[pure-silver] Re: A Walk Through the Exhibition
- From: "Richard Knoppow" <dickburk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <pure-silver@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 18 Oct 2004 17:37:29 -0700
----- Original Message -----
From: "Stein" <rstein@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <pure-silver@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Monday, October 18, 2004 4:04 PM
Subject: [pure-silver] A Walk Through the Exhibition
> Dear Friends,
> Just back from my week's holiday in Melbourne. If that
> seems a strange place to go to escape from care, consider
> the fact that they have hotels, hot running water, and
> bookshops. My days of camping in a hoochie with a rifle
> and a billy of tea are over....
>
> They also have the National Gallery of Victoria - this
> last week exhibiting a Man Ray room with many of his
> famous photographs. I am assuming that what I saw were
> many originals, but I am unsure whether I saw final prints
> or just darkroom work prints. In any case I was somewhat
> taken aback by them.
>
> Not from an artistic standpoint, I hasten to add - I
> have several books on Man Ray and his assistants and
> recognised many of the images. What puzzled me was their
> presentation.
>
> Small. Dark. Raggedy-edged. Crumpled and
> flattened-out. Spotty. Bronzing over. All matted
> beautifully, but sometimes lost in the center of a vast
> frame. I'm talking about a 6 cm x 9 cm image in a 12 in x
> 16 in frame. And smaller in larger. Some images up to 11 x
> 14 but none what I would have come to believe was an
> exhibition size.
>
> Is this what happens at other international
> exhibitions? None of the images looked like the posters
> used for the advertising - these were closer to what I had
> seen in books. I am wondering a little cynically if the
> look of some photographers is made by their printer and
> indeed the publisher's printer rather than themselves.
>
> Still fascinating images nevertheless - enjoyed it once
> I overcame my surprise.
>
> Uncle Dick
>
I've encountered this with local exhibits. The Huntington
Library had an exhibit of Edward Weston prints some months
ago. Very dissapointing. Nearly all the prints, especially
the older ones, were low contrast, dingy looking things. The
catalogue was beautiful. I don't know if the images in the
catalogue were made from the prints shown in the exhibition.
If so, they were considerably manipulated.
OTOH, the Weston exhibit I saw a couple of years ago at
the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA to its friends)
had beautiful prints. However, I think the Huntington had
all original prints made by the master himself where many of
the the LACMA prints were made by Cole Weston.
I was unable to reach the curator of the Huntington
exhibit so couldn't ask about the provenance of the prints
they have. I now don't remember what the catalogue said. The
print quality is pretty consistent so I don't think these
are discards, I think they were made that way. In the dim
light at the exhibit its hard to be sure but I don't think
the poor quality was due to degredation of the images with
time, I think these prints always looked like this. It was
also not an artificact of the lighting. My conclusion is
that E.W. sometimes made poor prints although he was capable
of making excellent ones.
I've seen the same thing with original prints by other
famous photographers: really poor quality. The reprodutions
of these prints are usually much better than the originals.
The old halftone process was capable of very considrable
manipulation and its obvious that it was often done. I must
say that the very best reproductions of Ansel Adams images
are often better than the originals and I have seen a great
many original Adams prints.
---
Richard Knoppow
Los Angeles, CA, USA
dickburk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
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