Exhibition a tribute to first gallery that focused solely on photography
Exhibition a tribute to first gallery that focused solely on photography
By Holly Bailey, Yahoo News, Thursday January 9, 2014
Its hard to imagine in the age of Flickr and Instagram that it was once hard to find and view original photography. But even 50 years ago, it was rare for museums and galleries to dedicate much wall space to a medium that, back then, primarily flourished on the pages of news magazines.
In 1959, a young street photographer named Larry Siegel decided to work on changing the perception that photography wasnt art. He converted a small storefront on East 10th Street in New York City into a gallery dedicated exclusively to showing photography.
The Image Gallery soon became a meeting place and exhibition space for photographers who went on to be considered legends in their field, including Saul Leiter , Garry Winogrand and Robert Frank .
Early patrons, who had not been used to seeing photography prints on display, didnt quite know what to think.
In those days, photographic prints were not well known, Siegel recalls. People would walk in, point to the wall, and ask, Whats that? They thought I had cut the images out of a magazine.
But the gallery closed just three years later, when Siegel couldnt afford to keep it running, and largely vanished from memory.
But a new exhibition aims to renew the memory of Siegels gallery. Image Gallery Redux: 1959-1962 opens Thursday at the Howard Greenberg Gallery in New York and features work from Siegel and 21 of the 75 photographers who showed work there.
The exhibit includes early works of Winogrand, Leiter and other photographers who showed at the Image Gallery just as their careers were getting started.
The exhibit is on display until Feb. 15.
Click this link to see a slide show of photographic prints that had appeared in the gallery:
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/photos/revisiting-the-first-photography-gallery-the-image-gallery-redux-1959-1962-slideshow/the-image-gallery-redux-1959-1962-on-exhibit-in-nyc-photo-1389280591931.html
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It took a long time for photography to be considered art. The photographs at the Redux gallery were considered "Steet Photography", whereas others previously did work in a more formal style. One of the first most respected artists using a camera to produce photos in a formal style was Ansel Adams, whose works are magnificent. An example is this:
I have an art book of Ansel Adams photos. Magnificent.