NEW YORK, NY.- FAME is the title of the summer photographic presentation at
Throckmorton Fine Art in New York. Choosing to show portraits of celebrated individuals, Kraige Block, Executive Director of Throckmorton Fine Art, says, Portraiture has a lengthy, rich and diverse history in art. In our era portraits of the famous have a pleasant association: they are familiar and frequently serve as cultural and temporal markers.
Photographic portraits, however, can be enigmatic, showing recognized faces but only hinting at complex personalities and the quixotic flow of fortune and tragedy.
In our summer exhibition we have made an effort to exhibit images that are not well known and some have, in fact, never been printed or publicly shown before, in a bid to add something unexpected to what is otherwise familiar.
45 vintage portraits have been chosen by Block.
The portraits we show represent a wide swatch of those ordained famous and include royalty, political leaders, actors and actresses, and artists, musicians and writers. We are also offering self-portraits by a number of accomplished fine art photographers as well as the work of several fashion photographers and photo-journalists.
The FAME exhibition at Throckmorton Fine Art this summer includes portraits that range from an 1858 image of Abraham Lincoln by Matthew Brady, to a 1930s portrait of Marlene Dietrich by Cecil Beaton, one of many 20th century film legends immortalized in this show. Others include Ray Schatts poignant image of James Dean, Kirk Douglas and Yul Brynner portraits by George Platt Lynes, a 1940s portraits of Frida Kahlo by Manuel Alvarez Bravo and an image of Salma Hayek channeling Frida Kahlo by Ruven Afanador. Visitors to the show will also see Gandhis portrait by Margaret Bourke White, and a 1961 image of Jacqueline Kennedy by Eve Arnold, as well as a 1999 portrait of Liza Minelli by Ruven Afanador.
We are delighted that other celebrated individuals making an appearance at our show include the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Theodore Roosevelt, D.H. Lawrence, Pablo Neruda, Pablo Picasso, Marilyn Monroe, the Beatles, the Dalai Lama, and Jean Michel Basquiat, with his cat.
This exhibit will serve as a testament to many of those who society has idolized over the past century. The exhibit will also offer, though, a window into the wide range of formats photographers have employed to capture the likeness of celebrated individuals.