Like a Whirlwind: The Gender Plays by Marie Høeg & Bolette Berg @ f3 – freiraum für fotografie, Berlin

LIKE A WHIRLWIND 

The Gender Plays by 

Marie Høeg & Bolette Berg

f³ – freiraum für fotografie, Berlin 

June 14 – August 25, 2024 

Berg & Høeg 

In the studio: Marie operating the camera,

Bolette photographing the scene, 1895–1903

© Collection of Preus Museum

Berg & Høeg 

»Water Scene«. Marie Høeg and Bolette Berg

in a rowing boat in the studio, 1895–1903

© Collection of Preus Museum

Berg & Høeg 

Marie Høeg and her brother Karl crossdressing, 1895–1903 

© Collection of Preus Museum

Berg & Høeg, 

Bolette and Marie playing with friends, 1895–1903 

© Collection of Preus Museum

The exhibition LIKE A WHIRLWIND – The Gender Plays by Marie Høeg & Bolette Berg presents unique cross-dressing photographs from the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

The photographers Bolette Berg and Marie Høeg founded the Berg & Høeg photo studio in the southern Norwegian town of Horten in 1894. The couple spent their entire adult lives working and living together. They published their fairly conventional portrait and landscape photographs as postcards. The Norwegians achieved international fame posthumously through their early photographic experiments with gender roles, which are probably rightly regarded as the first such complex photographic examination of the subject of cross-dressing.

When their estate was auctioned off in the 1970s, the Norwegian collector Leif Preus acquired the glass negatives of the two photographers. In addition to photographs of landscapes and reproductions of artworks, there were two boxes labeled "private" showing Marie Høeg, Bolette Berg and their siblings and friends posing in front of the camera. These shots had nothing in common with traditional portrait photography. Playful, humorous and full of joie de vivre, the photographs radically and cheekily question the ideals of femininity of the 19th and early 20th centuries as well as the gender roles of the time. The topicality of the imagery and the visual exploration of the theme, which is comparable to contemporary artistic practice, is astonishing. The two photographers take up stereotypes in a witty and fresh way and transform them into frivolous photographs with the help of props and costumes.

The modern approach of the photographers testifies to their self-confidence and a playful examination of social norms; at the same time, the estate makes it clear that the photographs were only intended for private use during their lifetime, not for the public. The photographic studio was the safe space, where the protagonists of the pictures could present themselves in a self-determined manner.

The Preus Museum, the Norwegian National Museum of Photography, manages the estate of Marie Høeg and Bolette Berg and owns the original glass negatives in its collection. The exhibition at f³ – freiraum für fotografie shows digital reproductions of this unique material, which is on display in Germany for the first time.

f3 – freiraum für fotografie

Waldemarstrasse 17, 10179 Berlin  

www.fhochdrei.org

Early Photographs of African American Life @ National Gallery of Art, Washington with the Acquisition of the Ross J. Kelbaugh Collection

National Gallery of Art Acquires the Ross J. Kelbaugh Collection of 19th- and early 20th-Century American Photographs

Portrait of a Man, c. 1855

American 19th Century

Daguerreotype with applied color

Image (visible): 7 x 5.7 cm (2 3/4 x 2 1/4 in.)

Mat: 8 x 7 cm (3 1/8 x 2 3/4 in.)

Case (closed): 9.5 x 8.3 x 1.6 cm (3 3/4 x 3 1/4 x 5/8 in.

National Gallery of Art, Washington

Ross J. Kelbaugh Collection, 

Purchased with support from the Ford Foundation

2023.39.6

The National Gallery of Art has acquired the Ross J. Kelbaugh Collection, one of the most important holdings of 19th- and early 20th-century American vernacular photographs, purchased with support from the Ford Foundation. Formed over 50 years, it includes 248 photographs of and by African Americans made from the 1840s through the early 20th century that provide compelling insights into the forces that have helped shape modern America and the lives of everyday people. The collection will be featured as part of the National Gallery’s commemoration in 2026 of the 250th anniversary of the nation’s founding, presenting an opportunity to reflect on our past as depicted and lived by artists and look to the future.

“The exceptional photographs in the Ross J. Kelbaugh Collection,” said Kaywin Feldman, director of the National Gallery of Art, Washington, “include images by celebrated early Black photographers and powerful depictions of African Americans—some renowned, some unknown—that expand the story of 19th and early 20th century American photographic portraiture.”

“As a young social studies teacher in the Baltimore County public schools some 50 years ago, Ross Kelbaugh recognized that he could use photographs as a springboard for learning in his classroom,” said Sarah Greenough, senior curator and head of the department of photographs at the National Gallery. “He knew that the numerous photographs of African Americans that he discovered as he built his collection—pictures that were largely overlooked by other collectors at the time—could engage his racially diverse students, allowing them to see that everyone’s past, as he has written, ‘is an integral part of this nation’s story of E pluribus unum, out of many, one.’”

“After decades of collecting adventures, I am honored to have this portion of my photographic treasures now join the National Gallery of Art, where they can be studied and appreciated by everyone. These photographers and the people preserved in their photographs can finally become a permanent part of the American memory,” said Ross J. Kelbaugh.

The Kelbaugh collection includes 11 rare photographs by the three most celebrated early Black photographers: James Presley Ball, Glenalvin Goodridge, and Augustus Washington. 

James Presley Ball (1825–1905) was a freeman born in Frederick County, Virginia, who learned photography at an early age. By 24, he had opened Ball’s Great Daguerrean Gallery of the West in Cincinnati, where he became an award-winning artist, internationally celebrated for his portraits of well-known white individuals, such as Jenny Lind, and African Americans, including Frederick Douglass. He also employed the African American painter Robert Seldon Duncanson to hand color and retouch photographs. 

Glenalvin Goodridge (1829–1867) was the son of a formerly enslaved man turned entrepreneur whose home in York, Pennsylvania, was a stop on the Underground Railroad. Goodridge opened a daguerrean studio there in 1847, which prospered until 1862 when he was falsely convicted of a crime and sentenced to five years in prison; he was subsequently pardoned by the governor. 

Augustus Washington (1820/1821–1875), the son of a freeman and an Asian woman, learned how to make daguerreotypes while he was a student at Dartmouth College. He set up a daguerrean studio in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1846 where he photographed both Black and white clients. He ran the studio until 1854, when he emigrated to Liberia to avoid discrimination and enjoy equal rights.

“With their compelling stories, these three men represent important examples of Black entrepreneurship and the struggle for equality and justice in the years before and after Emancipation,” said Diane Waggoner, curator of photographs at the National Gallery.

The Kelbaugh collection contains many pictures of African Americans—several were made without the consent of their subjects, often to support white concepts of family, wealth, and status. Among these images are disquieting photographs of African American women shown attentively caring for their white charges while they were denied the ability to form their own stable family units. In one haunting picture of two young African American girls holding hands, a label pasted on the front states “Peculiar Institution”—the euphemism used by John C. Calhoun and other defenders of slavery in the South. Other images were taken to aid abolitionist causes and sold to support the education of newly freed people; for example, the carte de visite entitled Wilson Chinn, a Branded Slave from Louisiana depicts a man wearing a spiked neck collar, ankle chains, and an iron leg brace. While the purpose of other photographs is not known, the picture of two men—one Black, one white—holding hands could reflect the widely embraced abolitionist slogan “Am I not a Man and a Brother?”

Most of the pictures in the Kelbaugh collection were made to bear witness to Black pride and accomplishment. Although the identity of several of the people depicted is unknown, their elegant clothing and determined, self-confident expressions suggest that they were freemen and freewomen eager to record their prosperity. Many were made to ensure that history remembered their subjects, such as the tintype with color applied by an unknown artist that included a slip of paper inscribed “Annie/Remember Me.” Several images celebrate acts that were previously denied to African Americans. For example, an unknown Civil War soldier paid extra for the photographer to highlight with gold not only his ring, brass buttons, and belt buckle, but also his knife and revolver, which he, like other African Americans, had previously been prohibited from possessing. After Emancipation, in an important rebuttal to the practice of depicting enslaved women with white children, some prosperous African American women had themselves recorded with their own children, while others had their children depicted carrying haversacks, as if on their way to school, another right previously denied to African Americans. Still others depicted themselves with books, proudly projecting an air of defiance.

The Kelbaugh collection also includes photographs of celebrated African Americans, such as Frederick Douglass and Josiah Henson (whose courage and resilience inspired Harriet Beecher Stowe’s portrayal of the hero in her book Uncle Tom’s Cabin). Several pictures directly address the history of enslavement, such as depictions of the “Slave Pen” in Alexandria, Virginia (1861); enslaved people on Edisto Island (1862); and recently freed enslaved people on the Bullard Plantation, Louisiana (1864). Other pictures address Reconstruction, such as one of an African American cowboy and images from the Jim Crow era. The collection extends into the 20th century, with compelling portraits of distinguished African American members of the Knights of Pythias and World War I and II soldiers.

NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART

www.nga.gov

Adolf de Meyer Photographs @ The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Quicksilver Brilliance: 
Adolf de Meyer Photographs
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Through March 18, 2018

Adolf de Meyer, American (born France), 1868–1946

Josephine Baker, 1925–26

Gum bichromate over platinum print

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Ford Motor Company Collection, 

Gift of Ford Motor Company and John C. Waddell, 1987 (1987.1100.16)

Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

A member of the “international set” in fin-de-siècle Europe, Baron Adolf de Meyer (1868–1946) was also a pioneering art, portrait, and fashion photographer, known for creating images that transformed reality into a beautiful fantasy. The “quicksilver brilliance” that characterized de Meyer’s art led fellow photographer Cecil Beaton to dub him the “Debussy of the Camera.” 

Quicksilver Brilliance: Adolf de Meyer Photographs is the first museum exhibition devoted to the artist in more than 20 years and the first ever at The Met. Some 40 works, drawn entirely from The Met collection, will reveal the impressive breadth of his career.

Adolf de Meyer, American (born France), 1868–1946

Etienne de Beaumont, ca. 1923

Gelatin silver print

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of Paul F. Walter, 2009 

Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Adolf de Meyer, American (born France), 1868–1946

The Shadows on the Wall. “Crysanthemums,” ca. 1906

Platinum print

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 

Alfred Stieglitz Collection, 1933 (33.43.231)

Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

The exhibition includes dazzling portraits of well-known figures of his time: the American socialite Rita de Acosta Lydig; art patron and designer Count Étienne de Beaumont; aristocrat and society hostess Lady Ottoline Morrell; and celebrated entertainer Josephine Baker, among others. A highlight of the presentation is an exceptional book—one of only seven known copies—documenting Nijinsky’s scandalous 1912 ballet L’Après-Midi d’un Faune. This rare album represents de Meyer’s great success in capturing the choreography of dance, a breakthrough in the history of photography. Also on view are the artist’s early snapshots made in Japan, experiments with color processes, and inventive fashion photographs.

Born in Paris and educated in Germany, de Adolf de Meyer was of obscure aristocratic German-Jewish and Scottish ancestry. He and his wife, Olga Caracciolo, goddaughter of Edward VII, were at the center of London’s café society.

Adolf de Meyer, American (born France), 1868–1946

Rita de Acosta Lydig, ca. 1917

Platinum print

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 

Gift of Mercedes de Acosta, 1952 (68.615)

Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Adolf de Meyer, American (born France), 1868–1946

Plate from Le Prelude à l’Après-Midi d’un Faune, 1914

Collotype

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gilman Collection, 

Museum Purchase, 2005 (2005.100.1299)

Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

After starting in photography as an amateur, Adolf de Meyer gained recognition as a leading figure of Pictorialism and a member of the photographic society known as the Linked Ring Brotherhood in London. Alfred Stieglitz exhibited de Meyer’s work in his Little Galleries of the Photo-Secession and published his images as photogravures in his influential journal Camera Work. At the outbreak of World War I, Adolf de Meyer settled in the United States and applied his distinctive pictorial style to fashion imagery, helping to define the genre during the interwar period.

The exhibition was organized by Beth Saunders, Assistant Curator in The Met’s Department of Photographs.

THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART, NEW YORK
Exhibition Location:
The Met Fifth Avenue, Floor 2,
The Howard Gilman Gallery, Gallery 852
www.metmuseum.org

Crime Stories: Photography and Foul Play, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Crime Stories: Photography and Foul Play
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
March 7 - July 31, 2016

Unknown, French. Marius Bourotte, 1929. 

Gelatin silver print with applied color. 

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 

Purchase, The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation Gift, 

through Joyce and Robert Menschel, 1996

Since the earliest days of the medium, photographs have been used for criminal investigation and evidence gathering, to record crime scenes, to identify suspects and abet their capture, and to report events to the public. Crime Stories: Photography and Foul Play, on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art beginning March 7, explores the multifaceted intersections between photography and crime, from 19th-century "rogues' galleries" to work by contemporary artists inspired by criminal transgression. The installation will feature some 70 works, drawn entirely from the Met collection, ranging from the 1850s to the present.

Among the highlights of the installation will be Alexander Gardner's documentation of the events following the assassination of President Lincoln, as well as rare forensic photographs by Alphonse Bertillon, the French criminologist who created the system of criminal identification that gave rise to the modern mug shot. Also on display will be a vivid selection of vintage news photographs related to cases both obscure and notorious, such as a study of John Dillinger's feet in a Chicago morgue in 1934; Jack Ruby shooting Lee Harvey Oswald in 1963; and Patty Hearst captured by bank surveillance cameras in 1974. 

In addition to exploring photography's evidentiary uses, the exhibition will feature work by artists who have drawn inspiration from the criminal underworld, including Richard Avedon, Larry Clark, Walker Evans, John Gutmann, Andy Warhol, and Weegee.

Crime Stories: Photography and Foul Play is organized by a team in the Department of Photographs that includes Jeff L. Rosenheim, Curator in Charge; Doug Eklund, Curator; Mia Fineman, Associate Curator; and Beth Saunders, Curatorial Assistant. Exhibition design is by Brian Butterfield, Senior Exhibition Designer; graphics are by Constance Norkin, Graphic Design Manager; and lighting is by Clint Ross Coller and Richard Lichte, Lighting Design Managers, all of the Museum's Design Department.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art 
1000 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10028
www.metmuseum.org

Charles Marville: Photographer of Paris at The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Charles Marville: Photographer of Paris 
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York 
January 29 - May 4, 2014 

Widely acknowledged as one of the most talented photographers of the 19th century, CHARLES MARVILLE (French, 1813–1879) was commissioned by the city of Paris to document both the picturesque, medieval streets of old Paris and the broad boulevards and grand public structures that Baron Georges-Eugène Haussmann built in their place for Emperor Napoleon III. Charles Marville: Photographer of Paris at The Metropolitan Museum of Art presents a selection of around 100 of his photographs.

Charles Marville (French, 1813–1879)

Sky Study, Paris, 1856-1857

Albumen print from collodion negative

16.7 x 20.6 cm (6 9/16 x 8 1/8 in.)

Gilman Collection, Purchase, Ann Tenenbaum and Thomas H. Lee Gift, 2005 

The Metropolitan Museum of Art (2005.100.353)

Charles Marville achieved moderate success as an illustrator of books and magazines early in his career. It was not until 1850 that he shifted course and took up photography—a medium that had been introduced just 11 years earlier. His poetic urban views, detailed architectural studies, and picturesque landscapes quickly garnered praise. Although he made photographs throughout France, Germany, and Italy, it was his native city— especially its monuments, churches, bridges, and gardens—that provided the artist with his greatest and most enduring source of inspiration.

By the end of the 1850s, Marville had established a reputation as an accomplished and versatile photographer. From 1862, as official photographer for the city of Paris, he documented aspects of the radical modernization program that had been launched by Emperor Napoleon III and his chief urban planner, Baron Georges-Eugène Haussmann. In this capacity, Marville photographed the city’s oldest quarters, and especially the narrow, winding streets slated for demolition. Even as he recorded the disappearance of Old Paris, Charles Marville turned his camera on the new city that had begun to emerge. Many of his photographs celebrate its glamour and comforts, while other views of the city’s desolate outskirts attest to the unsettling social and physical changes wrought by rapid modernization. 

Charles Marville (French, 1813–1879)

Cour Saint-Guillaume, ca. 1865

Albumen silver print from glass negative

34.2 x 27.2 cm (13 7/16 x 10 11/16 in.) Classification:

Gilman Collection, Purchase, Alfred Stieglitz Society Gifts, 2005

The Metropolitan Museum of Art (2005.100.378)

Haussmann not only redrew the map of Paris, he transformed the urban experience by commissioning and installing tens of thousands of pieces of street furniture, kiosks, Morris columns for posting advertisements, pissoirs, garden gates, and, above all, some twenty thousand gas lamps. By the time he stepped down as prefect in 1870, Paris was no longer a place where residents dared to go out at night only if accompanied by armed men carrying lanterns. Taken as a whole, Marville’s photographs of Paris stand as one of the earliest and most powerful explorations of urban transformation on a grand scale.

By the time of his death, Marville had fallen into relative obscurity, with much of his work stored in municipal or state archives. This exhibition, which marks the bicentennial of Marville’s birth, explores the full trajectory of the artist’s photographic career and brings to light the extraordinary beauty and historical significance of his art. 

Charles Marville (French, 1813–1879)

Rue de Constantine (fourth arrondissement), 1866

Albumen silver print from glass negative

27.3 x 36.8 cm (10 3/4 x 14 1/2 in.)

The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation Fund, through Joyce and Robert Menschel, 1986

The Metropolitan Museum of Art (1986.1141)

Charles Marville: Photographer of Paris was organized by the National Gallery of Art, Washington, in association with The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. The exhibition is curated by Sarah Kennel, Associate Curator of Photographs at the National Gallery of Art. The presentation of the exhibition in New York is organized by Jeff L. Rosenheim, Curator in Charge, and Doug Eklund, Curator, based on a curatorial program established by Malcolm Daniel, former Senior Curator, of the Metropolitan Museum’s Department of Photographs. The exhibition is made possible in part by Jennifer S. and Philip F. Maritz. 

Paris as Muse: Photography, 1840s-1930s 

William Henry Fox Talbot (British, 1800–1877)

View of the Boulevards of Paris, 1843

Salted paper print from paper negative

6 5/16 × 8 1/2 in. (16.1 × 21.6 cm)

Bequest of Maurice B. Sendak, 2013

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (2013.159.57)

Nadar (French, 1820–1910)

Catacombs, Paris, April 1862

Albumen silver print from glass negative

23.7 x 18.6 cm (9 5/16 x 7 5/16 in.) 

Gilman Collection, Purchase, Denise and Andrew Saul Gift, 2005

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (2005.100.813)

Concurrent with Charles Marville: Photographer of Paris, a related installation in the adjacent Howard Gilman Gallery will be on view at the Metropolitan Museum. Paris as Muse: Photography, 1840s-1930s (January 27 - May 4, 2014) celebrates the first 100 years of photography in Paris and features some 40 photographs, all drawn from the Museum’s collection. The installation focuses primarily on architectural views, street scenes, and interiors. It explores the physical shape and texture of Paris and how artists have found poetic ways to record through the camera its essential qualities. The curator for Paris as Muse: Photography, 1840s–1930s, is Jeff L. Rosenheim. 

Eugène Atget (French, 1857–1927)

Boulevard de Strasbourg, Corsets, Paris, 1912 

Gelatin silver print from glass negative 

22.4 x 17.5 cm (8 13/16 x 6 7/8 in.) 

Gilman Collection, Purchase, Ann Tenenbaum and Thomas H. Lee Gift, 2005 

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (2005.100.511)

Ilse Bing (German, 1899–1998)

Lamp Post, rue de la Chaise, Paris, 1934 

Gelatin silver print 

22.3 x 28.2 cm (8 3/4 x 11 1/8 in.) 

Bequest of Ilse Bing Wolff, 1998 

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (2003.151.11)

© Estate of Ilse Bing, Courtesy Edwynn Houk Gallery

The Metropolitan Museum of Art 
www.metmuseum.org

Photos Plage Annees 1920

Photos anciennes datées de l'été 1920. Il s'agit de tirages d'époque. Je n'ai volontairement pas recadré ces photos, ni effectué de rotation et encore moins de retouches en préférant vous montré, en l'état, les clichés originaux. Il s'agit de tirages d'époque réalisés sur du papier simple, très peu épais, obtenus par contact direct de la plaque photographique sur le papier

(c) Collection Gautier Willaume - Tous droits réservés

(c) Collection Gautier Willaume - Tous droits réservés

(c) Collection Gautier Willaume - Tous droits réservés

Copyright 2009 - Toute utilisation ou reproduction interdites

Paul Goldman Photographs of the Birth of Israel

Photography Exhibition Celebrates Israel 's 60th Anniversary - “To Return to the Land…” Paul Goldman’s Photographs of the Birth of Israel at the Museum of Jewish Heritage—A Living Memorial to the Holocaust.

Hungarian-born photojournalist Paul Goldman fled to the British Mandate of Palestine in 1940, where he chronicled the events leading up to the foundation of the State of Israel. Goldman’s photos of life before statehood, during the War of Independence, and the ingathering of dispersed Jews are complemented by rich memories of individuals who lived through those same events. Images and words together tell stories of the birth of Israel through the lenses of photographic and human memory. From Tel Aviv streetscapes to the bombing of the King David Hotel, from street vendors to Prime Ministers; both the extraordinary and everyday document this monumental story.

While Goldman was one of only a few photojournalists working in the British Mandate of Palestine in the 1940s, he remains largely unknown, mostly because of the practice at the time of not including photo credits in newspapers. His work was beautifully composed and restrained, as Jewish Week writes, “This supreme sensitivity makes Goldman’s photographs a small miracle in today’s world of extreme closeups and telephoto lenses, and they make for interesting, almost prosaic constructions, rich with tensions between public and private.”

“We could think of no better way to honor the birth of the State of Israel than by showing the powerful images of its struggle and its triumphs,” Museum director Dr. David G. Marwell said. “The title of this exhibition is taken from the words of the Israeli national anthem, Hatikva, and captures the fervent dream of the Jewish people to have their own state.”

Highlights of the exhibition include more than 35 images culled from a collection of negatives that lived in a shoebox until they were rediscovered in recent years. The photos are on loan to the Museum from the collection of Spencer M. Partrich. The exhibition will feature such inspiring images as the one of future Israelis toiling the land of a Kibbutz in 1943; and heartbreaking images such as one of Holocaust survivors arriving at a detention camp in 1945.

Goldman, born in 1900, fled Budapest in 1940 to escape the spreading threat of Nazism. He worked as a freelance photographer for local newspapers and international news services during the 1940s and 1950s. His role as a member of the British Army, and later as a confidant to important Israeli leaders, provided him with privileged access and a frontrow view to Israel’s growing pains. Unfortunately, Goldman’s eyesight failed him in the early 1960s — he died penniless at the age of 86 in Israel. Sadly, he never was able to see Israel’s physical beauty beyond her adolescence.

Museum of Jewish Heritage

36 Battery Place, New York, NY 10280 

http://www.mjhnyc.org/

Henri Cartier-Bresson’s Scrapbook: Photographs 1932-46

Henri Cartier-Bresson Bruxelles, Belgium, 1932 © Henri Cartier-Bresson / Magnum Back of the image - HCB wrote: "One of my first fotos"

At the beginning of World War II, French photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson was captured and held in a German prisoner of war camp for three years before he escaped in 1943. To the outside world, he was presumed dead, and the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York prepared to do a memorial exhibition (which ultimately took place in 1947). When Cartier-Bresson emerged, alive, he joined the efforts to assemble the retrospective. He selected and personally printed examples of his best works—including many that had never been printed before. Upon his arrival in New York in April 1946, he bought a scrapbook into which he meticulously glued all the prints in chronological order. In the 1990s, realizing the tremendous value and quality of the prints, he began taking them out, keeping thirteen pages mounted. These prints and the remaining intact pages will be on view in the landmark exhibition, Henri Cartier-Bresson’s Scrapbook: Photographs, 1932-46 at the International Center of Photography (1133 Avenue of the Americas at 43rd Street) from January 19 through April 29, 2007.

Containing work from Cartier-Bresson’s rich, early photographic career (1932-46), the prints from this scrapbook, comprising well over 300 vintage photographs, provide an extraordinary window into the photographer’s process and artistic development. These significant early images, including those from his travels to Italy, Spain and Mexico, and his encounters with Surrealism and modern art, reveal Cartier-Bresson’s working methods including some of his most famous portraits. Many of the images included in Henri Cartier-Bresson’s Scrapbook: Photographs, 1932-46 are among the photographer’s most noted and now form the core collection of the Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson, established by him, his wife, photographer Martine Franck, and their daughter Mélanie in 2002 to preserve his legacy and work. Curated by Agnès Sire, head of the Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson, the exhibition will bring together 331 original scrapbook images printed by Cartier-Bresson in 1946 plus fifteen modern prints, and larger prints made in 1947 for the MoMA exhibition.

International Center of Photography (ICP) Director Willis Hartshorn noted, "The International Center of Photography and Henri Cartier-Bresson have a long history. When ICP opened its doors in 1974, it was with an exhibition of the work of Cartier-Bresson called Apropos USSR (1954-1973). Through the years, his exhibitions at ICP have included a major retrospective, Henri Cartier-Bresson: Photographer, as well as the exhibitions Photo Portraits and In India. In 1994, he was presented with ICP’s Infinity Award for Master of Photography. We feel extremely fortunate to be once again honoring this legendary photographer and for being selected as the only venue outside of Paris for this historic exhibition." Accompanying the exhibition will be a catalogue reproducing all images chosen by Cartier-Bresson for his scrapbook as well as his correspondence and historical documents. The catalogue is co-published by Thames & Hudson and the Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson, Paris, and includes essays by Martine Franck, Agnès Sire, and Michel Frizot. This exhibition was curated and organized by the Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson, Paris. The International Center of Photography presentation is supported by Air France, Saint-Gobain Corporation, Fred and Stephanie Shuman, Frank and Mary Ann Arisman, Andrew and Marina Lewin, and Sanford Luger and Ellen Samuel.

Artur Nikodem, Robert Mann Gallery, NYC

Artur Nikodem
Robert Mann Gallery, New York
January 10 - March 2, 2002

The photographs of Artur Nikodem (1870-1940) are vintage silver prints that were not exhibited or discussed outside of the studio until after his death. The images presented in 'Photographic Essays on Intimacy' provide a comprehensive examination of this rarely seen aspect of Artur Nikodem's creative life. Although he worked as a painter for the bulk of his artistic career, he was also a prolific photographer, documenting the small towns and pastoral beauty of the Austrian countryside as well as the women in his life. Artur Nikodem captures these women, his models and lovers, Gunda Wiese - who died of tuberculosis - and his wife, Barbara Hoyer. These sensual portraits portray the erotic tension between the older artist and his much younger subjects. The body language is reminiscent of the work of Egon Schiele. Artur Nikodem's portraits have also invited comparison to the series of photographs by Alfred Stieglitz of Georgia O'Keefe, similarly characterized by both playful experimentation and somber meditation.

Artur Nikodem was born on February 6, 1870 in Trent, Austria. As a young man, he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich, Milan and Florence. Artur Nikodem then served in the Austrian Navy before settling briefly in Paris, where he was strongly influenced by the works of Monet and Cezanne. Awestruck by the ability of pigment to rearrange and restructure life on canvas, Artur Nikodem began his endeavors as a painter. Unlike his colleagues who employed photographs solely as a tool of study for their paintings, Artur Nikodem's skill with a camera flourished independent of his skill with a brush and canvas. His burgeoning artistic career was delayed by military service during World War I. After the war, Artur Nikodem returned to his home in Innsbruck where he worked as a freelance artist. After a series of successful international exhibitions, Artur Nikodem emerged as spokesman for Tyrolean artists. In later years, the changing political climate resulted in his work being outlawed in Germany and part of his collection in Nuremberg was destroyed. Unable to secure a position at the Viennese Academy, Artur Nikodem withdrew from public life and lived in seclusion with his wife, Barbara Hoyer, until his death on February 10, 1940.

ROBERT MANN GALLERY
210 Eleventh Avenue, New York, NY 10001
www.robertmann.com