By Stephen Perloff
Editor of the Photography Collector

The spring auction season was widely anticipated with several important single-owner sales and a large number of important pictures in the various-owner sales.

Christie's led off on April 23 with the first-ever auction devoted to Horst P. Horst. Many traditional dealers and collectors were wondering if the sale could meet the expectations of what seemed to be the over-reaching estimates. But bidding was lively and prices were high, suggesting that the marketing of a sale through a separate catalogue (or, should we say, a hagiography, with quotations of praise scattered throughout) produces results that are not always totally logical given past auction results, especially for later-printed material, despite the fact that fashion has been a very hot segment of the market. The prints all came from the collection of Gert Elfering, who had acquired Horst's archive and who had sold off part of his collection in a single-owner sale at Christie's in October 2005. Most of the prints offered here were platinum-palladium prints, a few on canvas, some in editions of 25, some in editions of five, some uneditioned.

Howard Greenberg, who took seven of the 54 lots, began with lot 2, "Bombay Bathing Fashion, Oyster Bay, N.Y.", 1950/c1990, silver print ($10,000–$15,000) stretching out to $57,600. An anonymous phone bidder, #1791, who also took seven lots, grabbed the next one, "Male Nude I, New York", 1952/1985–1995, platinum-palladium print on canvas ($60,000–$80,000) for $84,000, number ten on the top ten.

"Barefoot Beauty", 1941/1985–1995, #4/5, platinum-palladium print on canvas ($60,000–$80,000) brought $108,000 from a different phone bidder (fifth place). "Round the Clock II", 1987/1985–1995, #10/25, platinum-palladium print ($30,000–$40,000) got a timely bid of $90,000 from art consultant Turid Meeker (ninth place). And an internet bidder reached third place by spending $144,000 for "New York Still Life", 1946/1985–1995, #3/5, platinum-palladium print on canvas ($60,000–$80,000).

"Round the Clock I", 1987/1985–1995, AP 3/3, platinum-palladium print ($50,000–$70,000) timed out at $57,600, going to phone bidder 1791. An internet bidder claimed "Classical Still Life", 1937/1985–1995, platinum-palladium print on canvas ($60,000–$80,000) at $144,000, the third highest price of the sale.

The iconic "Mainbocher Corset, Paris" 1939/1985–1995, #2/5, platinum-palladium print on canvas ($100,000–$150,000) set a world auction record for Horst at $288,000, going to phone bidder 1791. A vintage silver print had sold at the Elfering sale in 2005 for $216,000 and a later platinum print for $170,577 at Christie's London last November.

Another "Male Nude", 1952/1985–1995, platinum-palladium print on canvas, actually sold at its low estimate, $60,000, to an order bidder. Another order bidder corralled "Persepolis Bull, Iran", 1949/1985–1995, platinum-palladium print, at the same price, but above the estimate of $30,000–$40,000.

"Lisa with Harp", 1940/1985–1995, platinum print on canvas ($80,000–$120,000) went to 1791 for $168,000 (second place). "Odalisque I", 1943/1985–1995, platinum print on canvas ($80,000–$120,000) seduced $102,000 from a European bidder on the phone (eighth place). "Calla Aethiopica", 1945/1985–1995, platinum-palladium print on canvas ($80,000–$120,000) was plucked by an order bidder for $114,000 (fourth place).

"Nude: Lisa Fonssagrives-Penn", 1940/1985–1995, platinum-palladium print, 12/15 ($50,000–$70,000) was the last of the lots taken by 1791, for $54,000. And an internet bidder won "Houdon Still Life", 1937/1985–1995, platinum-palladium print on canvas ($60,000–$80,000) for $108,000 (tied for fifth).

The sale totaled $2,519,400 with only four of the 54 lots (7.4%) bought in. As we were to see for the rest of the week, enough dollars (or euros or pounds) emerged to float all boats.

After a breath the evening continued with a sale of 30 lots of Modernist Photographs from a European Collection, that of the London art historian and gallerist James Hyman, who deaccessioned this work to concentrate on collecting prints from the earliest years of photography.

Consultant Kevin Moore started the festivities by besting Peter MacGill for Harry Callahan's "Camera Movement on Flashligh"t, 1946 ($30,000–$40,000) at $66,000 and then taking Aaron Siskind's "Chicago 8", 1948, just over high estimate at $38,400. New York gallerist Deborah Bell climbed one-third over the high estimate for André Kertész's "Rooftops, Paris", 1931, at $48,000.

The earliest large print of Lewis Hine's "Girl in a Carolina Cotton Mill" ($70,000–$90,000) passed at $48,000. Sometimes it seems the taint of the scandal is still depressing the value of Hine's work.

Peter MacGill walked off with Callahan's "Chicago", 1958, a view of a street with a group of pedestrians passing from a small spot of late afternoon sunlight into darkness, for $66,000, almost double the high estimate, over the underbid of Ute Hartjen of Germany's Camera Work Gallery.

Collector Steve Stein lost out on Kertész's "Carrefour, Blois", 1930, printed 1930s, as it went to another bidder in the room for $132,000, a bit over low estimate and the second highest price of the sale. The top lot was Laszlo Moholy-Nagy's "Rothenburg", 1926–28 ($80,000–$120,000), a vertiginous view of the street below. The hammer almost came down at $140,000, but started up again as a phone bidder left dealer Edwynn Houk looking up at $264,000.

After Edward Weston's "Chayotes Batea Pelale, Mexico", 1924 ($150,000–$250,000) passed at $110,000, collector Michael Mattis picked up the bargain of the day, Paul Strand's "Speckled Toadstool, Georgetown, Maine", 1927 ($200,000–$300,000) with an order bid of only $120,000.

Jeffrey Fraenkel went to $114,000, within estimate, for Weston's "Dunes, Oceano", 1936. And for the last lot, Peter MacGill, talking on a cell phone, engaged in a spirited bidding war with a phone bidder for Robert Frank's "Paris", 1950 ($25,000–$35,000), a man and his dog on a horse-drawn wagon on a cobblestone street in the fog, finally going almost three times over high estimate at $120,000.

This sale totaled $1,270,800, although 30% of the lots bought in.

(Copyright ©2007 by The Photo Review. My thanks to Steve Perloff and The Photograph Collector Newsletter for giving me permission to use this information. The Photograph Collector, which is a wonderful newsletter that I can heartily recommend, is published monthly and is available by subscription for $149.95 (overseas airmail is $169.95). You can phone 1-215-891-0214 and charge your subscription or send a check or money order to: The Photograph Collector, 140 East Richardson Ave, Langhorne, PA 19047.)
 

Contemporary Works is now representing three additional photographers and has added their work to its inventory of contemporary art photography. The three artists are: Vladimir Birgus, Samer Mohdad and Michael Philip Manheim.

VLADIMIR BIRGUS

Vladimir Birgus became director of the Czech Photographers' Union Institute of Art Photography in 1982 and the Institute of Creative Photography, School of Philosophy and Science, Silesian University, Opava in 1990, and continues in those positions.

Birgus has been a member of the European Society for the History of Photography since 2001. He is Czech editor for the Imago journal and chief editor of Listy o fotografii. He writes regularly for the Mladá fronta Dnes and Hospodárské noviny dailies, as well as writing for the journals Ateliér, Fotograf, Fotografie Magazín, Photonews, European Photography, Kwartalnik Fotografia, Portfolio, etc. He is also a member of the Prague House of Photography.

Birgus is considered to be one of the top Czech scholars and writers on Czech photography, as well as a talented contemporary photographer. He has written dozens of books and had his photographs published many times, including in two monographs, "Vladimiír Birgus: Cosi nevyslovitelného--Something Unspeakable" and "Vladimír Birgus: Fotografie 1981-2004/Photographs 1981-2004".

His color photography uses strong color to convey mystery and a quixotic sense of life. He has photographed all over the world, including Asia, North America, Central America and Europe.

Critic Matt Damsker has written the following about Birgus and his art. "As Elzbieta Lubowicz notes in her introduction (to his monograph), Birgus uses large areas of dominant color--often primaries, and often red or yellow--to create an 'unrealistic atmosphere [that reminds] us of abstract paintings more than of reality recordings.' And yet his images are always in touch with the grit and texture of the modern, urban world. The human figures in his geometrically flattened landscapes of intersecting planes, shadows and sun-struck color are recognizably self-absorbed, often standing or walking in relation to one another, but without narrative or emotional connection."

Damsker continues, "The result is a singular photographic strategy that celebrates random visual fact, the coloristic beauty of everything from industrial materials to blue sky, and the human form as a means of activating and offsetting the inanimate forms that press in on us. Across the beaches, tiles, boardwalks, landing strips, streets, and rooftops of cities from Moscow to Paris, Seattle to New York, Birgus makes haunting, expressive photographs that reward the eye with glancing detail, fragmented narrative and rich natural light. His tendency to capture his own shadow as he takes the picture may echo Lee Friedlander without Friedlander's wit, but in the course of 20 years, Birgus manages to not repeat himself or fall prey to preciousness. His art brings the taut, toughened Czech sensibility into a wider world of big sky, sea, and postmodern architecture--and the result is usually something we have not seen before."

His photographs are in the collections of many institutions, including Museum Ludwig (Cologne), Maison Européenne de la Photographie, Bibliothéque National (Paris), Museet for Fotokunst, Lietuvos fotografu sajunga, Fotografijos muziejus, International Center of Photography (New York), Yokohama Museum of Art, Umeleckoprumyslové museum, Moravská galerie, Muzeum umení, Slezské zemské muzeum, Muzeum umení a designu, Galerie výtvarného umení, Prague House of Photography, Národní muzeum fotografie, Jindrichuv Hradec and Státní ústrední archiv–Sbírka Svazu ceských fotografie.

Birgus's photographs are available in 12 x 18 in. size in an edition of 20, plus Artist Proof, starting at $1,250; and in 30 x 40 in. size in an edition of 7, plus Artist Proof, starting at $3,000. They are printed on Fuji Crystal Archive chromogenic paper. Mounting and framing options are additional.

You can see examples of his images and a full biography at: http://www.contemporaryworks.net/artists/artist_imgs.php/1/6533 .

SAMER MOHDAD

Born in 1964, Samer Mohdad holds dual Lebanese and Belgium citizenships.

In 1988, Mohdad worked in Paris for Vu agency. In 1990 the Elysée Museum in Lausanne commissioned a series of photographs on the Swiss army during the country's 700th birthday for a book and exhibition entitled "Voir la Suisse autrement".

Mohdad then began his work on the contemporary Arab world. From 1992 to 1996 he was in charge of Arab relations at the Elysee Museum in Lausanne. After the publication of his book "Les enfants, la guerre", followed by an exhibition at Visa pour l’Image in Pérpignan and at the Elysée Museum, he began taking photographs of the 387 Palestinians expelled from Israel to Lebanon's no man's land. Those photos were published in a book titled Retour à Gaza. "Du", a magazine published in Zurich, asked him to do a special double feature on Islam, followed a year later by another feature on Iran.

In 1996 he was a jury member at the World Press Photo conference in Amsterdam, and the same year he created the Arab Images Foundation in Beirut. From 1997 to 1999 he was curator of exhibitions and workshop master at the Rencontres Internationales de la Photographie in Arles.

In 1999, he won the Mother Jones Award for his book "Mes Arabies" published by Actes Sud in France, Braus in Germany and Dar An-Nahar in the Arab countries. The exhibition Mes Arabies was launched in Geneva, after it had been shown at the Beiteddine Palace and Espace SD in Beirut, Lebanon. In 2000, the show moved to the Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris, then it was shown in Arles during the Rencontres Internationales de la Photographie and finished its tour that same year at the King Abdulaziz Public Library in Riyadh.

Mohdad was conference master for "Arab photographs and their place in contemporary history" at Aix-En-Provence University. In 2001 the Mes Arabies exhibition made a tour in Germany at the IFA galleries in Stuttgart, Bonn and Berlin.

In 2003 Mohdad's article "Saudi Arabia in the Eye of the Hurricane" was published in a double issue of Du magazine in Zurich. In 2004 GEO magazine commissioned him to create a special dossier about Lebanon. In 2005 he produced and published in co-edition with Actes-Sud the book "Assaoudia", the second part to his Arab trilogy, accompanied by an exhibition at the Rencontres Internationales de la Photographie in Arles. The same year he created the project "Mes Ententes", which was part of the AFKAR program sponsored by the European Commission and overseen by the Office of Minister of State Administrative Reform (OMSAR). The project was a field analysis of the situation of the return of displaced families to Mount Lebanon. As a part of the project, he produced a seven-minute film and a book.

In 2006 he worked on a special history issue of GEO Magazine in France about the roads of crusaders in Lebanon and began teaching photography at Notre Dame University in Lebanon and the Visual Merchandising School in Vevey, Switzerland.

Many of his black and white photographs are available as vintage prints. Most of these vintage prints were used for the production of the "DU" magazine in Zurich about Islam, published in the summer 1994, and are about 9-1/2 x 12 inches. They cost $1,400 each, and most were only printed in one or two examples. Modern silver prints on fiber paper are also available for $900 each on 16 x 20 inch paper in an edition of five, plus APs. Mounting and framing options are additional.

You can see examples of his images and a full biography at: http://www.contemporaryworks.net/artists/artist_imgs.php/1/6532 .

MICHAEL PHILIP MANHEIM

Michael Philip Manheim has been a professional photographer since 1969. A chance encounter with photography, at the age of 13, locked him onto a life-long pursuit.

Intrigued with the themes of change and transformation, Manheim developed a signature style of layering phases of movement onto a single frame of film. This approach transcends a literal interpretation. He calls this series the "Rhythm from Within".

Michael Philip Manheim's work has been exhibited throughout the United States and in Germany, Greece and Italy. His work has been featured in magazines such as Zoom (U.S. and Italy), Photographers International (Taiwan), La Fotografia (Spain), Black and White magazine, and numerous other publications.

He has been Artist in Residence at Bates College in Lewiston, ME and Phillips Exeter Academy in Exeter, NH.

Manheim's photographs are held in public and private collections, including the Library of Congress, the International Photography Hall of Frame & Museum, the Danforth Museum of Art and the Bates College Museum of Art. He has had over 15 solo exhibitions.

Julian Cox, curator of photography at Atlanta's High Museum of Art, noted that Manheim's photographs "have passion and beauty, and clearly considerable skill has gone into their execution."

Manheim's images are available in three sizes as black and white silver prints. The 8 x 12 in. size is available in an edition of 45, plus APs for $700. They are also available in a 40 x 60 in. size in an edition of five, plus APs for $3,500; and in 15-1/2 x 23 in. size (on 20 x 24 in. paper) in an edition of 10, plus APs for $1,200. Framing and mounting are additional.

You can see examples of his images and a full biography at: http://www.contemporaryworks.net/artists/artist_imgs.php/1/6520 .
 

Bassenge Photography Auctions is having two sales this season offering over 500 photos and nearly 120 photographic books in its upcoming photography auctions to be held in Berlin, Germany on June 21 and 22, 2007. The first sale includes photographs, photographica and photo books from the collection of the German photographer Michael Ruetz , who also has managed the Heinz Hajek-Halke estate over the last 30 years.

Some rare and fine vintage prints, the majority by important German photrographers of the 1950s-1980s, are being offered. The photographers include: Dieter Appelt, Wilfried Bauer, Sibylle Bergemann, Werner Bokelberg, Christer Christian, Arno Fischer, Robert Häusser, Peter Keetman, Siegfried Lauterwasser, Robert Lebeck, Hilmar Pabel, Richard Peter Sr., Heinrich Riebesehl, Albert Renger-Patzsch, August Sander, Michael Schmidt, Toni Schneiders, Umbo, Paul Wolff, Ulrich Wüst and many others. Nearly 30 prints--mostly vintage or early--by one of Germany's most important photographer's, Heinz Hajek-Halke, whose work spans the 1920s through the 1960s, are also up for sale.

Such famous photo books as William Eggleston's Guide by John Szarkowski, Larry Clark's "Tulsa" and the "Artists & Photographs" box as a complete set, published in 1970, containing many works by the pop and concept artists of the day, should attract many international buyers.

The regular sale to be held on June 22nd resumes with a wide selection of unusual and quality 19th-century material. Especially of note is a group of 27 albumen prints attributed to Franz Hanfstaengl, depicting the participants of an artist's ball in full costume. The ball was held in 1862 in Munich with the theme of fairytale figures. The group is in very good condition and an exquisite, rare example of German 19th-century photography. Other 19th-century items include: an early salt print of an Egyptian temple "Erment (Hermonthis)" by Felix Teynard from 1852 (5000 euro), the "Temple of Fortuna Virilius and the House of Rienzi" (circa 1860) as an albumen print by Robert Macpherson (3000 euro), a comprehensive album by J. Laurent of architecture in Spain (1865-1875) (5000 euro), "Vue des Remparts, Jerusalem", an albumen print from a waxed paper negative by Louis de Clercq (3500 euro) and an early salt print by Eugène Constant , "Piazza del Popolo" circa 1850 (900 euro). Two finely hand-colored Japan albums (1200 and 2500 euro) from a German collection are prime examples of the collecting of photos as travel souvenirs at the end of the 19th century. There are also several other very interesting travel albums, including one with images of Algeria from the 1870s (1000 euro), one of Indonesia, Arabia and Italy from 1870s-1890s (1500 euro) and a private German travel album with views and people of India (900 euro).

The 20th -century section includes work by: Berenice Abbott, Atget, Richard Avedon, Bauhaus Photography, Cecil Beaton, Ilse Bing, Karl Blossfeldt, Lev Borodulin, Bill Brandt, Brassai, Josef Breitenbach, René Burri, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Lucien Clergue, Imogen Cunningham, Andre de Dienes, Robert Doisneau, Frantisek Drtikol, Hugo Erfurth, Andreas Feininger, Franco Fontana, Robert Frank, Leonard Freed, Tim Gidal, Bedrich Grunzweig, Philippe Halsman, Lewis Hine, E.O. Hoppé, Horst P. Horst, George Hurrell, Lotte Jacobi, Michael Kenna, André Kertész, Dorothea Lange, J.-H. Larrtigue, Herbert List, George Platt Lynes, Danny Lyon, Man Ray, Duane Michals, Leonard Misonne, Inge Morath, Arnold Newman, Roger Parry, Albert Renger-Patzsch, Leni Riefenstahl, Roy Schatt, Cami Stone, Maurice Tabard, Underwood & Underwood, Josef Vetrovsky, Andy Warhol Factory film photos, Weegee, Edward Weston and Yva.

Contemporary photographers include: Araki, Bernd and Hilla Becher, Daniele Buetti, Gregory Crewdson, Thomas Demand, Daniel Kane, Stefan Koppelkamm, Boris Mikhailov, Janet Riedel, Thomas Ruff and Heidi Schneekloth.

If you have any questions or need condition reports, please contact the photography expert Jennifer Augustyniak, Tel.: +49 (0) 30 893 80 290 and + 49 (0) 30 219 97 277; Fax: +4930 219 97 105 or e-mail jennifer@bassenge.com . Remember that in the U.S. you should dial 011 first and then the number without the 0 in parentheses. From other countries it is usually 00 and then the number.

The auctions will be held on June 21 and 22, Thursday and Friday at 3 p.m., Erdener Str. 5a, 14193 Berlin, Germany, tel.: +4930 893 80290, fax.: +4930 89180 25.

You can actually preview the work at Rankestr. 24, 10789 Berlin, Germany (near the Gedächtniskirche), tel.: +49 30 219 97 277 from June 4-19 from 10 a.m.-6 p.m.(except Sunday) and Wednesday, June 20 from 10-4 p.m. The online catalogue can be found at: http://www.bassenge.com .
 

Over the last month nearly 300 new photographs and photo books have been added to the I Photo Central website, including many classics. Plus, numerous Special Exhibits have also been added. To see everything that has been added, click here: http://www.iphotocentral.com/search/result_list.php/16/30/0 .

Some of the 19th-century works include an albumen portrait of fellow photographer Adam-Salomon by Nadar; William Henry Fox Talbot's Hungerford Suspension Bridge; a highly important ambrotype of the photographer Hippolyte Bayard; Edouard Baldus' rare salt print of Entrance to the Port, Boulogne; one of the earliest known volcanic eruptions from 1866 of a volcano on Santorini, Greece; and Felice Beato's famed pictured of his Japanese colorist. To see all the 19th-century work added recently in the last month, just click http://www.iphotocentral.com/search/result_list.php/17/0/1840/1899/30/0 .

Twentieth-century works include: Berenice Abbott's New York at Night; an Ilse Bing fashion study from 1933; two large dune images by Alfred Ehrnhardt; two important Andre Kertesz photographs (a 24 x 20 inch Melancholic Tulip, which is extremely rare in this size, and one of only two prints ever made of his Door Distortion, July 29, 1984); a beautiful oil print by Heinrich Kuhn of his son Walter; a vintage Édouard Boubat of Self Portrait with Lella; a vintage print from the Magic Garden series by Josef Sudek; Brassai's Fete, 1950c.; a rare and unusual montage of a portrait of a woman and peasants by Mario Giacomelli; a huge Abelardo Morell camera obscura image of the Brooklyn Bridge in a bedroom; and a vintage Arnold Newman portrait of sculptor Jacques Lipschitz from 1946. To see all the 20th-century work added in the last month, just click: http://www.iphotocentral.com/search/result_list.php/17/0/1900/1989/30/0 .

Bodies of contemporary work by Samer Mohdad, Vladimir Birgus, Al Satterwhite and Michael Philip Manheim have been added to the I Photo Central website and Special Exhibits on each can be seen there.

For Samer Mohdad's special exhibit click on: http://www.iphotocentral.com/showcase/showcase_view.php/145/1/0 . Be sure to click on the other pages in this special exhibit to see other photographs and his biography and artist's statement. To see all of Mohdad's work, click on: http://www.iphotocentral.com/search/result_list.php/256/Samer+Mohdad .

For Vladimir Birgus's special exhibit click on: http://www.iphotocentral.com/showcase/showcase_view.php/141/1/0 . Be sure to click on the other pages in this special exhibit to see other photographs and his biography and artist's statement. To see all of Birgus's work, click on: http://www.iphotocentral.com/search/result_list.php/256/Vladimir+Birgus .

For Al Satterwhite's special exhibit click on: http://www.iphotocentral.com/showcase/showcase_view.php/144/13/0 . Be sure to click on the other pages in this special exhibit to see other photographs and his biography and artist's statement. To see all of Satterwhite's work, click on: http://www.iphotocentral.com/search/result_list.php/256/Al+Satterwhite .

For Michael Philip Manheim's special exhibit click on: http://www.iphotocentral.com/showcase/showcase_view.php/146/1/0 . Be sure to click on the other pages in this special exhibit to see other photographs and his biography and artist's statement. To see all of Manheim's work, click on: http://www.iphotocentral.com/search/result_list.php/256/Michael+Philip+Manheim .

Of course, lots of other new Special Exhibits have been added and almost all have been changed and added to, so you should check out all 96 exhibitions by going here: http://www.iphotocentral.com/showcase/showcase.php . There are not only photographs for sale, but also in-depth essays that accompany each Photo Exhibit.
 

Some of you might be familiar with the name Rudolf Arnheim, especially if you were educated in the arts or in film in the 1950s-1970s, like I was. Arnheim passed away last Saturday at the age of 102 in his home in Ann Arbor, MI. He was emeritus professor of the psychology of art at Harvard University, where he taught from the late 1960s to the mid-1970s.

He wrote several influential books, including "Art and Visual Perception", "Film as Art" and "Visual Thinking". It was his Magnus Opus, "Art and Visual Perception", that changed a great deal about how I was to deal with the world. Odd that, considering that I used it in my film class at Boston University rather than his book "Film as Art".

It almost got me flunked out of college, but not because it was too challenging, but rather because it was too intriguing. I wanted to write a major paper on the "Psychology of Motion in Film", using much of the book's tenets. First I asked for and got an extension, but only with the promise that I would turn in the paper the first week that school opened that following semester. I spent the entire summer researching and thinking about this paper and Arnheim's thick, pale blue-covered book. Suffice to say, I didn't finish it on time. In fact I stayed at home working on the paper in what could only be called a heightened and altered state of mind for nearly a month into that semester without going into class. My professors were alarmed and the teacher who I owed the paper to was waging a battle to get me kicked out of the university--to all of which I was totally oblivious.

When I finally brought in the paper--the only thing worthwhile that I did during my college years in my opinion--my professor simply stared at me and told me that she didn't care what I had written, she was going to give me a failing grade. I asked her to read it anyway, because I did really respect her opinion. She was, after all, one of my favorite teachers.

Three days later I received a summons to her office. She asked me what I was doing taking classes at the university. I thought she meant that I wasn't up to the task, but then she went on. "You should be teaching here. I am going to give you the only "A" in the class for this work." And then she asked me to intern with her and go on for my masters with her as my sponsor--something that I regret that I wasn't able to do (lack of funds and personal problems got in the way).

But from that point on, Rudolf Arnheim's book and thoughts have always been a part of the way I see the world and interpret it. Being the scientist that he was, he might not appreciate it, but I wish him well wherever he might be. And thank him for teaching me to see a bit clearer, even if he did almost get me kicked out of the university.
 

The International Center of Photography (ICP) is throwing a party called "Click" to usher in summer with exotic cocktails, Asian fusion hors d'oeuvres and opportunities to bid on visual media experiences in support of ICP's community programs and exhibitions. Tickets are from $125 per person.

Items in the auction include a private photo shoot with contemporary artist Mona Kuhn, known for her provocative nude studies. Or you might bid on becoming personal assistant for the day for beauty and celebrity photographer Matthew Jordan Smith, whose advertising clients include L'Oreal and Vogue, and who has shot stars like Oprah and Tyra Banks. Another item in the auction is a domestic photography trek to a locale of your choosing, such as Yellowstone National Park, where you will be mentored and guided by professional photographers, which is sponsored by American PHOTO and Popular Photography magazines.

You can find more of the auction items and information at http://www.icp.org .

The party will take place at Lotus, located at 409 W. 14th Street, New York City on Thursday, June 21st starting at 6:30 p.m. Tables are extremely limited and must be purchased by contacting Dionne Thornton at 1-212-857-0032 or dthornton@icp.org . Or purchase tickets online at http://shopping.icp.org/store/product.html?product_id=26648 .
 

By Matt Damsker

E.O. HOPPÉ'S AMERIKA: MODERNIST PHOTOGRAPHS FROM THE 1920S.
With an essay by Philip Prodger. June, 2007, W.W. Norton & Co., 500 Fifth Ave., New York (http://www.wwnorton.com ); 175 pages, approximately 130 black-and-white plates; $49.95 hardcover; ISBN No. 978-0-393-06544-2. Catalogue accompanies recent exhibition of the same name held at Silverstein Photography, 535 W. 24th St., New York, NY 10011; phone: + 212 627 3930; fax: + 212 691 5509; website: http://www.silversteinphotography.com .

Although German-born Emil Otto Hoppé (1878-1972) may have been the world's most famous photographer when he arrived in America in 1919, his fame grew out of a London studio in which he photographed the celebrities of the day. Once in New York to set up a satellite studio, his intoxication with images of street life, skyscrapers, the Brooklyn Bridge and Grand Central Station led to a commission to photograph the U.S. from coast to coast--a monumental survey that would anticipate the Farm Service Administration projects of Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, et al.

Silverstein Photography's recent exhibit, the first such Hoppé survey in 80 years, offered a look at rare and previously unknown vintage photos from Hoppé's American ramble of the 1920s. This catalogue, with its evocative essay by Philip Prodger, notes how Hoppé transitioned from Pictorialism to Modernism, often paralleling if not inspiring the better known work of not only the FSA photographers but also of Ansel Adams, Paul Strand, Steiglitz and Steichen. Indeed, Hoppé captured the towering symmetries of electrical pylons in Los Angeles years before Edward Weston would, while his image of New York's first great skyscraper, the Woolworth Building--sharply focused on the building's mid-section, with the squat cityscape of smaller structures in the foreground--is a superb play of modernist photographic grammar.

Other examples of Hoppé's instinctive modernism include his views of crisscrossing girders and bridgework in industrial locales, the smokestacks of Detroit's auto factories, shadowed elevated railway structures and the like. Much of this is documented in moody chiaroscuro that retains something of the link to Pictorialism and, often enough, romanticizes its subject matter. And yet, Hoppé's eye for the soaring forms and brute energies of the New World was unflinching. This catalogue affirms him, finally, as one of modernism's pioneers.


ART SHAY: CHICAGO ACCENT.
With a foreward by David Mamet. March, 2007, Stephen Daiter Gallery, 311 W. Superior, Suite 404, Chicago, Illinois 60610; 75 pages, approximately 70 black-and-white plates; trade edition of 1,000 copies; limited edition of 200 in slipcase with an original gelatin silver photograph. Catalogue accompanies recent exhibition of the same name at Daiter Gallery; for information, phone + 312 787 3350, or email paul@stephendaitergallery.com .

While E.O. Hoppé and his contemporaries were laying groundwork for photographic modernism, Art Shay was growing up in the Bronx, New York, and by the 1940s he was serving as an air force navigator in World War II. By the war's end, he was publishing his war photographs and soon became Life magazine's San Francisco bureau chief. But his move to Chicago in 1948 inspired him to pursue photojournalism exclusively, resulting in a long, successful, celebrated--and ongoing--career.

This exhibition and catalogue from Chicago's Daiter Gallery documents Shay's wonderful post-war collaboration with Chicago author Nelson Algren ("The Man with the Golden Arm"), a passionate champion of Chicago's underclass. As Shay's frequent photographic subject and inspiration, Algren led Shay's lens to the hidden corners of the Windy City, where it captured the grit and pathos of urban life. This picaresque project stands now as a classic liberal-humanist effort, prodding the viewer toward empathy with the poor, the fallen, the falling-down-drunk and the nighthawks of a tough, toddling town.

In many of these images, we can recognize the chiaroscuro contrast of Hoppé's urban studies, but where Hoppé stuck to the geometry of urban and industrial architecture, Shay's interest lies in people, and some of these images are among the unsentimental best of their kind. This catalogue also includes a number of fine portraits from the 1950s and '60s--of Marlon Brando in a tender moment with his family's dog in Illinois; a prayerful, t-shirted Jimmy Hoffa at home; John F. Kennedy on the campaign trail with native American; a young Muhammed Ali in a Kentucky locker room; Diana Ross and the Supremes in a tense backstage moment; and even Timothy Leary and R. Crumb, avatars of the psychedelic '60s.


A HISTORY OF THE WOODBURYTYPE
By Barret Oliver. June, 2007; 193 pages, $50 hardcover; ISBN 13 No. 1-887694-28-5. Carl Mautz Publishing, 329 Bridge Way, Nevada City, CA 95959. Phone: +1- 530-478-1610; fax: +1-530–478-0466; email: cmautz@carlmautz.com ; website: http://www.carlmautz.com .

The potential for quality AND quantity afforded by Walter Woodbury's photographic process made it the breakthrough that sparked the medium's modern era–--an era of mass production and superb reproduction of photo plates in books, newspapers, journals and a broad range of commercial publications. As we learn in this fine and thorough study of Woodbury's innovation, the Woodburytype "set a qualitative standard for the reproduction and replication of photographic images and engravings by which all other processes would inevitably be compared and found wanting. It was not until the 1980s, with the advent of drum scanning and digital image processing, that the Woodburytype process was equaled or matched."

Barret Oliver's extensively researched argument for this rests, ultimately, on the visual evidence, and, indeed, the book's many first-rate examples of Woodburytypes reveal tonal masterworks that make the strongest case of all. Such examples of the process as a cabinet card of the Duke of York, from 1890, or Victor Hugo on his funeral bier, or a book-plate image of river workers on the Thames (a remarkable shot, by John Thomson, of sharply delineated men and materials on a boat in the foreground, with a mist-shrouded London as a backdrop) testify to the Woodburytype's superiority.

The fact that the process was limited to imagery not much larger than 10-by-8 inches--and could not adequately convey large areas of white--ultimately spelled its doom as a mass-production technique, relegating it to something of an historical footnote. Thus, Oliver's study is the first major Woodbury exploration in more than a century, and he takes pains to document and describe this first photomechanical printing process. He begins with an intriguing life of Manchester, England-born Walter Woodbury (1834-1885), a gifted inventor but apparently a poor businessman who lost his patent rights and most of his money over the years.

Woodbury had real vision, though, and he grasped before many of his contemporaries that photography's future would depended increasingly on its potential as a mass medium. By 1865, he gave birth to the Woodburytype, a copper-mold technique that, by the 1870s, resulted in as many as 50,000 prints a day being churned out by the Woodbury Permanent Printing Company in Ealing. Woodburytypes flourished in books and printed material of every type--rich, crisp images with no grain and velvety mid-range tonalities, ideal for portraiture and detailed textures. Barret Oliver's scholarly contribution sheds welcome light on Woodbury's achievement and its crucial impact on the growth of photography.


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.)
 

CRITICISM IS ALIVE AND WELL AT THE NY TIMES

I used to think that good art criticism was dead and that all the toadies writing today were the devolved state of such critics, but the New York Times' Michael Kimmelman may have proven me wrong. In the immortal and slightly misquoted words of Mark Twain, "The report of my death is highly exaggerated." Mr. Kimmelman's reporting, including his recent fine and perceptive coverage of the Venice Biennale, is some of the best and courageous that I have seen from "art critics" in recent times. Give him a look at: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/15/arts/design/15veni.html while the article is still available for free. In these days of fawning sycophants, it is refreshing to read someone who has both the stones and the ability to write intelligently about art. My congrats, not that he needs them.

SILVERSTEIN GETS A PROFILE IN THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

Gallery owner and AIPAD member Bruce Silverstein got some well-deserved press recently from none other than the Wall Street Journal. You can see the full article at: http://startup.wsj.com/howto/successstories/20070614-landro.html .

CLEVELAND MUSEUM OF ART BUYS SURREALIST PHOTOS

The Cleveland Museum of Art has bought 171 important surrealist photographs from New York photography collector and film producer David Raymond. The collection contained rare images from Jacques-Henri Lartigue, Man Ray, André Kertész, Eugene Atget and other photographers. Apparently several other major museums, dealers and collectors were in the hunt for Raymond's collection, which is considered one of the best such collections in the world. Cleveland has been on a tear lately when it comes to photography, and this only adds another trophy to the collection.