Sam Gilliam @ National Gallery of Art, Washington - Gift of Elinor K. Farquhar

Sam Gilliam - Acquisition

Gift of Elinor K. Farquhar 

National Gallery of Art, Washington

Sam Gilliam

Yellow Edge, 1972

Acrylic on canvas

Overall: 139.7 x 114.3 cm (55 x 45 in.)

National Gallery of Art, Washington

Gift of Elinor K. Farquhar 

2023.17.1

American artist SAM GILLIAM (1933–2022) was associated with the Washington Color School, a group of Washington, DC-area abstract artists focused on color field painting from the 1950s to the 1970s. The National Gallery of Art has acquired Yellow Edge (1972), an example of Sam Gilliam’s revolutionary beveled-edge Slice paintings. The work was given to the National Gallery by Elinor K. Farquhar. Yellow Edge exemplifies Sam Gilliam’s innovations in process and display from the 1960s and 1970s and his predilection for bright hues, which are seen in much of his 1970s work.

Sam Gilliam came to Washington, DC, in 1962 and joined the second generation of Washington Color School painters. Like the first generation of the group, which included Morris Louis and Kenneth Noland, Sam Gilliam was interested in the expressive qualities of color. By applying acrylic paint to unprimed canvas, his work took on an organic, intuitive quality. As he became more interested in process and the ways he could manipulate his materials, Sam Gilliam developed more innovative techniques that allowed the materials to manipulate themselves.

Throughout the 1970s, Sam Gilliam would alternate making his celebrated Drape paintings with his Slice paintings, in which he stretched canvas over beveled-edge frames. The Slice paintings protrude from the wall so that they are encountered, rather than simply seen, by the viewer. The rich atmosphere of Yellow Edge is dominated by a sea of orange acrylic with stains of acidic yellow across the surface. Splashes of red and blue appear in the top left, bottom right, and middle of the canvas, as a pool of electric green seems to emerge from an amorphous field of yellow in the lower right corner.

Sam Gilliam was the first African American artist to represent the United States at the Venice Biennale in 1972. Among other prizes, he was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship and the Art Institute of Chicago’s Norman Walt Harris Prize. He received honorary doctorates from the University of Louisville in 1980 and Northwestern University in 1990. Sam Gilliam’s works have been acquired by numerous museums, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Baltimore Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, and the Walker Art Center.

NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART

Sixth Street and Constitution Avenue NW, Washington, DC

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Robert Seldon Duncanson: Acquisition announced by the Amon Carter Museum, Texas

Amon Carter Museum of American Art Announced Acquisition of its First Painting by 19th-Century Artist Robert Seldon Duncanson

The Amon Carter Museum of American Art announced last month the acquisition of a major painting by 19th-century landscape artist ROBERT SELDON DUNCANSON (1821-1872), the first African-American artist to achieve international acclaim. The work, titled The Caves, painted in 1869, was originally owned by Cincinnati Abolitionist Richard Sutton Rust (1815-1906), and it remained in his family until the Amon Carter purchased it in late 2012. Because it has been in a private collection for nearly 150 years, the painting will be accessible to the public for the first time beginning May 4, when it is displayed in the Amon Carter’s galleries.

“Duncanson is an immensely important figure in American art,” says Andrew J. Walker, director of the Amon Carter. “He was a self-taught, black artist from Cincinnati and a leading landscape painter of his time, which was a monumental accomplishment during the Civil War and Reconstruction periods. Owning a work by this esteemed artist greatly enriches our collection.”

Impressive in scale, the painting is approximately 3 feet tall and is in magnificent condition. The Caves is painted in the Hudson River School tradition, which was an inspiration to Duncanson after he viewed works by Thomas Cole and other Hudson River School artists at Cincinnati’s Western Art Union in the late 1840s. The scene depicts an intimate view of the wilderness, with unusual geographic features of steep ravines and sandstone cliffs perforated by a canopy of evergreens and a trio of caverns.

“At first glance, the scene suggests a documented view of untouched nature,” says Rebecca Lawton, curator of paintings and sculpture. “But then we notice three figures making their way up a steep incline toward the mouths of the caves.

“This painting is a fine example of Duncanson’s mature style,” Lawton continues. “His extraordinary powers of transcription are evident; and although the exact location of the painting is not confirmed, we believe it’s the area known today as Hocking Hills State Park in Ohio. The work beautifully synthesizes mid-19th-century concerns for nature as an expression of cultural and national identity.”

Robert Seldon Duncanson’s paintings seldom overtly depict the political and cultural issues of the years surrounding the Civil War, such as slavery and discrimination, according to Margi Conrads, deputy director of art and research. Instead, the artist may have included subtle cues in his landscapes that conveyed his anti-slavery position.

“His depiction of caves poses intriguing questions about whether the painting includes references to the abolitionist movement or the role of African-Americans in everyday society,” says Conrads. “Caves were among the safe havens for runaway slaves through the Civil War. Additionally, both before and after the War, African-Americans guided tourists through caves, and it’s possible Duncanson is referencing this in his painting through the figure at the cavern’s mouth. Regardless, the painting is a beautiful testimony of an artist dedicated to depicting the essential natural world.”

Four watercolors from the museum’s permanent collection by Adrien Mayers (1801?-1833) will be exhibited near the Duncanson painting through September 4, 2013. The watercolors portray an early view of Cincinnati, Robert Seldon Duncanson’s adopted hometown and the place that nurtured his career.

“It’s a wonderful and distinctive moment for the museum to exhibit the works of three prominent black artists from three different centuries,” says Walker. “We are honored to show this exceptional American art to our visitors.”

The Amon Carter Museum of American Art's website: www.cartermuseum.org

Philadelphia Museum of Art: Outsider Art Works acquired by the PMA - Exhibition is planned for 2013

The Philadelphia Museum of Art acquires major private collection of works by self-taught artists through a donation from Jill and Sheldon Bonovitz. The museum become one of the major holdings of Outsider Art in the USA. An exhibition is planned for 2013. 

Approximately 190 works by self-taught artists have become promised gifts to the Philadelphia Museum of Art from Jill and Sheldon Bonovitz, who have assembled over the past three decades one of the finest collections of outsider art in private hands in the United States. Their donation, which the Museum will celebrate with an exhibition and catalogue in spring of 2013, will increase the Museum’s holdings of outsider art by more than sixty percent. Sheldon Bonovitz is a member of the Museum’s Board of Trustees.

The Philadelphia Museum of Art began acquiring works by self-taught artists in 1993 and has organized a major traveling exhibition in this field, James Castle: A Retrospective (2008-2009). The Museum currently owns approximately 300 works by more than 50 self-taught artists. It is committed to showing their work in the context of mainstream production, as it often resonates in evocative ways with major movements represented in the collection, such as Dada and Surrealism, and with many aspects of contemporary practice. This was demonstrated in an exhibition mounted in 2000, entitled When Reason Dreams: Drawings Inspired by the Visionary, the Fantastic, and the Unreal. The new promised gifts will place the Museum among the major public holdings of outsider art in the USA, along with those of the American Folk Art Museum in New York, the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C., the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, and the Milwaukee Art Museum.

“Jill and I are delighted to make this commitment of the works in our collection which have been selected by the Museum’s curators,” said Sheldon Bonovitz.  “With our gift, we are helping the Museum build recognition across a wide audience for the remarkable contributions of self-taught artists. We thank the Museum for recognizing the importance of self-taught artists within the broader field of contemporary art and hope that it will encourage other donors to help us further this important mission.”

“Jill and Sheldon Bonovitz have been pathfinders in this field,” said Timothy Rub, the Museum’s George D. Widener Director and CEO. “Their dedication to the work of self-taught artists and the exceptional vision they have brought to the development of their collection will now benefit the public and enable others to understand and appreciate this important, but little known aspect of modern and contemporary art.”

The exhibition planned for 2013 will focus on American artists active between the 1930s and 1980s, many of whom are African American, and will feature works by such iconic figures as William Edmondson, Bill Traylor, and Martín Ramírez, as well as by somewhat lesser-known but widely respected artists such as James Castle, Howard Finster, William Hawkins, and Elijah Pierce.

“Self-taught artists use a wide range of inventive working methods and often employ unconventional materials, including house paint, wood scraps, roofing tin, and shirt cardboard,” said Ann Percy, Curator of Drawings. “The individuality that characterizes the work and the artists’ methods of conceiving images independently of familiar styles, trends, or movements will appeal to a diverse audience interested in exploring new terrain in the art of the 20th and 21st centuries.”

Among the highlights of the Bonovitz collection are six works by William Edmondson (1874-1951), including the stone sculpture Horse. A retired janitor from Nashville, Tennessee, William Edmondson took up carving tombstones and outdoor stone ornaments in his mid to late fifties, sometime in the early 1930s. Over the next decade and a half he filled his back yard with small figures of birds, animals, and people, which he sculpted from found chunks of limestone using an old railroad spike for a chisel. Masterful in their simplification of form, pared down to the barest essentials, minimally articulated as to surface and texture, and almost geometric in their near abstraction, these works are today considered among the finest achievements of self-taught art in the United States.

Mexican-born Martín Ramírez (1895-1963), who ranks among the most respected self-taught artists in North America, is represented by seven spectacular works in the Bonovitz collection.  Working with found materials from the confines of DeWitt State Hospital, Auburn, California – diagnosed with schizophrenia, Martin Ramírez spent the greater part of his adult life in mental institutions – he reportedly employed ad hoc substances like spit, bread, and perhaps even mashed potatoes to bind together bits and pieces of used paper into large drawing surfaces.  On these irregular sheets he laid down thick, expressive crayon and graphite lines to create remarkably conceived, semi-abstracted images of trains, tunnels, Madonnas, horsemen, animals, and landscapes, often adding collaged elements from popular books or magazines.  Combined with the works by Martin Ramírez already owned by the museum, the Bonovitz gift will place Philadelphia’s holdings of this important artist among the finest in public institutions in the USA.

Known for his vibrantly colored, dramatically stylized paintings, William Hawkins (1895-1990) turned to art seriously at around age 85, after a life spent working – mostly in Columbus, Ohio – at jobs such as farming, truck-driving, demolition, and steel casting. The Bonovitz collection includes six major works by this artist, who employed brightly colored semi-gloss enamel paints, often poured directly onto large pieces of plywood or Masonite and energetically mixed, swirled, and scumbled with a stubby old paintbrush. His images, dramatic in effect and whimsical in composition, were derived from newspapers, magazines, photographs, and advertisements, and he often incorporated found materials into his works. In Boffo, the animal’s head and shoulders are built up with a heavy application of a bituminous substance such as tar or asphalt.

Bill Traylor (c. 1853-1949) 's works consist of flattened, simplified, and silhouetted images that are drawn with great skill and ingenuity on often-irregular paper or cardboard surfaces, as seen in House with Two Men, Dog, and Bird, one of a dozen superb works by the artist in the collection.  People, birds, and animals are in constant action in Traylor’s work, running, climbing, shooting, fighting, yelling, drinking, poking, chasing, pointing, or sitting, often within or on top of strange, unidentifiable geometric structures. Born a slave, Bill Traylor spent most of his life as a farmhand; however, for a few years in the late 1930s and early 1940s, homeless and in his late eighties, he drew pictures in pencil, colored pencil, and poster paint on found pieces of cardboard, making his art on a sidewalk in downtown Montgomery, Alabama.

Philadelphia Museum of Art
www.philamuseum.org 

Paul Strand Photographs Collection in Philadelphia: The Philadelphia Museum of Arts will be the most important repository for the study of Paul Strand work

Philadelphia Museum of Art, 08/1973
Photograph by DICK SWANSON
From the US National Archives
412-DA-7495
Created by The Environmental
Protection Agency

The Philadelphia Museum of Art acquired 3,000 Works by the photographer Paul Strand

THE PHILADELPHIA MUSEUM OF ARTS: THE WORLD's MOST IMPORTANT REPOSITORY for THE STUDY of PAUL STRAND WORK

The Philadelphia Museum of Art announced (last month) that it has acquired, through several gifts and a purchase agreement with the APERTURE FOUDATION, the core collection of photographs by PAUL STRAND, one of the pre-eminent photographers of the 20th century. Through the generosity of philanthropists Lynne and Harold Honickman, Marjorie and Jeffrey Honickman, and H.F. “Gerry” and Marguerite Lenfest, the Museum has received as partial and promised gifts 1422 images from The Paul Strand Archive at the Aperture Foundation, as well as 566 master prints from Strand’s negatives by the artist Richard Benson.  The Museum has also entered into an agreement with the Aperture Foundation to purchase an additional 1276 photographs.  As a whole, this acquisition comprises more than 3000 prints and lantern slides, including the finest examples of every image in the Archive. Together with other photographs by Strand already owned by the Museum, this acquisition makes the Philadelphia Museum of Art the world’s most important repository for the study of his work.

PAUL STRAND RETROSPECTIVE EXHBITION SCHEDULED FOR 2014

All of the photographs and lantern slides are now housed at the Philadelphia Museum of Art where they are being studied in preparation for a major retrospective devoted to the artist that is scheduled for 2014. 

Timothy Rub, the George D. Widener Director and Chief Executive Officer, stated: “The Paul Strand Collection at the Philadelphia Museum of Art will rank among the finest and most significant groups of works by key figures in the history of photography held by any museum in this country. As the definitive collection of one of the 20th century’s greatest photographers, it will also be a critical component of the Museum’s internationally distinguished holdings of modern art, which include the renowned Louise and Walter Arensberg and A. E. Gallatin collections. Given the significance of Strand’s achievement as an artist it will, I believe, become a cornerstone of the Museum’s collections, much like our extensive holdings of works by Marcel Duchamp and Thomas Eakins.

“This is a major achievement,” Mr. Rub went on to say. “We are exceptionally grateful to the dedicated support of our enlightened donors, the Honickmans and the Lenfests, who recognized the value of their gifts to the Museum’s mission and to the study of the history of photography and worked together to help us strengthen the Museum’s collection. Our longstanding relationship with the Aperture Foundation, in particular through the work of the late Michael E. Hoffman, who formed the Strand archive at Aperture and served for many years as the Museum’s Adjunct Curator of Photographs, has enabled us to create a repository of the work of this artist that will chronicle his seminal contributions to the development of modern art and will advance the study of his remarkable body of work and prominent place in the history of photography.”

Celso Gonzalez-Falla, the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Aperture Foundation, commented on the placement of this extraordinary collection.  “Given Aperture’s long association with Strand and the commitment that the Philadelphia Museum of Art has made to the development of its world-renowned holdings of photography, it is an ideal place for these works.  This is true not simply because  of the Museum’s long association with Aperture, but also because this gift and purchase, when added to the Museum’s existing collection of more than 600 exceptional works by Strand, provides a full picture of his remarkable achievement, adding strength to strength and creating a true and enduring public benefit. We salute the vision and perspicacity of Peter MacGill of Pace/MacGill Gallery, who has worked closely with Aperture to ensure that this important collection would find a permanent home in a great museum.”

The portion of The Paul Strand Archive that the Museum has made a commitment to purchase from the Aperture Foundation includes many remarkable photographs. Among them are two of Strand’s rare gum bichromate prints, which date to the earliest years of his career. Also included are masterpiece platinum and silver portraits of his first wife, Rebecca Salsbury, and several other key portraits of his circle in the 1910s and 1920s, including his father Jacob, painter John Marin, and fellow photographer Kurt Baasch; unique prints such as a 1922 image of Constantin Brancusi’s sculpture Mlle. Pogany and a solarized portrait of the architect Henry Churchill (1922); major examples of his nature and machine abstractions, including the unique Rock, Georgetown, Maine (1927) and a rare pair of vintage platinum and silver prints of Fern, New England (1928); and superb prints from his early sojourns to the Gaspé Peninsula, the Southwest, and Mexico.

“Combined with the Museum’s existing holdings, this acquisition will give the Museum an unrivaled collection of Strand’s critical early work and his photographs of the Southwest and Mexico, all recognized as high points of his career,” commented Peter Barberie, the Museum’s Brodsky Curator of Photographs. “Added to the recent gifts to the Museum from the Honickmans and Lenfests, the acquisition will also enable us to assemble nearly complete sets of vintage prints from all of Strand’s later projects, beginning with his prized New England photographs of the 1940s and running through the final series he made in the garden of his home in Orgeval, France.”

PAUL STRAND CATALOGUE RAISONNE

The Paul Strand Collection will permit the study of Strand’s career with prints from the majority of his negatives, including most known variants and croppings of individual images. It will, moreover, enable the Museum to keep together several prints made from a single negative using different processes, at different times, and with different papers. As such, The Paul Strand Collection will be an essential resource for any scholar of 20th-century photography. In addition to 2,768 prints and lantern slides by Strand himself, the acquisition includes the gift of 566 gelatin silver and platinum prints from Strand’s negatives by the eminent American photographer Richard Benson, made for Aperture in the 1980s. Benson has printed Strand’s negatives since the early 1970s, when he worked closely with the artist. As part of its ongoing publishing initiatives, the Aperture Foundation will prepare a Paul Strand catalogue raisonne in cooperation with the Philadelphia Museum of Art. 

PAUL STRAND - BIOGRAPHY

Paul Strand (American, 1890 - 1976) is widely recognized as one of the most significant artists in the history of photography. He first studied with the social documentary photographer Lewis Hine at New York’s Ethical Culture School from 1907-1909, and subsequently became close to the pioneering photographer Alfred Stieglitz, America’s greatest champion of modern art at the beginning of the 20th century. Strand fused these powerful influences and explored the modernist possibilities of the camera more fully than any other photographer before 1920, producing a celebrated series of abstractions that reduced still life and architectural elements to simple arrangements of shapes, while at the same time creating some of the earliest “street photographs” of people he caught unawares in urban New York settings. These diverse experiments produced iconic masterpieces such as Wall Street (1915) and Blind Woman (1916) and are now acknowledged as major contributions to modernist art, having introduced subjects that influenced leading photographers of the twentieth century such as Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, Henri Cartier-Bresson, and Robert Frank.

In the 1920s, Strand explored the camera’s potential to exceed human vision, making intimate, detailed portraits, and recording the nuances of machine and natural forms. He also created portraits, landscapes, and architectural studies on various travels to the Southwest, Canada’s Gaspé Peninsula, and Mexico. The groups of pictures of these regions, in tandem with his documentary work as a filmmaker in the 1930s, convinced Strand that the medium’s great purpose lay in broad and richly detailed photographs of specific places and communities. For the rest of his career he pursued such projects in New England, France, Italy, the Hebrides, Morocco, Romania, Ghana, and other locales, producing celebrated books including Time in New England (1950), and Un Paese (1955), about the village of Luzzara, Italy. Together, these later series form one of the great photographic statements about modern experience.

The Philadelphia Museum of Art has had a special relationship with Paul Strand’s work since 1971, when Adjunct Curator of Photographs Michael E. Hoffman organized for the Museum Strand’s first major retrospective since 1945. Paul Strand: A Retrospective, 1971, debuted in Philadelphia and traveled to St. Louis, Boston, New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. In 1972, Strand gave the Museum one of his most important early platinum prints, City Hall Park, New York (1915), along with six other works, and the Museum purchased 10 prints including The Family, Luzzara, Italy (1953). These acquisitions were followed by further purchases in 1974 and gifts from Strand’s widow, Hazel, in 1977 and 1978. In 1980, the artist’s estate gave the Museum the entire contents of his retrospective exhibition, which numbered 497 prints and included an unparalleled group of seven of his early exhibition platinum prints, among them the masterpieces Wall Street (1915), Man in a Derby (1916), and Telegraph Poles, Texas (1915).

HIGHLIGHTS OF THE ACQUISITION OF PAUL STRAND PHOTOGRAPHS

Railroad Sidings, New York, Platinum print, 1915. Promised gift of Lynne and Harold Honickman

The Museum already owns an unparalleled group of masterpiece platinum prints of Strand’s breakthrough photographs of 1915-16. Railroad Sidings is one of the last such prints still in private hands. Alfred Stieglitz included it in Strand’s first exhibition at 291, in March of 1916. It shows Strand moving from the Pictorialist example set by Stieglitz (as in his iconic 1902 picture The Hand of Man, possibly made in the same rail yards), towards the abstraction that he would explore most fully in his still life photographs of the same moment. When Strand, together with Charles Sheeler, made the 1922 film Manhatta, about New York City, he returned to the sites of two of his photographs—Railroad Sidings and Wall Street—to include them in the film.

Blind Woman, New York, Gelatin silver print, c. 1920s (negative 1916). Partial and promised gift of Marguerite and H.F. “Gerry” Lenfest

This early gelatin silver print of one of Strand’s iconic images will join seven other versions—including his 1916 lantern slide, a 1916 photogravure from the journal Camera Work, and five variant gelatin silver prints Strand made at various times after the 1940s, permitting comprehensive study of how he presented and thought about the picture throughout his career. The Museum will have similar groupings for a number of other important works, including Wall Street, Man in a Derby, and The White Fence, Port Kent, New York.

Georgia O’Keeffe, Texas, Platinum print, c. 1917. Promised gift of Marjorie and Jeffrey Honickman

This sensitive portrait of the painter is a very personal document of Strand’s visit to Texas in 1917 and the blossoming of what became a lifelong friendship. It is the only portrait Strand made of O’Keeffe, and perhaps the only print he made of the image. The Paul Strand Collection will include masterful portraits of other figures in Strand’s circle, including painters John Marin and Marsden Hartley, sculptor Gaston Lachaise, photographer Kurt Baasch, and critic Waldo Frank.

Rebecca, New York, Platinum print, c. 1921. Purchase from the Aperture Foundation

Strand photographed his first wife, Rebecca Salsbury, in many sittings between 1919 and 1933, exploring the camera’s ability to record details of the human visage and emotions. This introspective platinum print is among the most riveting portraits he made of her. The Paul Strand Collection will include 24 vintage portraits of Rebecca Salsbury, including seven platinum prints.

Mlle. Pogany, New York (Brancusi), Platinum print, 1922. Purchase from the Aperture Foundation

The acquisition includes many unique works by Strand, which together greatly enrich the depth and complexity of The Paul Strand Collection. Aside from individual works such as this photograph of sculptures by Constantin Brancusi, a remarkable document of Strand’s commitment to modernist art, the collection will include all 70 of Strand’s extant lantern slides, which are critical for studying his practice between 1909 and 1917; 34 small platinum prints made on his first, formative trip to Europe in 1911; three of his gum bichromate prints, of which he made very few; two experiments with a Rectoflex camera, made in Italy in 1952; and the maquette for his 1950 book La France de profil, which includes 44 gelatin silver prints.

Fern, New England, Platinum print, 1928. Purchase from the Aperture Foundation

Fern, New England, Gelatin silver print, 1940s. Purchase from the Aperture Foundation

Strand’s exploration of the camera’s objectivity in his nature and machine studies of the 1920s included his thoughtful analysis of the differences between platinum and gelatin silver prints, each of which he preferred for certain subjects. This pair of prints from the same negative shows the nuances Strand sought in his photographic prints. Altogether, the Paul Strand Collection will include more than 50 vintage or early prints of Strand’s key photographs of plants, driftwood, rocks, and machine forms in the 1920s.

Hacienda, Saltillo, Mexico, Platinum print, 1932. Purchase from the Aperture Foundation

This subtle platinum print shows Strand’s sensitivity to architectural motifs. In its emphasis on geometries and worn surfaces, it relates both to his contemporaneous work in the Southwest, and to the masterful architectural views he would make in New England in the 1940s. Strand’s 1932-33 Mexico photographs, which comprise portraits, landscapes, and views of art and architecture, are widely considered to be one of his greatest bodies of work. The Paul Strand Collection will include 28 vintage platinum prints and twelve vintage or early gelatin silver prints of his Mexican subjects.

Man Carving Chair II, Mr. Bolster, Vermont Gelatin silver print, 1943. Purchase from the Aperture Foundation

Strand’s 1943-46 New England photographs mark a turning point in his career: his decision to methodically document specific regions through a mix of landscapes, artifacts, and portraits, and his endeavor to produce books of his pictures, the first of which would be the 1950 publication Time in New England. Strand’s choice to focus on the hardy culture of New England during the difficult years of World War II contributes to the great power of these photographs, as seen in this riveting portrait of Mr. Bolster, an 83-year-old man crafting a chair outside his barn. Strand would go on to produce groups of photographs comparable to his New England series in France, Italy, the Hebrides Islands, Egypt, Morocco, Roumania, and Ghana. The Paul Strand Collection will include nearly-complete sets of vintage prints of all these projects, beginning with the New England pictures.

Place to Meet, Luzzara, Italy, Gelatin silver print, 1953. Purchase from the Aperture Foundation

In 1953 Strand travelled to the village of Luzzara, where he made an incredible group of photographs including portraits of many individuals who are identified simply by their role in the community—the mayor, the cheese maker, the baker’s wife. He also made group portraits such as this one of elders gathered in a small piazza. Strand was drawn to candid portraiture throughout his career, and he was also attuned to the ways public social gatherings—however informal—can reveal volumes about a time and place. This is one of many superb pictures he made of similar subjects throughout his career.

PHILADELPHIA MUSEUM OF ART

Philadelphia, PA, USA

www.philamuseum.org

Kentmere Photographic Acquired by Harman

HARMAN technology Limited, the company behind ILFORD PHOTO and HARMAN PHOTO, has announced the addition of KENTMERE PHOTOGRAPHIC Limited to its business. The move, which comes following a period of extensive negotiations.

Following the buy-out, Harman is keen to stress that the Kentmere brand will remain relatively unchanged. It will continue to offer the same resin coated and fibre based monochrome papers and inkjet products, including Opaljet, whilst employing the same marketing approach. On the Harman's press release we can read : "In fact, the key difference will be that the Kentmere brand will now enjoy the benefits of being backed by a larger organisation. In particular, the brand will have access to the additional expertise and investment, as well as the established export channels (to markets such as the United States), to take its success further". Speaking of the deal, Harman’s Chairman and Managing Director, Phil Harris said: “Harman has an acquisitive growth policy and is keen to be seen as the natural home for high-quality imaging products. We have bought Kentmere recognising it is a strong brand with a massive amount of potential and knowing we can add what’s required to help bring that potential to fruition. Our size, established infrastructure and ability to invest into the Kentmere brand, will help to open new doors and opportunities for its products.” “At the same time, Kentmere will also add an extra dimension to our business. It will extend our product portfolio and allows us to target an even wider range of the market.”

Aquisition de Jasc Software par Corel

Corel Corporation élargit son portefeuille de produits graphiques

Corel a annoncé l’acquisition de Jasc Software, éditeur de Paint Shop, une famille d’applications d’édition photo et d’images numériques. Étape clé dans la mise en oeuvre de sa stratégie, cette acquisition s’ajoute à quatre trimestres consécutifs de résultats positifs et à la refonte complète des activités depuis qu’elle est devenue une société à capitaux fermés en août 2003. De sa position renforcée sur le marché des applications bureautiques et graphiques, Corel pourra désormais offrir à ses clients, dénombrés à plus de 60 millions dans le monde entier, un portefeuille élargi de produits novateurs et spécialisés — édition photo, conception graphique, illustration vectorielle, illustration technique — sans oublier son produit renommé WordPerfect. La transaction devrait être finalisée officiellement d’ici fin octobre 2004.

Corel aura toujours son siège social à Ottawa (Canada) et continuera à exploiter l’établissement à Minneapolis, où Jasc développe Paint Shop. Amish Mehta restera à la tête de la société et plusieurs dirigeants de Jasc se joindront à l’équipe Corel.

Corel entend offrir Paint Shop Pro, Paint Shop Pro Studio et Paint Shop Photo Album sous forme de produits autonomes et continuera à fournir à l’échelle mondiale des services d’assistance sous sa propre bannière. De plus, elle appuiera activement les nouvelles initiatives en recherche et développement destinées à pérenniser la gamme Paint Shop et à garantir la réussite commerciale de la prochaine génération de produits.

En août 2003, Corel a été acquise par Vector Capital Group, une société de capital-risque basée à San Francisco et gérant actuellement plus de 500 millions de dollars en capital. Depuis, Corel a mis en oeuvre une stratégie produit et commerciale bien définie, laquelle consiste à revaloriser les produits les mieux implantés, soit WordPerfect Office, la Suite graphique CorelDRAW et Corel Painter, et à rationaliser ses activités et sa gamme de produits. Forte du soutien de Vector et de cette nouvelle acquisition, qui n’en est que la première, Corel est sans doute en passe de connaître un nouvel essor.

Développant son offre de produits prisés par des millions d’utilisateurs en raison de leur bon rapport qualité-prix, et à laquelle s’ajoute la famille Paint Shop, Corel entend conquérir des parts de marché dans deux secteurs clés, entreprises et grand public, où débutants et professionnels bénéficient désormais de solutions complètes, qu’il s’agisse simplement d’organiser ou de partager des photos, de retoucher et d’enrichir des images ou encore de créer et de modifier des graphismes complexes.

Corel accroît sa visibilité sur le marché porteur des applications numériques

« L’acquisition de Jasc nous permet de pénétrer le marché des logiciels de traitement d’images, un des secteurs clés visés par notre stratégie de croissance » a déclaré Amish Mehta. « La famille Paint Shop apporte d’excellents produits d’entrée de gamme qui permettront à Corel d’acquérir des millions de nouveaux clients. À long terme, nous gagnerons la fidélité de ceux qui achètent régulièrement des logiciels d’édition de photo numérique, un segment du marché actuellement en plein essor ».

Selon InfoTrends/CAP Ventures, les appareils photo numériques se généralisent et, à l’échelle mondiale, le marché devrait croître de près de 20 p. 100 (TCAC), soit la vente de plus de 100 millions d’appareils en 2008 par rapport aux 45 millions vendus en 2003. Une enquête conduite récemment par InfoTrends/CAP Ventures révèle également que 55 p. 100 des propriétaires d’appareils numériques achètent des logiciels complémentaires pour gérer et améliorer leurs photos numériques.

La famille Paint Shop, dont les produits phares sont Paint Shop Pro, Paint Shop Pro Studio et Paint Shop Photo Album, est non seulement réputée pour ses innovations, mais aussi pour la qualité de l’expérience numérique qu’elle procure aux utilisateurs de tous niveaux, du débutant au professionnel. « Bien connue du public, la famille de produits Paint Shop s’ajoute naturellement au portefeuille Corel et y apporte des gains d’efficacité », poursuit Amish Mehta. « Comme Corel, Jasc a toujours mis sur le marché des solutions graphiques novatrices, fiables, faciles d’emploi et économiques à tous égards. Cette acquisition témoigne donc de notre volonté d’élargir notre gamme de produits et de croître notre clientèle souhaitant bénéficier du meilleur rapport qualité-prix. »

Développer la clientèle au travers du réseau de distribution mondiale

Prises ensemble, Corel et Jasc disposent d’un important réseau de distribution mondiale qui, s’appuyant sur les nouvelles synergies, leur fera conquérir de nouvelles parts de marché. Ce réseau comprend plus de 5 000 revendeurs VAR et de grands détaillants implantés dans 75 pays.

En outre, Corel et Jasc ont réussi à conclure avec plusieurs acteurs majeurs, dont DELL Computer et Wacom, des partenariats OEM importants. Ces contrats OEM continueront à se développer et conforteront la position de Corel sur un marché à forte croissance.

Stratégie de croissance axée sur des profits record et des orientations décidées

Cette année, Corel a réalisé des profits records et enregistre sur toute sa gamme de produits des taux de croissance appréciables. En acquérant la famille de produits Paint Shop, la société est positionnée pour profiter de la progression du marché des applications d’édition de photo et d’images numériques.

« Cette fusion porte toutes les marques d’une très bonne affaire, parce que les deux sociétés ont besoin de ce que l’une et l’autre avaient à offrir », explique Rob Enderle, analyste principal chez Enderle Group. « Corel possède une solide marque internationale et des produits bien tournés vers les photographes numériques professionnels, mais elle avait besoin de produits d’entrée de gamme tout aussi solides que ceux de Jasc pour accroître sa clientèle. Inversement, Jasc avait besoin de la force d’action d’une marque internationale et un ensemble de produits robustes pour élargir sa base de clients. C’est maintenant chose faite, et les deux sociétés pourront désormais offrir à la fois aux entreprises et au grand public un choix de produits qui séduiront autant par leur fiabilité que par leurs prix compétitifs. »

A propos de Jasc Software

Grand éditeur de logiciels de photographie et d’imagerie numériques, Jasc offre une famille de produits de premier choix dont Paint Shop Pro, Paint Shop Pro Studio et Paint Shop Photo Album. Conçus pour débutants et professionnels, ces produits enrichissent l’expérience numérique des utilisateurs en les invitant à se découvrir de nouvelles possibilités d’évolution. Les produits Jasc s’utilisent sous Windows, et leur convivialité, conjuguée avec l’assistance dont ils bénéficient, en fait une solution abordable.

A propos de Corel

Réputée pour ses produits graphiques et bureautiques, surtout la Suite graphique CorelDRAW, WordPerfect Office et Corel Painter, une application de peinture et d’illustration Natural-Media, Corel Corporation propose des solutions novatrices prisées par des millions d’utilisateurs dans plus 75 pays, en raison de leur excellent rapport qualité-prix et des gains de productivité qu’elles permettent. En août 2003, Corel est reprise par Vector Capital Group, société de capital-risque basée à San Francisco, et, depuis lors, a enregistré des profits record et des taux de croissance sur toute sa gamme de produits. Corel est, depuis sa création en 1985, basée à Ottawa, au Canada. Pour en savoir plus, vous pouvez consulter son site internet : www.corel.com