Tod Papageorge: Dr. Blankmanīs New York documents a brief but critical moment in the photographer's early career, the two years Papageorge shot in color in New York in the late 1960s. Black-and-white photography was still the "serious" medium, and color reserved for commercial applications; Papageorge--25 years old and newly arrived in New York City--was encouraged by his fellow photographers to seek paying magazine work by developing a body of work in color. In some ways it was a failed experiment: Papageorge mostly approached color in the same way as he approached black and white, except that he also began to intuitively produce still-life pictures with little commercial appeal, spotlighting canned hams in shop windows and political posters. But color offered Papageorge the opportunity to work in a new medium at a time of great social, political and cultural change. "Id like to think that, in Dr. Blankmanīs New York, youll find a persuasive account of what it meant for me to be free with a Leica in the streets of my newly adopted home of Manhattan," writes Papageorge, "a record drawn with Kodachrome film and its rich, saturated colors." Tod Papageorge (born 1940) picked up photography for the first time as a student at the University of New Hampshire. He is the recipient of two Guggenheim Fellowships and two National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships. From 1979 to 2013 Papageorge served as Yale Universitys Walker Evans Professor of Photography and Director of Graduate Study in Photography.
Featured image is reproduced from Tod Papageorge: Seeing Things, New York 19661967.
PRAISE AND REVIEWS
New York Times
Matthew Sedacca
Often using slower shutter-speeds and waiting an extra beat or two for passers-by to settle in their strides, [Tod Papageorge] composed clean-lined scenes loaded with symbolism and playfulness.
Collector Daily
Richard B. Woodward
Dr. Blankmans New York is about death, war and flower power only after the fact. That doesnt detract from the books conniving subtleties. Photographs dont have fixed meanings. The best ones contain multitudes and resist glib or pat translation. They can be re-read profitably decades after they were taken.
Featured image is reproduced from Dr. Blankman's New York, Steidl's remarkable new collection of color street photographs made by Tod Papageorge, 196667. "It is fifty years since Papageorge caught his own reflection in those windows, and lost it in those streets," David Campany writes. "Is half a century too much hindsight? Can we remember who we were, or trust our photographs to remind us? Yes and no. Dr. Blankman's New York feels like a great, lost book. In a parallel world it might have become a landmark. In some latent world it might still. Why the delay? Many reasons. Some personal, some pragmatic. Papageorge has said that audiences have never meant that much to him. Many of his projects have found their moment long after the photographs were made. We barely got to see them when they were contemporary in the literal sense." continue to blog
FORMAT: Hbk, 11.75 x 12 in. / 136 pgs / 60 color. LIST PRICE: U.S. $45.00 LIST PRICE: CANADA $62 ISBN: 9783958291089 PUBLISHER: Steidl/Pace/MacGill Gallery AVAILABLE: 11/20/2018 DISTRIBUTION: D.A.P. RETAILER DISC: TRADE PUBLISHING STATUS: Out of print AVAILABILITY: Not available TERRITORY: NA ONLY
Published by Steidl/Pace/MacGill Gallery. Text by David Campany.
Tod Papageorge: Dr. Blankmanīs New York documents a brief but critical moment in the photographer's early career, the two years Papageorge shot in color in New York in the late 1960s. Black-and-white photography was still the "serious" medium, and color reserved for commercial applications; Papageorge--25 years old and newly arrived in New York City--was encouraged by his fellow photographers to seek paying magazine work by developing a body of work in color. In some ways it was a failed experiment: Papageorge mostly approached color in the same way as he approached black and white, except that he also began to intuitively produce still-life pictures with little commercial appeal, spotlighting canned hams in shop windows and political posters. But color offered Papageorge the opportunity to work in a new medium at a time of great social, political and cultural change. "Id like to think that, in Dr. Blankmanīs New York, youll find a persuasive account of what it meant for me to be free with a Leica in the streets of my newly adopted home of Manhattan," writes Papageorge, "a record drawn with Kodachrome film and its rich, saturated colors."
Tod Papageorge (born 1940) picked up photography for the first time as a student at the University of New Hampshire. He is the recipient of two Guggenheim Fellowships and two National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships. From 1979 to 2013 Papageorge served as Yale Universitys Walker Evans Professor of Photography and Director of Graduate Study in Photography.
