Art Blog

This week in Palm Beach. The Hamptons' celebrate a host of their finest - Henry Buhl, Joe Cohen, Ray Merritt and Janet Lehr, lenders to FULL OF GRACE, a photography exhibition opening Thursday, January 26th at The Palm Beach Photographic Center, 515 Clematis St. WPB. Pre-opening event kick-off at the Center is a panel discussion Wednesday Jan 25th beginning at 10:30 am, by the photography curators of the Getty Museum, the Norton Museum and Vered Gallery's Janet Lehr.

Loans by Janet Lehr include:

JOHN THOMSON
Pre-eminent Photo-Journalist of the 19th cen.

         

Malay Boy (Parrot Boy) Anamese Boy Anamese Girl
(3) Portraits of Street Life in the Orient
Hand tinted albumen prints c.1862

Hand tinting of Albumen photographs arose to satisfy the thirst of the public for a greater sense of reality. Hand tinting became more common in the 1870's. Thomson had the availability of fine artists who were fine colorists in the china-making trade where hand painted porcelains were common. Not only was John Thomson an acknowledged leader in Photo-journalism, but he was innovative in advancing the aesthetics of photography.

THOMAS EAKINS
Eakins is recognized as America's greatest 19th century figurative painter.
He was the first major American artist to produce photographs as artwork.

Boys Boxing
Albumen print 1883

Thomas Eakins celebrated boxing in his monumental painting, Salutat 1898. George Bellows who admired Eakins, celebrated the atmosphere of boxing and its attraction in Stag at Sharkey's. The boxer's power over his own body and his attempt to exert power over another body were seen in the early 1900s as natural masculine preoccupations, because masculinity was so closely connected to physical form. Insufficient attention to bodily development was viewed as a symbol of weakness.

LEWIS HINE
America's first Social Realist to use his camera to effect changes in the American scene.

Immigrant Madonna
Silver print, 1906

Hine wrote in 1909: In fact, [the picture] is often more effective than the reality would have been, because, in the picture, the non-essential and conflicting interests have been eliminated.

EDWARD STEICHEN
Steichen was among the first to introduce Americans to modernist European artists: Henri Matisse, Auguste Rodin and Paul Cezanne, through his association with Alfred Stieglitz and Stieglitz' Little Gallery known by its street address, 291. The impresario, Stieglitz showcased these European modernists chosen by Steichen in his gallery exhibits and his publication, Camera Work

Portrait of Katie (Steichen's daughter)
Platinum print, 1906

F HOLLAND DAY
Day, a leading American photographer at the turn of the century was the first to bring the
works of American photographers to the attention of the International world, exhibiting them in a show in London in 1900. Stieglitz never forgave him for his asserting himself as a leader and tastemaker of the American scene, a role Stieglitz sought to dominate.

(Youth) St Sebastian
Platinum print, 1907

The New School of American Photography exhibition organized by Day, showed at the Royal Photographic Society (London) in 1900, caused complete uproar, and revolutionized British photography. Pam Roberts, former Chief Curator of the Royal Photographic Society.

FULL OF GRACE - Curated by Ray Merritt.   This powerful exhibit chronicles the evolution of children in society, featuring more than 200 works of art.  It is a journey through the history of childhood from the beginning of photography 170 years ago to the present, documenting advances and setbacks, both political and social, as shown in these wonderfully descriptive images. Significant moments in child development - child labor and exploitation, the effects of intolerance, poverty, illiteracy, hunger, disease, war, societal roles and worldwide conceptions of children are all explored here, as well as a celebration of positive advances in child development and welfare. Join us for a journey of the last 150 years through the eyes of master photographers. Several panel presentations on this exhibition will be presented during the run at Palm Beach Photographic Center.

The show will go untill March 17, 2012.