18th Century and Earlier Black and White Photography

Argentinian race car driver Juan Fangio (1911 - 1995) in his Mercedes at Le Mans, June 1955. The race saw the death of Mercedes team mate Pierre Levegh and 80 spectators. Original Pu...

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...

George Platt Lynes 1950 Photograph #1 of Balanchine Ballet ‘Orpheus’. George Platt Lynes rare original vintage 1950 silver gelatin photograph of nude dancers Francisco Moncion and Nicholas Magallanes in George Balanchine's iconic mid-20th Century ballet Orpheus. Stamped on verso in dark blue ink at upper center, "GEORGE PLATT LYNES/145 EAST 52 STREET NEW YORK”. Photo shoot took place in NYC on March 21, 1950. Costumes and Set by ISAMU NAGUCHI. Photo is 7 5/8 x 9 1/4 inches, soft satin finish in excellent condition. This photograph is one from a collection of 14 different poses in this series of nude photographs of Moncion and Magallanes in Orpheus by Platt Lynes. Complete collection is available on request. Photographs from this celebrated series are in the 20th Century collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (NYC), Museum of Modern Art (MOMA, NYC), and the Columbus Museum. George Platt Lynes (1907–1955), was a gregarious American portrait, dance, fashion, and male nude photographer whose career spanned the late 1920s through the early 1950s. From age eighteen, Lynes entered the cosmopolitan world of the American expatriate community in Paris when he became acquainted with the salon of Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas. He began photographing authors like Stein, Jean Cocteau, André Gide, and Colette and soon established himself as one of the premier fashion photographers in the Condé Nast stable, documenting the ballet companies of George Balanchine/Lincoln Kirstein, and pursuing a private obsession with seductive images of young male nudes rarely published in his lifetime. Orpheus represents a major 20th Century artistic collaboration between composer Igor Stravinsky, choreographer George Ballanchine, and artist/designer Isamu Naguchi. Orpheus is a thirty-minute neoclassical ballet composed by Igor Stravinsky in collaboration with choreographer George Balanchine in Hollywood, California in 1947. The work was commissioned by Ballet Society, later renamed New York City Ballet, which Balanchine founded with Lincoln Kirstein. Sets and costumes were created by Isamu Noguchi. Noguchi’s lyre harp from the production became the symbol of the New York City Ballet. Francisco Moncion (July 6, 1918 – April 1, 1995) was a charter member of the New York City Ballet. Over the course of his forty year career, choreographers George Balanchine, and Jerome Robbins in the New York City Ballet created 22 major roles for Moncion including the Dark Angel...

Formalist sepia toned still life photograph of white lily flowers and brown plantains on a tabletop Lilies and Plantains, by David Halliday, printed in 2003 Sepia toned silver gelati...

Mauretania - Silver Gelatin Fibre Print (Photo by Topical Press Agency/Getty Images) The Cunard superliner Mauretania being refitted in the dry dock at Southampton. Additional I...

"The Unmade Bed" is a photograph by Imogen Cunningham. The photograph is signed in pencil, lower right, "Imogen Cunningham, 1957". The framed piece measure...

As the Sixties swung and Britain subverted the old order, photographer Philip Townsend was there to record all the prime people of the time, beautiful and ugly alike: the debs and th...

Framed still life photograph of single magnolia leaf Sepia toned silver gelatin print, vintage uneditioned print Custom black stained wood molding with visible grain 8-ply antique w...

Edition 3/10 Signed, dated, titled, and numbered in pencil on print verso. Gelatin silver print 11 1/4 x 11 1/4 in.

Robert Mapplethorpe earned his place in the canon from his incredible output of images that ranged from beautiful to brutal. Mapplethorpe was one of the key artists who helped elevate photography from image-making to fine art. Mapplethorpe (1946-1989) fearlessly depicted the body (his own, friends' and lovers') in a way that positioned his work in line with masters such as Reubens, Courbet and Eadweard Muybridge to mention a few. Despite the sometimes shocking content of his work, Mapplethorpe's photographs possess a formalist quality with their undeniable beauty and strict compositions. From 1978-1981, Mapplethorpe created thirty-nine black and white photographs that make up his acclaimed XYZ Portfolios. While each portfolio is a distinct exploration of Mapplethorpe's signature subject matter, when combined, XYZ Portfolios serves as a definitive and in-depth representation of his mature and most sought-after, period. (Of the portfolios, X explores homosexuality and sadomasochism; Y features floral still life; while Z showcases portraits of Black men) Click here to see a portrait from the Z portfolio. In 2012, the XYZ Portfolios were shown in an exhibition at LACMA and presented in three rows (X on top, followed by Y in the middle, and Z below) as Mapplethorpe had envisioned them in 1989. "Gardenia" is one of thirteen images from the Y Portfolio, featuring a fragrant and graphic flower. Shot overhead, this tranquil image captures a delicate flower subtly floating in a dark, contrasting bowl. Aside from the flower's shadow below, the still water is nearly inconspicuous, contributing to the air of grace and elegance that this piece evokes. While the depiction is straightforward, Mapplethorpe's contrasts lead to a more ambiguous image; is this actually a flower or some alien specimen being examined? This powerful black and white image is a prime example of Mapplethorpe's work, highlighting his studio-centric practice as well as his refined and meticulous printing. This is a rare opportunity to acquire an iconic work by one of the most influential photographers of the 20th Century. Caviar20 is proud to be offering this monumental and important piece. "Gardenia" USA, 1978 Gelatin silver print Signed in ink by Michael Ward Stout and credited and dated on photographer's estate stamp, mount verso. 13.25"H 12.75"W (image) 16.75"H 16"W (framed) Very good condition Provenance: Xavier Hufkens...

Marilyn Monroe In A Bikini (1951) - Silver Gelatin Fibre Print (Photo by Bob D'Olivo/The Enthusiast Network via Getty Images/Getty Images) UNITED STATES - MAY 01: 1957 Ford Thunderbird...

This depicts a chair in the manner of Mexican surrealist modernist Pedro Friedeberg with a dried flowers. It is a hand signed, titled and dated vintage silver gelatin print photograph. and bears the artists studio stamp verso. Naomi Siegler Savage (1927 – 2005) was an American woman photographer. A native of Princeton, New Jersey, Naomi Savage was the niece of artist Man Ray. She first studied photography under Berenice Abbott at the New School for Social Research in 1943, following this with studies in art, photography, and music at Bennington College from 1944 until 1947. The next year she spent in California with her uncle, studying his techniques. When she returned to New York in 1948, she combined her love of music with her skill in photography by taking portraits of the best known composers of day: Aaron Copland, John Cage, Virgil Thomson, etc. (over 30 in all). In 1950 she married the architect and sculptor David Savage, with whom she moved to Paris, living there for some years. During her career Savage received an award from the Cassandra Foundation in 1970, and a photography fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts in 1971. In 1976 she received the silver award from the Art Directors Club. Later in life, Savage returned to live in Princeton, where she died. Savage was heavily influenced by her uncle, the avant garde artist Man Ray, prompting her to experiment with the medium of photography, combining traditional techniques with more unusual processes, including some of her own design. She worked extensively with photogravure and photoengraving, transforming these mechanical printing techniques to be used for aesthetic effects rather than duplication. Unlike many photographers, Savage considered the metal plate that photographs are etched on to be a work of art in its own right. She pioneered the use of using the photographic metal plate to produce a three dimensional form with a metallic surface. Savage explored variations in color and texture in her work often by using inked and intaglio relief prints. Many of her works were created by combining media such as collage, negative images, texture screening, multiple exposure, photograms, solarization, toning, laser printing on metallic foils. Her works focus on a variety of subject matter and imagery, which has included portraits, landscapes, human figures, mannequins, masks, toys, kitchen utensils, dental and ophthalmological equipment. Her approach represents an involvement with "process as medium," and an interest in art as image manipulation, a pursuit shared by contemporaries like Robert Heinecken, Betty Hahn, and Bea Nettles. She has experimented extensively with photogravure and photoengraving, employing these mechanical printing techniques for aesthetic effects rather than duplication. Savage uses inked and intaglio relief prints to explore variations in color and texture, and considers the metal plate on which the photograph has been etched to be a work of art in its own right. She has also combined media--collage, negative images, texture screening, multiple exposure, photograms, solarization, toning, printing on metallic foils--and made laser color prints. Several of her pieces are owned by the Museum of Modern Art, and she is represented as well in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, the International Center for Photography, the Fogg Art Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and the Madison Art Center. A photo engraved mural depicting the life of Lyndon Baines Johnson is a centerpiece of the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum. A collection of her papers relating to the life of Man Ray is held by the Archives of American Art at the Smithsonian Institution. She was included in the show Making Space at MoMA in 2017. It shone a spotlight on the stunning achievements of women artists between the end of World War II (1945) and by Lee Krasner, Helen Frankenthaler, and Joan Mitchell; the radical geometries by Lygia Clark, Lygia Pape, and Gego; and the reductive abstractions of Agnes Martin, Anne Truitt, and Jo Baer; the fiber weavings of Magdalena Abakanowicz, Sheila Hicks, and Lenore Tawney; and the process-oriented sculptures of Lee Bontecou, Louise Bourgeois, and Eva Hesse. The exhibition also featured treasures such as collages by Anne Ryan, photographs by Gertrudes Altschul, Naomi Savage, Ruth Asawa, Carol Rama...