| PRESS
RELEASE
OCTOBER 9 - NOVEMBER 9, 2003
JIM
MUNFORD
A
photographic retrospective (1953 - 2003) of
the streets, barrooms, parks and other gathering
places where New Yorkers assemble to harass
or entertain each other
OPENING
RECEPTION:
THURSDAY | OCTOBER 9,
2003 | 6-8 PM
New
York, NY
- Gallery@49 is pleased to present a selection
of over 60 vintage and recent photographs taken
by Jim Munford in New York City over the past
half century. These include views of life in
the Barrio at the beginning of the Puerto Rican
migration to the city, images of the Astor Beaux
Arts Ball in 1956, Halloween marchers, jazz
musicians, Gypsy flamenco guitarists, children
at play in the streets and adults at work; telling
moments in the lives of the people in Hell's
Kitchen, Chinatown, Washington Square and the
barrooms of Brooklyn; vivid portraits of grotesques
and eccentrics, as well as the common man.
New
York is one of the most photogenic cities in
the world, and its bustling people and towering
buildings have been a lodestone for photographers
since the 19th century. Jim Munford is an example
of the power of the photographer to do more
than either record truth or create beauty; he
accomplishes both those ends in images that
often transcend the aesthetic and the documentary
in this dynamic panorama of what the city and
its people have looked like over the past half
century. In the great tradition of Cartier-Bresson,
Lange, and Leipzig, he has artfully captured
the spirit of time and place in a variety of
familiar and unfamiliar areas of the city, illuminating
the commonplace moments of its life in powerful
black-and-white silver gelatin prints from the
1950s to the present.
When
asked about his work, Jim Munford recalls that
his career in art began in the 1940s when he
visited New York as a merchant seaman and experienced
"bright visual moments" in neighborhoods
like Little Italy and Harlem. "A few years
later, when I finally had a camera in my hand,"
he reports, "I went in search of such moments."
He credits his sensitive use of light to the
paintings of Hopper, Turner, and Vermeer, but
his technical mastery of his medium began with
his study under the great photographer David
Vestal in the late 1950s. In the next decade,
he studied with Lisette Model, along with fellow
students Diane Arbus, and with Life photographer
W. Eugene Smith, who later worked with him as
a consultant and contributor when Munford edited
and published The Journal of Visual Medicine.
Jim
Munford has combined careers in photography
and publishing since 1953. His works have been
presented at the Museum of Modern Art in a group
show curated by Edward Steichen as well as in
solo exhibitions in galleries in Boston and
New York. His latest solo show at Gallery@49
will be on view through November 9. The opening
reception in the artist's presence will take
place on Thursday, October 9, from 6 to 8 P.M.
and will feature a live
musical performance by The Howard Williams Jazz
Trio.
Gallery@49
is located at 322 West 49th Street (between
8th and 9th Ave.) Gallery@49
can be reached by subways E, C to 50th St. or
N, R to 49th St. Gallery Hours: Tuesday
– Saturday 12- 6 pm. For additional
information or visual material please call (212)
767-0855 or e-mail: info@gallery49.com
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