One of the most important international photography events, the AIPAD Photography Show New York, will be presented by the Association of International Photography Art Dealers (AIPAD) from April 10-13, 2008. More than 75 of the world's leading fine art photography galleries and dealers will present a wide range of museum quality work by contemporary, modern and 19th-century masters at the Park Avenue Armory in New York City, NY.

The 28th edition of the AIPAD Photography Show New York will open with a Gala Preview on April 9 to benefit the John Szarkowski Fund, an endowment for photography acquisitions at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. The AIPAD Photography Show New York is the longest running and foremost exhibition of fine art photography. A wide range of the world's leading national and international fine art photography galleries will show at the AIPAD Photography Show New York.

Besides exhibitors from all over the U.S., the international galleries exhibiting at the show include: HackelBury Fine Art Limited and Michael Hoppen Gallery Ltd., London; Serge Plantureux, Galerie Esther Woerdehoff and Baudoin Lebon, Paris; Stephen Bulger Gallery, Toronto; Galerie Daniel Blau, Munich; Photology, Milan; Kicken Berlin, Berlin; Galerie Priska Pasquer, Cologne; Galerie Zur Stockeregg, Zürich; and Picture Photo Space, Inc., Osaka.

AIPAD and I Photo Central dealers exhibiting at the show include Contemporary Works/Vintage Works in booth 123 and Charles Schwartz, Ltd. in booth 417.

My own company, Contemporary Works/Vintage Works, will feature the contemporary color and mixed media work of Lisa Holden, who was recently compared by the art press to Cindy Sherman, Pipilotti Rist and Tracey Moffatt; and Arthur Tress, whose staged documentary style street photography and installation art was so highly influential on today's contemporary artists. Besides Tress's large scale color work, his new black and white 'Pointer' series will also be on display. Of course, I will also feature a selection of top 20th-century masterworks (think Steichen, Frank, Weston, Man Ray, Penn, Cartier-Bresson, Brassai, Kertesz, Siskind, Lange, Morgan, Friedlander, etc.) and, perhaps, the finest 19th-century European material that I have ever had in our inventory.

If you are an early 19th-century photography freak like me, you will need to see these wonderful new pieces. Only a few of these pieces are currently up on the websites, but include a unique ambrotype portrait of the French pioneering photographer Hippolyte Bayard; a rich and very rare Baldus of the old Hotel De Ville; a rare and important series by Paul Nadar of his father and M. Chevreul in the very first photo interview; several rare and very early images by Teynard, Le Secq, Fortier, Le Gray, the Alinari Brothers, Bisson Freres, Negre, Vignes, Belloc, and an important new discovery, Alphonse De Launay, who was undoubtedly a student of Le Gray, who printed De Launay's early waxed paper negatives of the Alhambra and other exotic locales.

At Charles Schwartz's booth, he will exhibit a stunning vintage dye transfer print by Joel Sternfeld, taken in Arizona in 1982 as lighting struck; a very rare ambrotype of abolitionist John Brown; two noteworthy photographs of famous horses, including England's most famous horse of the 19th-century, "Cruiser", posing dutifully with his horse-whisperer trainer, Mr. Rarey, in a superb, oval-shaped albumen print by Caldessi and Montecchi, 1858, and an albumen print made in 1876 of the USA's most popular 19th-century horse, "Comanchie", a survivor of Custer's Last Stand; rare books, including Doris Ulmann's "Roll, Jordan, Roll," and P. H. Emerson's "Wild Life on a Tidal Water"; and last, but definitely not least, a portrait that Lady Clementina Hawarden made of her husband, the Honorable Cornwallis Maude. Hawarden was a lesser known but superb photographer; the19th-century's answer to Tina Barney. Few Hawarden's ever reach the market, most being held in the collection of the Victoria & Albert Museum, London.

Please let Charles and I know if you want us to bring a specific image in advance of the show, so please check out the I Photo Central listings (http://www.iphotocentral.com/search/search.php ) and get back to us soon.

The AIPAD Photography Show New York will run from Thursday, April 10 through Sunday, April 13, 2008 at the Park Avenue Armory at 67th Street in New York City.

The regular show hours will be:
Thursday, April 10, 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.
Friday, April 11, 11 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Saturday, April 12, 11 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Sunday, April 13, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.

The admission is $25 daily and $35 for the run-of-show, and includes a show catalogue. No advance purchase is required. Tickets will be available at the door. For more information, the public can call AIPAD at 1-202-367-1158.

There will also be a Gala Benefit Preview on Wednesday, April 9, from 5:00 to 10:00 p.m. The evening will benefit the John Szarkowski Fund, an endowment for photography acquisitions at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. The fund was established to honor John Szarkowski, who was one of the most influential curators in photography and a photographer in his own right.

Ticket information for the benefit is as follows:
Benefactor 5:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. ($7,500, 5 tickets)
Patron 5:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. ($1,500, 1 ticket)
Sponsor 6:30 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. ($500, 1 ticket)
Friend 7:30 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. ($100, 1 ticket)
For more information or to purchase tickets, please contact the Museum of Modern Art, 1-212-708-9680 or specialevents@moma.org .

 

The photography dealers on I Photo Central have been extremely busy over the last month or so, putting up over 155 new photographs and books and two new Special Photography Exhibits.

The first Special Photo Exhibit is by Charles Schwartz, Ltd. and is entitled "Photography Shoots Itself: A Portrait of the Medium in Pictures and Letters". This eclectic cross-section of photos--including everything from self-portraits to industrial shots of cameras being inspected on the factory line--takes as its focus one of our favorite subjects: the medium of photography itself. Edward Weston is immortalized in two portraits--each made by one of his sons. A French photo club, circa 1880, poses in an omnibus in their hats and capes. And perhaps the medium's most ubiquitous maker, "Anonymous", gets atop a precariously tall ladder, all the better to capture a Victorian-era garden under construction. Works, ranging from $150 to $6,000, date from the 19th to the 20th century, and include both well-known and lesser-known practitioners. Despite the fact that the medium is so much in the public eye, it is rarely considered with an insider's sensitivity to its makers and materials. Please don't overlook the ephemera, which include a sensitive letter written by Harry Callahan to Todd Webb. You can see this exhibit at: http://www.iphotocentral.com/showcase/showcase_view.php/181/3/1 .

The next Special Photo Exhibit is from Vintage Works, Ltd. and is entitled: "Alphonse De Launay: Student of Le Gray and Early Photographer of Spain and Algeria". De Launay was born in 1827 in Manche, which is the most westerly Département of Normandy in France. He traveled to Spain and Algiers in 1851 and 1854, and the paper negatives that he made there amazed many of his contemporaries in photography. De Launay was undoubtedly a student of the noted French artist-photographer Gustave Le Gray and may have known several other photographers, including other Le Gray students, F.E. Le Dien and Theodore de Banville. De Launay's work in Algeria and Tunisia had been confused with Le Dien's work until just recently when images attributed to Le Dien appeared with De Launey's signature on them. His early larger photographs were paper negatives, probably waxed in the Le Gray style, that were then printed by Le Gray or his studio as albumenized salt prints. De Launay joined the Societe Francaise de Photographie (S.F.P.) in 1858, and he reportedly (in contemporary accounts by noted French art critic Philippe Burty) exhibited four portraits there in 1859, although the name reported then was Delaunay and might be another photographer's work. He died in 1906. For more information on this important newly rediscovered photographer and to see examples of his work go to: http://www.iphotocentral.com/showcase/showcase_view.php/182/1/0/0 .

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 all of these fine new exhibits and others (now a total of 120 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.

 

Just one year after purchasing Photo London, Reed Expositions, which also organizes Paris Photo, has cancelled this year's London event. Reportedly a lack of dealer interest after last year's mediocre showing was the reason. At the same time it was abruptly announced by Reed that Valerie Fougeirol, Photo London and Paris Photo's manager, had "left the company." Her role was being assumed by Jean-Daniel Compain, managing director at Reed Expositions.

The original organizer, Daniel Newburg, was quoted by one source as saying, "Last year's Photo London was quite a different project from what my vision was for the event. I certainly had high hopes for the collaboration with Reed. I was very disappointed with the developments and how things worked out."

When I talked to Newburg late last month, he had also complained that he still had not been paid by Reed.

Reed had attempted to turn the show into a straight contemporary show, eliminating more than half of the dealers out of hand who did the show in the past, as well as putting off the many collectors who only came for the vintage selection. Positioning what was ostensively a contemp show outside of competitor Frieze's art fair week was also a serious strategic blunder. I have severe doubts that they will be able to put this Humpty Dumpty back together again.

 

Veteran photojournalist Philip Jones Griffiths passed away last week. Giffith's astonishing coverage of wars and strife once caused Henri Cartier-Bresson to write, "Not since Goya has anyone portrayed war like Philip Jones Griffiths." Griffiths' 1971 publication "Vietnam Inc." led Magnum's Stuart Franklin to say that it "is arguably the most articulate and compelling anti-war statement made by any photojournalist ever."

The following information was adapted from Magnum's biography on Griffiths. Born in Rhuddlan, Wales, Philip Jones Griffiths studied pharmacy in Liverpool and worked in London while photographing part-time for the Manchester Guardian. In 1961 he became a full-time freelancer for the London-based Observer. He covered the Algerian War in 1962, and then moved to Central Africa. From there he moved to Asia, photographing in Vietnam from 1966 to 1971.

His book on the war, "Vietnam Inc.", crystallized public opinion and gave form to Western misgivings about American involvement in Vietnam. One of the most detailed surveys of any conflict, "Vietnam Inc." is also an in-depth document of Vietnamese culture under attack.

An associate member of Magnum since 1966, Griffiths became a member in 1971. In 1973 he covered the Yom Kippur War and then worked in Cambodia between 1973 and 1975. In 1977 he covered Asia from his base in Thailand. In 1980 Griffiths moved to New York to assume the presidency of Magnum, a post he held for a record five years.

Griffiths' assignments, often self-engineered, took him to more than 120 countries. He continued to work for Life and Geo on stories such as Buddhism in Cambodia, droughts in India, poverty in Texas, the re-greening of Vietnam, and the legacy of the Gulf War in Kuwait.

In the email sent by Franklin about Giffiths' death, he said, "Philip enriched all our lives with his courage, his empathy, his passion, his wit and his wisdom; and for many he gave to photojournalism its moral soul. He died as he wanted so passionately that we should live--in peace. In his last days he was together with his loving family and friends at his side."

 

Prices on several of Contemporary Works/Vintage Works, Ltd. photographers will be going up a bit on May 1st. Both our European-based photographers, Lisa Holden and Stanko Abadzic, will raise their prices in dollars. Holden's large color work will go up about 10%, while Abadzic's work will go up on most pieces from $900 to $1,500. Several other pieces that have sold especially well will go up a bit more. The price increases are partially to make up for the difference in the dollar/euro ratio and better equalize pricing in the U.S. and in Europe.

Landscape photographer Mitch Dobrowner will also be increasing prices on the following work on May 1st:

"Wind Swept Tree"
12x16": $1,000
15x21": $1,250

"Civilization"
12x16": $1,000
15x21": $1,250
20x30": $2,000

"Shiprock Storm"
12x16": $800
15x21": $1,000
20x30": $1,750

The current lower prices are still up on the website on each of these images, so call us soon to take advantage of the lower pricing.

In other artist news, Contemporary Works' artist Claudia Kunin's exhibit of the 3-D Holy Ghost Stories is still up for one more week at the 3D Center for Art and Photography, which is the only museum solely dedicated to antique and contemporary 3d art in the world. The show runs until March 30th. The 3D Center is located at 1928 NW Lovejoy, in Portland, OR 97209; phone: 1-503-227-6667. Hours are 11 a.m. until 5 p.m. Thursday through Saturday, and 1-5 p.m. on Sunday. For more information see: http://www.3dcenter.us . Kunin's work is also featured in the latest issue of Focus magazine, which should be on the newsstands shortly.

 

By Matt Damsker

EDWARD WESTON'S BOOK OF NUDES
Edited by Brett Abbott. Based on the original unpublished book compiled by Nancy Newhall and Edward Weston. 2007, The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, CA in association with the Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ. Hardbound; 39 black-and-white plates; ISBN No. 978-0-89236-903-4. Getty Publications, 1200 Getty Center Drive, Suite 500, Los Angeles, CA 90049-1682; information: http://www.getty.edu .

In this wide-open age, it's hard to believe that American publishers of the not-so-distant 1950s were unwilling to publish a monograph of Edward Weston's nude figure studies--especially since Weston was already regarded as a photographic master by 1953, when he was in decline due to Parkinson's disease, needed cash and could not work very much. That year, with curator and critic Nancy Newhall, Weston put together a mock-up for his book of nudes, but the project only languished, trapped in the amber of Eisenhower-era morality. The mock-up eventually became part of the Getty Museum's deep Weston holdings.

Now, thanks to Getty assistant curator Brett Abbott, along with the Center for Creative Photography (custodian of the Weston Archive and the Beaumont and Nancy Newhall Collection), Weston's Book of Nudes has finally seen daylight, in a version that fulfills the intent of the mock-up. If anything, the superb quality of these reproduced gelatin silver prints--made by direct digital capture from the CCP's archives--means that the images seem more richly alive to us now than they could have been in their day, given the limitations of mid-1950s photography-book technique. Thus, the obsidian blacks of Weston's desert shadows or the creamy wash of his skin tones convey the sort of electric charge in this version that only a viewing of the original prints can otherwise deliver.

That said, the images are by now very familiar--classics of figuration and formal abstraction that echo Weston's groundbreaking portrait of a lustrous green chili pepper, as he began to develop his graceful and wholly original depictions of the female nude, often cropped and enfolded to achieve paragons of organic form. Whether he was working in experimental close-up--a breast, an arched torso, long limbs--or exploring the fullness of the body sprawled against a monochrome field of sand or snow, Weston's vision was both rigorous and sensual, implying the emotional and sexual connection he had with his key models, yet never veering into mere prurience.

Apart from these stunning reproductions, the great treasure of this long-delayed resurrection is Nancy Newhall's original essay, which was pasted in typescript form in the 1953 mock-up (which is itself reproduced, in small format, at the back of the book). Newhall knew Weston and she knew the photographic tradition, and so she chronicles his artistic journey with deft strokes: "He began as most of us do, with the Nude as Sentiment, which at that is a notch or two above the cold-boiled pinup. Mist and light veiled everything: his young wife Flora in a misty meadow, his baby sons wandering in misty gardens, his friends sitting in misty spotlights in his studio. He was grasping only shimmer, never substance…"

Newhall notes that Weston, as recipient of the first Guggenheim Fellowship ever awarded to a photographer, had two years--1937 and 1938--free to wander the West, photograph and print. When he turned to the nude in 1939, he was finally ready to capture form "as a power moving in space and light," she writes. The resulting images were captured in available light, with not so much as a reflector to artificialize the moment. More than a curio, this long-sheltered book provides a fresh contextualization for Weston; it reveals anew the profound simplicity of his approach, and the enduring resonance of his contribution.


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 in the fall of 2005.

(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.)

 

David Scheinbaum has returned to the College of Santa Fe to head its new CSF Photography Department and Marion Center for Photographic Arts. Scheinbaum has agreed to come out of retirement to return to the Marion Chair of Photographic Arts and directorship of the Marion Center, both roles he held for many years while at CSF. In addition, he will chair the newly formed Photography Department, which will become a separate academic entity from the CSF Art Department beginning in fall 2008.

With the creation of the new Photography Department, Scheinbaum and his colleagues will have the opportunity to reexamine the photography major and offer a comprehensive curriculum that will be committed to traditional processes as well as new media and digital imagery. With a holistic approach to photographic education, the Photography Department will educate students with a realistic and practical approach to the medium as well as how to live the day-to-day life of an artist. The program will emphasize using the medium as a means of personal expression and will be firmly grounded in the history of photography, utilizing the Beaumont and Nancy Newhall Library, considered one of the finest resources in the country.

Scheinbaum has also been a private photography dealer in partnership with his wife, Janet Russek. Their company, Scheinbaum & Russek Ltd., which has been a long-time AIPAD member, will not be affected by Scheinbaum's new position and will continue to be managed by Russek.

 

Dallas-based Heritage Auction Galleries has hired photography appraiser Lorraine Anne Davis as director of vintage and contemporary photographs auctions.

Davis graduated from the University of Wisconsin with a Masters Degree in Photography and a Masters of Fine Arts Degree in Graphic Design where she made limited edition photography books. She also attended the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, where she studied the History of Photography with Amy Conger, PhD, and Contemporary Ideas in Photography with Peter Bunnell, Princeton. In 1983 she became the assistant director of the Paul Strand Archive. Then, in 1987, she moved to Switzerland where she was the Kuratorin of Galerie zur Stockeregg in Zürich until the end of 1990. For the following 12 years Davis built and curated the Pfeifer Collection, Zürich, the only private collection of classical American photography in Europe.

She is a fully accredited appraiser specializing in photography with the Appraisers Association of America and carries a Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP) certificate as set by the Appraisal Foundation in Washington, D.C. Davis successfully completed all four levels of Personal Property Valuation Courses at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., and has signed and adheres to the Code of Ethics of the Appraisers Association of America and USPAP guidelines. She has appraised photographs for Christie's Auction House, Zurich, The Kunsthaus Zurich, the San Francisco Museum of Art, the J. P. Getty Museum, the Museum of Art at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque and numerous other institutions.

For more information, visit http://www.HA.com or email Davis at LorraineD@ha.com .