JOHN LENNON: 9 October 1940 – 8 December 1980

Bill Eppridge: John Lennon on the train to D.C. February 10, 1964

The official John Lennon website

"HEROES: PHOTOGRAPHS BY STEVE SCHAPIRO"

If you are in the New Hampshire area, we highly recommend this exhibition.



Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. © All Photographs Copyright of Steve Schapiro

Lamont Gallery Presents "Heroes: Works by Steve Schapiro" Monday, December 6, 2010 - Saturday, January 22, 2011


Exeter, NH -- From Monday, December 6, 2010 to Saturday, January 22, 2011, the Lamont Gallery at Phillips Exeter Academy will present Heroes: Works by Steve Schapiro, renowned journalism and portrait photographer, in an exhibition of 60 of his photographs. An artist reception will be held on Friday, January 7, 2011, 6:30-8 p.m.; and a gallery talk will be held on Saturday, January 8, 2011, 10 a.m. The exhibition is organized by art2art Circulating Exhibitions © Steve Schapiro. The Lamont Gallery is in the Frederick R. Mayer Art Center on Tan Lane. This exhibit is free and open to the public. Please note the gallery will be closed Friday, December 18, 2010—Tuesday, January 4, 2011.

The exhibit is a collection of Schapiro’s "personally selected iconic images from his encounters with artists, writers, actors, athletes, and politicians throughout the second half of the 20th Century." Schapiro’s work ranges from dramatic images of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement, to portraits of Robert F. Kennedy, Jackie Onassis, Muhammad Ali, Truman Capote and Andy Warhol. His groundbreaking images of influential personalities, newsmakers, and cultural and political leaders display a modest yet remarkable presentation of his extraordinary life in photography.

Born and raised in New York City, Schapiro’s career as a notable photographer began in 1960, when he documented Arkansas migrant workers who were fighting for electricity in their camps. His photographs were published as a cover story for The New York Times Magazine, and ultimately forced the workers’ management to provide the utility, according to Schapiro’s website.

Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, he traveled throughout the U.S. as a documentary photographer, recording the changing culture and politics. During the 1970s and 1980s, besides continuing his photographic works, he created iconic movie stills for such movies as Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather, Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver, and John Schlesinger’s Midnight Cowboy. Later, Schapiro worked for such musical greats as Barbra Streisand and David Bowie, creating photography for album covers.

"As a young photographer on assignment for Life, my only ambition was that the pictures I took each day would be published in the following week’s magazine; I never thought beyond that. I could not imagine that 40 years later, so many of my subjects would remain strong, iconic figures in the world. However, as I photographed each of these ten individuals, I was aware of the life-changing effect they were having on me," Schapiro says.

His photos have been displayed on the covers of some of the world’s most well-known and well-read magazines, including: TIME, Newsweek, LIFE, Look, Sports Illustrated, Rolling Stone, People, Vanity Fair, and The New York Times Magazine.

Having to help shape an iconic American culture, Schapiro’s works are represented in many private and public collections, including: the Smithsonian Museum, Washington, D.C.; High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY; Galerie Wouter van Leeuwen, Amsterdam, Netherlands; Hamiltons Gallery, London, England; Galerie Thierry Marlat, Paris, France; Monroe Gallery of Photography, Santa Fe, NM; Fahey/Klein Gallery, Los Angeles, CA; and Jackson Fine Art, Atlanta, GA.

Gallery hours are Mondays 1–5 p.m.; Tuesday–Saturday 9 a.m.–5 p.m.; closed on Sundays. Please note the Lamont Gallery will be closed from December 18, 2010 until January 4, 2011. For more information, contact the Lamont Gallery at 603-777-3461. For information on upcoming events, visit the Academy’s community calendar. To learn more about the Academy and its events and programs, visit our website. You may also call the PEA public events line at 603-777-4309.

Related: Steve Schapiro Exhibition review in ArtNews

            

PHOTOGRAPHY IN NEW MEXICO

Collection Center for Creative Photography, University of Aizona (76.577.30) ©2010 The Ansel Adams Publishing Trust


New Mexico magazine, the nation's original state magazine, has an article on the history of photography in New Mexico and the many galleries featuring photography in Santa Fe. The article by Wolf Schneider titled "Shoot-Out: Why the New Mexico photography scene keeps getting more competitive" opens with:

"Used to be, New Mexico's fine-art photography scene meant historic images by Laura Gilpin, Eliot Porter, and Ansel Adams - especially Adams' famed Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico, 1941. There was a photo gallery or two in Santa Fe. Now the city has a half-dozen galleries dedicated to photography, and two dozen more that feature photography among other arts. Fine-art photography is on the rise world-wide, with modern image making propelled by digital technology, and with prints in limited and numbered editions all the rage.

'Over the last 10 to 15 years, there's been an explosion in fine-art photography' observed Sidney Monroe, 52, who opened Monroe Gallery of Photography with his wife Michelle in Santa Fe in 2002. 'We started in New York in the eighties, when there were only a small number of photo galleries around the world' he remembers. Monroe specializes in humanist and photojournalist imagery, representing internationally known photographers such as the late Margaret Bourke-White and Henri Cartier Bresson, and selling prints for $1,000 up. Ninety percent of the images Monroe sells are still shot on traditional film. Showing the work of nationally and internationally known photographers, he observes, 'For any other city of this size, you won't get the diverse photography you will see in Santa Fe'".

Andrews Smith states "We are the leading dealer of Ansel Adams in the world", noting that Adams' prints currently sell for $4,000  and up. Way up. "Most of the great collectors are collecting photography. Its an international trend. There are more photo galleries in Santa Fe per capita than anywhere in the world."

Read the full article here, turn to pages 20 - 23 using the e-reader. Also interviewed and featured are Jennifer Schlesinger of Verve Gallery, Anne Kelly of Photo-Eye, and several others.

Eddie Adams: Untouchable Children, India, 1978

"For any other city of this size, you won't get the diverse photography you will see in Santa Fe" says Sidney Monroe of Monroe Gallery of Photography, which recently exhibited works by the late Pulitzer Prize-winning Eddie Adams.

Related: Loews Magazine: Collecting Photography

             Summer Gallery Scene in Santa Fe

PAUL McCARTNEY TO RECEIVE KENNEDY CENTER HONORS; RECOLLECTIONS OF THE 1964 CONCERT IN DC

Bill Eppridge: Beatles Fans, Washington Coliseum. Feb 11, 1964

By J. Freedom duLac

©The Washington Post
Friday, December 3, 2010; 11:21 AM


On Feb. 11, 1964, Beatlemania blasted Washington - all shrieks and Arthur haircuts and songs that nobody could quite make out.

Two nights after a hysteria-inducing appearance on "The Ed Sullivan Show," the Beatles played their first U.S. concert at the Washington Coliseum, just north of Union Station.

With "I Want to Hold Your Hand" sitting atop the American Billboard chart, 8,092 people witnessed a dozen songs performed by the band that changed everything.

Bruce Spizer, author of seven Beatles books, says the concert at the long-defunct Coliseum (now a covered parking garage) "was one of the most exciting live performances the Beatles ever gave." Apple's iTunes is streaming the concert free of charge.

With Paul McCartney returning to Washington this weekend to receive the Kennedy Center Honors, here's the tale of the 1964 visit, as told by some of the people who lived it - including Sir Paul, who spoke to us last week from London.

John B. Lynn, son of Harry Lynn, who owned the Coliseum: My father got the call asking if he'd be interested in having the Beatles. He, of course, had never heard of them. But he said yes. He brought home a box of Beatles albums and singles to give out, and my brother and I became the most popular people in school.

Paul McCartney: We'd seen a lot of British stars come back from America with their tails between their legs. We made a promise to ourselves to not go until we had a No. 1. We were so excited to be madly popular in America, which was to us the Holy Grail because every shred of music we ever loved came from there. It was euphoric, and now we were heading to Washington on the train, which was very glamorous. And to cap it off, there was that beautiful snow.

Bill Eppridge, former contract photographer for Life magazine: We were going to fly down from New York, but a big snowstorm hit Washington. The Beatles reserved a couple of cars on the train and got tickets for the press traveling with them. I couldn't have had a better time. We all liked them. They were always looking for something to do. They had a race up and down the car, and two of them went up and over the seats and two of them crawled in the baggage racks. And then they grabbed the waiters' uniforms and served drinks.

Bill Eppridge: George wearing Train Porter's Jacket. Train to D.C. Feb 10, 1964

Lynn: My father wasn't in the habit of meeting his acts when they arrived in town. But he met the Beatles. He didn't expect the crowd - especially on a snowy day.

McCartney: It was unbelievable, a great sort of validation of the whole thing. It was like: "Yeah, look! Everywhere we're going in America, it's happening!"

Tommy Roe, "Sheila" singer: In 1963, I was booked in England with Chris Montez, and the Beatles were a featured act on our tour. It was like Elvis Presley all over again. Brian Epstein, the Beatles' manager, had called my manager and put me on the Washington, D.C., show. I was really happy to do the show with them. We were all staying at the Shoreham Hotel, and I tried to hang out with the boys there, but it was pandemonium.


Al Gore, former vice president: The incredible phenomenon built on itself. The Ed Sullivan appearance just prior to their arrival in Washington was electrifying. We could scarcely believe the Beatles were coming to D.C

Reed Hundt, former Federal Communications Commission chairman: Everybody our age knew about them. How could you not? Gore and I were juniors at St. Albans. We weren't even 16 until the next month, and the Beatles were singing "she was just 17." We were thinking: Well, that's too old for us.


Ron Oberman, former Washington Star music columnist: They had a press conference at the Coliseum before the show, with all four Beatles in a boxing ring that became the stage. I asked George if he had a girlfriend. He said: "Yes, you love." I was doing one of the first regular columns on rock in a newspaper, and I was only 20, 21. The older people at the press conference didn't get it.

Roe: The concert was a big deal. It was an amazing scene. They were really catching on and everybody came to that show, either hanging out backstage and trying to become the fifth Beatle or trying to get on the bill. They kept adding people. Originally, it was just the Chiffons and me. But the Righteous Brothers [and the Caravelles and Jay and the Americans] were also there.

Lynn: My father had run one ad in the paper, and the concert sold out. They made a film and played it three months later at the Coliseum, like a closed-circuit TV broadcast, and they sold that out, too. He was so stunned that a group he'd never heard of before sold out. It was such an unusual event, and it was a windfall. He took the profit and used it to buy my mother a new Lincoln Continental convertible for her birthday. We came home from school, and he said, "The Beatles concert bought that for your mother."

Larry Sealfon, former record store clerk: I was working at Super Music in Silver Spring, and we were allocated a block of tickets to sell. But there wasn't a frenzy or anything like that. It was pretty orderly. After the concert, people came in - mostly mothers - complaining about their seats. They complained that all they got to see was the back of the Beatles.

Marsha Albert, whose request famously convinced WWDC-FM DJ Carroll James to begin playing the Beatles in 1963: The stage was in the middle of the arena and the band had to rotate around the stage. So they were only facing you a quarter of the time. The rest of the time, you were either looking at their backs or their sides. That wasn't ideal.

McCartney: That was the first time we'd ever played in the round. We said: "Do we have to do it?" "Yeah. We've sold tickets everywhere. You'll have to turn around." "How the hell are we doing to do that?" "Well, just do a few numbers east then shuffle around north. Then do a few numbers north and shuffle around west." We said: "What's Ringo going to do?" He had to shuffle the kit around himself. The idea that we had our backs and sides to three-fourths of the audience at any point of the show was awkward. We were used to getting them and holding them - paying attention to them and having them pay attention to us. I don't think I've done the in-the-round thing ever since.

Lynn: They wanted to fit as many people as possible in. If they had played with the stage at one end, they would've only been able to fit 6,000 or 6,500. With the stage in the middle, they could fit 8,000.


Hundt: It was mostly girls. Being from a boys school, we had never seen so many girls in one place before. I don't know that I knew for sure that there were that many girls in the world.

McCartney: It was terrific. We'd been used to it in smaller doses. But in our minds, it's only right that it should get bigger. And where better for it than America, where everything is bigger? It was very exciting, just having that many people - predominantly girls, all screaming.

Albert: The concert started with some warm-up groups, and I was relieved because I had heard about the screaming that went on in England. And I thought: "Nobody's screaming. This is going to be nice; we're going to be able to hear them." (Laughs.) When they started playing, you couldn't hear a thing. It was unbelievably loud, like white noise. I remember the policeman near me stuck bullets in his ears.

Eppridge: That's probably where I lost most of my hearing. Either there or with the Marines in Vietnam, AR-15s cracking next to my ear. I remember my ears hurting from the high-pitched screaming for the Beatles. It was absolutely piercing. If you're around six railroad train engines and they're all traveling at 100 miles an hour and they slam on their brakes at the same time - that's what it sounded like. But it was delightful.

Gore: The acoustics in the arena combined with the absolute frenzy of enthusiasm made it virtually impossible to understand a single word that they sang. You had listen carefully to get the general flow of the song, and of course, everybody knew all the words prior to the concert. We all loved their music, but clearly there were a lot of people in that crowd who loved it even more than I did because they couldn't stop screaming. I'm thrilled that iTunes now has the film of that concert, because I'll get to hear the words clearly for the first time.

Oberman: It was a short set, like 35 minutes. I was able to hear some of the songs with some difficulty. I thought they were excellent.

McCartney: I don't remember thinking we played particularly well. But looking back, time has been very kind to us. It was a cool gig.

Lynn: This is kind of gross, but somebody said - and maybe it was my father - that after the concert was over and everybody had left, you know what the smell was in the Coliseum? It was pee from all these girls who got overexcited.

Bill Eppridge: Beatles Concert, Washington Coliseum. Feb 11, 1964

Roe: This was early in the crazy rock-and-roll thing, so nobody really rushed the stage. They were rowdy and very loud, but they stayed in their seats. They hadn't realized you can go berserk at these shows. It was like polite pandemonium.

Albert: There was a large police presence there, but since everybody was so well-behaved, they didn't have much to do except stand around. But people were throwing stuff. Since we were down front, we were getting pelted with flashbulbs the size of golf balls and also jelly beans.

McCartney: We had been asked somewhere what is your favorite sweet, and we said jelly babies. So the fans took to throwing them onstage, and this had reached Washington. In England, they're soft and always in the shape of babies. What do you call them? Jelly beans. They're hard. They stung, and we're playing in the round, and they're being thrown from everywhere. It was very unsettling.

Albert: The show was somewhat disappointing. I mean, it was exciting in one way. Yeah, I got to see them. But there was all this interference - the noise, and all the stuff raining on us.

Roe: After the show was over, I drove back to the Shoreham and went to the Beatles' room, and we had a beer or two and just chatted. But it was hectic. Everybody was trying to do interviews with them. I helped Murray the K get in there and tape an interview with them.

McCartney: I'm sure we got pissed off by not being able to just enjoy ourselves and always having to answer some dumb question about this that and the other - like what toothpaste we were using. We saw ourselves as sophisticated dudes in those days and there was a little bit of irritation at the undue attention we were getting. But at the same time, we asked for it. . . . But the great thing about memories is that the good bits are the ones that tend to remain. The trip to Washington is a very romantic time in my memory.

Staff researcher Magda Jean-Louis contributed to this report.

Bill Eppridge: John Lennon. Train to D.C. Feb 10, 1964

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".

PHOTO NEW ORLEANS OPENS; STEPHEN WILKES LECTURE DEC. 11

PhotoNOLA is an annual celebration of photography in New Orleans, coordinated by the New Orleans Photo Alliance in partnership with museums, galleries and alternative venues citywide. Showcasing work by photographers near and far, the festival spans the first two weekends of December. It includes exhibitions, workshops, lectures, a portfolio review, gala and more. PhotoNOLA draws hundreds of photography professionals to the city to partake in a variety of educational programs, and reaches broadly into the local community with exhibitions and events that are largely free and open to the public.

PhotoNOLA seeks to enhance dialogue around the medium of photography and further develop New Orleans as a prime destination for photography collectors, enthusiasts and professionals in the field.

The 5th Annual PhotoNOLA will take place December 2-11, 2010. A full schedule of events may be found here.

Photographer Stephen Wilkes will be sharing a selection of his personal work, including his Ellis Island collection, China series and most recent work documenting the Gulf Oil Spill on December 11. His talk will review the evolution of his fine arts career. Stephen’s photographs have been exhibited in galleries and museums across the nation and featured in the New York Times Magazine, Vanity Fair, Life, Time, London Sunday Times, and Travel + Leisure. His photographs can be found on permanent collection at The George Eastman House Intl. Museum of Photography & Film, Library of Congress, Dow Jones Collection, The Museum of Fine Arts Houston, and The Jewish Museum, New York. His most recent monograph, Ellis Island: Ghosts of Freedom was named as one of the 5 Best Photography Books by Time Magazine.

Bio: Stephen Wilkes has been highly recognized for his fine arts photography with three major exhibitions in the last four years. Margaret Loke of the New York Times writes, “Each of the rooms that he photographs with care seems to have its own luxurious color scheme. Mr. Wilkes sees pleasing palettes of impressionism in walls and ceilings of peeling paint.”

Wilkes was recognized as the 2004 Fine Art Photographer of the Year at the Lucie Awards. Wilkes has been recognized by the photographic and design industry with additional awards including the Alfred Eisenstaedt Awards for Magazine Photography, Photographer of the Year, Eastcoast, Adweek Magazine, honors in Graphis Magazine, and the award of excellence in Communication Arts. Wilkes was also featured in Communication Arts in March of 2001.

In 1999 Wilkes completed a personal project photographing the south side of Ellis Island. With his photographs and video work, Wilkes was able to help secure $6 million in funding to restore the south side of the island. The work was exhibited in April of 2001 in a one-person exhibition at The Soho Triad Fine Arts Gallery, in New York, and in 2006 at Monroe Gallery of Photography in Santa Fe. His exhibition on the exploration of the nude form in the jungles and on the lava flows of Hawaii ran in December of 2002; his Bethlehem Steel collection was exhibited in 2005; and his China series in 2008, also at Monroe Gallery of Photography.

Wilkes shoots advertising and fashion campaigns for many of the country’s leading advertising agencies and companies, including Arizona Jeans, California Tourism, New York Stock Exchange American Express, ABB, Honda, and many others. His editorial work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Time Magazine, and Sports Illustrated.

He began working on his own at age 15 and attended Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Communications, graduating in 1980. In 1983, Wilkes opened his studio in Manhattan.

This lecture is generously sponsored by Canon.

Stephen Wilkes Lecture
December 11, 2010
3-5pm
Free and open to the public: Advance registration recommended
The Historic New Orleans Collection
Williams Research Center
410 Chartres Street
New Orleans, LA 70130

Registration here. Event website with more details and map here.

Related: Stephen Wilkes "Central Park: Day Into Night" and interview in Venu Magazine

55 YEARS AGO: ROSA PARKS ARRESTED IN MONTGOMERY, ALABAMA

Steve Schapiro: Rosa Parks, Montgomery, 1965

December 1, 1955 - The birth of the modern American civil rights movement occurred as Rosa Parks was arrested in Montgomery, Alabama, for refusing to give up her seat to a white man and move to the back section of a municipal bus. Her arrest resulted in a year-long boycott of the city bus system by African Americans and led to legal actions ending racial segregation on municipal buses throughout the South. Her quiet courageous act changed America, its view of black people and redirected the course of history.

"I would like to be remembered as a person who wanted to be free... so other people would be also free. "

- Rosa Parks


After her arrest, Parks she called local labor organizer E. D. Nixon to bail her out. The next day, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., the Rev. Ralph Abernathy, more than 40 other black ministers and a white minister named the Rev. Robert Graetz formed the Montgomery Improvement Association. They organized the bus boycott that began on Dec. 5 and lasted until December 20, 1956, when a U.S. Supreme Court ruling integrated the public transportation system.

More: Official website of Rosa Parks



PHOTOGRAPHY MARKET UPDATE

Earlier this month, we posted our thoughts on the record Fall art auctions, and the corresponding "bargains" for photography by comparison.  Two articles on the photography market have recently been published that are worth noting.

Artprice.com states "Strong demand and an abundant offer: having earned a legitimate place in the history of art, photography has become a dynamic medium with a rapidly maturing and increasingly demanding market. Today the photography medium accounts for 7% of total global auction revenue generated from contemporary art and its auction revenue total has grown 1,300% since the end of the 1990s (+1,270% between 1998 and 2008) in a market traditionally dominated by painting, sculpture and drawing."

Read the full article here.
 
The Financial Times has a very informative article in today's edition, which has already been posted on several photography sites today. In case you missed it, we have it posted below.

A STRONG MARKET FOR PHOTOGRAPHS
By Francis Hodgson
©The Financial Times

Richard Avedon’s “Dovima with Elephants”


When a photograph sells at auction for $1m, the market can surely be considered healthy. The oversize print of Richard Avedon's "Dovima with Elephants", which made €841,000 ($1.12m) at Christie's in Paris last Saturday, was just one of 13 prints in that sale to achieve more than €100,000 (all prices quoted include premium). And the event achieved the still-rare accolade of being a "white-glove sale", one in which every lot finds a buyer.

This came only a matter of days after Andreas Gursky's "Frankfurt" made more than $2m in the contemporary art sales at Sotheby's in New York. It was the second Gursky to top $2m this year, following his "Pyongyang IV", which well exceeded its estimate to reach £1,329,250 in the equivalent sales at Sotheby's in London.

All this gives a pretty clear indication of a market suffering no stress at the top end. High-ticket photographs of the type so often described as "iconic" are continuing to do well, and prices are well on the way to surpassing their pre-recession levels for these items. Such photographs have become strongly branded decorative objects, safe to display in corporate buildings while still retaining a hint of daring.

It was reassuring in that context to see that Christie's did well enough with its October 7 sale in New York devoted to Joseph-Philibert Giraud de Prangey, a connoisseur's daguerreotypist, a brilliant 19th-century pioneer but undeniably obscure. Even the largest daguerreotype is tiny by the showy standards of the giant prints of today; they look fantastic but you can't exactly identify them from across an atrium. Heartening to see that such difficult objects to exhibit can still find good buyers, and the sale's total proceeds of approximately $3m showed a growing awareness of the importance of good early photographs.

The range of general photographic sales, with their more modest prices and less fierce levels of competition between high rollers, remain the domain of specialist collectors; they are still to recover pre-recession confidence levels and there are certainly bargains to be had in the general sector.

A couple of tendencies to note: the Avedon image (a 1955 fashion shoot displaying a Dior dress, and now bought by Dior) echoes a strengthening market for pictures from the magazine world. Philippe Garner of Christie's has nurtured the Gert Elfering collection, over several sales and several years, for example, which has resulted in something above $10m in sales. The most recent auction in the series, this summer, sold 67 prints by the late Jean-Loup Sieff, a magazine photographer if ever there was one, hitherto barely noticed by the market.

A continuing trend is the presence of great photography across different saleroom sectors – the record for Cindy Sherman, for instance, was broken not at a sale devoted to photographs but at Philips' contemporary art sale, also in early November, with her "Untitled #153" (1985) achieving $2,770,500.

Photographs appear in books, too. The saleroom habitat of specialist dealers in photographic books has traditionally been Swann's. But Christie's photobook sales in London now seem a regular fixture in the calendar, and Sotheby's London book department continues to host a remarkable number of interesting early photographic books. Let the buyer beware, certainly. But let the buyer also have a good time. Photographs are never out of season.

See our Art Price Index for photography 1985-2010

PREMIERE OF STEPHEN WILKES' "CENTRAL PARK, DAY INTO NIGHT" AND VENUE MAGAZINE INTERVIEW

Monroe Gallery of Photography is pleased to premiere Stephen Wilkes' "Central Park, Day Into Night"; the latest in his new series of Day Into Night photographs. The just-opened exhibition of  photographs with a winter theme or setting, "'Tis The Season", features a 22 x 34 print of the image, and Monroe Gallery will debut a spectacular 34 x 54 print size at Photo LA January 3 - 16.

   



The current issue of Venu Magazine has an extensive and wide-ranging interview with Stephen Wilkes.

"'Sometimes I do get to places,' once remarked Ansel Adams 'when God's ready to have somebody click the shutter.' That person for our time - who thinks, feels, and "clicks" Ellis Island, the wreckage of Hurricane Katrina, Eric Clapton, Ruth Madoff, Carlos Santana, or day transferring into night in New York - is Stephen Wilkes".

To read the full article and interview, follow this link and scroll to pages 42 - 51.

ART AND MIAMI

As December looms, some of the art-world action heads to Miami, Florida. Art Basel Miami Beach takes place December 2 - 5, 2010.

Below is the official press release. And, here a link to a related article from the New York Times that calls the Fair "that bacchanal disguised as the Western Hemisphere’s most prestigious art fair".


"Art Basel Miami Beach is the most important art show in the United States, a cultural and social highlight for the Americas. As the sister event of Switzerland's Art Basel, the most prestigious art show worldwide for the past 41 years, Art Basel Miami Beach combines an international selection of top galleries with an exciting program of special exhibitions, parties and crossover events featuring music, film, architecture and design. Exhibition sites are located in the city's beautiful Art Deco District, within walking distance of the beach and many hotels.

An exclusive selection of more than 250 leading art galleries from North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia and Africa will exhibit 20th and 21st century artworks by over 2,000 artists. The exhibiting galleries are among the world's most respected art dealers, offering exceptional pieces by both renowned artists and cutting-edge newcomers. Special exhibition sections feature young galleries, performance art, public art projects and video art. The show will be a vital source for art lovers, allowing them to both discover new developments in contemporary art and experience rare museum-calibre artworks.

Top-quality exhibitions in the museums of South Florida and special programs for art collectors and curators also help make the event a special time for encountering art. And every year, a greater number of art collectors, artists, dealers, curators, critics and art enthusiasts from around the world participate in Art Basel Miami Beach - the favorite winter meeting place for the international art world."

Concurrent with Art Basel Miami Beach is Art Miami: "Known as Miami’s premiere anchor fair, Art Miami kicks off the opening day of Art Week — the first week of December when thousands of collectors, dealers, curators, and artists descend upon Miami to experience the string of contemporary and high-energy fairs that the city is known for. Distinguished for its depth, diversity and quality, Art Miami showcases the best in modern and contemporary art from 100 international art galleries and prominent art institutions."

Both Fairs include photography, and there are also several photography exhibits taking place throughout Miami during the run of the fairs. We'll be posting noteworthy developments on our Twitter feed.


Next: The 20th Anniversary Edition of Photo LA, January 13  - 16, 2011.

'TIS THE SEASON: PHOTOGRAPHS OF THE WINTER SEASON

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

Please join us Friday, November 26, from 5-7 as we celebrate the opening of "'Tis The Season", an exhibition of 50 photograph with a winter theme or setting. The annual tree lighting on the Plaza, which kicks of the holiday season, will begin at 4 PM Friday with the arrival of Santa and Mrs. Clause in the Fire Department;s antique truck. A choir will take the stage at 4:30, followed by local Girl Scouts singing favorite holiday songs from 5:15 to 5:45. Mayor David Coss will flip the switch on the Plaza holiday lights at 6. Santa Fe's Sol Fire closes out the evening with a concert ending at 7; and Girl Scouts will be selling cookies, hot chocolate, and hot cider. Monroe Gallery will be hosting a public reception and preview of the exhibition from 5 - 7 PM.

Verner Reed: Christmas Reflections, Boston, 1955

Santa Fe has receives a few recent dusting of snow, and this week the temperatures have plummeted, a perfect prelude to this exhibition. As winter approaches in the northern hemisphere and the days grow short, this exhibition looks to the beauty of ice and snow. Winter photography, especially in the colder parts of the world, is a specialized niche. Photographers have to take care of their cameras and guard against frostbite and hypothermia. They often venture into remote wilderness searching for the perfect winter landscape. Their reward is stunning imagery.

Stephen Wilkes: Central Park, February, 2010

"Another great show opens Fri 5-7PM @ Monroe Gallery Santa Fe - 50 photographs with a winter theme"

-- Santa Fe Arts 

"'Tis The Seasnon is an aptly named exhibituion of more than 50 photographs, all with a winter theme." -- Santa Fe Reporter

Weegee: Incident in a Snow Storm, New York, 1948



"Tis The season continues through January 30, 2011.

View the exhibit on-line here.

THANKSGIVING 2010

Alfred Eisenstaedt: Old African American sharecropper Dave Alexander saying his evening prayers as he kneels at bedside at home, Mississippi, 1937

From Sarah Josepha Hale, "Editor's Table," Godey's Lady's Book, 1858

OUR NATIONAL THANKSGIVING

"All the blessings of the fields,

All the stores the garden yields

All the plenty summer pours,

Autumn's rich, o'erflowing stores,

Peace, prosperity and health,

Private bliss and public wealth,

Knowledge with its gladdening streams,

Pure religion's holier beams --

Lord, for these our souls shall raise

Grateful vows and solemn praise."


Alfred Eisenstaedt: Delta and Pine Company African American sharecropper Lonnie Fair and his family praying before having their meal. From an assignment for a test issue of Life magazine, 1936.




"We are most happy to agree with the large majority of the governors of the different States -- as shown in their unanimity of action for several past years, and which, we hope, will this year be adopted by all -- that the LAST THURSDAY IN NOVEMBER shall be the DAY OF NATIONAL THANKSGIVING for the American people. Let this day, from this time forth, as long as our Banner of Stars floats on the breeze, be the grand THANKSGIVING HOLIDAY of our nation, when the noise and tumult of wordliness may be exchanged for the laugh of happy children, the glad greetings of family reunion, and the humble gratitude of the Christian heart. This truly American Festival falls, this year on the twenty fifth day of this month.

Let us consecrate the day to benevolence of action, by sending good gifts to the poor, and doing those deeds of charity that will, for one day, make every American home the place of plenty and of rejoicing. These seasons of refreshing are of inestimable advantage to the popular heart; and if rightly managed, will greatly aid and strengthen public harmony of feeling. Let the people of all the States and Territories sit down together to the "feast of fat things," and drink, in the sweet draught of joy and gratitude to the Divine giver of all our blessings, the pledge of renewed love to the Union, and to each other; and of peace and good-will to all men. Then the last Thursday in November will soon become the day of AMERICAN THANKSGIVING throughout the world."

Sarah J. Hale (1788-1879)

"THE TRIUMPH OF PHOTOGRAPHY"

There is a great FREE daily Photography newsletter that we highly recommend. Below is one excerpted article from La  Lettre de la Photographie.

Sign up for free here. 

 

 18.588 € Viviane Esders, Paris: Andréas Feininger, The Photojournalist (Denis Stock), New York, 1955


Viviane Esders opens the Photography Auction Season in Paris. Viviane Esders’ modern and contemporary photo auctions held at the Hotel Drouot on November 9 included 245 lots. Nearly half found buyers for a total of €310,047 (fees included) and more than 40 lots surpassed the high estimated price. The highest bidding took place for lot 91, Andréas Feininger’s Icone “The Photojournalist (Denis Stock)”, New York, 1955, which sold for €18,588. Lot 137, “Sifnos”, Greece, 1960, by Henri Cartier-Bresson, a vintage print estimated at €4,000 sold for €11,153. Lot 176, “Yves Saint Laurent’s Dress”, Vogue, Paris, 1970, by Jean-Loup Sieff, sold for €7,807 or Lot 179 “East 100th Street”, 1966, by Bruce Davidson, estimated at €2,000 – 3,000 sold for €9,294. Among the contemporary prints, was Lot 214, a 2005 self portrait by Kimiko Yoshida that sold for €15,490 or lot 226 “Naomi Campbell”, Vogue, USA, Los Angeles, 1990 by Peter Lindhberg, sold for €15,490. Catalogue www.viviane-esders.com or www.yannlemouel.com Viviane Esders’ next auction: " Picasso et ses amis" Étude Blanchet et Associés Hôtel Drouot Thursday December 9th at 2pm. Catalogue http://www.blanchet.auction.fr/

Several sales took place at “Paris Photo”, poor timing given the major exhibition openings taking place throughout Paris for the Photography Month. Among the most remarkable sales, that of Millon 1 Associés that took place on November 18 at 3pm in the hall of 3 Rossini Street. Several photographic collections from the XIXth and XXth centuries were on sale. Lot 19, “Cranes and Drills”, two hard-mounted albumin prints measuring 34.5 × 24.5 cm dated ca. 1870 and estimated at €600 – 800 sold for €5,000.

Two albumin prints by Eugène Atget “Paris, Place du Caire” and “Angle du boulevard de la Madeleine et de la rue Caumartin” was purchased for €13,500 (not including fees).

Furthermore, Christophe Goeury remarked that buyers were particularly interested in complete albums including “Indes et Ceylan” with 173 albumin prints by several photographers including Bourne that sold for €4,500 or that of Emile Gzell with 200 albumin prints from different countries in Asie that sold for €37,000. Or that by Guillaume Benjamin Duchenne (de Boulogne) on “Mechanism and Appearance of Human Passions” sold for €16,500 (fees excluded). Full results on http://www.millon-associes.com/

Following that of Million, the sale organized at Drouot Montaigne by Serge Plantureux, Binoche and Giquello on Thursday, 18 November, was themed “Chinese Prints, Looking East”. There was a remarkable interest for Alfred Laurens’ Saint Petersbourg album (lot 80) ca. 1870 comprised of 50 albumin prints. Estimated at €6,000 – 8,000, it sold for €62,000. Lot 98, an album by Konstantin Shapiro comprised of 30 albumin prints illustrating Gogol’s “Memoirs of a Madman” estimated at €3,000 – 3,500 sold for €20,000 fees excluded. Lot 146, “Study of a Nude, II”, Moscow, 1930, by Alexandre Grinberg, estimated at €3,000 – 3,500 sold for €22,000. Lot 204, Man Ray, “Mr. Seabrook’s Fantasies”, Paris, 1930, sold for €3,500. Lot 133, “Nude Study”, 1925, by Vladimir V. Lebedev, a vintage silver print estimated at €800 sold for €3,200. Results: http://www.binoche-renaud-giquello.com/

At its Parisian headquarters in the Charpentier Gallery, Sotheby’s Auction House reached a record-breaking figure for a photography sale totaling 2.704 million Euros ($3,671,722). There were also two record-breaking sales for photos by Joseph Sudelka and Manuel Alvarez Bravo. Lot 89, Joseph Sudelka, Still Life (no title) ca. 1952, vintage print, estimated at €18,000-23,000, sold for €300,750 ($400,295) (fees included). Lot 88, another untitled vintage print by Joseph Sudek (vase and dead rose), also from 1952 sold for €228,750 ($310,549) (fees included). Lot 55, “Portrait of the Eternal” ca. 1935 by Manuel Alvarez Bravo, a silver vintage print estimated at €70,000 – 90,000, sold for €228,750 ($$310,549) (fees included). Lot 11, “Notre Dame de Paris, 1923” by Eugène Atget, a vintage albumin print estimated at €40,000 – 60,000 sold for €168,750 ($229,093) (fees included). Edward Weston’s series of nudes, some previously unseen, did not find a buyer at the estimated €50,000 – 68,5000 (without fees). Furthermore, Simone Klein, Director of the Photographic Department for Europe, emphasized the emergence of German photographer Heinz Hajek-Halke’s work of which 11 of the 12 works sold. The vintage print “Monumental Erotica” from 1928-1932 sold for three times its estimated value at €34,350 (fees included). Full Results on www.sothebys.com

The next day, the Christie’s auction at its Parisian base at 9 avenue Matignon offered 65 photographic items and a portfolio from the Richard Avedon Foundation. 65 were sold, generating a total of €5,467,250 fees included. With the highest price being attributed to lot 16, “Dovina with Elephants, evening dress by Dior, Cirque d’Hiver, Paris, August 1955”. This signed exhibition print from 1978 (216.8cm x 166.7cm) originally estimated at €400,000 – 600,000 ($547,908 – 821,862) sold for €841,000 ($1,151,976) (fees included). The next major sale was “Andy Warhol and Group” from October 1969. Three unique signed, dated, and noted prints mounted on isorel estimated at €80,000 – 120,000 sold for €301,000 ($412,301). Then “Andy Warhold, artist, New York City, 20 August 1969”, silver print (150cm x 121.5cm) from 1993 estimated at €80,000 – 120,000 sold for €169,000 ($231,491) (fees included). Or “Stephanie Seymour, model, New York City”, a signed and numbered print from 1992 (155.2cm x 122cm) estimated at €120,000 – 180,000 sold for €265,000 ($362,989). There were also a few notable sales of Richard Avedon’s portfolio and album works during his career. “The Beatles Portfolio” from 1967 sold for €445,000, “Avedon Paris” for €169,000. The “Minneapolis Portfolio” (11 silver prints) edited in 1970 sold for €169,000 while “Family”, 1976, 69 prints made with Rolling Stone Magazine sold for €205,000 (fees included).

Finally on Sunday, November 21 at 2pm, Ader Nordmann auctioned off 338 lots of vintage, modern, and contemporary prints totaling €332,000 fees excluded. One sale confirming the enthusiasm for albums combining lots 57 and 58 in one album of 121 nudes on albumin paper dated 1890 and an album with prints and Japanese photographs reached €35,000 fees excluded. A sale that revived post-war humanistic photography with €6,500 (fees excluded) for a later print of Henri Cartier Bresson’s 1932 “Derrière la Gare St Lazare”. €1,900 for “Les Premières Neiges du Luxembourg” ca. 1955, an unsigned vintage print by Edouard Boubat (lot 201). Lot 230, “Regards d’acier”, a signed and dated vintage print by Josef Koudelka reached €5,000. Man Ray’s photogramme, lot 149, a photographic print from the movie “Fernand Leger, le ballet mecanique”, 1924, auctioned for €27,000. Or €5,700 for François Kollar’s “Fernande Kollar in the Mirror” (lot 148), a vintage color slide on a silver leaf background. A unique item measuring 25 × 20 cm dating back to 1955. And €12,000 for a 1975 silver print (30 × 40) “Silvana Mangano” by François-Marie Banier. Catalogue on http://www.ader-paris.fr/

For memory, the Piasa sale on Friday 19 November at 3pm in the hall 5 at the Hotel Drouot. Little interest was manifested for the 331 lots on auction, explaining why only 1/3 found buyers. Results on http://www.piasa.fr/

One more thing, Helmut Newton, “Domestic nude V: In my livingroom, Chateau Marmont, Hollywood, Los Angeles, 1992” has been sold for 225,850 € at Bukowskis, the swedish auction house in Stockholm on the 17th of november 2010.

Bernard Perrine, correspondant de l’Institut de France

Related: Thoughts On The Record Fall Auctions

November 22, 1963: Death of the President

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

By the fall of 1963, President Kennedy and his political advisers were preparing for the next presidential campaign.

Carl Mydans: Senator John F. Kennedy Campaigning with his Wife in Boston , 1958

Although he had not formally announced his candidacy, it was clear that JFK was going to run and he seemed confident—though not over-confident— about his chances for re-election.

At the end of September, the President traveled west speaking in nine different states in less than a week. While the trip was meant to put a spotlight on natural resources and conservation efforts, JFK also used it to sound out themes -- such as education, national security, and world peace -- for his run in 1964. In particular, he cited the achievement of a limited nuclear test ban, which the Senate had just approved and which was a potential issue in the upcoming election. The public’s enthusiastic response was encouraging.


A month later, the President addressed Democratic gatherings in Boston and Philadelphia. Then, on November 12, he held the first important political planning session for the upcoming election year. At the meeting, JFK stressed the importance of winning Florida and Texas and talked about his plans to visit both states in the next two weeks. Mrs. Kennedy would be accompanying him on the swing through Texas, which would be her first extended public appearance since the loss of their baby, Patrick, in August.

On November 21, the President and First Lady departed on Air Force One for the two-day, five-city tour of Texas. JFK was aware that a feud among party leaders in Texas could jeopardize his chances of carrying the state in 1964, and one of his aims for the trip was to bring Democrats together. He also knew that a relatively small but vocal group of extremists was contributing to the political tensions in Texas and would likely make its presence felt—particularly in Dallas, where UN Ambassador Adlai Stevenson had been physically attacked a month earlier after making a speech there. Nonetheless, JFK seemed to relish the prospect of leaving Washington, getting out among the people and into the political fray.

The first stop was San Antonio. Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson, Governor John B. Connally and Senator Ralph W. Yarborough led the welcoming party and accompanied the President to Brooks Air Force Base for the dedication of the Aerospace Medical Health Center. Continuing on to Houston, he addressed a Latin American citizens’ organization and spoke at a testimonial dinner for Congressman Albert Thomas before ending the day in Fort Worth.

A light rain was falling on Friday morning, November 22, but a crowd of several thousand stood in the parking lot outside the Texas Hotel where the Kennedys had spent the night. A platform had been set up and the President, wearing no protection against the weather, came out to make some brief remarks. “There are no faint hearts in Fort Worth,” he began, “and I appreciate your being here this morning. Mrs. Kennedy is organizing herself. It takes longer, but, of course, she looks better than we do when she does it.” He went on to talk about the nation’s need for being “second to none” in defense and in space, for continued growth in the economy and “the willingness of citizens of the United States to assume the burdens of leadership.” The warmth of the audience response was palpable as the President reached out to shake hands amidst a sea of smiling faces.

Back inside the hotel the President spoke at a breakfast of the Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce, focusing on military preparedness. “We are still the keystone in the arch of freedom,” he said. “We will continue to do…our duty, and the people of Texas will be in the lead.”

The presidential party left the hotel and went by motorcade to Carswell Air Force Base for the thirteen-minute flight to Dallas. Arriving at Love Field, President and Mrs. Kennedy disembarked and immediately walked toward a fence where a crowd of well-wishers had gathered, and they spent several minutes shaking hands. The First Lady was presented with a bouquet of red roses, which she brought with her to the waiting limousine. Governor John Connally and his wife, Nellie, were already seated in the open convertible as the Kennedys entered and sat behind them. Since it was no longer raining, the plastic bubble top had been left off. Vice President and Mrs. Johnson occupied another car in the motorcade.

The procession left the airport and traveled along a ten-mile route that wound through downtown Dallas on the way to the Trade Mart where the President was scheduled to speak at a luncheon. Crowds of excited people lined the streets waving to the Kennedys as they waved back. The car turned off Main Street at Dealey Plaza around 12:30 p.m. As it was passing the Texas School Book Depository, gunfire suddenly reverberated in the plaza. Bullets struck the President’s neck and head and he slumped over toward Mrs. Kennedy. The Governor was also hit in the chest.

The car sped off to Parkland Memorial Hospital just a few minutes away. But there was little that could be done for the President. A Catholic priest was summoned to administer the last rites and at 1:00 p.m. John F. Kennedy was pronounced dead. Governor Connolly, though seriously wounded, would recover.

The President’s body was brought to Love Field and placed on Air Force One. Before the plane took off, a grim-faced Lyndon B. Johnson stood in the tight, crowded compartment and took the oath of office, administered by U.S. District Court Judge Sarah Hughes. The brief ceremony took place at 2:38 p.m. Less than an hour earlier, police had arrested Lee Harvey Oswald, a recently-hired employee at the Texas School Book Depository. He was being held for the assassination of President Kennedy as well as the fatal shooting, shortly afterward, of Patrolman J.D. Tippit on a Dallas street.

On Sunday morning, the 24th, Oswald was scheduled to be transferred from police headquarters to the county jail. Viewers across America watching the live TV coverage suddenly saw a man aim a pistol and fire at point blank range. The assailant was identified as Jack Ruby, a local nightclub owner. Oswald died two hours later at Parkland Hospital.

That same day, President Kennedy’s flag-draped casket was moved from the White House to the Capitol on a caisson drawn by six grey horses, accompanied by one riderless black horse. The cortege and other ceremonial details were modeled on the funeral of Abraham Lincoln at Mrs. Kennedy’s request. Crowds lined Pennsylvania Avenue and many wept openly as the caisson passed. During the 21 hours that the President’s body lay in state in the Capitol Rotunda, about 250,000 people filed by to pay their respects.

Stan Stearns: John F. Kennedy Jr. saluting his father's coffin, November 25, 1963 with Ted Kennedy, Jacqueline Kennedy, Rose Kennedy, Peter Lawford, and Robert F. Kennedy in background

On Monday, November 25, 1963 President Kennedy was laid to rest in Arlington National Cemetery. The funeral was attended by heads of state and representatives from more than 100 countries, with untold millions more watching on television. Afterward, an eternal flame was lit at the grave site by Mrs. Kennedy and her husband’s brothers, Robert and Edward. Perhaps the most indelible images of the day were the salute to his father given by little John F. Kennedy, Jr. (whose third birthday it was), daughter Caroline kneeling next to her mother at the President’s bier, and the extraordinary grace and dignity shown by Jacqueline Kennedy.

Bob Gomel: John  F. Kennedy Laid to Rest, Arlington National Cemetery, November 25, 1963

As people throughout the nation and the world struggled to make sense of a senseless act and to articulate their feelings about President Kennedy’s life and legacy, many recalled these words from his inaugural address which had now acquired new meaning:

"All this will not be finished in the first one hundred days, nor in the first one thousand days, nor in the life of this administration. Nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet. But let us begin."

Source: The John F. Kennedy Library and Museum

 

Related: John F. Kennedy: November, and Photography

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 

BORN ON NOVEMBER 20, 1925: ROBERT F. KENNEDY

Eighty-Five years ago, on November 20, 1925, Robert F. Kennedy was born.

Bill Eppridge: The Kennedy campaign travels through the Watts section of Los Angeles on the last day before the primary, 1968

"Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.”

Robert F. Kennedy, Capetown, June 6th 1966

Steve Schapiro: Robert F. Kennedy Campaign, California, 1966

 "On this generation of Americans falls the full burden of providing the world that we really mean it when we say all men are created free and equal before the law. All of us might wish at times that we lived in a more tranquil world, but we don't. And if our times are difficult and perplexing, so are they challenging and filled with opportunity." (Speech, Law Day Exercises of the University of Georgetown Law School, May 6, 1961).

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

 

 

 

 

The Robert F. Kennedy Center

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

THOUGHTS ON THE RECORD FALL ART AUCTIONS

We reported on the numerous record-setting and exuberant sales in this Fall's art auctions on our Twitter feed, which scrolls on the right side of this page. Now that the dust has settled, the "experts" are trying to make sense of the extraordinary results.

The just-completed Contemporary sales totaled over $1 BILLION dollars in sales (with Andy Warhol accounting for over $200 million alone); the Impressionist/Modern sales about another half - BILLION; and almost as an afterthought a Qianlong-dynasty vase sold for $85.9 MILLION dollars.


The Fall photo auctions in New York brought in $16 million.



We are often asked, "what does the broader art market have to do with the photography market?". In our judgement, a lot. It wasn't long ago that the argument existed whether photography was "art" or not. At least we are beyond that phase!


Two observations:

Richard Prince’s “Marlboro Man" (Untitled, Cowboy), below, set a record for a photograph when it sold for $3,401,000 at Sotheby’s in New York in 2007. Prince’s “Cowboy” series consisted of old Marlboro cigarette print ads that he re-photographed. And the Marlboro man was based on a LIFE magazine cover of a photograph by Leonard McCombe of a real cowboy.

The $63.36 million realized on last Monday at Phillips, de Pury by Andy Warhol's “Men in Her Life?” was done in silk-screen technique: the dark black and white picture endlessly repeats a photographic image published in LIFE magazine on April 13, 1962.

The prices for the "masters" of photography are a fraction of the prices for the masters of art. 

Photography's impact, relevance, influence, and relationship to the broader fine art field is still in its infancy.

The Wall Street Journal: The New Gold Standard: Will Pop's Current Dominance of the Art World Last?

Related: The Financial Times: This Bonhams sale shows that a six- or seven-figure budget is not necessary to secure a first-class image by a known name.

Related: LOEWS MAGAZINE: COLLECTING PHOTOGRAPHY

BORN NOVEMBER 15, 1887: GEORGIA O'KEEFFE

John Loengard: Abiquiu, New Mexico, 1967

Georgia O'Keeffe
Born on November 15, 1887


Georgia Totto O'Keeffe (November 15, 1887 – March 6, 1986) was an American artist. Born near Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, O'Keeffe was a major figure in American art from the 1920s.

Georgia O'Keeffe visited Northern New Mexico in 1917 and fell in love with it then. But it was not until 1934 that she decided to make Ghost Ranch her summer home. She would spend her summers hiking, exploring and painting the area and in the winter go to New York. One summer she convinced the owner to sell her a small part of Ghost Ranch, which was a house and 7 acres. After her husband, Alfred Stieglitz, died, Georgia made Abiquiu (about an hour and a half north of Santa Fe) her permanent home.

Georgia O'Keeffe may be the most photographed artist in history, given the artistic ardor of her photographer husband, Alfred Stieglitz. Beautiful at every age and serene in the camera's gaze, on the occasion of Georgia O'Keeffe's 80th birthday in 1967 Life magazine dispatched photographer John Loengard to her home in New Mexico to document a day in the life of the pioneering American artist.

Georgia O'Keeffe died on March 6, 1986



Related: The Georgia O'Keeffe Museum

               Image and Imagination: Georgia O'Keeffe by John Loengard

"THE MAN WHO SHOT THE SEVENTIES"

Mick Rock Exposed: The Faces of Rock 'n' Roll


Mick Rock's photo career began with him sneaking his camera into rock shows; it ignited when he started shooting a practically unknown David Bowie in 1972 and then went on to document the rise and fall of Ziggy Stardust. Since then Mick's become a legend himself, shooting a who's who of rock, punk, and pop icons and capturing the images of stars right as they became part of the pop firmament. Exposed collects 200 of his best photos across nearly 40 years, including unforgettable images of Syd Barrett, Lou Reed, Blondie, Queen, Iggy Pop, the Sex Pistols, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, the Killers, Lady Gaga, U2, and many more. Featuring a revealing introduction, narrative captions, and an illuminating foreword by playwright Tom Stoppard, Exposed is a gorgeous visual celebration for music fans.

Michael David Rock was born in west London and earned a scholarship to Cambridge where he studied modern languages, graduating in the late sixties. It was the expressive seduction of subversive poets of yore rather than finite imagery that encouraged Rock to explore his own creative expression. "I discovered the lives and works of the great Bohemian poets, like Baudelaire, Rimbaud, and Nerval. They were my heroes".


"London in the late sixties and early seventies was a hotbed of creative interchange. The prevalent hippie philosophy united all manner of artists, musicians, film makers, models, designers, actors, writers, and photographers into a unique and fertile community. My timing was excellent. Curiosity and circumstance drew me into the flame of rock ‘n’ roll." -- Mick Rock

Rock became intensely interested in the artists and performers at the cutting edge of their time who were not afraid to cross the line. This was the atmosphere in which Mick Rock began his collaborations with the artists of the new decade. The first band Rock photographed was the Pretty Things in 1969; soon he was photographing the likes of Syd Barrett, David Bowie, Lou Reed, Queen, Roxy Music and Iggy Pop, emerging artists who would rapidly become international stars. “They were all special people to me. They weren’t “stars” when I first met them. To me, they were free spirited visionaries. I was in the right place at the right time, you can't plan that. That's just something you can't prescribe in life.”

He was soon traveling back and forth between London and New York, on tour with emerging artists such as David Bowie and Iggy Pop and capturing the music scene in all its decadent glory. Rock was instrumental in creating many key rock 'n' roll images of the time, such as Lou Reed's Transformer, Iggy Pop's Raw Power and Queen's Queen II, leading to his being called “The Man Who Shot The Seventies”.

In 1977, Rock moved permanently to New York, and quickly immersed himself in the burgeoning underground new wave scene, capturing the nihilistic spirit of the music of the Ramones, Blondie and the Talking Heads. As rock and roll has evolved, Rock has continued to capture the essence of the fresh and new. Mick Rock has been instrumental in creating many key visual images of the last three decades. His photographs have been called as significant as Andy Warhol’s paintings in constructing the images we hold in our minds of the larger-than-life figures of our popular culture. Rock’s accomplishments extend beyond photography and include art direction, music video production and three Grammy nominations.

In recent years, Rock also has published several books, including A Photographic Record. Recently released is his retrospective of the Glam Rock scene titled Blood & Glitter; a retrospective of Syd Barrett photographs titled Psychedelic Renegades; Moonage Daydream, a co-collaboration with David Bowie of the Ziggy Stardust era; and Killer Queen, with a foreword written by Queen guitarist Brian May.

“Many years ago, I noted in my diary: ‘I am not in the business of documenting or revealing personalities. I am in the business of freezing shadows and bottling auras.’ I still like the sound of that” -- Mick Rock

Mick Rock's photographs have helped define the image of rock 'n' roll, and have been featured on numerous album covers and in solo exhibitions around the world. Monroe Gallery is pleased to represent Mick Rock's iconic photography, and was instrumental in his re-emergence in the late 1990's - organizing his first gallery exhibition in New York in 1997.