By Alex Novak

Fleeing London on the speedy Eurostar in the early afternoon, I got back into Paris from London in the early evening and took a quick taxi to the apartment of a friend and former photo dealer, Pascale Jacquemin, who was renting her place in the Marais to me. The apartment is not far from the Hotel De Ville. I am not overly fond of the area, which is very touristy and subject to lots of demonstrations, although her apartment itself is very large, lovely, bright and sunny--and full of photographs. It also gives me my daily exercise since it is a French third-floor walkup (in other words on the fourth floor for my American readers).

More of a problem was that I like access to a good street market. I have been spoiled since most of my Parisian experience was formed living just off Rue Mouffetard, where Cartier-Bresson's famous image of a boy running with wine bottles was snapped. There you can find not one, but two wonderful markets--one at Place Monge and the other at the bottom of Mouffetard itself. My favorite wine store, La Fontaines au Vin (on 107 Rue Mouffetard), is straight down Mouffetard on the left. It was probably where Cartier-Bresson's little boy picked up those wine bottles in the photo. My friend Michelle runs it now, and her palate and knowledge is first-rate. If you are in Paris and want to buy a bottle or two, tell her that I sent you, but be nice and trust her judgment. While here, go next store to Fromagerie P. Veron for the best cheese in the area (and some of the best in Paris).

In any case though, this part of the Marais still has a few decent places to eat, but you have to really sniff them out, and most are down near or actually on Rue Saint Paul, which is quite a hike from this apartment. Because I need to lose a few pounds (ok, maybe about 20 pounds) and I didn't want to starve myself in Paris of all places, I didn't much mind the walk most nights, despite my bad hip.

The evening I got into Paris, my friend Pascale and I ate at L'Enoteca, which is a decent Italian restaurant on Rue Saint Paul (actually at the corner of St. Paul at 25 Rue Charles V). I have come to like the wines made from the Aglianico grape. Aglianico is a black grape grown in the Campania and Basilicata regions of Italy. It has bright acidity and is--when done right--a big, fresh, bold wine with a great bouquet. Its prices, while rising, are still reasonable for its general quality. We enjoyed a good bottle, a 2006 Montesolae Aglianico Sannio. It needed about a half hour to come around in the glass, but when it did, it was very fine indeed. By the way, this restaurant and many others in Paris are reviewed on the I Photo Central website at: http://www.iphotocentral.com/collecting/article_view.php/15/18/1 . The article will provide a great introduction to fine and casual eating in Paris. I am constantly updating the listings and ratings.

The following week I did the rounds of the dealers and some of the galleries here. I stopped by Galerie David Guiraud at 5 rue du Perche in the Marais. At the time he was showing Pascal Meunier's interesting color work, entitled "Les Derniers Bains du Caire". The gallery is small, but inviting. David, whom I have known for years, also has 20th-century vintage photographs available for sale, besides the contemporary work of several artists that he represents.

Another friend and art consultant, Marie Thevenin, took me to Fabien Breuvart's store on 35-37 rue Charlot. Breuvart specializes in vernacular pieces, particularly snapshots. His shop was recently featured in the New York Times, but the NYT reporter must have gotten a "deal of deals", because Breuvart's work starts at 40 euro, not the five euro reported. Still there are some interesting images here and the shop always seems to be quite busy. But bring cash. Breuvart doesn't take American Express OR Visa/MasterCard.

By the way, if you are looking to rent a nice studio apartment in the Marais by the week or month, you should contact Marie. You can see the details at: http://www.lestudio22.typepad.fr/chambre_dart/ .

Another gallery in the Marais that I visited was the attractive Galerie Thierry Marlat, which is near the historic and picturesque Place de Marche, Sainte Catherine, at 2 rue de Jarente. The gallery (http://www.galerie-marlat.fr ), which is run by Thierry Marlat and Christophe Lunn, had a great show up on Mongolia by photographer Hamid Sardar-Afkhami, whom I met while at the gallery. Hamid is a big, effusive guy with an equally big talent. His large platinum prints, which are produced in Belgium, were stunning. The show was entitled: "Dark Heavens: Shamans et Chasseurs de Mongolie". I am sure you will hear more of this photographer and his work in the future.

By the way, if Christophe Lunn's last name rings a bell, it's because he is the son of Harry Lunn, one of the most important and influential photography dealers in the trade until his untimely death in Paris in 1998. One of the founding members of AIPAD and Paris Photo, Harry Lunn was a true legend, nearly single-handedly pioneering and creating the modern market for photography. Chris, after some hesitation, becomes the first person in his family to follow in his father's footsteps. We hit it off well here, as I found Chris, Thierry and the gallery inviting and friendly. The gallery could become one of Paris' most important photography venues and should not be missed. It has been acquiring and will be showing some top work from the 20th century, as well as contemporary pieces.

I also went to the old Bibliotheque Nationale to see the show "Controverses", which was very controversial indeed. The exhibition had on display some of the grossest, sickest images out there to some of the most important, although often very disturbing. You can't really use the language to discuss much of this, because many internet services are set up to filter out emails with such words. I left feeling uneasy about the exhibition (especially when it related to children) and some of the lines that it crossed, although it tackled some important areas of censorship. One shot showed a severed hand from the 9/11 disaster that was blocked from publication. Others showed American dead from Iraq that the Bush administration had censured. Other times I was a bit disappointed with the easy choices that the curators made, such as "Piss Christ" (I tend to side with Sister Wendy on its boring aspects). With sensationalistic violence and sex most of its focus, I hope that there was a public forum for discussion and debate about this exhibition, but I don't know if that was or was not a part of the program.

 

There were a number of small auctions in and around Paris at this time, but the two that were of the most interest were Piasa at Drouot (where most of the Paris auctions are held) and Argenteuil in the suburb city of the same name.

The latter auction was focused on the German studio team of Sasha and Cami Stone, who later were forced to move to Belgium. Most of the material was from the husband and wife's Berlin period. I previewed at the home of the auction expert Christophe Goeury, who is one of the most research-oriented of all the French auction experts at the moment.

His catalogues are troves of information on the photographers whose estates he has auctioned off, including Brassai, Blanc et Demilly, and now Studio Stone. The information includes biographies in French and English, extensive bibliographies and copies of the artists' stamps and signatures. Christophe works very hard to produce such valuable additions to the photographic literature, and he is a very amiable and helpful person as well. His condition reports are generally very professional and accurate, although, like most auction "experts", he does sometimes make errors in dating prints, although the errors (as we pointed out in our coverage of the Brassai sale) go both ways, often noting a later date on a print than was the reality. With the Stone material this was not so much a problem, because of the material itself, which was very consistent with the period taken. The basic problem was simpler: most of the material was just not that exciting and the print sizes were small (typically about 4 x 6 inches or smaller--some were only tiny contact prints) with numerous condition issues. For me the prints themselves had little "presence", most printed simply on ferrotyped (glossy) paper. Less than a handful of images were printed on a nice matte silver paper that I thought stood out.

I and a number of French dealers and collectors felt that the auction with its rather repetitious imagery might not be that successful, but, surprisingly, I am very pleased to report that Goeury's hard work indeed paid off. Nearly 86% of the lots were sold (although many of the smaller lots reported sold immediately after the sale, and some were still being sold after I received these statistics), and a few at very high prices indeed for these photographs. The total take from the sale including the frais, or buyer's premium (here a more reasonable 19%), was just a hair under 370,000 euro, or about $525,000. That's quite a decent number for the typical photo sale at a French auction house, and very good for a single photographer sale. The exchange rate was about $1.42 per euro at this time. For perspective, that total auction amount was about midway between Sotheby's and Christies' London sales of just two weeks before.

German dealers, collectors and institutions were all participating in the sale. My German friends, dealer Hendrik Berinson and curator/collector Dietmar Siegert, came in person to bid. Sam Stourdzé, a Paris photography consultant, was also there to bid for clients. Several other French dealers and even collectors also participated. Many others were on the phones or left commission bids.

I will give a run down of those lots that came close to or broke over the 5,000 euro mark with the buyers' premium.

Right out of the gate, the auction saw lot 1, consisting of the studio's documentation, including an interesting letter about Atget from André Calmettes sent to Berenice Abbott, sell for more than double its high estimate at 14,727 euro. Lot 5, three photos of a dancing mechanical figure and correspondence from Vilmos Huszar to Sasha Stone, also sold for more than double its high estimate at 5,154 euro. It's nice to see people or institutions valuing such research material.

A self portrait by Sasha Stone (lot 8) went for more than 3-1/2 x its high estimate at 4,295.34 euro. Lot 68, a pair of positive/negative prints of people crossing a street in Berlin, which I thought was a bit more interesting than the average lot, was estimated at 800-1000 euro. It sold for nearly 16,000 euro!

I liked lot 84 because it was one of the few prints on a beautiful matte paper, instead of the rather mediocre ferrotyped paper that most of the prints in this sale were made on. It showed an elevated train and had some presence. It sold for double its high estimate at 1,350 euro--certainly not the highest price in the sale. Lots 82 and 83 were also on this paper but they had condition issues--as did so many other prints in this sale.

Lot 93, showed an interesting image in Berlin's Jewish Quarter. Estimated at 400-600 euro, it sold for 5,645 euro! Yes, I will use a lot of exclamation marks on this auction coverage. Another image of Berlin's Jewish Quarter, lot 97, went even higher over its meager estimate of 600-800 euro--right to nearly 18,000 euro! Lot 98, an image that I liked in the Jewish Quarter sold for 4,541 euro over a similar estimate range.

Lot 99, another positive/negative pair of a man shining shoes (with major condition issues, including tears), sold well over its estimate range of 300-400 euro at 5,400 euro.

Lot 125 looked liked it was just a mistake that photographers occasionally make by tripping the shutter inadvertently. It was a crooked (I suppose some might say a constructivist/modernist view) shot of some feet climbing a stair. Estimated at what I thought at the time was a ridiculous 1,000-1,500 euro, it actually sold for 6,136 euro! What were these bidders thinking?

My favorite image was lot 130, one that Moholy-Nagy had made famous: the shot straight down from the top of the tower. Several observers noted that Stone's version was out of focus, but I still thought it was one of the best in the auction, in good condition and worth about 4,000-5,000 euro in my opinion. Of course it sold for much more: 12,272 euro.

Lot 223 was an interesting shot from a high angle from a building in Stuttgart. It too had serious surface condition issues, but still sold for 14,113 euro (over an estimate of 1,000-1,500 euro). Keep this one in mind for a bit later, because this image also appears in the maquette for a book project by Cami and Sasha Stone (lot 265).

The Stone Studio photomontages were somewhat interesting, but most had condition problems and weren't exactly stunning. The one combining Texas and New York City images (oil derricks gushing oil over New York City skyscrapers) was the best of the lot, although it had condition issues, including tiny holes in the print in several places. But, estimated at only 1,000-1,500 euro, it soared to 11,659 euro! The photo montage of a nude over a factory floor also clobbered its 1,000-1,500 euro estimate by nearly hitting 8,000 euro.

Back to that book maquette, which contained 16 prints. The catalogue showed only 11 of the 16 images. Trust me when I say the other five prints in the maquette didn't add anything. Condition was also an issue here with paper clip rust marks and other problems--most conservable. But that was the same with the rest of the prints in this auction, so why should that make a difference here? And remember that just one print in the maquette had already sold for over 14,000 euro in the auction. In this case, the maquette's print was in better condition. Nonetheless, while the maquette sold for about double its high estimate, it still was a relatively good buy in this sale at only 36,817 euro. These were, after all, the best images of the best, supposedly. Collector Dietmar Siegert later told me that he felt a bit of regret for not bidding this lot higher. I suppose then it could be considered the "bargain" of the auction.

The fact that lot 297 soared over its 600-800 euro estimate was not a surprise in the context of this sale. The group of 13 small images relating to the Antwerp diamond trade brought a whopping 7,363 euro.

Honestly though, someone has to tell me why the last lot, No. 319, a nice nude study in poor stained condition that is sometimes available in good prints for about 70% of the price it got here, would sell for 6,504 euro? If that isn't getting carried away by an auction, I don't know what is.

Just after the sale I had a pleasant dinner with friends Dietmar Siegert and Eduard Planting at one of my favorite Paris restaurants, Maceo's, which is at 15, Rue des Petits-Champs. Planting had just opened a gallery in Amsterdam, Eduard Planting Fine Art Photographs, which is at Eerste Bloemdwarsstraat 2. We were celebrating his birthday this particular evening (you can see the photograph on Eduard's and my pages on Facebook). Also at another table across the room were another group of friends, Paris dealer Alain Paviot and American dealer Charles Isaacs.

Maceo's is a popular place for some in the photo trade, and for good reason: excellent food; good, friendly service; and not outrageous prices--at least for this level of food (three-course prix-fixed meals vary from about 35-42 euro per person, plus drinks). They even offer a "green" vegetarian menu. The restaurant is also convenient to the "action" since it is located close to several dealers and galleries, the Bibliotheque Nationale (the old one) and the auctions at Drouot--not to mention that it is a ten-minute walk from the Carousel de Louvre during Paris Photo.

Run by Mark Williamson, an eccentric but none-the-less professional Englishman, both Maceo's and its sibling, Willi's Wine Bar, are a treat that should be on your schedule when you are in Paris (http://www.maceorestaurant.com/Maceo_English_Home.html ). Again, feel free to use my name here too. They know me very well. They are closed, however, from July 14 to August 23. There is no air conditioning, but a light breeze is usually available from the open windows when appropriate.

 

The next day was the multi-owner sale at Piasa in Drouot. The auction was a mixed bag to say the least. Just over half the lots sold and the net with buyers' premiums was only a hair under 265,000 euro or $376,000 at the $1.42 per euro exchange rate in effect the day of the sale. This is actually a pretty typical result for Piasa photo auctions though. Again, I will give a run down of those lots that came close to or broke over the 5,000 euro mark with the buyers' premium. Most of the action was over the phone or by commission bids. The expert here is Yves Di Maria, another good friend.

There were three lots of Carleton Watkins mammoth-plate prints early in the sale, but only one lot that was worth bidding on, lot 3, a view of San Francisco. The other two lots were faded, foxed and yellowed, although you might not know it from looking at the catalogue or online jpegs. Lot 3 itself would still require conservation/cleaning, but the tones were decent on this image. The photograph was actually a part of a larger three-part panorama, but still made an interesting picture on its own. Unfortunately for me, not only did it draw the attention of fellow AIPAD dealer Chuck Isaacs, but also a very persistent phone bidder. Chuck outbid me, but still fell to the phone bidder, who picked up the photograph for just a hair under 5,000 euro, or just over $7,000--still a bargain.

A pair of albums by Pierre Louys, which contained 132 small nudes and a view of his apartment, sold for 18,836 euro and was the top lot of this auction. Lot 89, five of Roger Parry's photographs that illustrated "Après" by Remarque and "Le Peseur d'Ames" by Maurois, sold for 9,914 euro.

Lot 96, a group of photographs by and of Emile-Jacques Ruhlmann, sold for more than double the low estimate at 6,196 euro.

The well-known image by Jean (Yan) Dieuzaide of Dali in the water with flowers at the tips of his waxed moustache (lot 194) also sold well over its estimate of 1000-1500 euro. With buyer's premium it sold for a whopping 5,452 euro.

Despite doubling its low estimate, lot 289, Jean-Baptiste Huynh portfolio group of 42 prints, was a great bargain at just under 5,000 euro. There were some great images in this lot.

The cover lot, (lot 307) Jacques Olivar's "Eva Herzigova with Python, Java", sold for its high estimate at 7,559 euro.

 

My German friends, Anja Klafki (a superb contemporary landscape artist in the print medium; you can see her work at: http://www.anjaklafki.de/ ) and husband John Patrick Mikisch, joined me on Friday night for the weekend. If you are a long-time reader of the E-Photo newsletter, you might even remember them from my first report on Art Basel Miami in January 2007 where I met them for the first time.

Because my friend John Patrick had--let's say--a bit of trouble with finding places in Miami, we've always kidded him a bit about directions. This time he came prepared with a new GPS system. But he wasn't off the hook yet, because the system had a very sexy woman's voice that John spent a lot of time listening too, even outside the car! He said it was because he wanted to make sure the system worked properly, but I told Anja that she better watch out for the "other" woman".

In any case, we had a nice time together hitting some of the tourist spots, including the Centre Georges Pompidou and its two blockbuster shows on Kandinsky and Calder. The Calder show was a lot of fun for both adults and children because it centered on his circus creations and productions, including screening two films of Calder performing his mechanical circus acts with a sense of humor that appealed to all ages.

We stopped momentarily to watch one of the films (by surrealist Jean Painlevé!) and wound up spending nearly two hours. We all thought it was a ten-minute show on a loop, but it turned out to be a complete film! I had also never seen Brassai's vintage images of Calder's circus creations that were included in the exhibition. Kandinsky's retrospective show was also impressive and well curated. It is still open until August 10th. The Calder show unfortunately closed late last month.

One show coming up at the Pompidou that should not be missed is "La Subversion des Images. Surréalisme, Photographie, Film", which will run from September 23, 2009 to January 11, 2010. There will be 400 photographs in the exhibition.

Later that evening we were joined for dinner by my friend Francoise's daughter, Lohana, and one of her girlfriends. Because I have known Lohana now for over a quarter of her lifetime (she will soon be 17), she has become like a daughter to me. We decided to go casual and Mexican. Besides L'Enoteca, one of my favorite eateries in the Marais is the Studio Restaurant, which is located on an historically important 17th-century courtyard, but a courtyard you can easily walk by if you were not looking carefully for its narrow entrance. Located at 41 rue du Temple in the 4th arrondissement, the restaurant is one of the few Mexican places in Paris that I can recommend, and it makes a good change of pace from the normal Parisian fare. It has excellent enchiladas, barbecued ribs, burgers, fajitas, very good Mexican beer and much more. Prices as Paris goes are not bad either. It's open most days, except for lunch on Mondays. Dining is either alfresco in the courtyard or in one of the several inside rooms.

My thanks to my friend Kem for introducing me to this hidden little gem last November. Kem works for a company called Paris Flat, which rents apartments by the week or month and can be reached at parisflat@gmail.com . I have rented many times from the company, run by two American ex-pats, and always had very good deals.

The casual dining on the outdoor terrace amidst the many dance studios in the surrounding buildings (this is THE place in Paris to learn how to dance) makes for a pleasant evening with friends. It is also where the historic Café de la Gare makes its home. Up and running since the revolutionary days of 1968, this is Paris' most famous fringe theater. It has 300 seats that hug a small stage, and it hosts quality French stand-up and irreverent comedies. Some of France's top comedians and actors have been known to grace this stage.

After dinner in this area, you should walk over to Amorino's (this is a chain and there are a couple in Paris), as we did, for gelato at 31, Rue Vieille du Temple. Berthillon, Gelati d'Alberto and Pozzetto's are also competitors for best ice cream in Paris, and there are stores all over the city. There is a Pozzetto's also nearby to this Amorino's in the Marais, but my preference is Amorino's. The choice of ice cream/gelato is very personal and people take sides in Paris, as they do here in Philly for cheese steaks. Personally, I would rather have the ice cream.

On the following Sunday morning we planned on driving out early to the fabulous chateau (yes, it really is a chateau) of French photography dealers and friends, Marc and Brigitte Pagneux, who live in the Village Sévery near Chanteloup, Normandy. Their property used to be an old English school for girls and has a beautiful formal English garden, a swimming pool and two outbuildings, one of which Marc has converted to a gallery/research library. The plantings on the property are unique for France.

I was a little concerned though because our President Obama was in Normandy the day before our trip, and I wondered if that would have any effect on our travel. Well, yes, but not in the way that I expected. When we got up early that morning to go to John Patrick's car, we found our way blocked off. In fact all the streets around us were blockaded. We soon found out why. The President and First Lady were getting an early morning private tour of the museum shows that we had seen the day before at the nearby Pompidou. The entire area and all of Rue Rivoli, one of Paris' major streets, was blocked for their motorcade out of Paris to the airport. As we waited, we could see a helicopter flying overhead. Finally one of the policemen relented and allowed us to quickly cross the barricades and the traffic-less Rue Rivoli to get to our car. But our travel travails were just beginning.

The first problem was that the machine to pay for the parking ticket was not working properly. John Patrick then went to find the attendants, who had given him the wrong directions over the ticket machine's speaker phone to reach them. They were laughing hardily when he finally found them about 20 minutes later. It is interesting what some people find amusing.

But we were finally on our way and fortunately the exit out didn't have to deal with Rue Rivoli. The GPS worked pretty well, although the sexy voice seemed to interrupt quite often and did send us on a bit of a round-about way, unnecessarily circling the roads around the Champs-Élysées and the Arc de Triomphe. But we got out of Paris and on to the highway system and were finally on our way…

…And then we had to stop for gas. The pump was like a lot of European and English plumbing: highly confusing. People trying to pump gas, including French drivers and other Europeans, had a difficult time figuring out the system, but finally with some help from one of our neighbors we were able to get gassed up and on our way.

About 20 minutes later a car to our left beeped its horn and the people in it pointed to something at the rear of our car. Hmmm… I told John Patrick and he pulled over at the next rest stop. The back left tire was flat from a nail puncture. Fortunately he had a full tire (not one of those little donut ones), and we changed the tire, washed our hands and were back on our way once more.

That was the last of our serious travel problems and so the rest of the trip out to the Pagneux's was a pleasant drive, and the GPS's sexy directions worked quite well until the last turn or so, which fortunately I did remember from a previous trip out.

As we pulled into the long gravel driveway of Marc and Brigitte's lovely estate, we were greeted by Brigitte. We all trooped into the house where most of the company was assembled. The group was made up of fellow photography dealers and other old friends who were in town and made the long trek out to Normandy, mainly by train.

American dealers Hans P. Kraus, Jr. and Charles Isaacs; American ex-pat dealer Robert Hershkowitz and his wife Paula; curator Pierre Apraxine, whom I had a pleasant dinner with at the Plantureux's the week before; Paris dealers Serge Plantureux and Bruno Tartarin; French collector Denis Canguilhem; and German collector Dietmar Siegert, whom I also had dinner with just the Thursday before, were all in attendance. It was a companionable day of good conversation, food and wine in remarkable environs with a nice group of friends, and I thank Marc and Brigitte for the lovely time and their kindness for inviting me.

Besides the camaraderie, at least part of the reason for coming out to Normandy was to see what Marc was offering for sale. The separate gallery was only opened after lunch at 3 pm. There was lots of good natured kidding about the competition for the images. While the selection wasn't perhaps as impressive as on some past occasions, it was none-the-less fun to search through the various images. Each of us bought a souvenir or two of the day's event.

I parted company with my German friends and Marc and Brigitte, and took a cab to the train with a large company of our friends. On the train back to Paris Serge Plantureux took out a batch of autochromes, which Hans Kraus and I perused together. It was a pleasant way to pass the time, although I wouldn't want to have Serge's job of repacking all these fragile items. I would see Hans again at Art Basel in just a few days.

Serge, Hans and I exited one of the side entrances and luckily found an available taxi, which we took on to Serge's apartment together. Hans went on to his hotel, and I came up for a casual dinner with Serge and his youngest daughter Celeste, who is quite precocious for her age. I maintain that nine-year old Celeste will take over her father's business--and sooner rather than later. Watch out, Serge.

 

By Alex Novak

I left Paris by speedy TGV train to Mulhouse, France, where I had my hotel room for excursions into nearby Basel for the 40th edition of Art Basel.

Mulhouse is a medieval Alsace town with a beautiful central square (Place de la Réunion) flanked by the 16th-century town hall and towering 19th-century "cathedral" (actually the Protestant Temple Saint-Étienne), although legend dates the establishment of the town to as early as 58 B.C. The city (pronounced in French "mul-loose", but in German just as it looks) is by far the most populous in the Haut-Rhin department. Its close proximity to the Swiss, French and German borders has meant that its sovereignty has often been a matter of contention in the past among the three countries. The town has its own SNCF train station and connections to Basel are very frequent and quick. And, better yet, despite being a very cute town with easy, cheap proximity to Basel, the hotel and restaurant prices are nowhere near Basel's--often 20% or less than its nearby neighbor. During Art Basel, Basel's hospitality vendors often hike their rates four-fold. No wonder Mulhouse is where I've chosen to stay for the last two years that I've been coming to Art Basel.

After checking into the hotel in Mulhouse, I took a 30-minute train ride into Basel to meet a Swiss collector friend, Giovanni Monti. We took the tram over (there are tram systems in both Basel and Mulhouse) to Art Basel.

Art Basel has segregated the photography dealers into two specific and close-by areas on the first floor, although many of the "art" dealers also show photography--usually much more overpriced photography, in my opinion.

Over the next three days I visited with each of the photography galleries exhibiting here and wandered the art gallery booths around the show, along with just over 60,000 other dealers, collectors, curators and artists. There are over 300 exhibitors here--many in gigantic booths, with work on display by well over 2,500 artists. Yes, it is definitely an event--thankfully without much of the excess hoopla of Miami, although I kind of missed some of the insanity of that venue. Here the insanity is just trying to get a table in a restaurant or a hotel room under 600 euros a night, or to avoid one of the many horrendously long lines for everything.

Despite a serious dearth of Americans at the fair this year, Brad Pitt, with his new buddy art collector Eli Broad in tow, plumped down nearly a million cool ones for a Neo Rauch rainbow-colored racetrack painting, "Etappe", during the show. Many photography dealers here would have loved to have had a small part of that largess, and pointed out that Pitt could have had his pick of a dozen or more top pieces of photographic art on their walls for that amount of dollars.

In fact, except for Hans Kraus's booth, you could be hard pressed to find too many other mid six-figure pieces on the walls of the photo dealers here--just one more indication of photography's high ceiling for potential future growth.

Speaking of Hans, he had on display some serious 19th-century pioneers in his exhibit, which he titled, "A 25th-Anniversary Selection". I am always impressed with the work that Hans shows. The Talbots, as usual, were stunning and museum-level (at least for those very top institutions), but so was the work by so many other top 19th-century masters, including Teynard, Le Gray, Vigier, Robert, Fenton and others on the booth's stately gray walls.

Nearby, my friends the Paviots (Francoise and Alain) had another terrific booth. I really was tempted by many of the images here. The group of 40 large albumen prints of the Forth Bridge construction by Evelyn George Carey on one wall was a knockout. So was the series of moon heliogravures by Loewy & Puiseux at 2,000 euro each. The 100 portraits of the camera-shy Cartier-Bresson were a revelation.

Fraenkel Gallery showed the very newest work by Richard Misrach, a huge 93-1/2 x 119 inch pigment color print of a color negative of a dune. Set in a welded metal frame, the photograph was the dramatic set piece of the Fraenkel booth and was the most interesting new photography work at the fair in my opinion. My friend Giovanni agreed. The asking price was $90,000, as I recall. But if I had money to burn like Brad Pitt, this is what I would have bought here at Art Basel. All I can say--like some stoked '60s hippie-- is "Wow!" Richard Prince be damned. This is what should be in museums and on the walls of serious contemporary collectors.

Jeffrey Fraenkel and Frish Brandt also had some great Avedons, including a 56-1/4 x 135 inch triptych of miners from "In the American West", and a large four-panel panoramic by Robert Adams, "South from the South Jetty, 1990/printed 1995". Fraenkel likes to go big here at Art Basel.

Frish gave me her take on the show: "Results--everyone has said it was better than expected. True. The other part of it is that real collectors continue to make such shows a must-see on their travel calendars. The distractions that were present for a number of recent years have subsided, and people are really looking and thinking, and acquiring the work that fits their collecting integrity."

"Art Basel is by far the most important art fair that we do," Chicago dealer Stephen Daiter told me just after the fair, "and is one of the best art fairs in the world." Steve reported that his experience at Art Basel was good and but still a work in progress.

"Attendance seemed a bit down, though the official report was that there were more people at Basel than in previous years. We saw very few Americans and only a modest group of British collectors. The Europeans were out in force and a number bought from us--generally pieces in the $10,000-$20,000 range. Our more expensive pieces, including an exceptional Chicago Moholy-Nagy ($65,000), a great Welch Miners image by Robert Frank (Price on Request), an important Heinrich Kuhn ($30,000), a vintage Penn of Capote ($30,000), Abbott's "Exchange Place" on a 1940s MoMA mount ($45,000) and Callahan's "Trees, Chicago, 1951" ($65,000), all got serious looks but not enough serious interest to buy, unlike similar pieces in previous years.

"We sold four vintage Kertesz prints (three from the catalog, which we did for AIPAD several months earlier). We produced a catalog "Teachers of the New Bauhaus" for Basel and sold several 16 x 20 inch-plus Arthur Siegel 1940s photograms and 1950s vintage Siskinds and Barbara Cranes. There is a Gary Schneider "hand" commission that is the result of the fair. We also had serious interest in other Institute of Design work (Siskinds, Kepes and Callahans) but have not yet completed sales on them. In addition we have clients seriously considering multi-print purchases of 1980s Polaroids by Barbara Kasten and Kertesz prints."

The Daiter Gallery sold two of the very largest Siskinds to contemporary art photographer Thomas Ruff. My opinion of Ruff went up exponentially, especially since I was interested in buying one of them myself. A Swiss collector was the other disappointed party, but his wife bought an excellent Kertesz print that was a little gem.

Steve, his associate Michael Welch, my friend Giovanni and I all went out to dinner at a nearby popular Thai place that was packed. It was friendly (communal tables), if loud. But then every restaurant in Basel is jumping during this week. After dinner, I fled to the train station and grabbed a late train back to Mulhouse.

The next morning I resumed my gallery crawl at Art Basel. I took in the surrealist sights with friends Adam Boxer and Hendrik Berinson of Ubu Gallery and David Fleiss of Galerie 1900-2000. These are two of the best galleries in the world for such work, in my opinion. Their mix of photography, paintings, sculpture and more is what helps make Art Basel so interesting to me--the interchange between all the arts.

I also find that Art Basel's mixture of modern (even 19th-century on occasion) and contemporary provides an important historical and educational foundation for art collecting, something that many other contemporary art and photography shows do not have. Some of those shows had started out with a better sense of balance, but have recently lost their ability to see how important this is in their rush to an all-contemporary (or at least nearly all-contemp) exhibition. I hope Art Basel and its management never loses sight of the perspective that makes their show so unique, important and such a ultimate success.

Rudy and Annette Kicken's booth also mixed up material in much this way. I always find their exhibit to be one of the more interesting and eclectic ones at any of the fairs that they do. I missed them at AIPAD this year, and hope that they return for 2010. For this year's Art Basel, the Kicken's produced an exhibit on "90 Years of Bauhaus". Many of the artists from this movement and their contemporaries were included, from Moholy-Nagy to Lerski to Renger-Patzsch. I particularly liked Lerski's self-portrait in the eye of his subject. There was also a group of photographs of and by Magritte.

The Kickens told me that they sold vintage works by Rudolf Koppitz (Movement Study), Man Ray, Drtikol, Becher (Typology of Water Towers), Renger-Patzsch and the Bauhaus School, but very little contemporary work this time (although they did sell pieces by Goetz Diergarten and Hans-Christian Schink). The focus of collectors here seemed to be on safer vintage masterworks.

As Daiter mentioned and the Kickens reiterated, "There were almost no American collectors (we did sell pieces that were exhibited at Basel after the fair to one American collector, however)." They also noted that buyers were slower to make decisions and were taking their time in doing so. "It was a good, serious, quiet atmosphere. The European market seems strong for good works; however, we did not do a show in the U.S. since Art Basel Miami last December, so it is hard for us to judge the current situation in the U.S. and compare."

The Kickens noted that they still had some great pieces still available from the show, including Otto Steinert "Black Nude" (120,000 euro); Bauhaus vintage prints, such as Peterhans' "Karfreitagszauber" (60,000 euro); Erwin Blumenfeld, "The Dictator" and "The Hitlerfresse"; and Frederick Sommer, "Arizona Landscape", circa 1945 (provenance: gift of the artist to Nancy and Beaumont Newhall, 46,000 euro).

The Kickens also pointed out that you can see these and their other Bauhaus works that they showed in Basel in their current exhibition "Happy Birthday Bauhaus!" currently on view until the end of the year at the gallery and on their website at http://www.kicken-gallery.com/ .

New Yorker Edwynn Houk and I stopped to chat about the state of collecting. He too agreed that the Europeans seemed more serious at this point about buying. He showed two of the popular Robert Polidori's Versailles images, including "Galerie de Pierre, Chateau de Versailles". Of course, Edwynn also brought numerous classic photographs from Man Ray, Cartier-Bresson, Kertesz and Brassai. A couple of the Brassai and Kertesz images were real knockouts.

Bruce Silverstein, another New York City gallerist, had some great Aaron Siskind prints and other traditional photographs on display, but what really caught your eye were the large-scale images by Shinichi Maruyama--what the artist calls "paintings in the sky". These works record the artist taking a pail full of black ink and swishing it up into the air, while at the same time recording this action. The results, which he calls "Kusho", are fascinating.

I stopped by to say hello to Kasper Fleischmann and Claudia Coellen Helbling at Galerie Zur Stockeregg's booth. The walls were loaded up with major vintage work, including a Pierre Dubreuil of Venice, a Brett Weston of a Steam Locomotive, an oversized Brassai nude, an Avedon of Charlie Chaplin and an 1864 triptych of Dr. John Murray's three-panel panorama paper negative of the Taj Mahal.

Several major photography items sold at the show. Thomas Zander sold a group of 25 unique vintage Lewis Baltz photographs of Maryland for well into six figures. He also sold a grouping of Walker Evan's African Masks. Larry Sultan's "Antioch Creek" was an interesting large-scale color work in the booth that drew interest. Henry Wessel's vintage black and white also had more than a few looks. Zander also had a few Atgets left over from his Atget show that were priced competitively.

Reportedly 303 Gallery sold a large-scale black-and-white photograph by Hans-Peter Feldmann of his own bookshelves for 60,000 euro (nearly $90,000) to Don Marron, the chief executive of Lightyear Capital and a trustee of the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

Frankly I find Feldmann's work, which sometimes combines photography and three-dimension objects, to be simplistic and contrived visual jokes, rather than art that has any emotional power or intelligence. But then that's what I see in much of the contemporary art market of the last ten to 20 years or so: a dumbing down of what we've considered artistically important or even art itself. That may come across as a bit pompous. It's not meant to be. I can enjoy visual puns and jokes, but they don't seem to me to be of the caliber of artistic material that has helped make up our civilization's foundations or belong in serious collections. I realize that much of this is the premise of postmodernism, but I also think that postmodernism is passé and self-negating. But that's a discussion for another time.

I was not the only journalist at this art event. Actually there were 2,800 of us, so why not quote at least one such source. According to The Economist, "Art Basel's buoyancy this year has several causes: the return of fervent collectors who prefer to buy in a down market; the swift reaction of dealers willing to lower their prices to ensure a sale (collectors were in a good mood because '$100,000 means something again'); the perception that art is more solid than some other asset classes; and the keenness of many buyers to divert savings out of their Swiss bank accounts."

The magazine went on to say, "The fair tends to see bigger crowds and higher sales when, as happened this year, it is preceded by the Venice Biennale." On top of the Venice Biennale, the publication pointed to what it termed "the Dogana-effect", or the opening of François Pinault's Punta della Dogana in Venice that acts as a museum for his collection of contemporary art. Pushing the envelope of credibility, The Economist noted that "the building, whose opening was one of the highlights of the Biennale, raised the bar for private museums and many collectors were reassured by the confident display of new masterpieces by artists such as Maurizio Cattelan, Mike Kelley and Cindy Sherman." Ah, journalists.

 

I took the train from Mulhouse to Strasbourg and picked up a high-speed TGV train from there to Paris, and got back in time to meet my friend Stacy Waldman, who had flown into Paris to go with me to the Bièvres photo fair, the largest open air market for cameras and photography in the world. I've been going for about the last decade.

The fair, basically a huge flea market devoted to photography, is about 25 kilometers southwest of Paris, or about a half hour by car or taxi. You can also get there by train via the RER C or B, but consult the maps carefully. You may have to transfer and on Sunday the trains don't run quite so frequently. The fair is usually held the first full weekend in June, but this year was postponed by a week due to the European elections.

The next morning we took the metro and then went by taxi with Serge Plantureux and group. At Bièvres we all split up agreeing to meet up later for lunch. I got to visit with lots of my European dealer friends from Belgium, Germany, France and the U.K.

Finally around 1:30 p.m., our lunch group all met at the roundabout at the front entrance to the park. After a five minute walk, we took our lunch break at Auberge Le Bretois, which is the only decent restaurant that I have ever found in this little town. It is off a quiet side street, rue de l'Eglise, and its sunny terrace overlooks the entire valley floor below. The food is excellent and a far cry from the normal Bièvres' fare of burnt sausage on a roll with a bottle of water. It's also calm and quiet and has nice, friendly service--something you do not find on Bièvres' main thoroughfare that fronts the edge of the park where the fair is held.

Later in the afternoon, we grabbed a ride back to the Champs-Élysées area with dealer Bruno Tartarin.

On Sunday we did it all over again, but this time Stacy and I went directly by taxi and only stayed through the morning, and returned again with Bruno. Getting back from Bièvres, we decided to go on to the Musée d'Orsay.

The d'Orsay, for those of you not familiar with this wonderful museum, was originally a turn-of-the-century train station built along the Seine opposite the Louvre. The train station had been abandoned by 1961, when it was saved from demolition by the French president Georges Pompidou. In 1978 French president Giscard d'Estaing decided to use the Gare d'Orsay as a museum for 19th- and 20th-century art. Restoration started in 1979 and at the end of 1986 it was finally inaugurated by the French president, François Mitterrand. The museum has on exhibit 2,300 paintings, 1,500 sculptures and over a thousand other objects in its huge, light-filled space. The art here covers a period from mid-19th until mid-20th century.

While we sampled a good portion of that art, I particularly wanted to see an exhibit entitled, "See Italy and Die. Photography and Painting in 19th-Century Italy", which unfortunately ended on July 17th.

The exhibition included a stunning group of early Italian photographs and a lot of mediocre--for the most part--paintings. The photographs were drawn from several important international collections--both private and institutional; and many of the images were very familiar to me. From Ken and Jenny Jacobson's group of John Ruskin Venetian daguerreotypes to Paula and Robert Hershkowitz's calotypes to collectors Thomas Walther's, Robert J. Hennessey's and Bruce Lundberg's many stunning prints to the d'Orsay's and Westlicht Museum's own gems, this photographic collection was a rare, educational and charming experience.

My friend Dietmar Siegert had also consulted on the show and the d'Orsay's curators had drawn many excellent images from his collection as well, although several appeared to be incorrectly identified by process and attribution. I am not sure where the misinformation derived. Otherwise, I can highly recommend the catalogue from the show.

We ran around Paris for the last couple of days trying to tie up deals, preview auctions and see friends before leaving finally for Charles de Gaulle airport and home.

 

Villa Grisebach's spring photography auction in Berlin totaled a respectable 370,000 euro--about $525,000 (including buyer's premium), just under its total low estimate of 398,000 euro. The auction sold 93% by euro amount and nearly 73% by lot--an excellent percentage compared to most recent auctions. The prices below include buyer's premium. The euro was about $1.42 at the time.

Bern and Hiller Becher's Manchester Gas Storage Unit (lot 1216) sold for above its estimate at 5,950 euro.

Alfred Eisenstaedt's Marilyn Monroe (lot 1231) easily surpassed its estimate (8,000 euro) and sold for a stunning 24,395 euro. Lot 1249, Horst's "Odalisque Sitting", a variant image in an 18-5/8 x 15-1/8 inch platinum-palladium print, sold well over its low estimate of 6,000 euro at 11,900 euro.

Selling just below their estimates were lot 1276, Arnold Newman's "Igor Stravinsky", at 5,950 euro, lot 1277, Arnold Newman's Portfolio: Portraits, at 16,660 euro, and lot 1260, Irving Penn's "New Guinea Man and Sitting Woman" in a platinum print, at 10,115 euro.

A stunning modernist nude by Albert Rudomine (lot 1304) sold for just a hair under 5,000 euro.

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe's models for two glass skyscrapers were the main focus of the auction. The four photos of these iconic architecture projects exceeded their total estimates (18,500 euro) and sold for 76,398 euro, including buyers' premiums.

Pamela Hanson's "Carla Bruni in Bed" (lot 1369) also soared above its estimate (2,500 euro) and sold to a private collection in South America for 13,090 euro. Lots of interest in France's first lady.

Axel Hutte's large color photograph of "Berlin, Schillingbrucke" (lot 1372) sold well over its estimate range at 16,065 euro.

Sebastiao Salgado's photographs, "Brazil, Serra Pelada Goldmine" (lot 1382) and "Antarctica" (lot 1383), sold well above their estimates at 6,545 and 5,950 euro respectively.

The last sold lot of the sale (1390), Frank Thiel's "Stadt 2/12, (Berlin)", fell just short of its low estimate at 5,355 euro.

Bernd Schultz, CEO of Villa Grisebach, called it "a very promising start to our spring auctions."

 

ON CURRENT EXHIBIT

ARTHUR TRESS

Arthur Tress has four of his images from his Tao of Physics series in the exhibition currently at the de Young Museum of Fine Arts of San Francisco. The show is entitled "Towards Abstraction: Photographs and Photograms" and runs until November 15th. The de Young can be found in Golden Gate Park at 50 Hagiwara Tea Garden Drive. Just as abstraction has played a vital role in the history of modernist painting and sculpture, so too has it found expression in works by leading photographers of the 20th and 21st centuries. "Toward Abstraction" also features the work of Edward Weston, Arthur Siegel, Harry Callahan, Lee Friedlander, Imogen Cunningham, and Robert Mapplethorpe.

Tress also has 13 of his photographs in "Reality Revisited: Photography from the Moderna Museet Collection". This exhibition, presented in Stockholm at Sweden's top contemporary art museum until September 20th, focuses on a cross-section of work from the 1970s and discusses how photography relates to questions of form and content, subjectivity and objectivity, art and politics. In addition to photographs by Tress, work by Larry Clark, Ralph Gibson, Irina Ionesco, Duane Michals, Melissa Shook and others will be shown. The exhibition will also present work by Swedish photographers Eva Klasson, Anders Petersen and Christer Strömholm. For more information on the exhibit, click here: http://www.modernamuseet.se/v4/templates/template6.asp?lang=Eng&id=1745 .


LISA HOLDEN

Lisa Holden has her work included in an exhibition called, "Change", which is being held from August 8-September 5 in conjunction with the Edinburgh Art Festival. A private preview will be held on August 7th at 7 pm. The show will be at Art's Complex, St. Margaret's House, 151 London Road, Edinburgh, and will be open to the public from 11 am-5 pm. The exhibition will feature 20 young international artists, who have created work on one theme: "Change"--combining multiple disciplines, such as drawing, photography, painting, sculpture, mixed media, installation, illustration, animation and textile design. The exhibition will show a wide range of international contemporary art. "Change" is collaborative project between the Berlin-based group Nekojuice and Edinburgh's Perennial Art.


NEW BOOKS/PUBLICATIONS

MICHAEL PHILIP MANHEIM

Michael Philip Manheim has published a new book of his vintage work, which is entitled "See-Saw". We are selling a limited hardbound edition with 6 x 9 inch color chromogenic print. This version is signed and editioned, and will be limited to 50 copies. Price is $400. A limited (to 100 copies) hardbound edition that is signed but without print is available for $85. Softbound copies are available for $45 each.


ARTHUR TRESS

Arthur Tress has four new blurb books, which we can offer our readers. As with his other blurb books, they will each be offered in a signed hardbound version limited to an edition of 100. There will also be a special deluxe edition of 50 copies with a small, signed and editioned ink jet print with each numbered and signed book. If you would like to preview the Tress books, you can go to http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/387309#author-bookshelf . You can also order the standard unsigned copies directly from blurb.

For "Wheels on Waves" (40 pages in black and white) the price of the signed limited edition hardbound is $85 and the deluxe copy with print is $200.

For "Parallax/Barcelona" (76 pages in black and white) the price of the signed limited edition hardbound is $85 and the deluxe copy with print is $200.

For "The Ramble 1968" (36 pages in black and white) the price of the signed limited edition hardbound is $80 and the deluxe copy with print is $200.

For "The Splat Zone" (80 pages in color and in black and white) the price of the signed limited edition hardbound is $85 and the deluxe copy with print is $200.


 

By Matt Damsker

BEING IN PICTURES: AN INTIMATE PHOTO
MEMOIR. BY JOANNE LEONARD.
Forward by Lucy R. Lippard. University of Michigan Press. 252 pages; approximately 200 plates, including black-and-white photographs and color collages. ISBN No. 978-0-472-11402-3. Clothbound, $35. Information: http://www.press.umich.edu .

Turning personal experience into art is never easily accomplished, nor should it be. The line between what matters to us as individuals and what resonates universally--or at least a fair distance beyond our own parameters--is hard to cross, and so the autobiographical is often, and rightly, challenged as self-indulgent, steeped in sentiment and failing to provide the emotional distance that would allow an outsider to join and build on the experience. Everything from the poems of Robert Lowell or Sylvia Plath, to Neil Young's "Tonight's the Night, " to the dog photography of William Wegman can be argued to matter more to the artist than they ever can to the detached observer, and yet there's no denying that deeply personal subject matter can strike public chords and endure.

As this volume argues, Joanne Leonard's four decades of photography and collage is a strong example of just that. Though built from the honest and often painful detailing of her experiences, Leonard's art convincingly stands in for the challenged journey of modern womanhood, what Lucy Lippard calls in her introduction to this handsome volume, "a feminist story par excellence, and its guardian angel is the spirit of collage, which hovers over so much art by women." Indeed, Lippard cites Leonard's 1973 "miscarriage collages, though still not well enough known, [as] a feminist landmark."

There's no question that Leonard's project is an artistry of accretion, as her photography--sturdy, unpretentious black-and-white portraiture of family, friends, and domestic totems of the 1960s--moves outward, past her social documentation of Oakland, California's black population, and then ever more inward, toward images and collages that struggle with representational beauty, dark symbol and abstraction, and pure celebration.

Thus, Leonard's polemicized images of a nude, sleeping ex-husband--sculptor Bruce Beasley--observe a male reality that might be interpreted as dead to female/feminist stirrings, while the graphic bloodlettings and cruel symbolic penetrations of the miscarriage collages are powerfully intimate and palpably painful, yet light-handed enough, in their manipulation of image and relieving white space, to draw in and somehow even charm the viewer.

As Leonard's journey progresses through single motherhood, embodied in her photo-chronicle of her daughter, Julia, from infancy to young adulthood, to witnessing the death of her mother from Alzheimer's disease and her father from cancer, her collages are steeped in cosmic wrenchings and questionings. Ultimately, Leonard's collages become the signature of female experience--shards of feeling, thought, life objects, dream states, and indomitable will, all pulled across the canvas in a scrawl that challenges our view, our voyeurism, and our own sense of self.


EDWARD HOPPER & COMPANY.
Published on the occasion of the exhibition of the same name at the Fraenkel Gallery, 49 Geary St., San Francisco, California 94108, which ended May 2, 2009. Introduction by Jeffrey Fraenkel. Hardbound; 60 pages, 54 color plates. ISBN No. 978-1-881337-26-3. Information: http://www.fraenkelgallery.com .

The bleak realism of Edward Hopper's painting has long begged such an exhibition as the Fraenkel Gallery's inspired assemblage of photography by eight greats--Robert Adams, Diane Arbus, Harry Callahan, William Eggleston, Walker Evans, Robert Frank, Lee Friedlander, and Stephen Shore--along with several borrowed examples of Hopper's own work. The result, as chronicled in this accompanying catalogue, beautifully reveals the guiding spirit of Hopper's modernism on several generations of photographers.

As Jeffrey Fraenkel's introduction notes, quoting the writer Geoff Dyer, "[Hopper] could claim to be the most influential American photographer of the twentieth century--even though he didn't take any photographs." Indeed, it's hard to deny that Hopper's concerns, which included a focus on the quotidian, a sensitivity to psychological states bred from isolation, and a passion for the humbler manifestations of America's architecture, landscape, and colors, have been forcefully echoed and built upon in the art photography that paralleled and follows from Hopper's art.

In 1936, for example, Walker Evans was noticing the simple, weathered grace of deserted storefronts and a rural post office in Alabama not long after Hopper began to establish his mastery with paintings that expressed similarly unpeopled vistas and squat geometries ("Wellfleet Road," from 1931). And yet by the 1970s, long after Hopper's day, his desolate streetscapes, somber hues and predilection for raking sunlight are alive in the breakthrough color photographs of William Eggleston and Stephen Shore.

Importantly, these artists aren't so much imitating Hopper as they are affirming the relevance of Hopper's vision. He saw through the artificiality and grandiosity of 20th-century America to its lonely, often Puritan core, and so the photography that likewise haunts us to this day picks up where Hopper left off, as in the pop-cultural recognitions of Lee Friedlander, who sights a Coca-Cola sign through a dark apartment or else notes the walls between people in his complex rhapsodies of shop window reflections and urban comings and goings. And Diane Arbus's 1962 immortalization of a woman smoking at a luncheonette counter in New York City owes a lot, ungrudgingly, to Hopper's classic "Nighthawks."


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.)

 

Julius Shulman, one of the most renowned architectural photographers, died July 15th at his home in Los Angeles. He was 98. Part of a postwar generation of commercial photographers, Shulman specialized in modernist buildings and homes. Besides his work for architects, Shulman often worked on assignment for magazines, such as Life, House & Garden, Arts & Architecture, Architectural Forum and Good Housekeeping.

In 2005 the Getty Research Institute acquired his archive of more than a quarter-million prints, negatives and transparencies. The Getty then held a 2005–2006 exhibition of Shulman's prints entitled "Julius Shulman, Modernity and the Metropolis". The exhibition included sections entitled "Framing the California Lifestyle," "Promoting the Power of Modern Architecture," "The Tools of an Innovator," and "The Development of a Metropolis". The exhibition traveled to the National Building Museum and to the Art Institute of Chicago

In 2001 he and fellow photographer and business partner, Juergen Nogai, collaborated on "Malibu: A Century of Living by the Sea" (Harry N. Abrams, 2005). Other books on his work included: "Vest Pocket Pictures," a collection of Shulman's early amateur photographs; "Julius Shulman: Architecture and Its Photography"; "Photographing Architecture and Interiors"; "L.A. Lost and Found: An Architectural History of Los Angeles"; and "Modernism Rediscovered".

 

Thomas & Associates, Inc. is seeking a Photography Specialist for its internationally known auction house client. The successful candidate will act as a primary business-getter for the department, with a focus on high-value property and developing long-term client relationships. Detailed knowledge of the international art market, a developed client list and strong general knowledge of photography with an emphasis on contemporary work is essential. The ideal applicant will have a B.A. in Art History or related discipline, M.A. preferred; a minimum of five years senior-level experience in an art gallery or auction house; exceptional communications, interpersonal and organizational skills essential. This is a position for a dedicated, career-oriented professional. Some travel required. Salary DOE and excellent benefits. Please send a resume, detailed cover letter and the names of three references to recruiters@artstaffing.com .