“When Color Was New” – take a look…
Please could we organize a monthly junket to NYC?????? Through September 6 there’s a show on at the Julie Saul gallery that features a great group of “vintage photographs from around the 1970’s”.
It’s called “When Color Was New” and includes artists like Helen Levitt, Mitch Epstein, William Christenberry and Harry Callahan. And Walker Evans, William Eggleston and Joel Meyerowitz. And Stephen Shore and Nan Goldin. And…..waaaahhhh. Many of the images are vintage prints.
© Walker Evans/Untitled, 1973/74
I just finished reading in FOCUS magazine an interview with Joel Meyerowitz , one of the early users of color film and even though I was nowhere near that NYC scene of burgeoning photographers experimenting with this new medium, I felt a stab of nostalgia as Meyerowitz described the camaraderie among the group – himself, Winogrand, Levitt and others – conferring with John Szarkowski, and just going out on the streets day after day shooting together. Sigh. Reminds me of what I read about the group of painters in Montmartre in the 1920’s that included all the heavyweights like Picasso before they became such icons. They shared a rattrap of a warehouse building for studio spaces and grew up together to become some of the greatest shakers and movers of the 20th century art world.
Well, an illustrated catalog is available. Cheaper than a trip to the Big Apple, but nowhere near as satisfying.
© William Christenberry/Canon’s Grocery, 1972, printed 1975/
Courtesy Pace/MacGill Gallery, New York
© Arthur Siegel/Untitled (Store Window, 1951)
