Academic Portrait Photography

Remy Charlip 4 Photos of Carolyn at the Stevensons, 1955 Inscribed by Carolyn Brown on verso Photograph 10 x 8 1/4, 6 1/4 x 9 1/2 inches Provenance Estate of Carolyn Brown, New York 2025. Remy Charlip was born in January 1929 and raised by his Lithuanian Jewish parents in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn, New York. He showed a natural talent for the visual arts and became known as the “official” school artist, decorating the classrooms for his favorite holidays, Valentine’s Day and Thanksgiving. Although he had aspirations to become both a farmer and a clown, his mother recognized his artistic talent and thought it was more practical for him to attend Strabenmuller Textile High School where learned to design fabrics. This led him to being accepted into The Cooper Union School of Fine Arts where he received his BFA in 1949. After graduating and feeling he had nothing to say as a painter, he decided to become a dancer because he saw them as free spirits. He accepted a fellowship at Reed College to work with choreographer Bonnie Bird designing sets and costumes for The Marriage at the Eiffel Tower by Jean Cocteau. It was during that summer at Reed College he met and fell in love with composer Lou Harrison who composed music for the summer productions that were Remy’s first dance performances. After traveling across the country with Harrison, they settled back in New York where Remy began taking classes from The New Dance Group. This led to him dancing in Donald McKayle’s first piece, Games, at the Ziegfield Theater, for which he also designed costumes. Remy met John Cage and Merce Cunningham through Harrison and, due to his masterful calligraphy skills, was asked to design a flyer for an upcoming program. Cunningham then invited him to take dance classes with him and it wasn’t long before Remy began dancing with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company. He became a founding member of the company and did publicity and designed flyers as well as danced with them. For the first eight years with the company he also designed costumes and collaborated with Robert Rauschenberg on the productions of Springweather and People and Minutiae. As a member of the company he was also an artist-in-residence at Black Mountain College in Asheville, North Carolina, where he met many influential artists and thinkers of the time. He joined the extended family and befriended some of the most brilliant culture makers of the 20th Century including artists Josef and Annie Albers, Franz Klein, Cy Twombly, Willem and Elaine DeKooning, Jacob Lawrence, Arthur Penn, Ben Shahn, Ruth Asawa, Norman Soloman, Ray Johnson and Nicolas Cernovich; poets Charles Olsen, Robert Creely and M.C. Richards; musicians John Cage, Morton Feldman, David Tudor, and Earl Brown; architect Buckminster Fuller and children’s book author Vera Williams. Working as a dancer, director, choreographer, illustrator, author, costume and set designer provided opportunities to work with many notable artists and venues in New York’s avant-garde. Judith Malina and Julian Beck...

Polaroid transfer on Rives BFK paper Signed, dated, and numbered in pencil, recto Also blindstamped, l.r. 22 x 15 inches, sheet 10 x 8 inches, image This artwork is offered by ClampArt, located in New York City. Mark Beard writes: “Andy Warhol was everywhere. At one of the similar yet different events at ‘Area Club...