Last month the U.S. Congress made several changes to the tax law. What they did and what they didn't do have major ramifications for the photography and art markets.

First what they didn't do. The Congress failed to lower the capital gains tax on artwork from 28 to 20% and failed to pass legislation that would allow artists to donate their own work at appraised value instead of only at cost of materials. Capital gains treatment generally comes into play after an investor has held on to an asset for at least a year. If you hold the asset for less time, your ordinary income tax rate would apply.

The failure to achieve a lower capital gains treatment means that artwork as an investment is at a severe disadvantage to other financial investments, such as stocks or bonds, where the capital gains was lowered some time ago to only 15% for the average tax payer (talk to your accountant about your specific situation, which can vary) but artwork and collectibles remained at the rather steep 28%. An attempt to lower the capital gains tax on artwork to 20% failed, not surprisingly, given the total lack of action on the part of art and photography collector and dealer groups. Without the pressure of consequences (loss of votes and financial support), Congress rarely gives away tax dollars. I saw no initiatives taken by any group to even petition their local representatives by letter and/or email, let alone begin a lobbying effort. This was one more lost opportunity for this market.

Meanwhile, artists/photographers fared no better. Proposals to allow artists to donate work at appraised value, instead of only at cost of materials, failed to go anywhere. And, again, one wonders what happened to the various associations of photographers and artists, which were also missing in action on this important issue to their members.

Worse for museums was a tax law change that effects a practice known as fractional or partial giving, which has been a popular method for collectors to donate to museums. The fractional gift practice is one where an artwork is "donated" but can remain largely in the owner's possession often until they die. Some critics charge that the practice has been abused by some wealthy donors, many of whom received upfront tax deductions for works that will not appear in museum collections for decades. The changes to the tax law apply only to fractional gifts made after August 17, 2006, after the bill was signed into law by President Bush.

With a fractional gift, a donor gives a percentage interest in a work of art to a museum or charity. The donor gets a tax deduction for an equivalent percentage of the work's value. The museum gets the right to hold the work for a portion of the year that is equivalent to the percentage of the work given.

The collector can continue to hold the art the rest of the time, but in practice many museums have waived their right to possess pieces at all except when they needed them for exhibitions. Donors can then make further fractional gifts in subsequent years, helping to spread out their tax deductions over a longer period while still making use of the gifted work. For museums, works that start out as fractional gifts almost always become full donations eventually.

Several tax information sources claim that the new law creates enough disincentives to effectively end the practice, while actually not banning fractional gifting.

The previous law on fractional gifts gave donors two major advantages: 1.) If the art increased in value, the tax deductions from each subsequent fractional gift went up accordingly. And, 2.) the other advantage was that donors could continue to enjoy the works privately for a long time, sometimes even until they died.

Under the new law, the value of a work of art is set at the time of the first fractional donation, and the donor can no longer get larger deductions for later fractional gifts if the art appreciates. But if it declines in value, the taxpayer gets a lower deduction for future donations. The new law also says that museums must take "substantial possession" of the work of art following the initial gift and receive full ownership and possession of the object within 10 years.

Most sources say that this will discourage donations, particularly from younger donors, since collectors will now hold on to works as long as possible to maximize the potential tax benefit when they actually make the donations.

Under the new changes, there could also be significant estate tax penalties if donors make fractional gifts and then die while the work is still in their possession.

Museum directors told the New York Times that without fractional giving, more works of art will ultimately end up in estates, where they are far more likely to be sold off to private collectors than to art institutions.

Museums view fractional giving as a vital method to attract valuable donations and build long-term relationships with important and rich collectors.

According to the New York Times, about 80 percent of new acquisitions at American museums now come through donations. Major museum directors interviewed for the Times story on this subject estimate that fractional gifts account for only about 10 percent of the donations, but that those works are often the most valuable and historically significant pieces. Without such donations, many museum directors say they worry that their ability to build collections will be severely crimped.
 

Several of the photographers that are represented by Vintage Works, Ltd., Chalfont, PA, have exhibitions currently or recently on display, and many have had their work published or scheduled in several leading photography magazines.

Stanko Abadžic is a Croatian that manages to mix an Eastern European sense of the mystical, like Andre Kertesz, with the unerring eye for the moment, like Henri Cartier-Bresson. His black and white imagery is pure magic. Abadžic has gotten a lot of publicity lately. A major four-page portfolio of his work was published in the leading Czech photography magazine PhotoArt's recent August issue. His work is also scheduled for a featured portfolio in the U.S.-based Black & White magazine next year.

In addition Abadžic has recently had a show entitled "Adriatic Routes" exhibited at the Cultural Centre in Eger, Hungary, and will soon be exhibiting the show at the Gallery of the Photoclub in Split, Croatia. Earlier this year work from his current book, "In Abstentia", was shown at the Museum of Karlovac's Galerija Vjeskoslav Karas. Another new book on Abadžic's images is in the works.

You can see a special online exhibit of his work, entitled "Stanko Abadžic: Out of the Shadows, a Photojournalist's Diary of Life", on I Photo Central at: http://www.iphotocentral.com/showcase/showcase_view.php/90/1/0 .

Based in Amsterdam, Brit ex-pat Lisa Holden produces large-scale painted-on color photography of stunning proportions. Holden's "Garden (Tree)" image is being used by Art Business to illustrate an upcoming article on the digital influence on art photography.

Holden has a solo show entitled "La Sala Reservada", at METIS, Amsterdam, Netherlands (September 3-October 7). Her work is also in a group exhibition "Making Love to My Ego" at Castlefield Gallery, Manchester, UK (August 11-September 24) and is featured prominently in the show's catalogue. She also has another solo show coming up at France Lejeune Fine Art, Antoine Bréartstraat 13b, Knokke, Belgium, which is entitled, "Erwartung" (October28-November 26). And she is participating in an artist publication project: the An(other) Publication project by Renee Ridgway and Katarina Zdjelar in collaboration with the Piet Zwart Institute (NL) and Revolver Books, "Archiv fur aktuelle Kunst".

You can see Holden's work in a special online exhibit entitled "Contemporary Photography of Lisa Holden: Victorian Dreamscapes and New Technology" at: http://www.iphotocentral.com/showcase/showcase_view.php/81/1/0 .

Krzysztof (or Christophe) Pruszkowski's powerful multiple exposure images, which he calls "photosynthesis", tear off social masks and, as Jerome Sans, director of the Tokyo Palace, Paris, has written, "The artist does not interpret the world by establishing its apparent form but rather restores its complexity and places it in a context which reveals the richness of its metamorphosis. A brilliant concept."

Pruszkowski's controversial work on terrorist kidnappers was recently shown in Warsaw, Poland. His work is also scheduled for a featured portfolio in the U.S.-based Black & White magazine next year.

Pruszkowski's black and white images are featured in a special online exhibit at: http://www.iphotocentral.com/showcase/showcase_view.php/75/1/0 .

Jerry Spagnoli has just had his first book "Jerry Spagnoli: Daguerreotypes, 1995-2004" published by Steidl (see a review of the book at: http://www.iphotocentral.com/news/article_view.php/118/109/615 ).

Spagnoli continues to build on his reputation as the foremost daguerreotypist of his age, utilizing the medium for his unique conceptual art. He may be best known for having co-produced a series of portraits with artist Chuck Close, but his personal work is stunning.

A number of pieces from the book are included in the special exhibition on I Photo Central called, "Contemporary Daguerreotypes: Mirrors to the Future and the Past", at: http://www.iphotocentral.com/showcase/showcase_view.php/7/1/0/14 .

Marcus Doyle will be front and center in an upcoming Focus magazine article on him and his color work in November. Doyle, who is known for his intensely colored nightscapes, had just had an eight-page article with photographs appear in the leading Scandinavian photography publication, Fotografi, which is published out of Norway, but is available throughout Europe. In addition, Harper's magazine's May issue had a photograph (Monument Diner) by Doyle in its "Reader's Section", which is devoted to up-and-coming artists and authors.

Just a reminder that Vintage Works, Ltd. is offering for sale a limited edition book entitled: Marcus Doyle: Night Vision/Intimacies of an Unblinking Eye. Twenty-six photographs by Doyle are reproduced in full color and are accompanied by an essay by Matt Damsker.

The 32-page book is offered in a special edition, which is cloth hardbound (plus dust jacket) and slip-cased and comes with an 8 x 10 inch signed and editioned photograph and is limited to only 100 copies (ISBN 0-9771415-1-9), for a starting price of $500. The price goes up $100 for each 20 sold. A softbound edition, limited to 1,400 copies (ISBN 0-9771415-0-0), is priced at $39.95.

To view some of Marcus Doyle's images, you can go to http://www.iphotocentral.com/showcase/showcase_view.php/57/1/1 .

To order either the softbound or the hardbound copy with print directly, contact Vintage Works, Ltd. at 1-215-822-5662, or email info@vintageworks.net . During the Spring Sale on I Photo Central (now until June 21, 2006), we will waive the shipping price within the U.S. Softbound copies will ship media rate and the hardbound copies with print will ship priority mail/insured.

The book is also available at these fine photography bookstores and art dealers:

France Lejeune Fine Art
Antoine Bréartstraat 13b
8300 Knokke
BELGIUM
Phone: +32 485 43 23 27
Fax: +32 15 33 62 12
Email: france.fine.art@pandora.be .

Libreria Kowasa
Mallorca 235
08008 Barcelona
SPAIN
http://www.kowasa.com/ .
Tel.: +34 93 487 61 37
Fax: +34 93 215 80 54
Email: info@kowasa.com .
Hours: M-Sa, 11 am to 2 pm and 5 pm to 8:30 pm

Arcana Books on the Arts
1229 Third St Promenade
Santa Monica, CA 90401
Tel: +1-310-458-1499
Fax: +1-310-458-9014
Email: order@arcanabooks.com .
http://www.ArcanaBooks.com/ .
Hours: M-Sa, 10 am to 6 pm, and Su, 12 pm to 6 pm

Michael Dawson's Book Shop
535 N Larchmont Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90004
Tel: + 323-469-2186
Fax: + 323-469-9553
Email: orders@dawsonbooks.com .
http://www.michaeldawsongallery.com/ .
Hours: W-Sa, 10 am-5 pm, and M and Tu by appointment

D A Information Services
648 Whitehorse Road
Mitcham Victoria 3132
AUSTRALIA
Phone: +61 3 9210 7777
Fax: +61 3 9210 7788
Email: service@dadirect.com.au .
http://www.dadirect.com.au .

If you are a bookstore and would like to stock this book, please contact Alex Novak at 1-215-822-5662.
 

Five more new Special Exhibits have recently gone up on I Photo Central.

Vintage Works, Ltd. has put up "Arthur Tress: Vintage Prints, Dream Images", which details the early 1970s work by this important photographer.

His work is in the collection of numerous museums and institutions, including the New York Museum of Modern Art, the New York Metropolitan Museum, the George Eastman House, the Bibliotheque Nationale, the Centre Georges Pompidou, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the San Francisco Museum of Art, the Houston Museum of Fine Art, the Whitney Museum of Art, the Stedelijk Museum, the High Museum of Art, the Chicago Center for Contemporary Art, the Cincinnati Art Museum, the Art Institute of Chicago and the Milwaukee Art Museum.

In 2001, the Corcoran Gallery of Art featured a retrospective of his work entitled "Arthur Tress: Fantastic Voyage: Photographs 1956-2000" which took an intimate look at his long and varied career.

Vintage Works' second new Special Exhibit is entitled "Dorothy Norman: Simplicity, Elegance and a Modernist Eye for Photography". Norman worked with and was Alfred Stieglitz's lover. Stieglitz taught Norman photography, and she managed operations at his An American Place, his last gallery.

The New York Museum of Modern Art included several of her pieces in the 1944 exhibition, "New Workers". It was another pioneering gallery director, Helen Gee, who showed her work next at Limelight Gallery in 1955. That show combined the two lovers' portraits and was titled "Alfred Stieglitz/Dorothy Norman, Portraits of Each Other". Norman's images were also included in the influential George Eastman House exhibit, "Photography at Mid-Century: 10th Anniversary Exhibition", which was curated by Walter Chappell. And her friend Minor White showed her work in "Light 7" at the Hayden Gallery at M.I.T in 1968.

Norman did not consider herself a professional photographer. As the website for the David Winton Bell Gallery of Brown University puts it, "She photographed the places she cherished--trees in Woods Holes, churches in Falmouth, the New York harbor and Rockefeller Center--and the interior of An American Place, Stieglitz's last gallery. She created an extended portrait study of Stieglitz, as he did of her. Norman's work is characterized by a clarity of vision, beautiful use of light and shadow (especially in the interior studies), and masterful printing techniques learned under the tutelage of Stieglitz and Edward Steichen. Her small, simple prints--private, quiet, intimate--have drawn comparison to the poems of Emily Dickinson."

In 1968, Norman donated an extensive collection of photographs by herself and Stieglitz to the Philadelphia Museum of Art. A selection of these was exhibited there that year. A larger number of Norman's photographs were shown at the International Center of Photography in New York City in 1993 accompanied by a book, "Intimate Visions: The Photographs of Dorothy Norman". Her vintage photographs are rare, so this exhibition offers an important retrospective of her non-portrait work.

Finally the third new online exhibition offered by Vintage Works is "Fritz Henle: Observer and Photographer of People and Places".

Fritz Henle is one of the most under appreciated photographers, despite his importance and extensive exhibitions. Henle was a member of the New York Photo League and worked for the Farm Security Administration as a photographer.

Later in life he lived in Christiansted, Virgin Islands, but traveled extensively, including the U.S., Europe, Israel, India, Mexico, Japan and other locales.

Henle's work was shown in some of the most influential photography exhibitions, including the New York Museum of Modern Art's "Photography: 1839-1937", curated by Beaumont Newhall; the 1938 First International Photographic Exposition of the Guild of Photographic Dealers; New York Museum of Modern Art's "Mexico: 8 Photographers"; the 1948 exhibition, "This Is the Photo League"; the Baltimore Museum of Art's 1949 one-man show, "Hawaii - Photographs by Fritz Henle" the George Eastman House's 1952 one-man show, "Fritz Henle"; the 1954 " Subjektive Fotografie" in Germany, curated by Otto Steinert,; the George Eastman House's "Photography At Mid-Century: 10th Anniversary Exhibition" in 1959; and Stern Magazine's 2nd World Exhibition of Photography: "Woman".

If Henle's work interests you, you might also want to view his images that he made for U.S. Steel that Charles Schwartz has up separately on the website.

Charles Schwartz Ltd. has also put up two additional Special Exhibits on I Photo Central. The first exhibit is "Autochromes". This is the second of two Special Exhibits up on the site that deal with the autochrome process.

The Autochrome was an early photographic process that served as a cornerstone for the color photography of today. Developed by the Lumière Brothers, a pair of French film-making pioneers, the Autochrome made a giant leap from the gray scale of the 19th century to a more vividly rendered modern world. Unlike previous color photographs, where pigments were hand-applied to existing black and white prints, the additive Autochrome process used grains of starch to filter the colors of light on film. Improving upon a system introduced by Joly in Ireland, it became the first chromatic process to achieve commercial success. Although hampered by long exposure times and muted uneven tones, the Autochrome brought the photographic image to new and astonishing levels of realism, early examples of which are coveted by contemporary collectors for their rare, painterly quality.

The second exhibit just added by Charles Schwartz is entitled "David Octavius Hill and Robert Adamson". This collection of calotypes is from an important album of Hill and Adamson's work, which was purchased at Sotheby's London in 1997. Many of these images are on their original mounts.

The partnership of David Octavius Hill (1802-1870) and Robert Adamson (1821-1848) is one of the most significant and intriguing in the history of photography. The art of photography was announced to the public in 1839. Just four years later, in 1843, Robert Adamson established his studio in Rock House, on Calton Hill in Edinburgh. It was to be the site of some of the most sophisticated photography ever created.

The partnership was born in extraordinary circumstances. Almost simultaneously with Adamson opening his pioneering studio, the Church of Scotland was meeting in Edinburgh. In May of 1843, four hundred ministers--a third of the entire church--signed a Deed of Demission, resigning their livings and establishing the Free Church of Scotland. It was a true act of courage, rooted in deeply held convictions, for these men were not only surrendering their career, but also condemning their families to ostracism from the communities in which they lived.

Hill and Adamson produced calotype negatives. These were made on sheets of writing paper treated with light sensitive chemicals. Exposure times could run into several minutes in sunlight. The cameras were necessarily bulky as enlarging was not possible. The negative, which had to be the size of the final print, was printed by contact in full sunlight on a hand coated salt paper. Each negative and print had its own character. The prints were typically purple to reddish brown in tone, emphasizing broad masses of detail. They were frequently compared by contemporaries to the work of Rembrandt.

We have also continued to change images and add to our essays for all our Special Exhibits, so they are worth another peek, especially if you have not looked lately. And, if you see one you like, let a friend know too!

You can see these fine new exhibits and others (now a total of 60 Special Exhibits in all!) at: http://www.iphotocentral.com/showcase/showcase.php . Don't forget to check out the archived exhibits at the bottom of the page as well.
 

By Matt Damsker

CHILDREN OF ADAM FROM LEAVES OF GRASS. POEMS BY WALT WHITMAN;
ARTWORK BY PAUL CAVA; EDITED BY ALEXANDER SCHOLZ.
2005, Edition Galerie Vevais, An der Dornbuschmule 7, D-16269 Vevais, Germany. Available in a number of signed, limited editions with numbered prints, also hardback, softcover; ISBN No. 3-936165-44-0 (softcover), 3-936165-36-X (hardcover). http://www.galerievevais.de ; http://www.high-tech-literature.com .

The passionate lyricism of Walt Whitman is not easily matched with erotic photography--Whitman is too sprawling, too encompassing in his poetry, a poetry that celebrates the organic force of humanity and transcends mere sexuality or sentiment. In this beautifully produced volume, Paul Cava makes a noble attempt to celebrate with Whitman, illustrating some of the bard's most sensual passages from "Leaves of Grass" with photo-collages that bring a rough-hewn, tactile force to the project. At their most potent, Cava's split-image conflations--half-male and half-female nudes--evoke the pan-sexuality of Whitman's great, barbaric yawp ("There is something in staying close to men and women/and looking on them, and in the contact and odor of them,/that pleases the soul well…"), while Cava's antiqued and pigmented prints suggest the earthy sweat and must of Whitman's 19th century.

Such portraits as "Denise (Map-Red)" don't quite fulfill the concept, due to an overlayed gridwork more in tune with Sol LeWitt than with Whitman, but on their own terms, Cava's posed nudes are exquisitely captured expressions of idealized form. Where Cava is somewhat diffuse--as in "Sexual Nature #11," with its juxtapositions of a female nude, diagrams of ova, and an archaic drawing of a Ferris wheel against a blurry shot of skulls in a catacomb--he is nonetheless intriguing and drenched in a sepia-toned mysteriousness that rewards our attention. His symbolism is also consistent: the Ferris wheel recurs in the hand-colored pictorialism of "Venus/Ember/Ferris/Christ," overlaying a Renaissance appropriation of Jesus on the cross, while an autoerotic "Venus" stands raptly, profanely, at the far left of the work.

At his tenderest, Cava depicts couples in the throes of lovemaking, with a gentle allusiveness that works well in such soft-focus, blurred images as "Bobby and Jackie (Letter)," which double-exposes a vague handwritten love note upon the image of the sprawled couple. Again, the connection to Whitman's wise embrace of all things human may be simplistic, but the right humid grace notes are struck ("A woman waits for me," writes Walt, "she contains all, nothing is lacking,/Yet all were lacking if sex were lacking, or if the moisture of the right man were lacking."). Ultimately, this volume is a unique showcase for Cava and a rich reminder of how powerfully free--and ultimately modern--Whitman's poetry is, lending itself to daring visual expression and challenging our best living artists to strive for something equally timeless.


COAL HOLLOW: PHOTOGRAPHS AND ORAL HISTORIES, BY KEN LIGHT
AND MELANIE LIGHT.
2006, University of California Press, 2120 Berkeley Way, Berkeley, CA 94704-1012; 152 pages, 97 duotones; ISBN No. 0-520-24654-3; clothbound, $34.95. Information: phone: (510) 642-4247, fax: (510) 643-7127; http://www.ucpress.edu .

We may think that the imagery of down-and-out white America begins and end with the classic Depression-era photography of Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, and the other WPA photographers who put faces to the poverty and dustbowl grit of the 1930s. But the hardscrabble life of West Virginia's coal-mining culture is very much with us--especially in somewhat recent news of fatal mining disasters--and Ken Light's photography documents this Appalachian corner of America in powerful, large-format, black-and-white detail, reminding us that times remain as tough for these people as they were for their Depression-era forebears.

Light and his wife, Melanie, traveled extensively through this isolated terrain, taking pictures and capturing the oral histories of residents (Coal Hollow is actually a fictional composite of the communities visited by the Lights). The theme that runs through these accounts--of coal-company greed and the vulnerability of the poor--is familiar, but Light's photographs bring a vivid immediacy to what is at stake here. And what is at stake are lives, lives blinkered by chronic unemployment amid the rough enclosure of mountain hollows, but defiantly alive. Images of forty- and fifty-year-olds, who look considerably older, aged by the mines, are balanced by photos of those like Brother James, a ruddy bear of a man who, at 61, presides over his tent revival with all the spirit and vigor of youth. Many of Light's photos are mainly textural studies more so than social documentarian statements--the lines and furrows in the up-close faces, like trails in and out of West Virginia's hills, or the rustic beauty of a floral crucifix placed on a tree stump by a wire fence, in memory of "Grandpa," or the unpaved, pebbled, rutted roads on which children lead horses, or the sight of a tiny, paint-peeling church huddled against a densely foliated hill.

Amidst trash heaped next to a falling-apart screen door, with a wooden plank serving as a front steps, a couple fills the threshold, hugging their plump infant in a moment of sheer happiness. Another couple sits on a bare mattress in a bare bedroom lit by a bare light bulb, sharing a look of desolation in the near darkness. And a different sort of darkness pervades the white garb of Ku Klux Klan members gathered for a meeting. These photos don't strain to tell their stories so much as suggest the broad hope, despair, degeneracy, and decency that spans these generations--a microcosm, after all, of an America that often fails itself, yet carries on.


Matt Damsker is an author and critic, who has written about photography and the arts for the Los Angeles Times, Hartford Courant, Philadelphia Bulletin, Rolling Stone magazine and other publications. His book, "Rock Voices", was published in 1981 by St. Martin's Press. His essay in the book, "Marcus Doyle: Night Vision" was published this past November.

(Book publishers, authors and photography galleries/dealers may send review copies to us at: I Photo Central, 258 Inverness Circle, Chalfont, PA 18914. We do not guarantee that we will review all books or catalogues that we receive.)
 

You can find over 235 new images up on the I Photo Central web site, posted up just this week.

Twentieth-century photographers, whose important images have just been posted up to the website, include: Dorothy Norman, Lisa Holden, Josef Sudek, Alvin Langdon Coburn, Jean-Eugene-Auguste Atget, Ruth Bernard, Wynn Bullock, Walker Evans, Fritz Henle, Arthur Tress, Paul Haviland, Dorka Raynor, Janine Niépce, Sabine Weiss, Max Baur, Edouard Boubat, Bert Hardy, Roger Mayne, Stanko Abadžic, Gianni Berengo Gardin, A. Aubrey Bodine, John Dominis, George W. Gardner, Erika Stone, Antonin Gribovsky, Harry Langdon, John Lewis Stage, Jindrich Brok, Todd Webb, F. Bedrich Grunzweig, Albert Arthur Allen, Angus MacBean, Jan Beran, Jiri Hampl, Josef Havlícek, Louis Fleckenstein and many others. A number of fine autochromes have also been posted up on the site.

Nineteenth-century photographers include Charles Negre, Julien Vallou de Villeneuve, Wood & Gibson, Henry P. Bosse and many others.

This brings the total to nearly 6,000 images up on the website, making I Photo Central, by far and away, the largest and most important website for fine photography on the Internet.

Just go to http://www.iphotocentral.com/search/search.php and go to the drop down menu on "Time Frame of Posting" and click on "Past Week" or "Past Month". You will see all of the great images posted up within the last 30 days--most just this week.
 

PRC HOLDS AUCTION OCT. 5;
CATALOGUE NOW ONLINE

On Thursday, October 5, the Photographic Resource Center at Boston University will team up with Skinner Auctions for its annual benefit auction. Over 200 photographs will be auctioned off to benefit the PRC, a non-profit organization devoted to photography. Among the highlights of this collection are works by such notable photographers as Duane Michals, Jerry Uelsmann and W. Eugene Smith.

There is a reception, which begins at 6 p.m., with a light buffet. The Live Auction starts at 7:30 p.m. The Silent Auction will close shortly after the completion of the Live Auction. The auction admission is $50 per person and includes one copy of the auction catalogue, one paddle, light buffet, drinks and parking with advance reservations. Mastercard, Visa, checks, and cash is accepted. Call 1-617-975-0600 for reservations.

Auction catalogues are available for $5 per copy and they contain complete information and black and white images of all auction photographs. Call 1-617-975-0600 to order.

The preview, which is free to the public, will be held until October 1, 2006 at both the PRC and the 808 Gallery at Boston University.

Information along with an online catalogue can be found at http://www.bu.edu/prc/auction.htm .


PHOTO REVIEW CATALOGUE AVAILABLE
AND AUCTION SET FOR OCT. 28 AT 7 P.M.

The Photo Review, a critical journal of photography, will hold its Annual Benefit Auction on Saturday, October 28, 2006 at 7 p.m. in the Dorrance-Hamilton Building at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia. A silent auction, concurrent with the live auction, will feature photography and computer equipment and software, film and paper, restaurant meals, museum memberships, theater tickets, books, etc.

The event will feature an international slate of photographers as well as a host of Philadelphia artists. Beginning and experienced collectors alike will have the opportunity to bid on work by such historic masters as Eugène Atget, Felix Bonfils, Edward S. Curtis, Louis Faurer and Carleton Watkins, as well as Barbara Morgan's famous image of Martha Graham, "Letter to the World (The Kick)". Among the other 20th-century photographers whose work will go on the block are Josef Sudek, Irina Ionesco, Gordon Parks, Lucien Clergue, Barbara Crane, Lois Greenfield, Dave Heath, Henry Horenstein, Michael Kenna, Robert Glenn Ketchum, Duane Michals, Bill Owens, John Sexton, George Tice, Jerry N. Uelsmann and William Wegman, while featured local luminaries include Robert Asman, David Graham, Larry Fink, Ray K. Metzker, Sarah Stolfa and Tony Ward.

A special New York preview will be held in the Photo Review booth at Photo NY, which is being held at the Metropolitan Pavilion, 125 West 18th St., New York City, from October 5- 8, 2006.

A preview will also be held at the Dorrance-Hamilton Building on Friday, October 27 from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. and on Saturday, October 28 from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., just prior to the auction. Proceeds from the auction, a popular event since 1983, fund such activities as an annual juried competition for emerging photographers. Admission is free with purchase of the fully illustrated catalog, available through The Photo Review: phone: 1-215-891-0214 or you can email at info@photoreview.org . Buyers may preview the auction online, and place bids at http://www.photoreview.org/ . The auction items will not be available on line until about October 7th.
 

The MUSEUM OF PHOTOGRAPHIC ARTS in San Diego, CA has selected DEBORAH KLOCHKO to fill the position formerly held by Founding Director Arthur Ollman, who retired from the position earlier this year.

For the last five years, Deborah has served as director for Visual Literacy, I.N.C., a private consulting business promoting understanding of photography. Her work with Visual Literacy has included consulting on the Smithsonian Photography Initiative Project and publishing three books, including Create and Be Recognized: Photography on the Edge, Picturing Eden, and Moment of Seeing: Minor White at the California School of Fine Arts.

Prior to her work with Visual Literacy, she served as the director for The Friends of Photography at the Ansel Adams Center in San Francisco. After working with MoPA part-time during July and August, Klochko began full-time work this month at the museum.


WILLIAM GARNETT, who was the premier aerial art photographer of his generation, died at his Napa, CA home on August 26th. He was 89.

Garnett piloted his own 1955 Cessna 170B and shot out the window. He claimed to have photographed in every state in the U.S., in addition to several other countries.

In 1953, Garnett received the first of three Guggenheim fellowships. His friend Edward Weston had suggested he apply. The following year, he was included in the landmark exhibition "The Family of Man" by Edward Steichen. In 1955 he was one of four photographers in a show at the George Eastman House. He published two books, "The Extraordinary Landscape", with an introduction by Ansel Adams, and "William Garnett Aerial Photographs".