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• Issue #41
• Article

We have some exciting new material for this venue in every area, so plan on spending a lot of time with us at booth 236 (a new location for us this year) on the second floor. Simply take the escalator up as you come in the door to the show. At the top of the escalator, make a left and go down to the first aisle and make a right. You should see our booth straight ahead at the end of the aisle. In celebration of my birthday and Valentine's Day on the opening night of AIPAD (February 14), we will give each purchaser that evening a beautiful rose. Because of new AIPAD rules limiting the number of photographs that we can display on the walls and the amount of our table/counter space, we will unfortunately be severely limited to what we can bring to the show. If you want us to bring something specific for you to see, check out our images on the website on www.iphotocentral.com and then call or email us to bring the images that you are interested in.

Of course, as you might expect, vintage 19th and 20th century work will be well represented at our booth. Several large and exceptional prints by master photographers will be exhibited, including two very important images by Eduard Steichen (The May Pole, Empire State Building and a large format Isadora Duncan, the Parthenon); three large and important prints by Gustave Le Gray (two rare marine views and one rare view of trees); a 19th century grouping of nine images of phases of the moon by Spooner & Co.; about a dozen of the best Charles Cliffords (1850s views of Spain) that I have ever seen; and big prints by Edouard-Denis Baldus, Francis Frith, Laure Albin Guillot, Otto Steinert, Jean Dreville, Edmund Kesting, Dr. John Murray and Julia M. Cameron.

We will have some smaller format, but certainly not less important images, including rare images of children by Thomas Eakins, which are very Lewis Carroll-like; a very fine Arnold Genthe (Chinatown subject matter); a vintage print of Horst's "Barefoot", one of his most important images; Ferdinand Tillard's primitive 1850s paper negatives (accompanied by modern positive salt prints) of Normandy; and a very rare original glass-plate negative by Etienne-Jules Marey (Chromograph of Man Jumping Over Hurdle).

Other top images include: a good group of Auguste Salzmann's Palestinian views; a large group of trees, buildings, and parks by Atget; the finest Anne Brigman (The Heart of the Storm) that we have seen; a rare print of Toulouse-Lautrec; an very important full-plate dag by Southward and Hawes; three early images by Andre Kertesz of gypsy children in Paris (some of his first images shot in that city); a fine group of large mediobromes and silver print contacts by Leonard Misonne; a dramatic portrait of a man by Camille Silvy; three stunning hand-colored stereo dag nudes; rare calotypes by W.H.F. Talbot, Alexis de Lagrange (one of the earliest photographs taken in India), Eugene Piot (the Greek Parthenon), Alphonse de Brebisson, Baron Louis-Adolphe Humbert de Molard, Louis Robert, Pablo, Theodule Deveria, Felix Teynard, Julien Vallou de Villeneuve, Auguste Vacquerie, Eugene Cuvelier, Maxime Du Camp and Henri Le Secq; salt prints by Baldus, Marville, Maurizio Lotze, Vigier, Bertsch, Richard Banner Oakley, Mayer Freres and Pierson, Stewart, Miot, Frenet, and Eugene Constant; major albumen prints by Louis De Clercq, Charles Marville, Auguste Kotzsch, Samuel Bourne, Desire Charnay, and early Spanish images by R. Napper; vintage platinum prints of nudes by Clarence White; important vintage silver prints by Ansel Adams, Brett Weston, Maurice Tabard, Man Ray, Erwin Blumenfeld, Robert Doisneau, Francois Kollar, Albert Rudimine, Brassai, Lartigue, Rossler, Moholy-Nagy, Dora Maar, Alfred Stieglitz, Josef Sudek and Sabine Weiss, just to mention a few. With this many high quality prints, you will have to go through our bins to see work that most dealers cannot afford to put up on the walls.

In the contemporary area, we will have exciting work in portfolio boxes (so please ask to see it) by four artists: Robert Asman, Caramella di Carlo, Tim Rice and Mike Robinson (in the display case along with the full-plate Southworth and Hawes, stereo dags and other wonderful hard images).

Robert Asman has produced a group of prints from his most popular nude images in an affordable and yet very limited edition (still only 25, plus artist's proofs). The prints are priced beginning at $700 each. Robert works with paper internegatives and tones his prints, so each is really handcrafted. Asman's larger uniquely toned prints, are $1000-$1500 each.

Caramella di Carlo, a recent artist for us, has produced two exciting series of images that we will be exhibiting at AIPAD. Her distorted nudes from the Infinity Series are produced in a very small edition of 18, plus artist's proofs. Most are currently priced at $700 in the 10-1/2" square size and $900 in the 14-1/2" size, but many are on the edge of going up to the next level ($900 and $1200 respectively).

Di Carlo has also produced a stunning black and purple-toned (like in that beautiful dark purple of a well-made salt print) series on objects from the Mutter Medical Museum here in Philadelphia. The Mutter is a very famous institution and other photographers as diverse as Joel-Peter Witkin and William Wegman have shot here, but frankly Caramella's images are--for me--the most breathtaking and haunting. This new series is in a small edition of 25, plus artist's proofs, and are roughly 10-1/2" square (on 11" x 14" paper). Their price starts at $700, but I am sure that many of these will quickly sell and the prices are set to go up. Caramella's work was recently accepted for this year's Mutter Calendar, whose artists read like a Who's Who of the Photo World. Photographer's Forum also ran two full pages of her pictures this past year and we have plans for a book by early next year, so watch this artist.

These images appeal to my 19th century instincts as well as my modernist mind. They are truly mysterious and shocking, yet they are somehow dreamlike. Each print, with its irregular border, reminds me of a lost Daguerreian image made by sorcery and incantation rather than mercury and bromide. I really don't know how she makes these images (and she won't explain, in order not to break the magic). For a preview of the real thing, go to our Special Exhibits section on the I Photo Central Website for a portfolio of Di Carlo's work (Caramella di Carlo: Body of Evidence). Also take a look at her artist's statement, which I find literate and insightful.

Tim Rice is always shooting and doing something that intrigues me. Tim is a technical craftsman and printer of the first order. His large format camera images are impeccable, and have a subtlety that draws you in to look always one more time.

His subjects have often been ecologically oriented. He has done a well-published series on nuclear power generation and its effects on the surrounding communities, and is still adding to another series on jet contrails, which I've nicknamed his "Nonequivalents," in reference to Stieglitz's Equivalents (Cloud Studies). But I think Rice's images are more interesting than Stieglitz's in many ways. Few people realize when first viewing them that they are the pollution trails left by today's aviation. There is a beauty that is deceiving in its simplicity and what it actually displays.

At $750 each in only an edition of 25 plus artist's proofs, these beautiful and large 16" x 20" prints are a steal. Something one cannot say about the Equivalents.

Finally, last but certainly not least, is Mike Robinson's contemporary daguerreotypes. We are working with Connecticut photography dealer Christopher Wahren Fine Photographs and Robinson on this exclusive arrangement. You can find information and other images by Mike Robinson at http://www.cwfp.biz/robinson, which is Christopher Wahren's web site. We will shortly be building a special exhibit on iphotocentral.com for Mike's work. In the meantime, you can find Mike's images on the I Photo Central website by going to the Search Images for Sale page, scrolling down and clicking the Click here for a list of Photographers whose inventory is on the site, hitting "R" and then clicking on Mike's name.

Mike Robinson's Century Darkroom in Toronto has gained a reputation in several alternative photographic processes. Robinson's work in the daguerreotype combines a classical sense of beauty with the high level of technical skill required for success in this difficult photographic medium. His unique contribution to the modern daguerreotype has gained increasing recognition, and a series of Mike's daguerreotypes were recently commissioned for the holdings of the Hallmark Photographic Collection. He often houses his images in modern handcrafted cases and passé-partout mounts that resemble the older cases from France and the United States. This combination of old and new approaches is one of the things that distinguish Mike's work. His work has been reproduced in the 2000 Daguerreian Society Annual.

In "Photography, Old and New Again," the February 2002 Discover magazine also presented the Daguerreotype and the work of Robinson to a new and broader audience. The project showcased in this article is a set of plates commissioned by the magazine and taken by Robinson in January 2001.

Mike is currently involved with new projects involving two institutions. His most recent project, which is available on I Photo Central through Vintage Works, as well as through Chris Wahren, is a joint work between Mike and Spring Hurlbut, a noted Canadian artist known for her installations of period objects, including a recent show at the Royal Ontario Museum published as The Final Sleep (2001).

In the new joint work, Robinson and Hurlbut worked together to produce three progressive views of a wax-headed mannequin (circa-1917) from France as quarter-plate daguerreotypes. The plates apply difficult 19th-century techniques of vignetting and hand coloring to their subject. The three plates are in specially produced cases that simulate older thermoplastic ones.