I am a documentary photographer and storyteller who has recorded areas of society that no one has recorded before. The work I’m sharing in this virtual exhibition comes from two areas: The first, Louise Nevelson, one of the key women from the second wave of the women’s movement. The second portrait “Girl with a Crown” from a series of NY children from different soceio-economic backgrounds. I also photographed the interiors of Turkey’s traditional houses. Recently, I spent a couple of years photographing one of the great private gardens of the world. I’ve had numerous exhibitions, won awards and my photographs have appeared in every type of media. My portraits are in the National Portrait Gallery and the New York Historical Society. Currently, my 1976 portrait of Louise Nevelson is the face of the Pace Gallery’s exhibition at the 2022 Venice Biennale of Nevelson’s work. According to Art News, with posters of the portrait all over the city it became the symbol of the whole Biennale.
"Girl with the Crown"
1970s
Photograph
“Girl with a Crown” is from my series “NYC 70’s Kids”. Children were chosen from more than 100 families from different cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds. The series represents children with their own sense of identity.
In the 1970s, children were photographed in a studio against a plain backdrop, smiling and dressed in their Sunday best. These portraits fulfilled a parents’ need to present a happy child. My portraits of children, on the other hand, are taken in the comfort of their own homes where they dress as they please. With little coaxing children present themselves as who they are and perhaps offer us a glimpse of who they will become.
Following in the tradition of August Sander’s photo-documentation of the German people, and Arnold Newman’s environmental portraits, my goal is to bring an original perspective to the world of children’s portraiture. “Girl with a Crown” is a portrait of childhood: a young girl in her bedroom on the cusp of becoming a woman.
"Louise Nevelson"
1972
Photograph
The Pace Gallery commissioned my portrait of Louise Nevelson, one of the 20th century’s giants in the arts, in 1976. I had spent a decade photographing children. She was my first “adult” subject. Friends trooped over to my house as subjects for a crash course in photographing adults. I read extensively on her life to find common ground when I talked with her. I was petrified: she had been photographed by the who’s who of photography. I wanted to create a picture that was timeless.
Nevelson told me my portraits were the best she ever had. Almost half a century later her granddaughter Maria, and Arne Glimcher of Pace, said this is the only portrait that captures her.
At the 2022 Venice Biennale, Pace used my portrait as the “cover” for printed material for their Nevelson exhibition at the Biennale. The portrait is seen in posters plastered all over Venice, on products, and on the back of the Biennale catalogue. Art News wrote about the Nevelson exhibit, but the focus of the first 4 paragraphs was a description of my portrait and how it became the symbol of this year’s Biennale as well.
Today the portrait is in one of the finest private photography collections in the world, the Richard and Ellen Sandor Family Collection and was acquired when it was on view at AIPAD 2022, by the National Portrait Gallery.
The Story of My Portrait of Louise Nevelson | Venice Biennale 2022 (Teaser): https://youtu.be/H1XOtrKc0io
Free chapter of Louise Nevelson from my book: Particular Passions: Talks with Women Who Shaped our Times