Want more images or videos?

Request additional images or videos from the seller

1 of 11

Harry Bowers
Ten Photographs
1984

Name: Ten Photographs
Brand: Harry Bowers
Rating: 4.9 (106 reviews)

$1,200List Price

About the Item

HARRY BOWERS T E N P H O T O G R A P H S I DON'T LOOK FOR PHOTOGRAPHS I INVENT THEM I recall my first meeting with Harry Bowers in California a few years ago. As he produced his large-scale prints, I was at first flabbergasted, not only by their size, but by their seamless perfection. Technique appeared to be everything but then technique as technique simply vanished. After the first moment, technique was no longer an issue, but rather a passageway to the imagery. Suffice it to say about Harry Bowers' working style that he is an obsessive man. Trained as an engineer, he has turned that discipline to art. His lenses, equipment and darkroom, much of it exactingly manufactured by himself to answer certain needs, serve the desire of the artist to take photographic technique to its ultimate perfection in invisibility and transparency. I respect obsession in art, and particularly in photography, because obsession in photography passes beyond the easy, middle ground of image making to a more demanding, more difficult, yet more rewarding end. Bowers' obsession is to eliminate "photography as technique." No grain, no decisive moments, no journalism, or, seemingly, direct autobiographical endeavors appear in his work. Bowers is an artist of synthesis who controls his environment if only in the studio exactly to his liking. The images he creates are formal structures, saucy stories on occasion, which may offer hints of a darker, more frightening sexuality, but what you see is the end product of an experiment in which nothing save the original insight perhaps is left to chance. We seem fascinated with the idea of replication of reality in art. Popular painting frequently reproduces a scene "with the accuracy of a photograph," and photographs may "make you feel as though you were right there." The very invisibility of the photographic medium is important to Bowers, in that it allows him to maneuver his subject matter without concern for rendering it in an obvious art medium which would interfere with the nature of the materials he uses. The formal subtleties of Bowers' recent work are as delicious and ambiguous in their interrelationships as the best Cubist collages, yet while those collages always suggest their parts through edge and texture, these photographs present a structure through a surface purity. Bowers' earlier works, for example, the Skirts I Have Known series, were formed of bits of clothing belonging to Bowers and his wife or found at local thrift shops. These works fused an elegance of pattern and texture, reminiscent of Miriam Shapiro's or Lucas Samaras' fabric paintings, with a sense of theater and, on occasion, high eroticism. These clothes are not simply mashed like baled rags into the glass fronted box which fronts the picture plane, but are actors in a subtle dumb show. Early on, Bowers was surprised that so few people took notice of the erotic element in his work, for it forms a distinct and important component of his images, and one which he has continued to exploit, albeit in different ways. In the last few years Bowers' work has divided into two parallel modes; one continues his fascination with patterns, textures and stuffs pressed into the transparent picture plane, while the other is more directly anthropomorphic. In this second body of work, Bowers frequently uses articulated shadow figures in black or white, carefully adjusted within the image in a provocative way that is often sexually unsettling. But for all their explicit arrangement, these works may be less suggestive than his earlier clothing tableaus. These newer works are more about space, texture, and the extensions of photography, as well as being a comment on sexuality. Bowers has always been fascinated with space, and recognizing that it cannot be rendered on a flat surface through the camera, he has set about to create an illusion of space on a shallow plane, a true trompe l'oeil achievement. Within these works, the space is still constructed upon the glass panel of the printing frame, but with elements collaged to its front surface as well as pressed within it. The forms, frequently large black and white photographs (a photographer's conceit on the use of photography), often include a seated or crouching figure dressed only in socks and cutoff dungarees, which add an element of personality. The figure and the way in which it is posed also add a quality of vulnerability to his images, not heretofore seen. One of the best of these images, HB-28-80, uses a photograph of a figure crouching in a fetal position on a chair. The figure has been cut from its background, and the background, in turn, has been taped to the front of the glass pane while the figure, in perfect register with the background, is laminated behind the glass. One of Bowers' articulated shadow figures, one hand trying to hide its genitals, has been placed on top of the figure, also under the plane of glass. The shadow figure follows the curve of the spine of the photographed figure. One cannot help but feel not only the nakedness and tense embarrassment of these two figures, one real and the other schematic, but the anomalous suggestion of a man carrying a fetus within his body. Bowers' images extend their power in several ways. They are photographs, which are so pure in their technique as to be clear as water. They deal with precise replications of reality, but a reality which has been recontextualized into episodes of both formal and visceral ambiguity. The best of them are wonderful .. contrivances" -his word-and are as frightening in their psychological implications as they are elegant in their visual form. Thomas H. Garver, Director Madison Art Center

Creator:
Harry Bowers (1938, American)
Creation Year:
1984
Dimensions:
Height: 20 in (50.8 cm)Width: 16 in (40.64 cm)
Period:
1980-1989
Condition:
Gallery Location:
Surfside, FL
Reference Number:
1stDibs: LU382147508

2010s Contemporary Color Photography

Materials

Photographic Paper

Tony (Lord Snowdon) Armstrong Jones
Wildflowers, Limited Edition Photograph, 1st Earl of Snowdon, signed photography, 1994

$1,603 Sale Price

20% Off

H 10 in W 8 in

Hidden Sparkle by David Drebin

By David Drebin

Located in New York City, NY

David Drebin Chromogenic Print Mounted and Framed Available in two sizes: 30 x 37.5 inches (Edition of 10) 48 x 60 inches (Edition of 7) David Drebin’s photographs occupy a singu...

Category

2010s Contemporary Portrait Photography

Materials

C Print

David Drebin
Hidden Sparkle by David Drebin, 2024

Price Upon Request

H 48 in W 60 in D 2 in

Chateau de Compiegne II, France

By Massimo Listri

Located in New York City, NY

48 x 60 inches - edition of 5 Chromogenic Print – Unframed Signed by the artist - Certificate of Authenticity Free Shipping – Ask us foar custom framing options. As a world-renowned...

Category

2010s Contemporary Color Photography

Materials

Archival Paper, C Print

Massimo Listri
Chateau de Compiegne II, France, 1995

$14,500

Silver Gelatin

Fred McDarrah
Malcolm X Funeral Vintage silver gelatin gelatin photograph, 1965

$1,500

Peter Newland

Located in Surfside, FL

Peter Newland of Fat

Category

1970s Black and White Photography

Materials

Silver Gelatin

Nona Hatay
Peter Newland, 1979

$950

Malcolm X Funeral Signed Vintage Silver Gelatin print

By Fred McDarrah

Located in Surfside, FL

Malcolm X Funeral signed in ink Veteran Village Voice photographer Fred W. McDarrah Over a 50-year span, McDarrah documented the rise of the Beat Generation, the city’s postmodern ...

Category

1960s Black and White Photography

Materials

Silver Gelatin

Fred McDarrah
Malcolm X Funeral Signed Vintage Silver Gelatin print, 1965

$1,500

Harry Bowers
Ten Photographs
1984

About the Item

You May Also Like

2010s Contemporary Color Photography

Tony (Lord Snowdon) Armstrong Jones
Wildflowers, Limited Edition Photograph, 1st Earl of Snowdon, signed photography, 1994

2010s Contemporary Portrait Photography

David Drebin
Hidden Sparkle by David Drebin, 2024

2010s Contemporary Color Photography

Massimo Listri
Chateau de Compiegne II, France, 1995

2010s Contemporary Color Photography

Tyler Shields
Ferrari high heel by Tyler Shields - Framed Photograph, 2022

2010s Contemporary Color Photography

Tyler Shields
The girl on the desert by Tyler Shields, 2021

2010s Contemporary Black and White Photography

Alexandre Manuel
Zhangjiajie 4, China, Lost in Abstraction (B&W Photography), 2018

2010s Contemporary Portrait Photography

David Drebin
Midnight Flasher by David Drebin, Limited Edition Fine Art Photograph Framed, 2024

2010s Contemporary Color Photography

Tyler Shields
High heel dinner by Tyler Shields - Framed Photograph, 2024

2010s Contemporary Portrait Photography

David Drebin
On the road again by David Drebin, Limited Edition Fine Art Photograph Framed, 2012

2010s Contemporary Portrait Photography

David Drebin
Love over Central Park, David Drebin, Limited Edition Fine Art Photograph Framed, 2012

More From This Seller

20th Century Black and White Photography

Fred McDarrah
Gerardine Fararro

1980s Black and White Photography

Fred McDarrah
Brooke Shields Vintage Silver Gelatin Photograph, 1981

1970s Black and White Photography

Fred McDarrah
Larry Rivers, Sylvia Miles Vintage Silver Gelatin Photograph Photo Print Pop Art, 1976

1960s Black and White Photography

Fred McDarrah
Malcolm X Funeral Vintage silver gelatin gelatin photograph, 1965

1970s Black and White Photography

Nona Hatay
Peter Newland, 1979

1960s Black and White Photography

Fred McDarrah
Malcolm X Funeral Signed Vintage Silver Gelatin print, 1965

Recently Viewed

Harry BowersTen Photographs1984

About the Item

You May Also Like

2010s Contemporary Color Photography

Tony (Lord Snowdon) Armstrong JonesWildflowers, Limited Edition Photograph, 1st Earl of Snowdon, signed photography, 1994

2010s Contemporary Portrait Photography

David DrebinHidden Sparkle by David Drebin, 2024

2010s Contemporary Color Photography

Massimo ListriChateau de Compiegne II, France, 1995

2010s Contemporary Color Photography

Tyler ShieldsFerrari high heel by Tyler Shields - Framed Photograph, 2022

2010s Contemporary Color Photography

Tyler ShieldsThe girl on the desert by Tyler Shields, 2021

2010s Contemporary Black and White Photography

Alexandre ManuelZhangjiajie 4, China, Lost in Abstraction (B&W Photography), 2018

2010s Contemporary Portrait Photography

David DrebinMidnight Flasher by David Drebin, Limited Edition Fine Art Photograph Framed, 2024

2010s Contemporary Color Photography

Tyler ShieldsHigh heel dinner by Tyler Shields - Framed Photograph, 2024

2010s Contemporary Portrait Photography

David DrebinOn the road again by David Drebin, Limited Edition Fine Art Photograph Framed, 2012

2010s Contemporary Portrait Photography

David DrebinLove over Central Park, David Drebin, Limited Edition Fine Art Photograph Framed, 2012

More From This Seller

20th Century Black and White Photography

Fred McDarrahGerardine Fararro

1980s Black and White Photography

Fred McDarrahBrooke Shields Vintage Silver Gelatin Photograph, 1981

1970s Black and White Photography

Fred McDarrahLarry Rivers, Sylvia Miles Vintage Silver Gelatin Photograph Photo Print Pop Art, 1976

1960s Black and White Photography

Fred McDarrahMalcolm X Funeral Vintage silver gelatin gelatin photograph, 1965

1970s Black and White Photography

Nona HatayPeter Newland, 1979

1960s Black and White Photography

Fred McDarrahMalcolm X Funeral Signed Vintage Silver Gelatin print, 1965

Recently Viewed

Harry Bowers
Ten Photographs
1984

Tony (Lord Snowdon) Armstrong Jones
Wildflowers, Limited Edition Photograph, 1st Earl of Snowdon, signed photography, 1994

David Drebin
Hidden Sparkle by David Drebin, 2024

Massimo Listri
Chateau de Compiegne II, France, 1995

Tyler Shields
Ferrari high heel by Tyler Shields - Framed Photograph, 2022

Tyler Shields
The girl on the desert by Tyler Shields, 2021

Alexandre Manuel
Zhangjiajie 4, China, Lost in Abstraction (B&W Photography), 2018

David Drebin
Midnight Flasher by David Drebin, Limited Edition Fine Art Photograph Framed, 2024

Tyler Shields
High heel dinner by Tyler Shields - Framed Photograph, 2024

David Drebin
On the road again by David Drebin, Limited Edition Fine Art Photograph Framed, 2012

David Drebin
Love over Central Park, David Drebin, Limited Edition Fine Art Photograph Framed, 2012

Fred McDarrah
Gerardine Fararro

Fred McDarrah
Brooke Shields Vintage Silver Gelatin Photograph, 1981

Fred McDarrah
Larry Rivers, Sylvia Miles Vintage Silver Gelatin Photograph Photo Print Pop Art, 1976

Fred McDarrah
Malcolm X Funeral Vintage silver gelatin gelatin photograph, 1965

Nona Hatay
Peter Newland, 1979

Fred McDarrah
Malcolm X Funeral Signed Vintage Silver Gelatin print, 1965