PFA
Newsletter
Photography in the Fine Arts Quarterly
Vol 27 No.2 April 2010
Nora
Feller: Celebrity Portraits
and
Craig Semetko: Street Photography
April 23 - June 5, 2010
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The
Camera Obscura Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition of stunning
celebrity portraits by photographer Nora Feller and the spontaneous
and often whimsical street photography of Craig Semetko.
Nora
Feller: Celebrity Portraits
Gallery
2 (south) will feature Nora Feller's international celebrity portraiture.
Her distinctive work has appeared in numerous U.S. and international
newspapers and magazines, including The New York Times, Forbes, Conde
Nast, Newsweek, People, Time, Paris Match and The London Observer.
Specializing in portraiture, she has photographed princes, first ladies,
and three U.S. presidents. Her portfolio includes celebrities, world
leaders, sports figures and artists.
Feller has selected 30 works for this exhibition, including Julia Child,
the Dalai Lama, Madonna, Prince Rainier, Malcom Forbes, David Hockney,
Sean Penn, Angelina Jolie, Betty Ford and Kelsey Grammer.
Nora
Feller, American, born 1949
Nora
Feller's client list may read like an international "who's who",
but she is quick to point out that the fondness she feels for her subjects
is not because of their fame or fortune, but simply because they are
people.
"I end up liking everybody I photograph," Feller says. "And
I think they end up liking me as well, which is probably what enables
me to capture the essence of who they are as people."
Feller has more than twenty years experience on the international stage,
shooting on assignment for a host of publications and clients including
HBO, American Express, and Harmon International & BBDO. She commands
a coveted spot at the edge of the red carpet at the Cannes Film Festival
each year and is a popular guest on the Aspen party circuit. She strives
to capture light, mood and personality to create a refined, distinctive
style of portraiture.
Nora Feller is a member of the American Society of Media Photographers
and has contributed to several books, including Portraits of Hope:
Conquering Breast Cancer; Inside Monaco; Philip Johnson: The Architect
In His Own Words, and In the Spirit of Aspen. She has had
four major exhibitions of her work over the past six years at the Forbes
Galleries and Saba Gallery of Photography, both in New York, the U.S.
Senate Russell Rotunda in Washington, DC and the Adelson Gallery, Aspen
Institute, Aspen. Colorado. She contributed to Last Letters of Home,
Voices of Americans from the Battlefields of Iraq--a documentary
film jointly produced by HBO and The New York Times. Her recent work
for HBO also includes the documentary, The Trials of Ted Haggard.
Feller is currently working on a personal project entitled Portraits
of Islam: Women of Courage in partnership with the Women's Islamic
Initiate in Spirituality and Equality (WISE) based in New York City.
Feller has a BFA in photography from the Minneapolis College of Art
and Design and has taught at the Art Institute of Colorado. She is represented
in New York by Corbis/Outline and in Paris by Karen Boyer.
Craig
Semetko: Street Photography
Gallery
I (north) will exhibit photographs by Craig Semetko. His photographs
have appeared in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago
Tribune and numerous international news publications. A self-described
"street photographer", Semetko excels in capturing ironies
and oddities across cultural boundaries. For this exhibition he has
chosen 30 pieces taken on streets and in salons from Venice Beach to
Paris, Los Angeles to Laos.
Craig
Semetko, American, born 1961
Craig
Semetko is a fine art photographer living in Los Angeles. In 2008 his
work was featured with famed photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson at the
Open Shutter Gallery in Durango, Colorado, in an exhibition entitled,
"Street Photography: From Classic to Contemporary". In 2009/2010
he mounted one-man shows at the Leica Galeries in Frankfurt, Germany,
Salzburg, Austria, and at Leica Headquarters in Solms, Germany. His
work was also included in The Camera Obscura Gallery's "The Art
of Photography Today" and opposite photographs by Elliott Erwitt
in "Encore: More of the Art of Photography Today". In June
of last year he spoke on street photography at the International Center
of Photography in New York City, and he was the keynote speaker at the
Leica Historical Society of America's 2009 annual meeting in Seattle,
Washington.
Semetko looks for the "decisive moment" in everyday situations.
He states of his work:
"None of the pictures in this exhibition were staged. They were
all taken spontaneously-some with the subject's knowledge, most without.
My goal in taking a picture is to capture a candid moment that evokes
emotion and has a strong sense of geometry. Basically, I'm trying to
tell a story with interesting characters in a single frame. This requires
a great deal of wandering around aimlessly with an empty head-a skill
many teachers told me I had a gift for-only now I carry a Leica to record
all the strange and beautiful things that happen in front of me. In
the words of Henri Cartier-Bresson, 'Photography is nothing-it's life
that interests me.' "
Semetko is inspired by the humor and irony that crosses cultural boundaries,
and he travels the world to find it. He just returned from a photographic
journey to Asia including Shanghai, Seoul and Bangkok, and is currently
being commissioned by the University of California Los Angeles in a
two-year project to document storytelling between the generations. He
is a graduate of Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, and
a current masters candidate in Consciousness Studies at the University
of Philosophical Research in Los Angeles. In addition to numerous publications
of his work internationally, twenty of his images were selected to be
published in the exhibition book Family of Man 2, and his upcoming
monograph on street photography is scheduled to be released this fall
by teNeues Publishing.
Please
join us for a reception for the artists on Friday, April 23 from 5:30
to 8:30 PM
HAPPENINGS
Photography
at Denver Art Museum
The newly renovated Anthony and Delisa Mayer Photography Gallery at
the Denver Art Museum will open on April 30, 2010 with the Department
of Photography's inaugural show, "Exposure; Photos from the Vault".
The exhibition is drawn by newly appointed curator of photography, Eric
Paddock from DAM's collection of over 7,000 photographs. It will feature
works by Ansel Adams, Alfred Stieglitz, Garry Winogrand, Chuck Close
and Shirin Neshat, among other stellar artists.
Future exhibitions from the Department of Photography will include traveling
and temporary exhibitions. "The Place We Live", a retrospective
of the work of Robert Adams organized by Yale University Art Gallery
will open in the fall of 2011.
The Anthony and Delisa Mayer Photography Gallery is located on the 7th
floor of the North building. The Denver Art Museum is located between
Broadway and Bannock Street on 13th Avenue, across from The Camera Obscura
Gallery.
MOPLA
From
April 3-30, the city of Los Angeles will observe "MOPLA: The Month
of Photography Los Angeles: 160/160-celebrating 160 years of Los Angeles
through 160 photographers". Activities include exhibitions, portfolio
reviews and other events held at venues throughout the city. Check out
www.mopla.org for more.
NYPH 10
The
New York Photo Festival is scheduled for May 12-16. The third annual
festival will be held at the Brooklyn waterfront community of DUMBO
and will also expand its programming and pre-festival activities into
other parts of the city. Visit www.nyphotofesival.com
for information.
Madrid
Foto
From May 12-16, the city of Madrid, Spain will celebrate MADRIDFOTO,
its Photography fair orientated to show the diversity of expressions
and tendencies of contemporary photography. Visit www.madridphoto.es
for information.
New Photographer
The
photography of Philip Hyde is now at Camera Obscura Gallery. Many consider
Philip Hyde the underappreciated landscape master of the 20th Century.
He trained under Ansel Adams, Edward Weston and Minor White in the late
1940s. In the following decades, Philip Hyde helped to establish color
landscape photography as a fine art. He also participated in more environmental
campaigns than any other photographer as he helped protect Dinosaur
National Monument, the Grand Canyon, the California Redwoods, Point
Reyes National Seashore, King's Canyon, Big Sur, North Cascades, Canyonlands,
the Wind River Range and many other national parks and wilderness areas.
Calls for Entries
"
2010 Photo Review Photography Competition
www.photoreview.org/compete.htm
"
Center for Fine Art Photography: Strange Beauty
www.c4fap.org
"
Working With Artists: Sense of Place-Landscape photography
www.workingwithartists.org
"
Minneapolis Photo Center: Black and White
www.mplsphotocenter.com/exhibits/callforentriesBW
EXHIBITIONS
Denver
Art Museum, 720-865-5000, Exposure: Photos From the Vault,
Opening April 30.
Museum of Contemporary Art, Denver, 303.298.7554. Call for current
show information.
Gallery M, Denver, 303.331.8400, Howard Schatz: Anticipating
Spring-The Pregnancy Collection, through April 30.
Littleton Museum, Littleton, CO, 303.795.3950, Eye of the
Camera 2009 Best of Show Winner's Exhibition: Photographs by Fritz Penning,
through May 30.
Flash Gallery, Lakewood, CO, 303.837.1341 Organic Matters,
April 16-June 6.
The Center for Fine Art Photography, Ft. Collins, CO, 970.224.1010,
Motion, through April 17, and Wrenay Gomez Charlton: The Space
Between, through April 24.
Open Shutter Gallery, Durango, CO Exposure, through May
5.
Gallery UAF, Salt Lake City, UT, Carolyn Guild: The Song of
Sprits Over the Water, through May 14.
SF Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, The View From Here,
through June 27.
J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, A Record of Emotion: The
Photographs of Frederick H. Evans, through June 6.
Museum of Photographic Arts, San Diego, CA State of Mind:
A California Invitational, through June 6.
Center for Creative Photography, Tucson, AZ, New Topographics,
through May 16.
Etherton Gallery, Tucson, AZ, Radiant Land: Jack Dykinga,
Eliot Porter, through May 29.
Monroe Gallery, Santa Fe, NM, Steve Schapiro: American Edge,
through June 27.
Catherine Edelman Gallery, Chicago, Keith Carter: Seen and
Unseen, through May 1.
Southeast Museum of Photography, Daytona Beach, FL, Double
Exposure: African Americans Before and Behind the Camera, through
May 30.
Palm Beach Photographic Centre, West Palm Beach, FL, Man Ray,
through May 30. Paul Caponigro, through July 11.
International Center of Photography, NYC, Twilight Visions:
Surrealism, Photography and Paris; Miroslav Tichy; Alan B. Stone and
the Senses of Place; and Atget: Archivist of Paris, all through
May 9.
Deborah Bell Photographs, NYC, Geroge W. Gardner: American
Illustrated, opening April 10.
Howard Greenberg Gallery, NYC, Berenice Abbott: Inside the
Archive, through May 28.
Keith de Lellis Gallery, NYC, Artifice, through June 5.
Lawrence Miller Gallery, NYC, Philippe Halsman: JUMP, Fred
Herzog: Whispers and Shadows, through May 28;
Guggenheim Museum, NYC, Haunted: Contemporary Photography/Video
Performance, through Sept 6.
Museum of Modern Art, NYC, Henri Cartier-Bresson: The Modern
Century, through June 28.
New York Public Library, NYC, In Passing: Evelyn Hofer, Helen
Levitt, Lilo Raymond, through May 23.
Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY, Surface Tension: Contemporary
Photographs from the Collection, through May 16.
George Eastman House, Rochester, NY, Roger Ballen: Photographs
1984-2009, through June 6.
Auction
Report
Swann's Galleries was the early bird on the stage to begin the 2010
spring auctions. They scheduled their two-part sales on March 23, offering
239 lots, of which 148 sold for a total of $998,157.
The evocative photographs featured in the first catalogue were assembled
by the highly respected California collector, Stephen White. They were
exhibited at Amsterdam's Van Gogh Museum in 2001, entitled "The
American Dream in Three Parts: Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness",
with introduction by President Bill Clinton. The catalogue depicting
the images in this sale is an important document on the photographic
history of America, and the five-day exhibition of the prints an epic
display as many of the photographs will never again be on view to the
public.
Top priced sales included: Eadward Muybridge (1830-1904), Animal
Locomotion, with 21 collotype plates depicting wrestlers, running
and jumping horses, a lion, bird in flight, walking and jumping men,
a topless woman jumping rope, a nude man swinging a baseball bat, and
others, est. $15,000-20,000, sold for $57,600; James Wallace Black (1825-1896),
A Portrait of Kit Carson, est. $30,000-40,000, went for $48,000;
Andrew J. Russell (1829-1902), Golden Spike Ceremony, Laying the
Last Nail at Promontory Point, Utah, 1869, est. $20,000-30,000,
brought $43,200; Montgomery P. Simons, a half-plate daguerreotype portrait
of Henry Clay, est. $28,000-30,000, sold for $24,000; Lewis W. Hine
(1874-1940), Spinner Cotton Mill, Augusta, Ga, est. $12,000-18,000,
went for $26,400.
Part 2, Fine Photographs, 135 lots, of which 86 sold for $572,442. Top
sales were: Helmut Newton (1920-2004) Woman Observing Man, St. Tropez,
1975, est. $30,000-40,000, sold for $40,800; Mario Giacomellli,
(1925-2000), Portfolio La Gente (the people), containing 18 16x12"
silver prints, est. $25,000-35,000, sold for $33,600; Ansel Adams, (1902-1984),
Moonrise Over Hernandez, NM, 1941, 19 ½ x 15 ½
" silver print, printed late 1960s, est. $30,000-40,000, went for
$ 28,800; Helmut Newton (1920-2004), Woman Being Filmed, Paris, 1980,
est. $15,000-25,000, brought $22,800; Brett Weston (1911-1993), Mendenhal
Glacier, 1973, est. $5,000-7,500, sold for $7,200.
Many of the lots in the Stephen White sale sold for prices higher than
the high estimate. Altogether the two Swann's sales did quite well.
On April 13th, Sotheby's will present a sale offering 242 lots. On April
15th, Christie's will have two sales. First sale will offer a selection
of 120 lots from the Baio Collection. Second sale will offer 220 lots
of reasonably priced collectible photographs.
The three sales will include outstanding vintage prints by: Paul Stand,
Eugene Atget, Margaret Bourke-White, Edward Weston, Irving Penn, Diane
Arbus, Charles Sheeler and Lazlo Moholy Nagy.
Quarterly Quotes
"The
wandering photographer sees the same show that everyone else sees. He,
however, stops to watch it."
Edouard
Boubat
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