Meeting Michael Katakis…
On view until 2/1/09 at the fabulous National Portrait Gallery in Washington DC is an exhibit called Women of Our Time: Twentieth Century Photographs. I saw it a couple of weeks en route to a warmer place than Maine!
My favorite portrait was Michael Katakis‘ image of Maya Lin in 1988 – one of the most uncontrived and lovely portraits I’ve seen a long time. It shows the designer of the Vietnam War memorial in Washington DC (completed in 1982) casually seated in what looks like her studio, and her black cat has reached out to place a paw on her shoulder.
© Michael Katakis, National Portrait Museum, Smithsonian Institution; gift of Michael Katakis in memory of his father, George E. Katakis. All rights reserved.
Mr. Katakis photographed the Vietnam War memorial extensively and this one page essay about an encounter he had there gives great insight into the man and is supported by two of the photographs on his website (below).
If you think you’ve seen enough pictures of visitors to the Vietnam War memorial, you haven’t until you viewed a small sampling of Katakis’ images on his site, or buy the book if you can find it, published in 1988 by Crown Publishers and titled The Vietnam War Memorial.
Take some time to get to know Katakis’ work via his website. You can’t go wrong spending a few minutes with an expert photographer who gets right to the soul of his subjects.
JUST RELEASED: Michael Katakis had a new book published this week, Jan. 5, 2009. Traveller – Observations from an American in Exile includes an introduction by Michael Palin.
