Herbert List

Herbert List "Marlene Dietrich" Photo, 1960

1960

After establishing his name as one of the most innovative and daring Canadian figurative painters, Kent Monkman began to explore the reoccurring themes from his oeuvre in different m...

Aaron Siskind (1903-1992) started his career as a documentary photographer and a member of the Photo League. He and his colleagues were interested in photography as a tool to record and address social inequalities of the day. Many of his images from the 1930's for example explored life in Harlem. In the early 1940's Siskind drifted away from social depictions preferring to capture images that focused on textures and shapes. Images of advertising fragments, graffiti and sidewalks become engaging and hypnotic because of their abstract qualities rather than the subject matter. As a result he became one of the first "abstract" photographers. Siskind's aesthetic and sensibility evolved parallel to the Abstract Expressionist movement. As a result he was the only photographer to be included in the groundbreaking 9th Street Art...

While many first associate Weegee (aka Arthur Fellig) with New York City crime scenes, perhaps a broader and more consistent theme is that of spectacle and/or urban entertainment. The origins of his nick-name and reputation date back to the 1930s when he became the first New York City press photographer to obtain permission to install a police radio in his car. Following the city's first responders and documenting their duties, Weegee had unprecedented access to New York’s fires, crimes, debaucheries and of course, murders. During the first decade of his career these unflinching urban tragedy or crime images paid Weegee's bills, but as he became more financially independent he was more inspired to pursue photographs on his own agenda. While his oeuvre is vast, Weegee was especially drawn to entertainment: nightlife, circuses, the theatre, showgirls, city thrills, the cinema etc. Some of Weegee's most dynamic and tender (and under-appreciated!) images are related to simply having fun (in a crowd). He was not confined to one neighbourhood or demographic. He captured action, faces and events from Coney Island to the Bowery and Greenwich Village, to Times Square and Harlem. In “A Trip To Mars,” Weegee depicts a multi-generational group crowding around a large telescope...

Weegee (1899-1968) was equally fascinated and inspired by cinema and all of its tangents, from Hollywood movie stars to ordinary civilians going to the movies. While Weegee is typically associated with crime/disaster images, the broad theme of "entertainment" is a major component of his oeuvre. An interesting and provocative sub-genre of his cinema-related work are his images of couples (often heavy-petting) in movie theatres. Recent scholarship has established that many of Weegee's supposed clandestine images were actually staged or arranged with friends or co-operative strangers. Nevertheless, Weegee created these photographs in the dark with an array of clever techniques including infrared film, filtered flashbulb and triangular prism lens. Employed in shots such as this one, the prism lens would allow the artist to “see around corners,” useful at times when his subjects were in compromising locations. These images of kissing couples, Weegee wrote in 1959, were “his best seller, year in and year out.” "Sailor and GIrl at the Movies...

Les trois amis avec motos, 1971 Gelatin Silver Print Image size: 16 7/8" x 16 7/8" Paper Size: 23 5/8" x 19 5/8" (60 x 50 cm) Malick Sidibé (1935-2016) ...

American actor Steve McQueen sitting on his desk in his Hollywood office, 1969. Signed and Numbered Lifetime Edition Gelatin Silver Print from the Terry O’Neill Estate: 20" x 16" -...

French actress Brigitte Bardot in Deauville, 1968. It is the first time she meets British actor Sean Connery before the filming of ‘Shalako’, directed by Edward Dmytryk. Paper size:...

8 1/8 x 11 inch gelatin silver print, printed later. Titled and dated by the artist on verso as "N.Y. circa 1942." Helen Levitt was a true master of the street, one whose poetic vis...