Photo Notes, Fall 1948, Part 2

Photo Notes, Fall 1948

The issue is a total of 44 pages. The rest will follow at a later date.

Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco

Some of the nicest exhibition invites are produced by The Fraenkel Gallery in San Francisco. They also represent an impressive roster of photographers so they have great images to work with. Beyond that, they seem to go one extra step in the design and production of their invitations such that they become little works of art in their own right.

The image above was taken by James Danzinger (and borrowed from his blog, "The Year in Pictures") while visiting the Fraenkel Gallery in 2009; it shows a wall in the office with framed (apparently never folded) copies of some of the invites. And what follows are more examples.

Diane Arbus, 2007
8 by 10 inches, unfolds twice to a 16 x 20 inch stiff sheet

Front

Back

Opened once

Fully open

Katy Grannan, 2006
8 by 10 inches, unfolds twice to a 16 x 20 inch stiff sheet

Front

Back

Opened once

Fully open

Group show, 2009
8 by 10 inches, opens to a 16 x 10 inch stiff sheet

Front

Back

Open

Bernd & Hilla Becher, 2009
8 by 10 inches, unfolds twice to a 16 x 20 inch stiff sheet

Front

Back

Open once

Fully open

I can not seem to get enough of the Bechers' work; I can look at it over and over and still enjoy it.

Ansel Adams, Journalist

Ansel Cruises Los Angeles

By Ansel Adams, 1940, but reminds me of David Goldblatt

Poking through the online photo-archive of the Los Angeles Public Library, a fellow named Gerard Van der Leun found many un-Ansel like photos labeled Ansel Adams. After some deep research he figured out what they were. It's an interesting story and can be found here with some of the images. The complete set of images, with no explanation as to their origin, can be found here.

The man in the photo at the right is Cole Weston, Edward's son. By Ansel Adams, 1940.

Nicholas Nixon

Nicholas and Bebe Nixon at the opening of an exhibit of his series "The Brown Sisters"
in Granada, Spain, May 6, 2009.

Nicholas Nixon, Self-Portrait, 1997

Of working photographers, there are very few producing images as good as those Nicholas Nixon makes. Here are a few gallery invites from the last ten years.

Zabriskie Gallery, New York City, 2001

Stiff card, 7.25 by 9 inches

Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco, 2004

Front

Opened once

Opened to poster view

20 by 16.5 inches, folded twice

Yossi Milo Gallery, NYC, 2006

Front

Open

Back
8.75 by 11.5 inches, folded once

Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco, 2009

Front

Back

Opened

With flap opened
17.5 by 10 inches, folded twice

Nicholas Nixon by Bill Jay, 1973

And speaking of the Brown Sisters (which I'll assume you know), the British artist Idris Khan, who makes layered composites of appropriated imagery, has aggregated every one of the Brown sister photos into a single, rather cool, image.

every...Nicholas Nixon's Brown Sisters, 2004

Bruce Weber in Vanity Fair

Let's start the year with a particularly unusual fashion shoot by Bruce Weber for Vanity Fair's November 1984 issue.