The Big Three

Stieglitz, Steichen, Strand
Masterworks from the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Malcolm Daniel
Metropolitan Museum of Art
Yale University Press (2010)

This is the companion publication to the current exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. (Stieglitz, Steichen, Strand runs through April 10, 2011). The book contains all of the plates from the exhibit and a well written essay by Malcolm Daniel, curator in charge of photographs for the museum.
While this book is beautifully printed with high quality image reproductions, it confirms for me the most resonating aspect of the exhibit, and that is the pictorial nature of Steichen's work. The work of Stieglitz and Strand can for the most part be fully appreciated in a high quality book. It is always best to see an actual print on the wall, but I don't believe the difference in visual appreciation is anywhere near as great for Stieglitz and Strand as it is for Steichen. I had never seen actual prints of Steichen's work before I went to this exhibit, and they blew me away. It was as if I was seeing his work for the very first time, and yet I had seen it in books many times.

The images involving Rodin are remarkable. Steichen visited Rodin's studio every weekend for a year before he asked to take portraits of the artist. The images Steichen made of Rodin's Balzac sculpture in the moonlight, using exposure times ranging from fifteen minutes to one hour are superb beyond words, and the image Rodin, Le Penseur is as close to a renaissance painting as a photograph can get.


Edward Steichen. Rodin,Le Penseur.(1902)


There are three versions of The Flatiron Building in the exhibit, hung side by side in a commanding display. They are each slightly different in color toning, and were printed in 1904, 1905, and 1909. Again, I have seen this image in books dozens of times, but realize now that I have never truly seen it.

Edward Steichen.The Flatiron Building, (1905)

The works in this exhibit are all from the Met’s own collection, which began with a gift of photographs from Stieglitz in 1928. Stieglitz considered the acceptance of his gift by the museum’s board of trustees to be nothing short of miraculous in opening “its sacred halls to Photography”, and this exhibit provides a look at the building blocks of photography’s now accepted place among traditional fine art institutions. Masterpieces from each photographer are shown in separate galleries, with works spanning from Stieglitz’s 1893 Winter, Fifth Avenue to a portrait of Stieglitz taken by Strand in 1939. The exhibit clearly separates the distinct style and professional careers of each photographer, and at the same time tells the interwoven story that connects them.

The Philadelphia Museum of Art has acquired, through several gifts and a purchase agreement with the Aperture Foundation, the core collection of photographs by Paul Strand, one of the preeminent photographers of the twentieth century.

Full story here

Wall Street. Paul Strand 1915


The Platinum Process
Philadelphia Museum of Art
Feb 27th - May 23rd, 2010

From the PMA press release...

A cornerstone of photographic practice during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the platinum print is revered by photographers and viewers alike as one of the most beautiful forms of photography, with subtle and lustrous shades that range from the deepest blacks to the most delicate whites. The Philadelphia Museum of Art will present an exhibition of 75 works from the late 19th century to the present, showcasing outstanding prints largely drawn from the Museum’s collection of photographs. The Platinum Process: Photographs from the Nineteenth to the Twenty-First Century, on view February 27 – May 23 in the Julien Levy Gallery at the Museum’s Perelman Building, will include images by early masters of the process including Frederick H. Evans (British, 1853-1943) and Alfred Stieglitz (American, 1864-1946), as well as works by skilled contemporary practitioners such as Lois Conner (American, born 1951) and Andrea Modica (American, born 1960), who continue to engage in this historic and painstaking process in an era noted for electronic imaging.

“The exhibition offers an opportunity to share this exceptionally beautiful form of photography with our visitors, some of whom may be seeing it for the first time,” Curator of Photographs Peter Barberie said, adding “the Museum is fortunate to have a particularly strong and varied collection of work by some of the truly great practitioners of this process.”

Unlike standard silver printing, in which particles are suspended in gelatin, platinum is brushed directly onto the paper, allowing artists to create a matte image with an exceptionally wide tonal range. Introduced in 1873, the process was enthusiastically embraced by the group of photographers known as the Pictorialists, who believed that fine art photography should emulate the aesthetic values of painting. The group included Evans, whose beautifully rendered images of Britain’s Westminster Abbey, York Minster Abbey and Ely Cathedral are included in the exhibition, and Stieglitz (American, 1876-1946), who is represented in the show by a portrait of his wife, the artist Georgia O’Keefe (American, 1887-1986), as well as a landscape that foreshadows his Equivalents series.

While encompassing works spanning many dates and styles, The Platinum Process highlights one of the Museum's treasures, the 1915 masterpiece “Wall Street” by Paul Strand (1890-1976), whose work was at the forefront of the modernist aesthetic developing in New York during the early 20th century. Strand used the subtlety of the platinum print in this work to emphasize abstract patterns in the long shadows cast by figures that walk before a succession of monumental windows.

Reserves of platinum were appropriated for military use during World War I, and its high cost led manufacturers to cease production of commercial platinum paper by the 1930s. As photographers became more engaged in social concerns, documentation and realism, the process fell into disuse. It was not until the early 1960s when Irving Penn, then a successful photographer for Vogue magazine, began to experiment with the long-forgotten technique and took the first steps toward its revival. A meticulous craftsman, Penn was delighted by the luminous prints and lavish tonal range he could achieve using platinum and began to make new photographs with this process in the 1970s. Penn and many of the other contemporary artists on view including Thomas Shillea and Jennette Williams followed Strand's example, using platinum not for idealized pictures, but to capture nuances of modern experience.


Image Credit: Wall Street (1915), by Paul Strand (American, 1890 – 1976). Photograph taken in New York, New York, United States. Platinum print, 9 15/16 x 12 5/8 inches. The Paul Strand Retrospective Collection, 1915-1975, gift of the estate of Paul Strand, 1980. Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Walking New York City. 2009


Back in May I posted some gallery exhibits I wanted to see in New York...

Gallery Picks

Last weekend I spent the day with my friends Randall and Lisa walking all over the city and we were lucky enough to hit just about everything on our list. I walked around that day with only my Olympus OM-1 and some Kodak 125 Plus-X film. I am in love with the results I got and am determined to continue using lot's of that wonderful Plus-X film for the rest of the summer. I want to have plenty of negatives to work with when I get back in the darkroom in the Fall.

First stop was ICP to check out the Avedon show I had read so much about. I was pretty sure this would be an excellent exhibit, but I still held onto a general skepticism about it being just fashion photography. How wrong I was! This show is memorizing. Avedon was a master at his craft and the images are just captivating. The gallery room Paris at Night is one of the most beautiful gallery displays I have ever seen, and really shows off the genius of Avedon's work. Do not miss this show if you go to New York.

dovima with elephants. richard avedon


International Center of Photography
1133 Avenue of the Americas at 43rd Street
New York, NY 10036

Avedon Fashion @ ICP




Next we headed down to Chelsea and caught a really great mix of exhibits.

Chuck Close at Pace Wildenstein Gallery was a display of eye popping tapestry work. This gallery, with it's incredible natural light and dramatic high ceilings, was the perfect venue for the amazing work being shown.

Chuck Close Tapestry




Andrew Bush's Vector Portraits at Yossi Milo Gallery is a really fun exhibit of medium format images shot from a moving vehicle of other drivers on California Freeways. The images are gorgeous and have an ethereal quality to them. They appear completely staged, and yet they are shot at high speed from the freeway.

Andrew Bush. Vector Portraits

Yossi Milo Gallery



We weren't at all impressed with The Edge of Vision: Abstraction in
Contemporary Photography at Aperture Gallery. It is a group show with little cohesion and nothing new to offer.
But there is a wonderful display of Paul Strand's work in the library room, a gorgeous space with a wonderful view of old Chelsea buildings. I could spend an entire day just sitting in the comfy chairs at Aperture Gallery reading the thousands of books from the shelves. The only thing missing here is a coffee bar.

View from Aperture Gallery Library

Aperture Gallery


The highlight of the day was Urban Stonehenge at Deborah Bell Gallery. Stunning group of black & white photographs of sunsets in New York all taken at precise moments at the summer solstice over a 20 year time span. The photographer, Sid Kaplan, happened to be in the gallery while we were there. One of those fantastic moments when you have undivided conversation with an artistic genius and walk away so grateful to have had the opportunity. Kaplan took the time to carefully explain how he crafted the images in this show, as well as discussed other projects he has worked on over a long brilliant career, including Mummer photography in Philadelphia. He promised to call me the next time he is in Philly for a Mummer's Parade. I can't imagine a more fascinating day than one spent with Sid Kaplan on New Years Day in South Philly.

It also must be said that another reason this was the highlight of the day for me is Deborah Bell herself. I have mentioned this before on this blog, but it is worth repeating. In so many galleries, when you walk in, the staff is sitting behind large imposing counters and they barely acknowledge your presence. Deborah Bell goes out of her way to welcome you and there is no doubt that she is delighted that you are visiting her gallery. This is the most visitor friendly gallery in New York City!

deborah bell photographs


sid kaplan. by howard christopherson

here is a nice bio on Sid Kaplan from Icebox Gallery in Minnesota...

Sid Kaplan was born in the South Bronx of New York City in 1938. At the age of ten, he saw a black and white print develop in a darkroom. The experience hypnotized him and he began his life-long career of photographing and printing. Kaplan loves the hunt and the search for meaning that only street photography allows, and he is equally enamored with what he calls "the magic" of making a black and white print.

This exhibit has no particular theme, nor is it a retrospective. Instead, it is an eclectic mix of color and black and white prints created over several decades in New York City, Philadelphia, Minneapolis, and on the roads of America. The exhibit includes a variety of framed images along with several stereo pieces photographed in three dimensions. Kaplan refers to these as Œstereopticon experiments‚ because of the way they are made.

In 1952, Sid Kaplan began his only formal education in photography at The School of Industrial Arts, a NYC vocational high school. At the same time he was going to meetings at the Village Camera Club, which served as a refuge for members of the recently defunct Photo League. His first showing of his photography was there. At one of the photography trade shows he met Weegee for the first time and through fate, they would be running into each other till he died in 1968. After graduation, Sid began his career working in the photography industry. Kaplan paid his dues working at many dead end minimum wage photography jobs. After 6 years he had gained enough skill to be hired by Compo, a well-known custom lab in NYC. There he printed exhibition and book prints for several Magnum photographers; Philippe Halsman, Robert and Cornell Capa, and Weegee. There Kaplan met Ralph Gibson, who later introduced him to photographer Robert Frank. Kaplan began printing for Robert Frank that day, and still continues that relationship.

Sid Kaplan has told me that the biggest highlight of his career was the day when he took a break from the darkroom with Mr. Frank. The two of them walked to a local bar for a beer when they ran into another photographer who lived next door, W. Eugene Smith. They invited him to join them and they spent the evening together swapping stories and comparing their royalties from the Minamata and The Americans. "This reinforced my feeling that photography was best practiced as a gentleman's hobby like Lartigue or Steiglitz. I never wanted it to become just a job where editors' art directors and deadlines ruled; that would make me crazy and demoralized. Printing other people's work gave me the bucks to pursue my hobby and photograph what I want to without

Kaplan sometimes calls his photographs 'snaps'‚ a slang term from the forties. "If I never take another snap again I will still have more than I can print." Sid says with a smile. Images in the show are of people and places, some are shot from a moving car, resulting in blurred and grainy scenes of the road taken in various parts of the country. Other images included where made during repeated visits over the past twenty five years to a single Mummer's club in Philadelphia. Many places are now reduced to nostalgia and may be only a distant memory to the locals over the age of 60. interference." he says with a bearded grin.

Sid Kaplan: Urban Stonehenge

Icebox Gallery