Man Ray‘s photograph, ‘Le Violon d’Ingres’ sold this month for a record $12.4 million far surpassing the previous record set by Rhein II by Andreas Gursky, which sold at auction in 2011 for $4.3 million (CNN).
A new record for a photograph
Happy Birthday Eugene
Today would have been the 165th birthday of possibly my favorite photographers: Jean-Eugène-Auguste Atget, born 12 February 1857. Above a photograph of Atget shortly before he died by Berenice Abbott, herself a famous photographer and champion of Atget’s work. Below: Atget’s photograph: “Au Tambour” taken in 1908.
Congratulations to Sally Mann
Congratulations to one of my favorite photographers, Sally Mann on winning this years Prix Pictet award for her project exploring the devastating wildfires at the Great Dismal Swamp in south-eastern Virginia.
Finding Beauty: The Life Work of George Tice
Interesting short (22 minute) interview with George Tice: “… (1938-) an American photographer, best known for his meticulously crafted black and white prints in silver gelatin and platinum, as well as his books, which depict a broad range of American life, landscape, and urban environment, mostly photographed in his native New Jersey, where he has lived all his life, except for his service in the U. S. Navy, a brief period in California, a fellowship in the United Kingdom, and summer workshops in Maine, where he taught at the Maine Photographic Workshops, now the Maine Media Workshops” (Wikipedia).
Atget by John Szarkowski
Finally managed to get my hands on Atget by John Szarkowski.
Eugène Atget is my favorite photographer, arguably because I came across this book many years ago either on the internet, or in a library or somewhere I could not take away a copy of my own. It had a profound influence on me, as indeed did Atget on such luminaries as Henri Cartier-Bresson, Walker Evans, Berenice Abbott (who I believe took the picture above), Robert Frank, Lee Friedlander and others.
Photobookjournal.com describes it as follows:
I have a broad collection of photographic books that have had an image or two of Atget’s photographs and I really wanted to have a dedicated resource to read and study to further understand Atget’s way of looking at his environment. There are a number of alternative hardcover book options for Atgets photographs but to have access a paring of Atget’s photographs with the insights of Szarkowski and the beautifully printing and binding by MOMA in Italy was just too hard to resist.
The images are all well displayed in the book with a Atget photograph on the right and on the opposite spread the commentary about the photograph by Szarkowski.
So I have now traveled throught this book many times. At first I had hoped for a little more analysis of the structure of the photograph from Szarkowski and then I realized that he was helping to frame the context of the photograph as much as describing the photographs attributes.
The book sequences Atget photographs chronologically taking you on a historical journey through the development of Atget’s body of work. You come to understand that even Bernice Abbott, who became the champion of Atget’s photographs, did not get that close to the photographer himself.
So in conclusion this a book that I can really recommend.
Me too.