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Sheila Metzner Art

American, b. 1939
Sheila Metzner (born 1939) is an American photographer. She was the first female photographer to collaborate with the Vogue magazine on an ongoing basis. Metzner lives in Brooklyn, New York. Metzner graduated from the High School of Art and Design and the Faculty of Visual Communications of the Pratt Institute. In the 1960s, she became the first woman to be promoted to art director by Doyle Dane Bernbach, an advertising agency. Thanks to this, she successfully collaborated with well-known photographers, including Richard Avedon, Melvin Sokolsky, Bob Richardson and Diane Arbus. Her first show in New York was called Friends & Family. She decided to show part of the images to the director of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, John Sarkovsky. In 1978, he bought one and included in MoMA exhibition Mirrors and Windows: American Photography Since 1960. A second exhibition – Photography (Spring 1981): Couches, Diamonds and Pie – took place there. After that, The New York Times and The Sunday Times published a photograph of Sheila's husband. In 2008 the School of Visual Arts presented the exhibition Time Line: Shelia Metzner at the Visual Arts Museum, New York.
(Biography provided by Graves International Art)
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Artist: Sheila Metzner
Rebecca, Tiffany Vase, Large Scale Sheila Metzner Photograph
By Sheila Metzner
Located in Surfside, FL
Sheila Metzner’s unique photographic style has positioned her as a contemporary master in the worlds of fine art, fashion, portraiture, still life and landscape photography. Looking at Metzner’s photographs is a captivating experience. Innocent, sensual, and sexual, each photo, regardless of subject, exhibits and elicits deep emotion. It is nearly impossible to just glance at Metzner’s photos; they beg to be studied. She says, “Photography in its most basic form is magic…This image, caught in my trap, my box of darkness, can live. It is eternal, immortal. The child in the image will not age as the living child will.” Sheila Schwartz was born in 1939 to an orthodox Jewish family in a poor section of Brooklyn. While attending the School of Industrial Art in Manhattan (now the High School of Art and Design), she was awarded the Mayor Robert F. Wagner scholarship to the college of her choice. She chose Pratt Institute, where she majored in visual communication. Her fondness for painting and sculpture also led her to study with abstract artists Jack Tworkov and James Brooks. After graduating in 1961, Sheila worked as an assistant to Lou Dorfsman at CBS Network Advertising. Five years later, she was hired by the Doyle Dane Bernbach advertising agency as its first female art director, and in 1968 she met and married director, creative director, and painter Jeffrey Metzner. While pregnant with their first child, she was riding in a cab with her mentor and friend, photographer Aaron Rose, discussing whether or not to give up her career in advertising. “He said, ‘You should be a photographer. You live like an artist. You have a good eye, you’d be good at it.’ ” Metzner started taking pictures, amassing them slowly over the next 13 years, while raising her and Jeffrey’s five children—Raven, Bega, Ruby, Stella and Louie. Jeffrey’s two daughters from a previous marriage, Evyan and Alison, were also a regular part of the family. “When they were really small, I’d be with them during the day, photographing and printing at night. At eight or nine in the evening, when they were all asleep, I’d take a shower to wake up and put on high heels and lipstick, which I wore then, to give me the feeling of being ready to work.” She continues, “My children never interfered. When I couldn’t travel because of them, I would find a place in upstate New York and call it Antarctica or Egypt. I found microcosms.” Nine years later, Metzner had accumulated a box of 22 pictures. One of them, a black-and-white photograph titled “Evyan, Kinderhook Creek,” caught the eye of John Szarkowski at the Museum of Modern Art, which he included in his famous and controversial exhibition “Mirrors and Windows: American Photography since 1960.” The New York Times art critic Hilton Kramer loved the picture and soon it became the dark-horse hit of the exhibition. Later that year, Metzner’s first solo show at the Daniel Wolf Gallery in New York drew record crowds. Metzner was now ready to work in color, but not just conventional color. Of her subjects, she once said, “If I use a rose, I want it to be the essential rose—the rose Beauty brought to her father from the Beast’s garden.” Now she aspired to an essential kind of color. “I wanted something that would last. I was looking for Fresson even though I didn’t know they existed.” The Fresson family works outside of Paris and specializes in a labor-intensive four-color “process de charbon” method, which they invented in 1895. Some prints can go up to seven colors, and are pigment prints, the only true archival color print. Metzner is one of just ten American photographers with whom they are willing to work. Fresson prints are the perfect complement to Metzner’s style—soft, sensuous, and grainy, the prints resemble paintings, with a finish which Metzner describes as “a glaze on fine porcelain. The moment I saw the neutral gray,” she adds, “I knew it was perfect.” In 1980 Metzner showed her Fresson color prints at her second solo exhibition at the Daniel Wolf Gallery. This show led to commissioned editorial work for such magazines as Vanity Fair, Vogue, and Rolling Stone. She secured an exclusive contract with Vogue for the next eight years. Metzner considers her portrait of actress Jeanne Moreau for Vanity Fair a turning point in her career. “It gave me a chance to show my work to a broader audience. I wasn’t just producing photographs for the art world.” Of Sheila’s foray into fashion, critic Carol Squiers says, “At a time when fashion photography was caught between sterility and the snapshot, Metzner created a sumptuous vision that stimulated the entire field.” Metzner also started doing commercial photography around this time. Her first client was Valentino, soon to be followed by Bloomingdale’s, Perry Ellis, Revlon, Shiseido, Saks Fifth Avenue, Paloma Picasso, Victoria’s Secret, Levi’s, Ralph Lauren, and fragrances for Chloe and Fendi (the Fendi campaign won a Fragrance Foundation Recognition Award). Her work also appeared on John Mellencamp...
Category

1980s Modern Sheila Metzner Art

Materials

Photographic Paper, C Print

Poster-Daniel Wolf Inc. New York, Photographs-October 7-November 1, 1980
By Sheila Metzner
Located in Fraser, MI
SHEILA METZNER (American, b. 1939). Poster-Daniel Wolf Inc. New York, Photographs, October 7-November 1, 1980. Measures 28 x 20 in. Unframed. Good/Fair Condi...
Category

1980s Sheila Metzner Art

Materials

Lithograph

Josie Borain
By Sheila Metzner
Located in New York, NY
Solarized gelatin silver print Blindstamped in caps, "Sheila Metzner Photography," l.r. 14 x 11 inches, sheet size 13 x 8.5 inches, image size This artwork is offered by ClampArt, ...
Category

1980s Other Art Style Sheila Metzner Art

Materials

Silver Gelatin

Samburu Portrait
By Sheila Metzner
Located in New York, NY
Fresson print Signed and dated in pencil, recto This photograph is offered by ClampArt, located in New York City. Born in Brooklyn, Sheila Metzner attended Pratt Institute, where s...
Category

1990s Other Art Style Sheila Metzner Art

Materials

Color

Chrysler Building. New York City. 2000
By Sheila Metzner
Located in New York, NY
Signed by the photographer on the recto
Category

Early 2000s Sheila Metzner Art

Materials

Photographic Paper

The Passion of Rome: Fendi
By Sheila Metzner
Located in New York, NY
“We were shooting in Rome for a new Fendi fragrance. Fendi had arranged paperwork to permit us to shoot in a museum garden. However, when we arrived the guard denied our permit, claiming that the garden was an “interior” (as it was behind the entrance gate) and that we were only allowed to shoot in the parking lot. We decided to meet at Alda Fendi’s home to make an alternate plan. When we arrived, we were greeted by Alda. In the vestibule of the entrance on a table sat the incredible ancient marble bust...
Category

1980s Modern Sheila Metzner Art

Materials

Photographic Paper

Letitia
By Sheila Metzner
Located in New York, NY
“My kids went to Steiner School, on 79th, between 5th and Madison. We often visited the galleries. I borrowed furniture, vases, and paintings from the dealers for my pictures – they all trusted me. We were considered friends. It was as simple as taking the Jean Arp sculpture...
Category

1980s Modern Sheila Metzner Art

Materials

Photographic Paper

Nude with One Thing On
By Sheila Metzner
Located in New York, NY
Signed, l.r. Edition of 50 Contact gallery for price This work is offered by ClampArt in New York City.
Category

1990s Contemporary Sheila Metzner Art

Materials

Photogravure

Black Parrots, 2000
By Sheila Metzner
Located in New York, NY
Fresson Print. Signed by the photographer.
Category

Early 2000s Sheila Metzner Art

Materials

Color

Buddha. Orchid
By Sheila Metzner
Located in New York, NY
Fresson Print. Signed by the photographer.
Category

Early 2000s Sheila Metzner Art

Materials

Color

The Storm
By Sheila Metzner
Located in New York, NY
This photograph is signed by the photographer and is printed using the Fresson printing process. Size varies.
Category

1990s Sheila Metzner Art

Materials

Color

Hand with Snake
By Sheila Metzner
Located in New York, NY
This photograph is signed by the photographer and is printed using the Fresson printing process. Size varies.
Category

1990s Sheila Metzner Art

Materials

Black and White

Mahal. Apartment 125
By Sheila Metzner
Located in New York, NY
This photograph is signed by the photographer and is printed using the Fresson printing process. Size varies.
Category

1980s Sheila Metzner Art

Josie
By Sheila Metzner
Located in New York, NY
This photograph is signed by the photographer and is printed using the Fresson printing process. Size varies.
Category

1980s Sheila Metzner Art

Materials

Color

Lynn. Nude
By Sheila Metzner
Located in New York, NY
This photograph is signed by the photographer and is printed using the Fresson printing process. Size varies.
Category

1990s Sheila Metzner Art

Materials

Color

Robert Mapplethorpe
By Sheila Metzner
Located in New York, NY
This photograph is signed by the photographer and is printed using the Fresson printing process. Size varies.
Category

1980s Sheila Metzner Art

Materials

Color

Cheetah. Kenya
By Sheila Metzner
Located in New York, NY
This photograph is signed by the photographer and is printed using the Fresson printing process. Size varies.
Category

1990s Sheila Metzner Art

Materials

Color

Campidoglio. Fendi
By Sheila Metzner
Located in New York, NY
This photograph is signed by the photographer and is printed using the Fresson printing process. Size varies.
Category

1980s Sheila Metzner Art

Materials

Color

Samburu Portrait. Kenya
By Sheila Metzner
Located in New York, NY
This photograph is signed by the photographer and is printed using the Fresson printing process. Size varies.
Category

1990s Sheila Metzner Art

Rebecca. Diamond Necklace. 1984
By Sheila Metzner
Located in New York, NY
This photograph is signed by the photographer and is printed using the Fresson printing process. Size varies.
Category

1980s Sheila Metzner Art

Ralph Lauren
By Sheila Metzner
Located in New York, NY
This photograph is signed by the photographer and is printed using the Fresson printing process. Size varies.
Category

1990s Sheila Metzner Art

Uma. Patou Dress.
By Sheila Metzner
Located in New York, NY
This photograph is signed by the photographer and is printed using the Fresson printing process. Size varies.
Category

1980s Sheila Metzner Art

Materials

Color

Brooklyn Bridge. Hokusai Series
By Sheila Metzner
Located in New York, NY
This photograph is signed by the photographer and is printed using the Fresson printing process. Size varies.
Category

Early 2000s Sheila Metzner Art

Materials

Color

Elaine
By Sheila Metzner
Located in New York, NY
This photograph is signed by the photographer and is printed using the Fresson printing process. Size varies.
Category

1990s Sheila Metzner Art

Materials

Black and White

Empire State Building. New York City
By Sheila Metzner
Located in New York, NY
This photograph is signed by the photographer and is printed using the Fresson printing process. Size varies.
Category

1980s Sheila Metzner Art

Materials

Black and White

Mouille. Prototypes
By Sheila Metzner
Located in New York, NY
This photograph is signed by the photographer and is printed using the Fresson printing process. Size varies.
Category

1930s Sheila Metzner Art

Materials

Black and White

Striped Glove
By Sheila Metzner
Located in New York, NY
This photograph is signed by the photographer and is printed using the Fresson printing process. Size varies.
Category

1980s Sheila Metzner Art

Materials

Black and White

Mahal
By Sheila Metzner
Located in New York, NY
This photograph is signed by the photographer and is printed using the Fresson printing process. Size varies.
Category

1980s Sheila Metzner Art

Materials

Color

Evyan. Kinderhook Creek
By Sheila Metzner
Located in New York, NY
This photograph is signed by the photographer and is printed using the Fresson printing process. Size varies.
Category

1970s Sheila Metzner Art

Materials

Black and White

Stella. Fever
By Sheila Metzner
Located in New York, NY
This photograph is signed by the photographer and is printed using the Fresson printing process. Size varies.
Category

1970s Sheila Metzner Art

Materials

Black and White

Jeffrey. Red Plastic Hat
By Sheila Metzner
Located in New York, NY
This photograph is signed by the photographer and is printed using the Fresson printing process. Size varies.
Category

1970s Sheila Metzner Art

Materials

Color

Alison. Bathing Suit
By Sheila Metzner
Located in New York, NY
This photograph is signed by the photographer and is printed using the Fresson printing process. Size varies.
Category

1980s Sheila Metzner Art

Materials

Color

Bega. Peppers
By Sheila Metzner
Located in New York, NY
This photograph is signed by the photographer and is printed using the Fresson printing process. Size varies.
Category

1980s Sheila Metzner Art

Materials

Color

Ruby. Miami Shirt
By Sheila Metzner
Located in New York, NY
This photograph is signed by the photographer and is printed using the Fresson printing process. Size varies.
Category

1980s Sheila Metzner Art

Materials

Color

Raven. Chatham
By Sheila Metzner
Located in New York, NY
This photograph is signed by the photographer and is printed using the Fresson printing process. Size varies.
Category

1970s Sheila Metzner Art

Materials

Color

Homage to Man Ray
By Sheila Metzner
Located in New York, NY
This photograph is signed by the photographer and is printed using the Fresson printing process. Size varies.
Category

1980s Sheila Metzner Art

Materials

Color

Rosemary. Ungaro Hat. Couture. Vogue
By Sheila Metzner
Located in New York, NY
This photograph is signed by the photographer and is printed using the Fresson printing process. Size varies.
Category

1980s Sheila Metzner Art

Materials

Color

Fragrance. Art Deco
By Sheila Metzner
Located in New York, NY
This photograph is signed by the photographer and is printed using the Fresson printing process. Size varies.
Category

1980s Sheila Metzner Art

Materials

Color

Jill in Our Bedroom
By Sheila Metzner
Located in New York, NY
This photograph is signed by the photographer and is printed using the Fresson printing process. Size varies.
Category

1980s Sheila Metzner Art

Materials

Color

Rebecca. Marlo's Flowers
By Sheila Metzner
Located in New York, NY
This photograph is signed by the photographer and is printed using the Fresson printing process. Size varies.
Category

1980s Sheila Metzner Art

Materials

Color

Joko. Passion
By Sheila Metzner
Located in New York, NY
This photograph is signed by the photographer and is printed using the Fresson printing process. Size varies.
Category

1980s Sheila Metzner Art

Materials

Color

Brooke Shields
By Sheila Metzner
Located in New York, NY
This photograph is signed by the photographer and is printed using the Fresson printing process. Size varies.
Category

1980s Sheila Metzner Art

Materials

Color

Fashion
By Sheila Metzner
Located in New York, NY
This photograph is signed by the photographer and is printed using the Fresson printing process. Size varies.
Category

1980s Sheila Metzner Art

Materials

Color

Odalisque
By Sheila Metzner
Located in New York, NY
This photograph is signed by the photographer and is printed using the Fresson printing process. Size varies.
Category

1980s Sheila Metzner Art

Materials

Color

Silver. Ralph Lauren Collection
By Sheila Metzner
Located in New York, NY
This photograph is signed by the photographer and is printed using the Fresson printing process. Size varies.
Category

1990s Sheila Metzner Art

Materials

Color

Elaine. Homage to Man Ray
By Sheila Metzner
Located in New York, NY
This photograph is signed by the photographer and is printed using the Fresson printing process. Size varies.
Category

1980s Sheila Metzner Art

Materials

Black and White

Elaine, Homage to Man Ray
By Sheila Metzner
Located in New York, NY
This photograph is signed by the photographer and is printed using the Fresson printing process. Size varies.
Category

1980s Sheila Metzner Art

Materials

Black and White

The Kiss. Fendi
By Sheila Metzner
Located in New York, NY
This photograph is signed by the photographer and is printed using the Fresson printing process. Size varies.
Category

1980s Sheila Metzner Art

Materials

Color

Uomo. Fendi
By Sheila Metzner
Located in New York, NY
This photograph is signed by the photographer and is printed using the Fresson printing process. Size varies.
Category

1980s Sheila Metzner Art

Materials

Color

Campidoglio. Fendi
By Sheila Metzner
Located in New York, NY
This photograph is signed by the photographer and is printed using the Fresson printing process. Size varies.
Category

1980s Sheila Metzner Art

Materials

Color

Uma. German Vogue
By Sheila Metzner
Located in New York, NY
This photograph is signed by the photographer and is printed using the Fresson printing process. Size varies.
Category

1990s Sheila Metzner Art

Materials

Black and White

Warren Beatty. Bugsy
By Sheila Metzner
Located in New York, NY
This photograph is signed by the photographer and is printed using the Fresson printing process. Size varies.
Category

1990s Sheila Metzner Art

Materials

Black and White

Ennis Brown House. Vogue
By Sheila Metzner
Located in New York, NY
This photograph is signed by the photographer and is printed using the Fresson printing process. Size varies.
Category

1990s Sheila Metzner Art

Materials

Color

Mouille. Prototype
By Sheila Metzner
Located in New York, NY
This photograph is signed by the photographer and is printed using the Fresson printing process. Size varies.
Category

1980s Sheila Metzner Art

Materials

Black and White

Rick. Dynamo Series
By Sheila Metzner
Located in New York, NY
This photograph is signed by the photographer and is printed using the Fresson printing process. Size varies.
Category

1980s Sheila Metzner Art

Materials

Black and White

Louie
By Sheila Metzner
Located in New York, NY
This photograph is signed by the photographer and is printed using the Fresson printing process. Size varies.
Category

1990s Sheila Metzner Art

Materials

Black and White

Bega. Odalisque
By Sheila Metzner
Located in New York, NY
This photograph is signed by the photographer and is printed using the Fresson printing process. Size varies.
Category

1990s Sheila Metzner Art

Materials

Black and White

Silver Tulip
By Sheila Metzner
Located in New York, NY
This photograph is signed by the photographer and is printed using the Fresson printing process. Size varies.
Category

Early 2000s Sheila Metzner Art

Materials

Black and White

Sheila Metzner art for sale on 1stDibs.

Find a wide variety of authentic Sheila Metzner art available for sale on 1stDibs. If you’re browsing the collection of art to introduce a pop of color in a neutral corner of your living room or bedroom, you can find work that includes elements of orange and other colors. You can also browse by medium to find art by Sheila Metzner in paper, photographic paper, c print and more. Much of the original work by this artist or collective was created during the 20th century and is mostly associated with the modern style. Not every interior allows for large Sheila Metzner art, so small editions measuring 11 inches across are available. Customers who are interested in this artist might also find the work of Lynn Goldsmith, Allan Tannenbaum, and David Halliday. Sheila Metzner art prices can differ depending upon medium, time period and other attributes. On 1stDibs, the price for these items starts at $200 and tops out at $4,500, while the average work can sell for $1,150.

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