were sold, becoming iconic images since he and Dean had developed a close relationship based on a mutual interest in Porsches and photography.
 
 

Richard C. Miller: James Dean and Elizabeth Taylor take a break from filming "Giant"

CARL MYDANS: THE EARLY YEARS

 Cafe in Pikesville, Tennessee, 1936 (for the Farm Security Administration)

Monroe Gallery of Photography is pleased to announce "Carl Mydans: The Early Years”. (Carl Mydans: May 20, 1907 – August 16, 2004) The exhibition opens with a reception Friday, October 1, 5 - 7 PM, and continues through November 21.


Born in Massachusetts, near Boston, in 1907, Mydans’ keen sensitivity and honesty compelled him toward a lifetime of social and historical documentary photography. After working for the Boston Globe and the Boston Herald, he joined the photographic staff of the Farm Security Administration in 1936. The FSA, as it was familiarly known, was a New Deal agency established during the Great Depression by Franklin Roosevelt designed to combat rural poverty during a period when the agricultural climate and national economy were causing great dislocations in rural life. The photographers who worked under the name of the FSA were hired on for public relations; they were supposed to provide visual evidence that there was need, and that the FSA programs were meeting that need. Roy Stryker, who Mydans described as one of the most important influences in his life, headed the FSA. Stryker hired Mydans, along with several other photographers who were also later to become legendary, such as Walker Evans, Gordon Parks, Dorothea Lange, and Arthur Rothstein, to document the conditions of people and their surroundings most affected by the Depression.

The Nation's Capitol viewed from a nearby slum area, Washington, DC (for the Farm Security Administration)

“My very first period, when I was photographing with the FSA, I consider to be my most meaningful body of work. Before that, I didn’t know what America really was. I learned who the people were, what they thought, what they did, what they read and what they cooked and ate. There are some things that come back to me, and when I see a farmer tilling his rice in Asia, there’s something about that Asian farmer that carries me back to our own American farmers in 1936. In a word, that experience I had working with the FSA, in 1936 and 1937, gave me a greater feeling for America, and from that a greater feeling for the people of the world.” – Carl Mydans, 1997  
 

Brick carrier at model community planned by the Suburban Division of the U.S. Resettlement Administration, Greenbelt, Maryland, 1936 (for the Farm Security Administration)

Featured in the exhibition is a rare and distinct collection of limited-edition prints from the FSA archives, specially selected from a large body of his work that is owned by the United States government. These prints were all made in by Mydans in1993 from his original negatives, which he borrowed from the Library of Congress. Each of the FSA photographs were signed by Mr. Mydans, and each image is limited to a total edition of between just six and fifteen examples.

After 16 months with the government, Mydans joined LIFE magazine as a staff photographer in 1936, just after the inaugural issue. Included in the exhibition are rare early vintage prints from the archives of LIFE magazine - the actual prints used for early LIFE magazine stories, with important archive information inscribed and stamped on the back of each photograph. Together with the FSA photographs, they provide a humanitarian and emotional record of this turbulent time in American history, an integral element to their lasting appeal over 70 years later.

Over four decades, Mydans carried out the full gamut of typical Life stories, from Hollywood celebrities to Texas cattle roundups, but his most important assignment, starting with the Soviet invasion of Finland in 1939, was as a war photographer. Resourceful, determined and unruffled, Mr. Mydans managed to send back pictures of combat that even now define how we remember World War II, Korea and other conflicts. He photographed major news and feature stories in the United States, Europe, and Asia. Mydans reported on the Russo-Finnish winter war, Italy under Mussolini, and the fall of France. When war erupted in Europe, Mydans and his wife, LIFE researcher Shelley Smith, became the magazine’s first husband and wife team to be sent overseas. Constantly traveling, Mydans’ assignments took him to Britain, Sweden, Finland, Italy, France, China, Malaya, and the Philippines, where he and his wife were captured by the Japanese. Released after being held prisoner of war for two years, Mydans was sent back into war in 1944, eventually covering the stoic figure of General MacArthur landing at Luzon. This famous image eloquently captures the pride and determination of the great commander and stands in dramatic contrast to the sense of shame and resignation expressed in the photographs he made of the Japanese surrender aboard the U.S.S. Missouri from the same year.



Daughter of migrant workes near Raymondville, Texas, 1937 (vintage print)

“As a storyteller in pictures, the photojournalist is looking not only for action but for substance. He is a historian and a sociologist. He has created humanity’s first international language, a common imagery for all mankind. And in his pictures, people see themselves with a clarity they never knew before.”--Carl Mydans

View the exhibition here.

VIVIAN CHERRY'S NEW YORK

Dancer-turned-photographer Vivian Cherry has been capturing the quirks of New York City for nearly 70 years, and has yet to grow tired of it."

—New York Daily News


New York City is characterized by its sheer diversity, as well as by the substantial level of open-mindedness consistently displayed by its residents making it irresistible to all kinds of people from all walks of life. Centuries of large-scale waves of immigration accompanied by a steady stream of freethinking American migrants have created the archetypal melting pot that it is today.


Photographer Vivian Cherry knows New Yorkers. This is reasonable considering she's been capturing them in their natural habitat for over half a century. One of the last surviving members of the Photo League, a cooperative of photographers that in the 1930s and 40s embraced social realism, Cherry shoots her subjects against the backdrop of the city, combining informal portraiture with gritty cityscapes. Her first powerhouse book, Helluva Town: New York City in the 1940s and 50s, was released to critical acclaim. Now she returns with Vivian Cherry's New York, a collection of work shot in the past decade, in which she continues to present her audience with pictures that are raw and real, while at the same time affectionate and warm.

For a preview of the book please visit: http://www.powerHouseBooks.com/viviancherry.pdf

Vivian Cherry's work is in the collections of the Brooklyn Museum; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; the International Center of Photography; and the National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C., amongst others, and has appeared in Popular Photography, Life, Sports Illustrated, Redbook, and Ebony, as well as the famed magazines of yesteryear: This Week, Pageant, Colliers, and Amerika. She made several short films and worked with photographer Arnold Eagle as a still photographer on a film about Lee Strasberg and the Actors Studio. The author of Helluva Town: New York City in the 1940s and 50s (powerHouse Books, 2007), Cherry lives and works in New York City.

© Copyright 2010 powerHouse Books

Vivian Cherry at Monroe Gallery of Photography's Booth during the 2010 AIPAD Photography Show

Vivian Cherry's New York
$29.95

Essay by Julia Van Haaften

Photography / New York City
Clothband
8.5 x 11.25 inches
114 pages, 100 duotone photographs

Ordering information here.

View a selection of her photography here.

SEPTEMBER 25, 1957:1,000 MEMBERS OF 101st AIRBORNE DIVISION OF THE US ARMY ESCORT 9 CHILDREN TO SCHOOL

Grey Villet: The Little Rock Nine enter classroom to register after escort from Army's 101st Airborne Division, September 254, 1957


Three years after the Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of Education decision, which officially ended public-school segregation, a federal court ordered the Little Rock High School to comply.

On September 2, 1957, the night before school was to start for the year, Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus called out the state's National Guard to surround Little Rock Central High School and prevent any black students from entering in order to protect "citizens and property from possible violence by protesters" he claimed were headed in caravans toward Little Rock.


A federal judge granted an injunction against the Governor's use of National Guard troops to prevent integration and they were withdrawn on September 20.

When school resumed on Monday, September 23, Central High was surrounded by Little Rock policemen. About 1,000 people gathered in front of the school. The police escorted the nine black students to a side door where they quietly entered the building as classes were to begin. When the mob learned the blacks were inside, they began to challenge the police and surge toward the school with shouts and threats. Fearful the police would be unable to control the crowd, the school administration moved the black students out a side door before noon.

U.S. Congressman Brooks Hays and Little Rock Mayor Woodrow Mann asked the federal government for help, first in the form of U.S. marshals. Finally, on September 24, Mann sent a telegram to President Eisenhower requesting troops. They were dispatched that day and the President also federalized the entire Arkansas National Guard, taking it away from the Governor.

On September 25, 1957, nine black students entered the school under the protection of 1,000 members of the "Screaming Eagles" of the 101st Airborne Division of the United States Army.

The Little Rock Nine, as they nine students came to be known, were a group of African-American students who were enrolled in Little Rock Central High School in 1957. The ensuing Little Rock Crisis, in which the students were initially prevented from entering the racially segregated school by Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus, and then attended after the intervention of President Eisenhower, is considered to be one of the most important events in the African-American Civil Rights Movement.

Little Rock Central High School still functions as part of the Little Rock School District, and is now a National Historic Site that houses a Civil Rights Museum, administered in partnership with the National Park Service, to commemorate the events of 1957.

More: Little Rock Nine Foundation

Related: Little Rock member Jefferson Thomas dies.

55 YEARS AGO: JACKIE ROBINSON STEALS HOME BASE - Game One, The 1955 World Series, NY Yankees vs Brooklyn Dodgers

September 28, 1955 - Brooklyn Dodger Jackie Robinson takes off from third and steals home in one of the most dazzling feats of World Series history! Game One, The 1955 World Series, 8th inning, the Brooklyn Dodgers trailing the Yankees 6 to 4.

Ralph Morse: Brooklyn Dodger Jackie Robinson charging wildy fr. 3rd base as unwary NY Yankee catcher Yogi Berri squats behind Dodger batter during Jackie's steal of home plate in the 8th inning of the 1st game of the World Series at Yankee Stadium ©Time Inc

Grey Villet captured the scene with this series of three photographs:

Brooklyn Dodger Jackie Robinson steals home base against NY Yankees in the 8th inning of the 1st game of the World Series at Yankee Stadium, September 28, 1955

Brooklyn Dodger Jackie Robinson after stealing home base in the 8th inning of the 1st game of the World Series at Yankee Stadium as Yogi Berra argues the call

NY Yankee catcher Yogi Berra arguing with the home plate umpire who is walking away after giving the safe sign to Brooklyn Dodger Jackie Robinson's brilliant steal of home base in the 8th inning

To this day, Yogi Berra will swear that he tagged Jackie Robinson before he touched home plate. The umpire saw it differently. You decide for yourself, but one thing is clear -- Robinson was one of the most exciting players in the history of the game. Watch it here.

The Dodgers won the Series!

Brooklyn Dodger Fans celebrating 1955 World Series victory, Flatbush Avenue, Brooklyn, NY, 1955 by Martha Holmes ©Time Inc

50 YEARS AGO: THE KENNEDY-NIXON DEBATE LAUNCHES POLITICS INTO THE MEDIA ERA

Paul Schutzer: Kennedy and Nixon Debate with Howard K. Smith as Moderator, September 26, 1960

September 26, 1960 - The first-ever televised presidential debate occurred between presidential candidates John F. Kennedy and Richard M. Nixon. On 26 September 1960, 70 million U.S. viewers tuned in to watch Senator John Kennedy of Massachusetts and Vice President Richard Nixon in the first-ever televised presidential debate. It was the first of four televised "Great Debates" between Kennedy and Nixon. The Many who watched were inclined to say Kennedy 'won' the debate, while those who listened only to the radio thought Nixon did better. Nixon, who declined to use makeup, appeared somewhat haggard looking on TV in contrast to Kennedy

The Great Debates marked television's grand entrance into presidential politics. They afforded the first real opportunity for voters to see their candidates in competition, and the visual contrast was dramatic. In August, Nixon had seriously injured his knee and spent two weeks in the hospital. By the time of the first debate he was still twenty pounds underweight, his pallor still poor. He arrived at the debate in an ill-fitting shirt, and refused make-up to improve his color and lighten his perpetual "5:00 o'clock shadow." Kennedy, by contrast, had spent early September campaigning in California. He was tan and confident and well-rested. Kennedy's practice of looking at the camera when answering the questions -- and not at the journalists who asked them, as Nixon did -- made viewers see him as someone who was talking directly to them and who gave them straight answers. Kennedy's performance showed not only that he was a knowledgeable and credible elected official, but also that he just plain looked better.

The televised Great Debates had a significant impact on voters in 1960, on national elections since, and, indeed, on our concerns for democracy itself. The debates ushered in an era in which television dominated the electoral process.



John F. Kennedy had learned the power of the image, of the visual, from his father, who was for a time a power in the movie business. Joseph P. Kennedy was the first, or among the first, to merge the creation and marketing of the celebrity trade, the tricks of public relations, to the business of politics and governing. With politics aforethought, the founding father had created an archive—still and moving pictures of his children—ready to be used to entice a nation into a cause in the same way they were pulled into movie theaters. There was one thing President Kennedy always had time for: he would spend hours looking at photographs of himself and his family. That was neither narcissism nor pride to Jack Kennedy, but recognition of polities as a show of fleeting images. In the mostly black-and-white world of the early 1960s, the right picture in the right place duplicating itself forever was worth a great deal more than any thousand words.



Audio/Visual show of the debate here.