Behind the hedgerow – Aldine Fine Arts.com
Not long after moving to Maine in 1989, we understood something vital about neighborhoods here: “behind the hedgerow”, as we call it, there are amazing things going on. On our small stretch of road alone in the 90′s there were three full-time painters with studios and one antiquarian bookstore – all thriving and busy. You’d never know it from looking around as you drove or walked by.
It’s just gotten better with time, and www.aldinefineart.com is a recent example of this phenomenon that’s just come to my attention. Joe Muir, longtime printer extraordinaire and proprietor of Black and White Image in Portland is repairing and correcting and printing thousands of images for the founder of Aldine Fine Arts, Michael Flannery. Flannery combs through thousands of archival photographs from depositories all over the world, and selects those which he feels “offer fresh insight into moments that signpost history, without losing focus on everyday life…”.
Joe Muir has done printing for some heavy-hitters like Berenice Abbott and Vernon Reed. He also has a huge body of work of almost surreal flora of his own.
Robinson Woods©Joe Muir. All Rights Reserved
I’m crazy about vintage photographs and have a collection of almost 400 images myself – all anonymous. So http://www.aldinefineart.com is a great way to browse through someone else’s idea of what works. My only complaint is I couldn’t really get a good look at the images because they are so small, and the zoom only enlarges the area where your cursor is. I just can’t appreciate the images well enough this way. But take a trip through the myriad categories of images offered, and enjoy yet another busy “under-the-radar” enterprise that has roots in Maine’s hidden expertise.
November 15, 2012 at 7:37 pm
Lovely images and helpful insight , thanks for your recommendation .