Lyle Ashton Harris

Untitled (Candles), 1998, rare cibachrome proof print

1998

Scout Tufankjian: President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama Inauguration Night, 2009 Chromogenic print, 2009, signed and numbered 1/25 on a label from Danziger Projects, NY. 20 x 24 in. (sheet), 22 x 29 in. (frame). Provenance: A Contemporary Vision: Works from the Melva Bucksbaum Collection Sold to Benefit Art for Access at Bennington College Scout Tufankjian is an Armenian-American photojournalist and author based in Brooklyn, New York. She is well known for her photos of American President Barack Obama during his campaign leading up to his presidency. She is also known for her photojournalism work on the Armenian diaspora. She was born in Boston, Massachusetts to an Armenian-American father, Allan, a lawyer, and an Irish-American mother, Betty. She grew up in the south shore towns of Whitman and Scituate, both in Massachusetts. As a child she was separated from the Armenian community in Massachusetts. Her knowledge of the her Armenian heritage came from reading magazines and newspapers that she found at her grandparents home. She started shooting photographs in Northern Ireland at age 18. She attended and earned a B.A. in Political Science and Government from Yale University in 2000. She speaks English and Arabic. From 2006 to 2008 she covered Senator Barack Obama's campaign for President of the United States, and was the only independent journalist to follow him from the run up to his announcing his candidacy through his victory on election night. Tufankjian took more than 12,000 photographs throughout the campaign. She released a book featuring a selection of the photographs titled Yes We Can: Barack Obama's History-Making Presidential Campaign in December 2008, which sold out its initial 55,000 copy run a month before it was released. In 2010 she went to cover the Haiti Earthquake and its aftermath. From 2011 to 2012 Tufankjian went to Egypt to photograph The Egyptian Revolution. From this time she has Photos categorized as The Egyptian Revaluation, The Detainees, Along the Barricades, Endgame, The Egyptian Elections and Egypt's Salafi Community. In August 2012, Tufankjian took a photo of Michelle Obama and President Barack Obama hugging each other. The photo was taken in Dubuque, IA in Aug15th. Instead of focusing on the Obamas as political figures, Tufankjian focused on them as a couple. The Obama campaign staff sent this picture out on the official Obama Facebook and Twitter accounts the night of the election, 6 Nov. 2012. This picture became the most liked photo on Facebook and most retweeted tweet in history. In 2015 Tufankjian published in commemoration of the Centennial of the Armenian genocide, There is only the Earth: Images for Armenian Diaspora. Tufankjian took 6 years and traveled to 5 different continents gathering stories and photos of the Arminian people who were killed and displaced from their homes by the Turkish Ottoman government between 1915 and 1923. Tufankjian traveled to Ethiopia, Syria, Turkey, Lebanon, Argentina, France, United States, Hong Kong, and Canada in search of Armenian communities, photographing Armenian lives around the world. In showing how the Armenian people survived Tufankjian's photos capture everyday life, the from religious to the romantic to the familial. Works Images from the Middle East (2006) Yes We Can: Barack Obama's History-Making Presidential Campaign (2008) Haiti 2010 The Haitian Earthquake, A Tale of Two Camps Egypt 2011-2012: A Year of Revaluation There Is Only the Earth: Images from the Armenian Diaspora Project, Melcher Media, 2015. A photojournalist's study of the Armenian diaspora on its 100th anniversary Commissioned work: The HALO Trust: 100 Women in Demining (2017) Ongoing Projects Karabakh: 2002-2020 Danziger Gallery is a leading photography dealer. they have shown Robert Frank, Henri Cartier Bresson, Alice Mann, Evelyn Hofer, Petra Cortright...

This is from a show at Sidney Janis Gallery and is from the estate of Joan Sonnabend. Eve Sonneman (born in Chicago on 1946) is an American photographer and artist. She did a series ...

Deep Runners, Hand signed, dated,and numbered from limited edition. This is from a show at Sidney Janis Gallery and is from the estate of Joan Sonnabend. Eve Sonneman (born in Chica...

David Levinthal Title: Untitled Edition: 2/5 Hand signed, numbered and dated in ink on recto Date: 1997 Original Polaroid Large Format Print (Photo-Internal dye diffusion transfer) Location: Cambridge Massachusetts United States Dimensions: Image: 28 X 22 in. Framed: 36 X 30 inches This depicts a still life of African American Blackface iron toys from his provocative, controversial photo series. This body of work is drawn from David Levinthal’s project Blackface, dating from 1995-1998, it featured blackface Polaroids of his original memorabilia, drawn from the artist’s African American Americana personal collection, that are the Polaroid’s subject matter. Levinthal’s collection of black memorabilia evolved into Blackface, a stimulating and controversial body of work. The title, according to Levinthal, “makes reference to the many facades, poise and physicality of these figures.” The title is also taken from the name of a journal of a black film-making company and is a term referring to both blacks and whites. Traditionally associated with minstrel, these images were used to perpetuate negative stereotypes. Levinthal’s work was originally intended to be exhibited at Philadelphia’s ICA in 1997. However, the show was cancelled when it became a cause célèbre as a result of its controversial subject-matter. Subsequently, images from the series were exhibited at the International Center of Photography and at Janet Borden, Inc. in New York. Levinthal’s initial inspiration for Blackface was D.W.Griffith’s 1915 film “Birth of a Nation,” a groundbreaking film of its time and a watershed moment in the cultural wars. It’s extreme and racist depictions of African Americans fueled a debate over the efficacy and motivation of using racially charged images that continues to reverberate in our culture today. Levinthal’s Blackface was originally intended to be a series based on “Birth of a Nation,” but the focus of the work shifted to the inscription of racially charged identities – what these collectibles convey, how they function within society, and how they continue to polarize social attitudes – within material objects produced and packaged as consumer goods. Levinthal works using a 20 x 24 inch Polaroid Polacolor ER Land Film which results in a large format Polaroid...

Deaccessioned from an important corporate collection. You (Five Children) From NY Times review: The large color photographs give no hint of their pains...

A large scale Cibachrome photograph. An abstract work from the series titled, "Fairfax Ladies," (the historic old Jewish neighborhood of Los Angeles) produced 1983. The subject was created through by placing diaphanous fashion garments onto photo-sensitive paper, embellishing them with objects, paper bits, and flora, and layering in painterly surfaces with scratches, completely covering the image. The series won a prize in the BCibachrome competition (1985), sponsored by BC Space Gallery (Laguna Beach, CA), and was exhibited at "Robin Valle: From Darkroom to Digital, Works from 1974-2009," posthumously presented August 2009 at El Camino College Gallery (Torrance, CA). Work presented under plexiglass in a custom wood frame. Work Size: 39.5 x 29.5 in. Framed Dimensions: 43.5 X 33.5 X 2 in. Valle, Robin Joy (1953-2009) After receiving her BA from SMU and an MFA in Photo/Cinematography from the University of Illinois in 1977, she moved to Los Angeles. Valle exhibited her one-of-a-kind Cibachrome photographs at galleries and museums locally and nationally. In 1982, she was selected for the NEA funded, "Life in LA" project, sponsored by the Los Angeles Women's Building. Valle taught photography at many Southland colleges as well as the LA County High School for the Arts. She was one of the first LA based photographers to explore digital media, receiving an Innovative Instruction Grant from Chaffee College in 1989 to create their first photography class in digital media. In 1998 she became a member of the full-time faculty at El Camino College, where she was instrumental in developing the Digital Arts program. Her work ranged from Black and white photographs to colorful, intricately layered patterns that command the gallery walls. It isn’t surprising that she, along with fellow art instructor, Joyce Dalal, contributed largely to the ECC art department’s merge towards digital art. As one of the first local photographers to explore digital media, she was crucial to the development of the Digital Arts Program. Before computers became commonplace, Valle’s techniques show a digital influence. “Her work was always inventive”, said ECC art curator, Susanna Meiers. An effect that can easily be done now with a few mouse clicks on Adobe Photoshop, required a long process of rubbing dye into the actual photograph in the ’70s. Her methods of illustrating were just as unique as the topics themselves. Photographs of the violent Chinese protest at Tiananmen Square in 1989 where military response murdered protestors in large numbers included photographing images from her television screen. “Crime Stats/ Hollywood” was a theme she dedicated to the gang violence around her neighborhood in the early ’90s. With washed out gang members as the focal point, and graffiti as well as mapped out grids of Los Angeles as the backdrop, Valle’s layering, collage-like technique is continued on and more developed. “There is a fanciful, imaginary quality of her work,” said Meiers. From her quirky pieces of birds, zebras, and even dinosaurs enveloped in patterned, colorful, designs to her more serious themed feminist pieces, her eclectic, colorful style breaks through. Her feminism is on display in “Expectations” which illustrates women’s ability to “look good and produce children.” A bright human embryo steals your attention dead center, with a “June Cleaver” type 1950’s woman smirking at you from either side of it. A mustard yellow backdrop, brings the entire piece together illustrating society’s views of women as well as her playfulness as an artist. “Robin was terribly funny and had a laugh that would just set people off,” Meiers said. The art curator designed a section of the gallery similar to Valle’s apartment. A bright pink shelf...

Pamela Ellis Hawkes's innovative photography revitalizes antique traditions of still life painting with a playful contemporary spirit and a keen eye for seductively mysterious beauty...

Pamela Ellis Hawkes's innovative photography revitalizes antique traditions of still life painting with a playful contemporary spirit and a keen eye for seductively mysterious beauty. Her work often exposes viewers' differing expectations from photography and painting, and this surprising parallax illuminates of the changing meanings of artistic images in the visual cultures of the past and the rapidly changing present. “Three Shelves...

Pamela Ellis Hawkes's innovative photography revitalizes antique traditions of still life painting with a playful contemporary spirit and a keen eye for seductively mysterious beauty...

Pamela Ellis Hawkes's innovative photography revitalizes antique traditions of still life painting with a playful contemporary spirit and a keen eye for seductively mysterious beauty. Her work often exposes viewers' differing expectations from photography and painting, and this surprising parallax illuminates of the changing meanings of artistic images in the visual cultures of the past and the rapidly changing present. This print from the artist’s “Fantastic Flora” series is a photograph captured by a scanner of an artful arrangement of plastic flowers. The series is both an innovative homage to the beauty of the Baroque flower...

Hunter Thompson and Anita Bejmuk at home, Aspen, Colorado, 7 July 2002 X Photographed by Jonathan Becker Contemporary 44" x 44.5" Archival Pigment Pr...

Bunny Lambert Mellon’s potting shed, Upperville, Virginia, 31 May 2010 "Trompe l'oeil (and not)" Photographed by Jonathan Becker Contemporary 28" x 28.5...