E-Photo
Issue #158  3/15/2009
 
Four I Photo Central Member Dealers to Show Key Work At AIPAD Next Week

By Alex Novak

Four of I Photo Central's members--Contemporary Works/Vintage Works, Andrew Smith Gallery, Charles Schwartz, Ltd., and Serge Plantureux--are also members of the Association of International Photography Art Dealers (AIPAD) and will be exhibiting at the AIPAD Photography Show New York, March 25-29 at the Park Avenue Armory at Park Avenue and 67th Street in New York City.

CONTEMPORARY WORKS/VINTAGE WORKS

Contemporary Works/Vintage Works will be exhibiting in booth 221 at the center back portion of the hall near the Café. Contemporary work by artists Lisa Holden and Jerry Spagnoli will be featured, including four large-scale color images from Holden's newest series, "Lilith" and Spagnoli's latest images of the Obama Inauguration. Both Holden and Spagnoli will attend the AIPAD show and will be available to the public. Holden's newest piece, "Lamia, Desert (Lilith Series)", is a part of AIPAD new Innovations Program. Spagnoli became the first daguerreotypist to photograph a presidential inauguration with the help of the Smithsonian, which will receive one of the full-plate daguerreotypes of President Obama's swearing-in ceremony. His work on display at our booth will range from some of the actual daguerreotypes to a pigment print, limited edition version of one of the key daguerreotypes to a large scale color work that was done at the same time showing President Obama waving to the crowds. In conjunction with Spagnoli's work, we will also display a salt print from the very first inauguration to have been photographed: President James Buchanan's 1857 swearing in. Only four such images are known to exist, including this one. Buchanan was considered to be a pro-slavery President, and so the work on the wall will complete an interesting cycle from U.S. history. Lisa Holden and Jerry Spagnoli will be available to sign their books/catalogues on Friday afternoon from 2 pm to 4 pm.

In addition, Contemporary Works/Vintage Works will display a group of Robert Mapplethorpe's black and white photographs, as well as a group of Arthur Tress's newest series, the Pointers. We will also have Tress's classic black and white work from the late 1960s and 70s on hand. The artist himself will be attending the show on Thursday, March 26th and Sunday, March 29th. Arthur Tress and Jerry Spagnoli will all be available to sign their books/catalogues on Sunday afternoon from 2 pm to 4 pm.

Contemporary Works/Vintage Works also represents Mitch Dobrowner, Claudia Kunin, Michael Philip Manheim, Stanko Abadzic, Vladimir Birgus, Charlie Schreiner, Joel D. Levinson and Krzysztof Pruszkowski, and will have samples of their work at the show.

From the 20th-century vintage material, the firm will show key work by André Kertész, Édouard Boubat, Horst, Robert Frank, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Aaron Siskind, Harry Callahan, Edward Steichen, Irving Penn, Francois Kollar, Jacques-Henri Lartigue, Dorothea Lange, Lee Friedlander, Barbara Morgan, Clarence John Laughlin, Ilse Bing, Brassai, Edward Weston, Frantisek Drtikol, Josef Sudek, Helen Levitt, Raoul Ubac, Ruth Bernhard, Arnold Newman, Carl Mydans, Brett Weston, Robert Doisneau, Willy Ronis, Eugene Atget and Ralph Meatyard.

And, finally, Contemporary Works/Vintage Works will also have on hand some wonderful 19th-century material (Le Gray, Fenton, Bisson Freres, Baldus, Marville, Southworth & Hawes--a trio of very important portraits, De Launay, Negre, Teynard, De Clercq, Fortier, Richebourg, Frith, Disderi, Clifford, Salzmann, etc.), so please be sure to ask us about it.

To see the top picks from the inventory of Contemporary Works/Vintage Works just go to: http://www.iphotocentral.com/search/result_list.php/128/1/0 .

ANDREW SMITH GALLERY

For AIPAD 2009, Andrew Smith Gallery of Santa Fe, NM, will present a retrospective of work by Paul Caponigro in booth 408. Long recognized for his classical landscapes and still life photographs the special one-man show will also include a new series of silver gelatin print "Aluminum Studies." With a career spanning nearly 60 years, Paul Caponigro is internationally regarded as one of the greatest photographers of our time, Andrew Smith Gallery will exhibit Caponigro's classic and recent photographs, as well as never before printed photographs, dating back to the 1950s. This is one of the few times that Caponigro has been willing to exhibit his vintage photographs. Caponigro will also be present to meet the public at the Andrew Smith Gallery booth during the show.

Paul Caponigro was born in Boston in 1932. He was already working as a photographer when he first traveled to the western United States in 1953 as a soldier during the Korean War. In the early 1950s, during his army tour of duty in San Francisco, he met and studied with teachers and students of the West Coast School of Photography, including Minor White. During these years his photographs appeared in Aperture magazine and were exhibited at the George Eastman House. In 1966 Caponigro was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship, which enabled him to travel to Ireland where began his lifelong interest photographing megalithic sites. In 1976 he made his classic photograph of running white deer titled, "County Wicklow, Ireland [Running White Deer]".

Paul Caponigro has devoted his life to exploring the natural world and architectural forms from antiquity. His vision has roots in Paul Strand's response to the purity of forms, and in the metaphysical/metaphorical tradition of Minor White. But Caponigro primarily seeks inspiration in nature and natural forms. His printing reflects a heightened sensitivity toward gray and black tonalities. Beyond the simple directness of his compositions and his attention to details, Caponigro's photographs convey deeper meanings. Whether the subject is a landscape, a solitary apple, a ring of standing stones, or a simple piece of aluminum foil, his photographs invoke the promise of growth and regeneration mingled with timelessness.

To view Andrew Smith's photographs on I Photo Central, click on the following: http://www.iphotocentral.com/search/result_list.php/64/14/0 .

CHARLES SCHWARTZ, LTD.

Charles Schwartz Ltd. will be exhibiting at AIPAD in booth #317. Among the booth highlights is an exceedingly rare vintage print of W. Eugene Smith's most iconic photograph, "The Walk to Paradise Garden", made from the original negative (most prints of this were actually made from a later copy negative). This is a vintage exhibition print that bears Smith's Croton-On-Hudson stamp on verso. Charles Schwartz Ltd. will also be featuring rare African American photographs, including a stunning daguerreotype of a Slave Nurse and Child.

The company will also show a strong collection of 20th-century Japanese photography, 19-century Japanese ambrotypes, plus a few rare Japanese woodblock prints relating to early photography there. Schwartz will also show an unusual albumen print of Muybridge's "Horse in Motion".

To see all of Charles Schwartz's photographs, click on the following: http://www.cs-photo.com/search/result_list.php/0/0 .

SERGE PLANTUREUX

Serge Plantureux, who has just joined I Photo Central and whose company is based in Paris, will be exhibiting in booth 312. Plantureux will bring to the fair a group of 720 photographs, from daguerreotypes to vintage prints by Henri Cartier-Bresson.

One of the featured 19th-century pieces in Plantureux's booth will be a half-plate daguerreotype self-portrait of Daguerre's assistant, Pierre Ambroise Richebourg. This is one of the very first photographic self portraits, along with Hippolyte Bayard's and Samuel Morse's well-known self-portraits. This self-portrait, which required seven minutes to take, was made in Paris on Thursday, July 1, 1841. The provenance is fellow photographer Fortuné-Joseph Petiot-Groffier (1788-1855), who had asked Richebourg to teach him the technique before making a summer trip to India (August 1841). Other important daguerreotypes will include "Sainte Famille" by Fortuné Petiot-Groffier, and several by Pancrace Bessa.

Plantureux will also exhibit salt prints and early albumen prints from such important artists as Gustave Le Gray, the Bisson Freres, Henri Le Secq, Emile Peccarrère, Charles Nègre, Louis Robert, F. A. Renard, Charles Marville, Adam Salomon, Edmond Bacot, Charles Clifford, Gustave De Beaucorps and Horatio Ross. Also on exhibit will be 19th-century image of the Middle East by Wilheim Hammerschmidt, Paul de Noailles, Robert Murray, Anton Schranz and Maxime du Camp. In addition, Plantureux will have early work by Paul Cardon, Eugène Atget and Loewy & Puiseux.

Twentieth-century artists will also be available, including work by Henri Cartier-Bresson, Edouard Boubat, Brassaï, André Kertész, Pasquale de Antonis, Mario Giacomelli, Karl Struss, Dr. Mehemed Fehmy Agha and Wright Morris. Some Czech and Russian artists on exhibit include: Alexandre Rodtchenko, Evguéni Yavno, Vladimir Vassiliévitch Lébédev, Boris Smelov, Boris Koudryakov, Anatoly Serguéievitch Shishkov, Léonid Bogdanov and Jan Svoboda.

To see a smaller selection of Serge Plantureux's photographs on the I Photo Central website, click on the following: http://www.iphotocentral.com/search/result_list.php/64/15/0 .

Of course you can preview many of these images on the I Photo Central website at http://www.iphotocentral.com .

Novak has over 47 years experience in the photography-collecting arena. He is a long-time member and formally board member of the Daguerreian Society, and, when it was still functioning, he was a member of the American Photographic Historical Society (APHS). He organized the 2016 19th-century Photography Show and Conference for the Daguerreian Society. He is also a long-time member of the Association of International Photography Art Dealers, or AIPAD. Novak has been a member of the board of the nonprofit Photo Review, which publishes both the Photo Review and the Photograph Collector, and is currently on the Photo Review's advisory board. He was a founding member of the Getty Museum Photography Council. He is author of French 19th-Century Master Photographers: Life into Art.

Novak has had photography articles and columns published in several newspapers, the American Photographic Historical Society newsletter, the Photograph Collector and the Daguerreian Society newsletter. He writes and publishes the E-Photo Newsletter, the largest circulation newsletter in the field. Novak is also president and owner of Contemporary Works/Vintage Works, a private photography dealer, which sells by appointment and has sold at exhibit shows, such as AIPAD New York and Miami, Art Chicago, Classic Photography LA, Photo LA, Paris Photo, The 19th-century Photography Show, Art Miami, etc.