Fred McDarrah

Vintage Print Silver Gelatin Signed Photograph Sidney Janis, Conrad Janis, NYC

1972

Bruce Cratsley, American (1944-1998) Vintage gelatin silver print A Renaissance face and shadow bench A surrealist image of a Sandro Botticelli sidewalk chalk drawing in a NYC park Hand signed, titled and dated 1989 verso image (each): 15 1/4 x 15 1/4 inches, matted to 24 X 20 inches Provenance: From the collection of AGFA Graphics Corporation David Bruce Cratsley (1944 - 1998) was an American photographer specialized in still lifes, portraits of friends, and life in New York City. He had a reputation of master of light and shadow. Bruce Cratsley attended Swarthmore College, graduating in 1966, and then, in the early 1970s, The New School for Social Research, studying under Lisette Model. Cratsley worked for many years as a gallerist at Marlborough Gallery before quitting in 1986 to become a full-time photographer. As "Bruce Cratsley", he exhibited in various New York galleries, like: Laurence Miller Gallery, Howard Greenberg Gallery and Witkin Gallery. Cratsley was represented by Yancey Richardson Gallery, a dealer of fine art photography based in SoHo. He was photographed by Elsa Dorfman who shot many luminaries including, Allen Ginsberg, Denise Levertov, Anaïs Nin and more. In 1978 Cratsley contributed the photo sequences for the musical The Class, performed by The New Ballet School at the New York City Center. In 1980, Cratsley showed his work, Atlantic City, 1977, an August beach scene, at the 11th Anniversary show at the Witkin Gallery. In 1989 Cratsley was awarded with the Guggenheim Fellowship for Photography, US Canada. Cratsley documented gay life in NYC including his life with David Waine, who died in 1991. "I'd been photographing David since long before he became sick [...] at some point I realized that this was an extraordinary thing that was happening, and that I had an intimate relationship to it. I photographed David just a few hours before he died, not knowing what was about to happen [...] David was very spiritual [...] My pictures are a poetic, spiritualized look at AIDS". In 1995 Cratsley was included together with Barbara Norfleet, Olivia Parker and John Sturges in the list of bestselling photographer at Robert Klein Gallery...

Edward Steichen, John Durniak, Monroe Wheeler and Edward D. Museum of modern art on Feb 10, 1962 Photographer Fred McDarrah Over a 50-year span, McDarrah documented the rise of the Beat Generation, the city’s postmodern art movement, its off-off-Broadway actors, troubadours, politicians, agitators and social protests. Fred captured Jack Kerouac frolicking with women at a New Year’s bash in 1958, Andy Warhol adjusting a movie-camera lens in his silver-covered factory, and Bob Dylan offering a salute of recognition outside Sheridan Square near the Voice’s old office. Not just a social chronicler, McDarrah was a great photo-journalist. For years, McDarrah was the Voice's only photographer and, for decades, he ran the Voice’s photo department, where he helped train dozens of young photographers, including James Hamilton, Sylvia Plachy, Robin Holland and Marc Asnin. His mailbox was simply marked "McPhoto." An exhibit of McDarrah’s photos of artists presented by the Steven Kasher Gallery in Chelsea was hailed by The New York Times as “a visual encyclopedia of the era’s cultural scene.” artists in their studios, (Alice Neel, Philip Guston, Stuart Davis, Robert Smithson, Jasper Johns, Franz Kline), actors (Dustin Hoffman, Robert De Niro on the set of “Taxi Driver”), musicians (Janis Joplin, Alice Cooper, Bob Dylan) and documentary images of early happenings and performances (Yayoi Kusama, Charlotte Moorman, Al Hansen, Jim Dine, Nam June Paik). The many images of Andy Warhol include the well-known one with his Brillo boxes at the Stable Gallery in 1964. Woody Allen, Diane Arbus, W. H. Auden, Francis Bacon, Joan Baez, Louise Bourgeois, David Bowie, Jimmy Breslin, William Burroughs, John Cage, Leo Castelli, Christo, Leonard Cohen, Merce Cunningham, William de Kooning, Jim Dine, Mark di Suvero, Marcel Duchamp, Bob Dylan, Federico Fellini, Allen Ginsberg, Robert Indiana, Mick Jagger, Jasper Johns, Kusama, John Lennon, Sol Lewitt, Roy Lichtenstein, Nam June Paik, Elvis Presley, Claes Oldenburg, Yoko Ono, Robert Rauschenberg, Lou Reed, James Rosenquist, Mark Rothko, Ed Ruscha, Robert Smithson, Susan Sontag, Andy Warhol, and others. McDarrah’s prints have been collected in depth by the J. Paul Getty Museum and the National Portrait Gallery, Washington. His work is in numerous public and private collections. Edward Jean Steichen (March 27, 1879 – March 25, 1973) was a Luxembourgish American photographer, painter, and art gallery and museum curator. Steichen's were the photographs that most frequently appeared in Alfred Stieglitz's groundbreaking magazine Camera Work during its publication from 1903 to 1917. Together Stieglitz and Steichen opened the Little Galleries of the Photo-Secession, which eventually became known as '291', after its address. Steichen laid claim to his photos of gowns for the magazine Art et Décoration in 1911 being the first modern fashion photographs ever published. From 1923 to 1938, Steichen was a photographer for the Condé Nast magazines Vogue and Vanity Fair while also working for many advertising agencies including J. Walter Thompson. During these years, Steichen was regarded as the best known and highest paid photographer in the world. In 1944, he directed the war documentary The Fighting Lady, which won the 1945 Academy Award for Best Documentary. From 1947 to 1961, Steichen served as Director of the Department of Photography at New York's Museum of Modern Art. While at MoMA, he curated and assembled exhibits including The Family of Man, which was seen by nine million people. In 1904, Steichen began experimenting with color photography. He was one of the earliest in the United States to use the Autochrome Lumière process. In 1905, Stieglitz and Steichen created the Little Galleries of the Photo-Secession, which eventually became known as 291 after its address. It presented some of the first American exhibitions of Henri Matisse, Auguste Rodin, Paul Cézanne, Pablo Picasso, and Constantin Brâncuși. He worked with Robert Frank even before his The Americans was published, exhibited the early work of Harry Callahan and Aaron Siskind, and purchased two Rauschenberg prints...