Caviar20 Black and White Photography

Robert Mapplethorpe's (1946-1989) place in the canon was earned from his incredible output of images that ranged from beautiful to brutal. Mapplethorpe boldly showcased the beauty ...

Robert Mapplethorpe's (1946-1989) place in the canon was earned from his incredible output of images that ranged from beautiful to brutal. Mapplethorpe boldly showcased the beauty ...

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...

Sophie Calle (born 1953) is an internationally acclaimed French contemporary artist. Highly conceptual in her approach, Calle's projects often begin with material from her personal ...

This is one of the most curious Edward Burtynsky images we have handled to date. A striking photograph that reveals the photographer's process, but also demonstrates his willingness ...

William Wegman (b. 1943) is an American photographer celebrated for his whimsical images of his beloved Weimaraner dogs. This photograph is from Wegman's "Improved Photographs" seri...

Jenny Holzer (b. 1950) is a multi-disciplinary American artist best known for her text-based public art projects. She was the first woman to represent the United States at the 1990 V...

Arthur Felling, better known as Weegee (1899-1968) is America's premiere photojournalist and one of the last century's most influential photographers. He would become famous, beyond...

Arthur Felling, better known as Weegee (1899-1968) is America's premiere photojournalist and one of the last century's most influential photographers. He would become famous, beyond...

Diane Arbus (1923-1971) is one of the most influential and daring photographers of the 20th century. Arbus is best known for her unique form of documentary portraiture. She explored the uncanny, the marginalized, and the idiosyncratic characters who defied mid-century conformity. Her work has influenced some of the most renowned photographers of our time including Nan Goldin. While her career launched in the fashion world, it was years after quitting commercial photography (circa 1956) that she found her voice as an artist. With camera in hand, she followed her fascination with the eccentric individuals and oddities of New York City. Ultimately rejecting her affluent, sheltered upbringing and the mainstream fashion industry to create her own definitions of beauty. Arbus’ portraits were considered incredibly provocative for their bold representations of sexuality, chaos, and grit. She fully immersed herself within the queer and alternative communities she documented, engaged with a curious balance of mystery and homage. Shot in 1966, "Groom Kissing His Bride" is a prime example of her uncanny ability to capture even the most traditional moments (a wedding) through a lens of surrealism. Love and tension confront each other as the groom kisses the bride with an attacking passion. Her likeness disappears behind his embrace and their newlywed bodies merge together. This work also contains Arbus’ visual trademarks – a black and white palette, a square crop, and a hard flash that flattens the aesthetic wonderland of New York. Today, Arbus' work is celebrated in many major museum collections including the Art Gallery of Ontario, Art Institute of Chicago, National Museum of Modern Art (Tokyo), and Centre Pompidou (Paris). "Groom Kissing his Bride, NYC" USA, 1966 Gelatin-silver print Printed by Neil Selkirk Stamped 'A Diane Arbus photograph...

Since the late 1970's Cindy Sherman has donned an array of personas to explore how women are perceived and presented in Western culture. Sherman's "Untitled Film Stills...

Nan Goldin (b. 1953) is one of the most influential photographers of the 20th century. Beginning in the 1970s, Goldin took candid shots of her friends and lovers, characters often li...

Innovative, provocative, inimitable - these are just a few of the words to describe America's boldest photographer. Arthur Fellig, better known as Weegee (1899-1968) was a ground-breaking, successful (and notorious) photojournalist. His images shot on the streets of New York City are iconic and influential. In the 1930s he became the first New York City press photographer to obtain permission to install a police radio in his car. This allowed him to follow the city's first responders and to document their duties; responding to fire, crime, debauchery and of course, murder. By the early 1940s Weegee was experiencing fatigue with crime reportage. Ironically, this was also the point when he finally began experiencing professional validation and acclaim, to the point of being a minor celebrity. Notably in 1941 he was included in The MoMA's seminal "50 Photographs by 50 Photographers" (curated by Edward Steichen). The museum would also acquire five Weegee photographs...

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...

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...

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...