Photo & Documentary
Exhibitions . The Loving Story: Photographs by Grey Villet . 1965
January 20– May 6, 2012
In 1958, Richard and Mildred Loving were arrested in a nighttime raid in their bedroom by the sheriff of Caroline County, Va. Their crime: being married to each other. The Lovings — Mildred, who was of African-American and Native American descent, and Richard, a bricklayer with a blond buzz cut — were ordered by a judge to leave Virginia for 25 years. This month, the International Center of Photography is mounting a show of Grey Villet’s photographs of the couple in 1965. That exhibit is complemented by an HBO documentary, ‘‘The Loving Story,’’ directed by Nancy Buirski, which will be shown on HBO on Feb. 14. The film tells of the Lovings’ struggle to return home after living in exile in Washington, where Mildred, gentle in person but persistent on paper, wrote pleading letters to Robert F. Kennedy and the A.C.L.U. Two lawyers took their case to the Supreme Court, which struck down miscegenation laws in more than a dozen states. The Lovings’ belief in the simple rightness of their plea never wavered. Asked by one of his lawyers if he had a message for the Supreme Court, Richard said he did: ‘‘Tell the court I love my wife.’’
Julie Bosman
Exhibitions at International Center of Photography
HBO Premiere Valentine’s Day (February 14 th), Black History Month, 2012
Photo
Anonymous Picture . Sailling . Circa 1930-40 . USA . Self Collection
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Anonymous Picture . Sailling . Circa 1930-40 . USA . Self Collection
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Anonymous Picture . Sailling . Circa 1930-40 . USA . Self Collection
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Anonymous Picture . Sailling . Circa 1930-40 . USA . Self Collection
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Anonymous Picture . Sailling . Circa 1930-40 . USA . Self Collection
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Anonymous Picture . Sailling . Circa 1930-40 . USA . Self Collection
Photographer
Emmy Andriesse . 1914 1953 .
Beeldroman. Tekst J.B. Charles. Den Haag . Bert Bakker . 1956.
Born in 1914, Andriesse studied on what was considered to be the radical advertising course at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague from 1933 to 1937. There she was encouraged to experiment with the formal possibilities of photography, and with its political role as a documentary medium. After graduating, she became a fashion photographer for Dutch newspapers and continued these assignments in the early years of the war until, as a Jew, she was forbidden to work and, in 1943, forced to go into hiding.
It was only after obtaining forged papers that Andriesse was able to photograph again, working with the Underground Camera group of documentary photographers. Even then she had to work in secrecy, often at grave personal risk, sometimes snatching images from her doorstep of life on the street outside. The precariousness of her situation is reflected in their intensity.
After the war Andriesse worked as a fashion photographer and portraitist until her death from cancer in 1953. (Sadly, like so many women who had worked with great courage in wartime, she may have had no choice but to work in a more conventionally feminine field.) Yet in her “winter of hunger” photographs of the boys’ tangled legs, a uniformed gravedigger, and children huddling for warmth, Andriesse showed people playing the roles that history had dealt them with dignity and humanity.
Books
Gary Cooper . An Enduring Style . by G. Bruce Boyer and Maria Cooper Janis . Foreword by Ralph Lauren . Design by Ruth Ansel . Cloth-bound hardcover with slipcase . Release December 2011
Gary Cooper: An Enduring Style is the first ever monograph focused on the timeless fashion and allure of this leading man who was a fashion inspiration to his Hollywood peers, clothing designers then and now, and generations of stylish men of every social strata, across the globe. Compiled of unpublished, never-before-seen personal photographs, shot primarily by his wife Rocky, Gary Cooper captures the cars, the mansions and ranches, the guns and gear, and of course the endless outfits for every occasion that this Hollywood icon ensconced himself in throughout the years. Whether hunting with close friend Ernest Hemingway, lounging with Cary Grant, horseback, poolside, or on the beach, on-set or after-hours, in the company of royalty or cowboys, Cooper had the perfect outfit for every occasion, embodying a type of refined masculinity rarely seen and in high demand to this day.
Photographer
Otto Steinert . Sonnenuntergang in Hirtshals . 1964
born July 12, 1915, Saarbrücken, Germany—died March 3, 1978, Essen-Werden, West Germany, German photographer, teacher, and physician, who was the founder of the Fotoform movement of postwar German photographers.
Steinert studied medicine at various universities from 1934 to 1939 and was a medical officer during World War II. He abandoned medicine for photography about 1947, when he became a portrait photographer. He was best known as the founder, in 1949, and intellectual mentor of the Fotoform group of photographers, whose innovative images he displayed at the Photokina exhibition in Cologne in 1950. The photographers in the group created mostly abstract images, often derived from close-up views of patterns from nature or from manipulating negatives and prints. Steinert mounted three more highly influential photographic exhibitions (each called “Subjektive Fotografie”), in 1951, 1954, and 1958, which showcased the entire spectrum of West German photography since World War II, with an emphasis on abstraction. Photographers including László Moholy-Nagy and Man Ray were included in the 1951 show.
Steinert abandoned Fotoform in the late 1950s, but he continued to be an influential figure among photographers as a teacher. He taught and eventually became the director of the Staatliche Werkkunstschule, where he worked from 1952 until his death. During this period he also acted as director of the Folkswangschule in Essen.
