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Black and White Photography For Sale
Period: 1990s
Period: 1940s
My Thinking Time
Located in Dallas, TX
No Edition Signed, titled and dated in pencil on print verso by Earlie Hudnall, Jr. Gelatin silver print, 20 x 16 inches. Earlie Hudnall, who is one of the most notable African Amer...
Category

1990s Contemporary Black and White Photography

Materials

Silver Gelatin

Radiohead, New York City, 1997
Located in New York, NY
20x24" Limited Edition Archival Pigment Print Please allow four weeks production time.
Category

1990s Modern Black and White Photography

Materials

Archival Pigment

"Cafe De Flore, Paris In 19" by Keystone-France
Located in London, GB
"Cafe De Flore, Paris In 1948" by Keystone-France Cafe De Flore, Paris, France, 1948. Unframed Paper Size: 16" x 16'' (inches) Printed 2022 Silver Gel...
Category

1940s Modern Black and White Photography

Materials

Black and White

Nivaldo 1998 by Salvino Campos
Located in Napoli, IT
Photo b/w signed and dated on back New York 1998, numbered 2 of 5 He was born in Brazil in 1970 in Quartel Geral, in the state of Minas Gerais, where he began his professional activi...
Category

1990s Photorealist Black and White Photography

Materials

Photographic Paper

"Schnitzel Please!, " Dresden, Germany, 1999
Located in NEW YORK, NY
"Schnitzel Please!" This timeless, charming photo of a town favorite Dresden Dog, was captured by New York based photographer Fernando Natalici in Ge...
Category

1990s Pop Art Black and White Photography

Materials

Inkjet

Slim Aarons 'The King of Jazz'
Located in New York, NY
Slim Aarons King of Jazz 1949 (printed later) Silver gelatin print estate signature stamped edition of 150 with certificate of authenticity 1949: Photographers taking pictures of A...
Category

1940s Modern Black and White Photography

Materials

Silver Gelatin

My own private Travel Diary - Bishop, CA - Walking Lulu
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
My own private Travel Diary - Bishop, CA - Walking Lulu - 2001, 20x83cm, Edition of 10, plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on the Polaroid Slide. Signature label and Certificate. Not mounted. LIFE’S A DREAM (The Personal World of Stefanie Schneider) by Mark Gisbourne Projection is a form of apparition that is characteristic of our human nature, for what we imagine almost invariably transcends the reality of what we live. And, an apparition, as the word suggests, is quite literally ‘an appearing’, for what we appear to imagine is largely shaped by the imagination of its appearance. If this sounds tautological then so be it. But the work of Stefanie Schneider is almost invariably about chance and apparition. And, it is through the means of photography, the most apparitional of image-based media, that her pictorial narratives or photo-novels are generated. Indeed, traditional photography (as distinct from new digital technology) is literally an ‘awaiting’ for an appearance to take place, in line with the imagined image as executed in the camera and later developed in the darkroom. The fact that Schneider uses out-of-date Polaroid film stock to take her pictures only intensifies the sense of their apparitional contents when they are realised. The stability comes only at such time when the images are re-shot and developed in the studio, and thereby fixed or arrested temporarily in space and time. The unpredictable and at times unstable film she adopts for her works also creates a sense of chance within the outcome that can be imagined or potentially envisaged by the artist Schneider. But this chance manifestation is a loosely controlled, or, better called existential sense of chance, which becomes pre-disposed by the immediate circumstances of her life and the project she is undertaking at the time. Hence the choices she makes are largely open-ended choices, driven by a personal nature and disposition allowing for a second appearing of things whose eventual outcome remains undefined. And, it is the alliance of the chance-directed material apparition of Polaroid film, in turn explicitly allied to the experiences of her personal life circumstances, that provokes the potential to create Stefanie Schneider’s open-ended narratives. Therefore they are stories based on a degenerate set of conditions that are both material and human, with an inherent pessimism and a feeling for the sense of sublime ridicule being seemingly exposed. This in turn echoes and doubles the meaning of the verb ‘to expose’. To expose being embedded in the technical photographic process, just as much as it is in the narrative contents of Schneider’s photo-novel exposés. The former being the unstable point of departure, and the latter being the uncertain ends or meanings that are generated through the photographs doubled exposure. The large number of speculative theories of apparition, literally read as that which appears, and/or creative visions in filmmaking and photography are self-evident, and need not detain us here. But from the earliest inception of photography artists have been concerned with manipulated and/or chance effects, be they directed towards deceiving the viewer, or the alchemical investigations pursued by someone like Sigmar Polke. None of these are the real concern of the artist-photographer Stefanie Schneider, however, but rather she is more interested with what the chance-directed appearances in her photographs portend. For Schneider’s works are concerned with the opaque and porous contents of human relations and events, the material means are largely the mechanism to achieving and exposing the ‘ridiculous sublime’ that has come increasingly to dominate the contemporary affect(s) of our world. The uncertain conditions of today’s struggles as people attempt to relate to each other - and to themselves - are made manifest throughout her work. And, that she does this against the backdrop of the so-called ‘American Dream’, of a purportedly advanced culture that is Modern America, makes them all the more incisive and critical as acts of photographic exposure. From her earliest works of the late nineties one might be inclined to see her photographs as if they were a concerted attempt at an investigative or analytic serialisation, or, better still, a psychoanalytic dissection of the different and particular genres of American subculture. But this is to miss the point for the series though they have dates and subsequent publications remain in a certain sense unfinished. Schneider’s work has little or nothing to do with reportage as such, but with recording human culture in a state of fragmentation and slippage. And, if a photographer like Diane Arbus dealt specifically with the anomalous and peculiar that made up American suburban life, the work of Schneider touches upon the alienation of the commonplace. That is to say how the banal stereotypes of Western Americana have been emptied out, and claims as to any inherent meaning they formerly possessed has become strangely displaced. Her photographs constantly fathom the familiar, often closely connected to traditional American film genre, and make it completely unfamiliar. Of course Freud would have called this simply the unheimlich or uncanny. But here again Schneider almost never plays the role of the psychologist, or, for that matter, seeks to impart any specific meanings to the photographic contents of her images. The works possess an edited behavioural narrative (she has made choices), but there is never a sense of there being a clearly defined story. Indeed, the uncertainty of my reading here presented, acts as a caveat to the very condition that Schneider’s photographs provoke. Invariably the settings of her pictorial narratives are the South West of the United States, most often the desert and its periphery in Southern California. The desert is a not easily identifiable space, with the suburban boundaries where habitation meets the desert even more so. There are certain sub-themes common to Schneider’s work, not least that of journeying, on the road, a feeling of wandering and itinerancy, or simply aimlessness. Alongside this subsidiary structural characters continually appear, the gas station, the automobile, the motel, the highway, the revolver, logos and signage, the wasteland, the isolated train track and the trailer. If these form a loosely defined structure into which human characters and events are cast, then Schneider always remains the fulcrum and mechanism of their exposure. Sometimes using actresses, friends, her sister, colleagues or lovers, Schneider stands by to watch the chance events as they unfold. And, this is even the case when she is a participant in front of camera of her photo-novels. It is the ability to wait and throw things open to chance and to unpredictable circumstances, that marks the development of her work over the last eight years. It is the means by which random occurrences take on such a telling sense of pregnancy in her work. However, in terms of analogy the closest proximity to Schneider’s photographic work is that of film. For many of her titles derive directly from film, in photographic series like OK Corral (1999), Vegas (1999), Westworld (1999), Memorial Day (2001), Primary Colours (2001), Suburbia (2004), The Last Picture Show (2005), and in other examples. Her works also include particular images that are titled Zabriskie Point, a photograph of her sister in an orange wig. Indeed the tentative title for the present publication Stranger Than Paradise is taken from Jim Jarmusch’s film of the same title in 1984. Yet it would be dangerous to take this comparison too far, since her series 29 Palms (1999) presages the later title of a film that appeared only in 2002. What I am trying to say here is that film forms the nexus of American culture, and it is not so much that Schneider’s photographs make specific references to these films (though in some instances they do), but that in referencing them she accesses the same American culture that is being emptied out and scrutinised by her photo-novels. In short her pictorial narratives might be said to strip films of the stereotypical Hollywood tropes that many of them possess. Indeed, the films that have most inspired her are those that similarly deconstruct the same sentimental and increasingly tawdry ‘American Dream’ peddled by Hollywood. These include films like David Lynch’s Blue Velvet (1986), Wild at Heart (1990) The Lost Highway (1997), John Dahl’s The Last Seduction (1994) or films like Ridley Scott’s Thelma and Louise with all its girl-power Bonny and Clyde-type clichés. But they serve no more than as a backdrop, a type of generic tableau from which Schneider might take human and abstracted elements, for as commercial films they are not the product of mere chance and random occurrence. Notwithstanding this observation, it is also clear that the gender deconstructions that the characters in these films so often portray, namely the active role of women possessed of a free and autonomous sexuality (even victim turned vamp), frequently find resonances within the behavioural events taking place in Schneider’s photographs and DVD sequences; the same sense of sexual autonomy that Stefanie Schneider possesses and is personally committed to. In the series 29 Palms (first begun in 1999) the two women characters Radha and Max act out a scenario that is both infantile and adolescent. Wearing brightly coloured fake wigs of yellow and orange, a parody of the blonde and the redhead, they are seemingly trailer park white trash possessing a sentimental and kitsch taste in clothes totally inappropriate to the locality. The fact that Schneider makes no judgment about this is an interesting adjunct. Indeed, the photographic projection of the images is such that the girls incline themselves to believe that they are both beautiful and desirous. However, unlike the predatory role of women in say Richard Prince’s photographs, which are simply a projection of a male fantasy onto women, Radha and Max are self-contained in their vacuous if empty trailer and motel world of the swimming pool, nail polish, and childish water pistols. Within the photographic sequence Schneider includes herself, and acts as a punctum of disruption. Why is she standing in front of an Officers’ Wives Club? Why is Schneider not similarly attired? Is there a proximity to an army camp, are these would-be Lolita(s) Rahda and Max wives or American marine groupies, and where is the centre and focus of their identity? It is the ambiguity of personal involvement that is set up by Schneider which deliberately makes problematic any clear sense of narrative construction. The strangely virulent colours of the bleached-out girls stand in marked contrast to Schneider’s own anodyne sense of self-image. Is she identifying with the contents or directing the scenario? With this series, perhaps, more than any other, Schneider creates a feeling of a world that has some degree of symbolic order. For example the girls stand or squat by a dirt road, posing the question as to their sexual and personal status. Following the 29 Palms series, Schneider will trust herself increasingly by diminishing the sense of a staged environment. The events to come will tell you both everything and nothing, reveal and obfuscate, point towards and simultaneously away from any clearly definable meaning. If for example we compare 29 Palms to say Hitchhiker (2005), and where the sexual contents are made overtly explicit, we do not find the same sense of simulated identity. It is the itinerant coming together of two characters Daisy and Austen, who meet on the road and subsequently share a trailer together. Presented in a sequential DVD and still format, we become party to a would-be relationship of sorts. No information is given as to the background or social origins, or even any reasons as to why these two women should be attracted to each other. Is it acted out? Are they real life experiences? They are women who are sexually free in expressing themselves. But while the initial engagement with the subject is orchestrated by Schneider, and the edited outcome determined by the artist, beyond that we have little information with which to construct a story. The events are commonplace, edgy and uncertain, but the viewer is left to decide as to what they might mean as a narrative. The disaggregated emotions of the work are made evident, the game or role playing, the transitory fantasies palpable, and yet at the same time everything is insubstantial and might fall apart at any moment. The characters relate but they do not present a relationship in any meaningful sense. Or, if they do, it is one driven the coincidental juxtaposition of random emotions. Should there be an intended syntax it is one that has been stripped of the power to grammatically structure what is being experienced. And, this seems to be the central point of the work, the emptying out not only of a particular American way of life, but the suggestion that the grounds upon which it was once predicated are no longer possible. The photo-novel Hitchhiker is porous and the culture of the seventies which it might be said to homage is no longer sustainable. Not without coincidence, perhaps, the decade that was the last ubiquitous age of Polaroid film. In the numerous photographic series, some twenty or so, that occur between 29 Palms and Hitchhiker, Schneider has immersed herself and scrutinised many aspects of suburban, peripheral, and scrubland America. Her characters, including herself, are never at the centre of cultural affairs. Such eccentricities as they might possess are all derived from what could be called their adjacent status to the dominant culture of America. In fact her works are often sated with references to the sentimental sub-strata that underpin so much of American daily life. It is the same whether it is flower gardens and household accoutrements of her photo-series Suburbia (2004), or the transitional and environmental conditions depicted in The Last Picture Show (2005). The artist’s use of sentimental song titles, often adapted to accompany individual images within a series by Schneider, show her awareness of America’s close relationship between popular film and music. For example the song ‘Leaving on a Jet Plane’, becomes Leaving in a Jet Plane as part of The Last Picture Show series, while the literalism of the plane in the sky is shown in one element of this diptych, but juxtaposed to a blonde-wigged figure first seen in 29 Palms. This indicates that every potential narrative element is open to continual reallocation in what amounts to a story without end. And, the interchangeable nature of the images, like a dream, is the state of both a pictorial and affective flux that is the underlying theme pervading Schneider’s photo-narratives. For dream is a site of yearning or longing, either to be with or without, a human pursuit of a restless but uncertain alternative to our daily reality. The scenarios that Schneider sets up nonetheless have to be initiated by the artist. And, this might be best understood by looking at her three recent DVD sequenced photo-novels, Reneé’s Dream and Sidewinder (2005). We have already considered the other called Hitchhiker. In the case of Sidewinder the scenario was created by internet where she met J.D. Rudometkin, an ex-theologian, who agreed to her idea to live with her for five weeks in the scrubland dessert environment of Southern California. The dynamics and unfolding of their relationship, both sexually and emotionally, became the primary subject matter of this series of photographs. The relative isolation and their close proximity, the interactive tensions, conflicts and submissions, are thus recorded to reveal the day-to-day evolution of their relationship. That a time limit was set on this relation-based experiment was not the least important aspect of the project. The text and music accompanying the DVD were written by the American Rudometkin, who speaks poetically of “Torn Stevie. Scars from the weapon to her toes an accidental act of God her father said. On Vaness at California.” The mix of hip reverie and fantasy-based language of his text, echoes the chaotic unfolding of their daily life in this period, and is evident in the almost sun-bleached Polaroid images like Whisky Dance, where the two abandon themselves to the frenetic circumstances of the moment. Thus Sidewinder, a euphemism for both a missile and a rattlesnake, hints at the libidinal and emotional dangers that were risked by Schneider and Rudometkin. Perhaps, more than any other of her photo-novels it was the most spontaneous and immediate, since Schneider’s direct participation mitigated against and narrowed down the space between her life and the art work. The explicit and open character of their relationship at this time (though they have remained friends), opens up the question as the biographical role Schneider plays in all her work. She both makes and directs the work while simultaneously dwelling within the artistic processes as they unfold. Hence she is both author and character, conceiving the frame within which things will take place, and yet subject to the same unpredictable outcomes that emerge in the process. In Reneé’s Dream, issues of role reversal take place as the cowgirl on her horse undermines the male stereotype of Richard Prince’s ‘Marlboro Country’. This photo-work along with several others by Schneider, continue to undermine the focus of the male gaze, for her women are increasingly autonomous and subversive. They challenge the male role of sexual predator, often taking the lead and undermining masculine role play, trading on male fears that their desires can be so easily attained. That she does this by working through archetypal male conventions of American culture, is not the least of the accomplishments in her work. What we are confronted with frequently is of an idyll turned sour, the filmic clichés that Hollywood and American television dramas have promoted for fifty years. The citing of this in the Romantic West, where so many of the male clichés were generated, only adds to the diminishing sense of substance once attributed to these iconic American fabrications. And, that she is able to do this through photographic images rather than film, undercuts the dominance espoused by time-based film. Film feigns to be seamless though we know it is not. Film operates with a story board and setting in which scenes are elaborately arranged and pre-planned. Schneider has thus been able to generate a genre of fragmentary events, the assemblage of a story without a storyboard. But these post-narratological stories require another component, and that component is the viewer who must bring their own interpretation as to what is taking place. If this can be considered the upside of her work, the downside is that she never positions herself by giving a personal opinion as to the events that are taking place in her photographs. But, perhaps, this is nothing more than her use of the operation of chance dictates. I began this essay by speaking about the apparitional contents of Stefanie Schneider’s pictorial narratives, and meant at that time the literal and chance-directed ‘appearing’ qualities of her photographs. Perhaps, at this moment we should also think of the metaphoric contents of the word apparition. There is certainly a spectre-like quality also, a ghostly uncertainty about many of the human experiences found in her subject matter. Is it that the subculture of the American Dream, or the way of life Schneider has chosen to record, has in turn become also the phantom of it former self? Are these empty and fragmented scenarios a mirror of what has become of contemporary America? There is certainly some affection for their contents on the part of the artist, but it is somehow tainted with pessimism and the impossibility of sustainable human relations, with the dissolute and commercial distractions of America today. Whether this is the way it is, or, at least, the way it is perceived by Schneider is hard to assess. There is a bleak lassitude about so many of her characters. But then again the artist has so inured herself into this context over a long protracted period that the boundaries between the events and happenings photographed, and the personal life of Stefanie Schneider, have become similarly opaque. Is it the diagnosis of a condition, or just a recording of a phenomenon? Only the viewer can decide this question. For the status of Schneider’s certain sense of uncertainty is, perhaps, the only truth we may ever know.

1 Kerry Brougher (ed.), Art and Film Since 1945: Hall of Mirrors, ex. cat., The Museum of Contemporary Art (New York, 1996) 2 Im Reich der Phantome: Fotographie des Unsichtbaren, ex. cat., Städtisches Museum Abteiberg Mönchengladbach/Kunsthalle Krems/FotomuseumWinterthur, (Ostfildern-Ruit, 1997) 3 Photoworks: When Pictures Vanish – Sigmar Polke, Museum of Contemporary Art (Zürich-Berlin-New York, 1995) 4 Slavoj Žižek, The Art of the Ridiculous Sublime: On David Lynch’s Lost Highway, Walter Chapin Simpson Center for the Humanities, University of Washington, Seattle, Occasional Papers, no. 1, 2000. 5 Diane Arbus, eds. Doon Arbus, and Marvin Israel...
Category

1990s Contemporary Black and White Photography

Materials

Photographic Paper, Archival Paper, Black and White, C Print, Polaroid

"Schnitzel Please!, " Dresden Germany 1999 (dog photograph)
Located in NEW YORK, NY
"Schnitzel Please!" This timeless, charming photo of a town favorite Dresden Dog, was captured by New York based photographer Fernando Natalici in Germany...
Category

1990s Pop Art Black and White Photography

Materials

Inkjet

Slim Aarons 'Cricketers on the Pitch'
Located in New York, NY
Slim Aarons Cricketers on the pitch, Belfast 1962 (printed later) Silver gelatin print estate signature stamped edition of 150 with certificate of authenticity Cricketers on the pi...
Category

1940s Modern Black and White Photography

Materials

Silver Gelatin

"Kate Moss London" Signed Limited Edition Framed Archival Pigment Print
Located in London, GB
"Kate Moss London" by Jake Chessum Portrait of a young 16 year old Kate Moss – before she shot to supermodel stardom and became the icon she is today. Jake grew up in Croydon, South London. He studied Graphic Design at St. Martins School Of Art, and started working as photographer straight out of college. Assignments for The Face, Arena, and an early ad campaign for “Neutrogena” featuring a 16 year old Kate Moss followed. By 1995 Jake was regularly flying the Atlantic on assignment for JFK Jrs' “George” Magazine and in 1999 he upped sticks and moved permanently to NYC where he still lives with his wife and 2 kids...
Category

1990s Modern Black and White Photography

Materials

Black and White

Lisa - Signed limited edition fine art print, Black and white photo, Sexy model
Located in Barcelona, Barcelona
Lisa - Signed limited edition archival pigment print - Edition of 10 This image was captured on film in 1994. The negative was scanned creating a digital file which was then prin...
Category

1990s Contemporary Black and White Photography

Materials

Photographic Film, Archival Paper, Black and White, Pigment, Archival Pi...

Dance Study 1117
Located in Lawrence, NY
# 1 of 8 Signed, dated and numbered Howard Schatz gave up a career as a retinal surgeon and a clinical professor to follow his passion for photography. Schatz first established a fo...
Category

1990s American Modern Black and White Photography

Materials

Archival Pigment

Male Nude in Motel II (29 Palms, CA) - Contemporary
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
Male Nude in Motel II (29 Palms, CA) - 1999 - 30x40cm, Edition of 10. Archival C-Print, based on a Polaroid. Signature label and Certificate. . Artist Inventory No. 2777. “It ...
Category

1990s Contemporary Black and White Photography

Materials

Photographic Paper, Archival Paper, Black and White, C Print, Polaroid

307 – René Groebli, Black and White, Street Photography, Art, Vintage Print
Located in Zurich, CH
René GROEBLI (*1927, Switzerland) 307, 1946 / 1952 Vintage silver gelatin print on Baryta paper Sheet 21.5 x 17 cm (8 1/2 x 6 3/4 in.) Unique Print only S...
Category

1940s Post-War Black and White Photography

Materials

Silver Gelatin

Female Fashion Zen Beach Hat by Herb Ritts Vintage print
Located in London, GB
Female Fashion Zen Beach Hat 1999 by Herb Ritts Authentic quadtone photo of a model sitting on the beach with a Zen beach hat, gazing into the horizon. Unframed Matted Overall size : 12 x 16" inches / 31 x 41 cm Image Size: 8.25" x 10.25'' inches / 21 x 26 cm Printed 2012 Quadtone Print Mint condition Certificate of authenticity Framing option available Shipped securely from London, England. Herbert Ritts...
Category

1990s Modern Black and White Photography

Materials

Black and White

Untitled (Needle & Water Droplets)
Located in Dallas, TX
Edition 5/5 Toned gelatin silver print 43 x 43 in. Signed, dated and numbered in pencil on verso. Frame Included. Chema Madoz is one of the most important contemporary Spanish photo...
Category

1990s Surrealist Black and White Photography

Materials

Silver Gelatin

Old couple-Signed limited edition fine art print, Black sepia, Contemporary
Located in Barcelona, Barcelona
Old couple , Paris - Signed limited edition archival pigment print Edition of 5 This image was captured on film in 1994. The negative was scanned c...
Category

1990s Contemporary Black and White Photography

Materials

Photographic Film, Archival Paper, Black and White, Giclée, Pigment, Arc...

"Dinner Jazz" by Slim Aarons
Located in London, GB
"Dinner Jazz" by Slim Aarons 1949: American Jazz trumpeter and singer Louis Armstrong (1898 - 1971) enjoys a plate of spaghetti in Rome. Unframed Paper S...
Category

1940s Modern Black and White Photography

Materials

Black and White

Palm Springs Palm Trees (Californication) - Polaroid
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
Palm Springs Palm Trees (Californication) - 2021 50x50cm. Edition of 10 plus 2 Artist Proofs. Archival C-Print, based on the Polaroid. Cert...
Category

1990s Contemporary Black and White Photography

Materials

Photographic Paper, Archival Paper, C Print, Color, Polaroid

Rudy Giuliani
Located in Surfside, FL
Giuliani in the Blue Room. He bought his first camera at the 1939 World's Fair for 39 cents, but he did not start taking photographs as a vocation until he was a paratrooper in occup...
Category

1990s Black and White Photography

Materials

Silver Gelatin

"Heavyweight" by Felix Man
Located in London, GB
"Heavyweight" by Felix Man Eighteen-year-old animal trainer Zabuna lying under one of her performing elephants. This stunt forms part of her act for the Chessington Circus, currentl...
Category

1940s Modern Black and White Photography

Materials

Black and White

Squiggle Nude
Located in Sante Fe, NM
Coming from an earlier interest in portraits and street photography, my Nudes in Water are less about eroticism and more about body as the human vessel ...
Category

1990s Contemporary Black and White Photography

Materials

Silver Gelatin

"Jeannette Altwegg" by Chris Ware
Located in London, GB
"Jeannette Altwegg" by Chris Ware February 1948: British figure skater Jeannette Altwegg at the Winter Olympics in St Moritz, Switzerland, the winner of the bronze medal that year, ...
Category

1940s Modern Black and White Photography

Materials

Black and White

"Rockefeller Center" by George Enell
Located in London, GB
"Rockefeller Center" by George Enell circa 1945: The Rockefeller Center in midtown Manhattan, New York City. Designed by Raymond Hood, it was completed in May 1933. Unframed Paper ...
Category

1940s Modern Black and White Photography

Materials

Black and White

Peace, Williamsburg, NY, 1995
Located in Hudson, NY
Each year, Robin Rice celebrates a Salon style exhibition to showcase her gallery artists and invite new ones. With Robin’s extensive experience as a gallery curator, all Robin Rice...
Category

1990s Modern Black and White Photography

Materials

Silver Gelatin

"Jazz Dancers" by Charles Hewitt
Located in London, GB
"Jazz Dancers" by Charles Hewitt A series of images showing British jazz trumpeter Humphrey Lyttelton playing while the wife of band member Mick Mullig...
Category

1940s Modern Black and White Photography

Materials

Black and White

Vivienne VII (Desert Nudes) - Polaroid, Contemporary, 21st Century, Women
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
Vivienne VII (Desert Nudes) - 2016 - 20x20cm, Edition of 10, plus 2 Artist Proofs. digital C-Print, based on a Polaroid. Certificate and Signature l...
Category

1990s Contemporary Black and White Photography

Materials

Photographic Paper, Archival Paper, C Print, Color, Polaroid

Love Knot
Located in Sante Fe, NM
Coming from an earlier interest in portraits and street photography, my Nudes in Water are less about eroticism and more about body as the human vessel for our multi-faceted but brie...
Category

1990s Contemporary Black and White Photography

Materials

Silver Gelatin

Bottoms Up
Located in Sante Fe, NM
Coming from an earlier interest in portraits and street photography, my Nudes in Water are less about eroticism and more about body as the human vessel for our multi-faceted but brie...
Category

1990s Contemporary Black and White Photography

Materials

Silver Gelatin

"Dominion Monarch" by Harry Todd
Located in London, GB
"Dominion Monarch" by Harry Todd The 26,263 ton Shaw Savill liner Dominion Monarch dwarfs the surrounding houses in Saville Road from her dry dock at the King George V docks in Lond...
Category

1940s Modern Black and White Photography

Materials

Black and White

Nude with White Line
Located in Sante Fe, NM
Coming from an earlier interest in portraits and street photography, my Nudes in Water are less about eroticism and more about body as the human vessel ...
Category

1990s Contemporary Black and White Photography

Materials

Silver Gelatin

Ripples
Located in Sante Fe, NM
Coming from an earlier interest in portraits and street photography, my Nudes in Water are less about eroticism and more about body as the human vessel ...
Category

1990s Contemporary Black and White Photography

Materials

Silver Gelatin

Nude Study 1363
Located in Lawrence, NY
#1 of 8, signed, dated and numbered Howard Schatz gave up a career as a retinal surgeon and a clinical professor to follow his passion for photography. Schatz first established a fol...
Category

1990s American Modern Black and White Photography

Materials

Archival Pigment

Vintage print Wolfgang Roth playing musical instrument, Mandolin
Located in Surfside, FL
Vintage Silver Gelatin print. (possibly from Vogue Magazine). This appears to be Wolfgang Roth and cast of possibly The Littlest Circus. Performers have horse heads. The photo is stamped on the back Halley Erskine of New York City. Halley Erskine, Vogue photographer. The New York Times announced Halley’s marriage to Graham Erskine of Wilton, Connecticut October 18, 1940 at the bridegroom’s home at 212 East 48th Street in New York. Divorced six years later, Halley seemed to finally come into her own. She had started her career “pre-Graham” as a fashion editor for Vogue and Glamour magazines, often working on photo shoot sites with literary personalities, dancers, artists and actors. The writing and editing morphed into a love of photography which led to doing work for the Saturday Evening Post, Good Housekeeping, Cosmopolitan and House & Garden. Impulsive and fearless, Halley was also known to do anything to capture the shot. Halley did some teaching at The Famous Photographer’s School. Halley was intensely curious, always learning and had a penchant for high technology gadgets. Halley Erskine worked with the sculptor Seymour Lipton, Lee Krasner, Charles Ives, Horst, Diane Arbus and John Steinbeck/ art director at Vogue magazine she shot for Time and Life and Frank Lloyd Wright. Wolfgang Roth fled Nazi Germany in 1933, arriving in New York by 1938. He apprenticed with Bertolt Brecht and Edwin Piscator in the underground Theatre and Opera of Pre War Nazi germany and studied at the Academy of Art in Berlin under Cesar Klein, a Member of the Association of Revolutionary Visual Artists where he befriended George Grosz who also ended up emigrating to the USA. Roth worked with Lazlo Moholy-Nagy in bringing to life his theater designs. He was an Instructor of Design at New York University (NYU) School of the Arts for many years A great Mid-century Modern screenprint...
Category

1940s Modern Black and White Photography

Materials

Silver Gelatin

Mission San Xavier del Bac, Tuscon, Arizona
Located in Carmel-by-the-Sea, CA
Original vintage gelatin silver photograph printed circa 1944 by Ansel Adams. Signed in pencil lower right on the front of the mount. Very good vintage condition: some silvering top left quadrant, small edge chips on sides. Photograph is archivally overmatted to 18 1/6 x 14 1/2 inches so frame ready. Comes unframed. ANSEL ADAMS (AMERICAN, 1902 - 1984) Ansel Easton Adams was known for his black and white photographs of the California's Yosemite Valley. Adams was also the author of numerous books about photography, including his trilogy of technical instruction manuals (The Camera, The Negative, and The Print). He co-founded the photographic association Group f/64 along with other masters like Edward Weston, Willard Van Dyke...
Category

1940s Black and White Photography

Materials

Silver Gelatin

Jane March (Limited Edition of 25) - 20x24 In. - Celebrity Photography
Located in New York, NY
This fine art print features actress and model Jane March, posed topless on the rooftop of the Hotel Le Bristol in Paris in 1992. This risqué iconic b...
Category

1990s Contemporary Black and White Photography

Materials

Silver Gelatin

"Backless Fashion" by Bill Brandt
Located in London, GB
"Backless Fashion" by Bill Brandt 5th November 1949: Paris's latest fashion items place the accent on necklines, using roses, frills, and feathers to emphasize necks and bosoms. Thi...
Category

1940s Modern Black and White Photography

Materials

Black and White

Ethereal Couple
Located in Sante Fe, NM
Coming from an earlier interest in portraits and street photography, my Nudes in Water are less about eroticism and more about body as the human vessel for our multi-faceted but brie...
Category

1990s Contemporary Black and White Photography

Materials

Silver Gelatin

Father/Son I
Located in Sante Fe, NM
Coming from an earlier interest in portraits and street photography, my Nudes in Water are less about eroticism and more about body as the human vessel for our multi-faceted but brie...
Category

1990s Contemporary Black and White Photography

Materials

Silver Gelatin

Slim Aarons 'Jazz Scooter'
Located in New York, NY
Slim Aarons Jazz Scooter 1949 (printed later) Silver gelatin print estate signature stamped edition of 150 with certificate of authenticity Lucille Brown takes control of the Vespa...
Category

1940s Modern Black and White Photography

Materials

Silver Gelatin

Dream
Located in Sante Fe, NM
Coming from an earlier interest in portraits and street photography, my Nudes in Water are less about eroticism and more about body as the human vessel for our multi-faceted but brie...
Category

1990s Contemporary Black and White Photography

Materials

Silver Gelatin

Vortex
Located in Sante Fe, NM
Coming from an earlier interest in portraits and street photography, my Nudes in Water are less about eroticism and more about body as the human vessel ...
Category

1990s Contemporary Black and White Photography

Materials

Silver Gelatin

'Untitled' based on an original Polaroid, 20th Century, Contemporary
Located in Morongo Valley, CA
Untitled (29 Palms, CA), 1999, 20x24cm, Edition 1/10, Photograph printed on Velvet Watercolor, based on a Polaroid, Certificate and Signature label, not mounted Artist Inventory Num...
Category

1990s Contemporary Black and White Photography

Materials

Photographic Paper, Archival Paper, Color, Archival Pigment, Polaroid

Pods
Located in Sante Fe, NM
Coming from an earlier interest in portraits and street photography, my Nudes in Water are less about eroticism and more about body as the human vessel ...
Category

1990s Contemporary Black and White Photography

Materials

Silver Gelatin

Source
Located in Sante Fe, NM
Coming from an earlier interest in portraits and street photography, my Nudes in Water are less about eroticism and more about body as the human vessel ...
Category

1990s Contemporary Black and White Photography

Materials

Silver Gelatin

"Dangerous Perch" by Fox Photos
Located in London, GB
"Dangerous Perch" by Fox Photos Evacuee Barrie Peacop enjoys an ice cream as he sits on a mine washed up on the beach at Deal in Kent, 7th February 1940. U...
Category

1940s Modern Black and White Photography

Materials

Black and White

Nude in Tub
By Ferenc Berko
Located in Dallas, TX
Ferenc Berko Nude in Tub, ca. 1940-1949 Gelatin silver print, 13 1/4 x 9 1/2 in. Signed in pencil and misc. notations in black ink on print verso by Ferenc Berko
Category

1940s Modern Black and White Photography

Materials

Silver Gelatin

"Taylor In London" by Keystone Features
Located in London, GB
"Taylor In London" by Keystone Features November 1948: The actress Elizabeth Taylor on Westminster Bridge in London. Unframed Paper Size: 16"x 12'' (inches) Printed 2022 Silver Ge...
Category

1940s Modern Black and White Photography

Materials

Black and White

"Martin And Sinatra" by J Wilds
Located in London, GB
"Martin And Sinatra" by J Wilds American singers and actors Dean Martin (1917 - 1995) (centre) and Frank Sinatra (right) arriving at London airport, their friend and famed Beverly H...
Category

1940s Modern Black and White Photography

Materials

Black and White

Dune
Located in Sante Fe, NM
Coming from an earlier interest in portraits and street photography, my Nudes in Water are less about eroticism and more about body as the human vessel for our multi-faceted but brie...
Category

1990s Contemporary Black and White Photography

Materials

Silver Gelatin

Irish Mob at the Races
Located in Austin, TX
Black and white action shot of the Irish Mafia - James Cagney, Pat O'Brien, Frank McHugh, and Spencer Tracy at the races, 1947. This listing is for a limited edition archival print....
Category

1940s Contemporary Black and White Photography

Materials

Archival Pigment, Archival Ink, Archival Paper

"Race Order" by Bert Hardy
Located in London, GB
"Race Order" by Bert Hardy Maserati racing cars in the pit during a road race at at St Helier, Jersey, Channel Islands, May 1947. Original publication: Pict...
Category

1940s Modern Black and White Photography

Materials

Black and White

"Elizabeth Taylor At Home" by Earl Theisen
By Earl Theisen
Located in London, GB
"Elizabeth Taylor At Home" by Earl Theisen LOS ANGELES - CIRCA 1947: Actress ElizabethTaylor helps at the dinner table at home circa 1947 in Los Angeles, California. Unframed Paper...
Category

1940s Modern Black and White Photography

Materials

Black and White

"Fill Her Up" by Bert Hardy
Located in London, GB
"Fill Her Up" by Bert Hardy 24th May 1947: Pit staff filling up Louis Chiron's (1899 - 1979) Maserati. Original Publication: Picture Post - 4364 - Road Racing In Jersey - pub. 1947 ...
Category

1940s Modern Black and White Photography

Materials

Black and White

"Italian Party" by Bert Hardy
Located in London, GB
"Italian Party" by Bert Hardy September 1949: A party given by the mayor of Positano for Mercy Haystead (right), an 18-year old London student, on holiday ...
Category

1940s Modern Black and White Photography

Materials

Black and White

"Standing Proud" by Herbert Mason
Located in London, GB
"Standing Proud" by Herbert Mason St Paul's cathedral standing above the surrounding burning buildings during the London blitz. Unframed Paper Size: 30"...
Category

1940s Modern Black and White Photography

Materials

Black and White

"Juan Manuel Fangio" by Evening Standard
Located in London, GB
"Juan Manuel Fangio" by Evening Standard Argentinian racing driver Juan Manuel Fangio in a Ferrari at Silverstone racetrack. Unframed Paper Size: 30" x...
Category

1940s Modern Black and White Photography

Materials

Black and White

"Ascari At Silverstone" by Express
Located in London, GB
"Ascari At Silverstone" by Express 25th August 1949: Italian motor racing driver Alberto Ascari (left) approaching Stowe Corner in a Ferrari during the ...
Category

1940s Modern Black and White Photography

Materials

Black and White

Shop Black and White Photography

There’s a lot to love about black and white photography.

The unique and timeless quality of a black and white photograph accentuates any room. Some might argue that we’re naturally drawn to color photography because it’s the world we know best. This is a shared belief, particularly in the era of camera-phone photography, editing apps and the frenetic immediacy of sharing photos on social media. But when we look at black and white photography, we experience deep, rich shadows and tonal properties in a way that transfixes us. Composition and textures are crisp and engaging. We’re immediately drawn to the subjects of vintage street photography and continue to feel the emotional impact of decades-old photojournalism. The silhouettes of mountains in black and white landscape photography are particularly pronounced, while portrait photography and the skylines of urban cityscapes come to life in monochrome prints.

When decorating with fine photography, keep in mind that some color photographs may not be suitable for every space. However, you can be more daring with black and white photos. The gray tones are classic, sophisticated and generally introduce elegance to any corner of your home, which renders black and white prints amazingly versatile.

Black and white photography adapts to its surroundings like a chameleon might. A single large-scale black and white photograph above the sofa in your living room is going to work with any furniture style, and as some homeowners and designers today are working to introduce more muted tones and neutral palettes to dining rooms and bedrooms, the integration of black and white photography — a hallmark of minimalist decor — is a particularly natural choice for such a setting.

Another advantage to bringing black and white photography into your home is that you can style walls and add depth and character without worrying about disrupting an existing color scheme. Black and white photographs actually harmonize well with accent colors such as yellow, red and green. Your provocative Memphis Group lighting and bold Pierre Paulin seating will pair nicely with the black and white fine nude photography you’ve curated over the years.

Black and white photography also complements a variety of other art. Black and white photos pair well with drawings and etchings in monochromatic hues. They can also form part of specific color schemes. For example, you can place black and white prints in colored picture frames for a pop of color. And while there are no hard and fast rules, it’s best to keep black and white prints separate from color photographs. Color prints stand out in a room more than black and white prints do. Pairing them may detract attention from your black and white photography. Instead, dedicate separate walls or spaces to each.

Once you’ve selected the photography that best fits your space, you’ll need to decide how to hang the images. If you want to hang multiple photos, it’s essential to know how to arrange wall art. A proper arrangement can significantly enhance a living space.

On 1stDibs, explore a vast collection of compelling black and white photography by artists such as Mark Shaw, Jack Mitchell (a photographer you should know), Berenice Abbott and David Yarrow.

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