A Photographic Arbor Day

 

The last Friday of April is set aside annually in celebration of National Arbor Day, a holiday which encourages the planting and caring for of trees and other foliage.  According to our good friend, Wikipedia, it originated in Nebraska during the early 1870's and has since spread to a global level.

What better way to celebrate the greenest of holidays with a vertically integrated product: trees make paper, photographs are printed on paper, photographs on paper look FABULOUS on your walls!  See the logic there?

So in honor of the 140th Arbor Day here is a small forests' worth of the photography world's best trees!

Mitch Dobrowner: Wind Swept Tree

 

 

Maggie Taylor: Oh, Happy Day!

 

Jerry Uelsmann: Untitled, 1969

 

 

Josef Hoflehner: Elephant Hill Pathway

 

Jeffrey Conley: Snow Covered Branches

 

Takeshi Shikama: Central Park #21

 

Jeri Eisenberg: Magnolia, No. 9

 

 

Susan Burnstine: Forever

 

Brett Weston: Holland Canal

Niniane Kelley: Palm

 

 

Charles Grogg: Bonsai (Juniper)

 

 

Jefferson Hayman: Tree, Central Park

 

 

Keliy Anderson-Staley: Plum Tree

 

David Fokos: Haybales, Ripsa, Sweden

 

Henry Gilpin: Trees, Reflection

Dan Burkholder: Tree in April Snow, Catskills

 

Pine-ing for any of these images?  Don't have a collection and looking for one to take root?  Already have one but looking to branch out?  Want me to stop with these ridiculous tree jokes? Don't be such a crabapple! Come into the John Cleary Gallery or give us a call and we'd love to help find that perfect photograph for you.

Jerry Uelsmann in the Wall Street Journal

 

Today’s Wall Street Journal features an excellent article on the opening of “The Mind’s Eye: 50 Years of Photography by Jerry Uelsmann” at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts, the first in a collection of exhibitions highlighting PEM’s 2012 Year of Photography.

Apocalypse II

 

“It really isn't fair: Jerry Uelsmann, who was born in 1934, had to devise ingenious darkroom techniques to create surrealistic images that nowadays anyone competent with Photoshop can produce with ease. But being able to reverse positive and negative versions of a photograph and to merge two or more photographs into a single composition are only the mechanical aspects of Mr. Uelsmann's art. The indispensable element of his work is his ability to envision images that are totally impossible, but absolutely right. It takes more than the most complex computer program to do that.”            

~ William Meyers, Ah, But Can Photoshop Do This? (follow this link to the full article from the WSJ)

 

 

“The Mind’s Eye” retrospective will run through June 30, 2012 at the Peabody Essex Museum. 

Can’t make it to Salem, Mass. but still interested in Jerry’s photographs?  Stop into the gallery any time and we’d love to share his work with you!

Jerry Uelsmann and Maggie Taylor on NY Times Lens Blog

 

Last week photographic duo extraordinaire Jerry Uelsmann and Maggie Taylor were featured in separate articles on the New York Times Lens Blog!

“Jerry Uelsmann’s Analog Dreams” 

“Before Photoshop allowed image makers to bend reality to their will with a single keystroke there was Jerry Uelsmann. He created surreal images the hard way — not with digital shortcuts, but working in a darkroom with seven enlargers and multiple negatives.”                       ~James Estrin

Untitled (Ocean in Frame), 2003

 

“In Her Garden of Digital Delights”

“I use pretty minimal and simple features. I try not to get overwhelmed by the technical aspects of it. But as new features have allowed for higher quality images, that’s changed my work,. Things have become more intricate and layered and I’m braver about having many more layers in the images than I used to be. When I started out I didn’t think that I could do all of my work in Photoshop. I never really saw it as the ultimate answer to everything. But I now realize that there’s no other way I could do this kind of work. I couldn’t imagine myself using a camera and film anymore.” ~Maggie Taylor

The Experience

 

Both Uelsmann and Taylor are featured in our currently running Deck the Walls holiday exhibition (running through January 14). For more information about purchasing one of these alluring works, contact us here at the John Cleary Gallery!

Deck the Walls

Deck the Walls is an annual group exhibition of vintage and contemporary pieces that allows John Cleary Gallery to showcase a variety of artists, prices ranges, styles, and photographic mediums.  Deck the Walls will feature gallery favorites such as Elliott Erwitt, Maggie Taylor, Jeffrey Becom, Mitch Dobrowner, Takeshi Shikama, along with several others.  There will be something here for everyone’s budget and taste.

Maggie Taylor & Jerry Uelsmann: Intersections

Please join us this Saturday, May 1, from 6 - 8 p.m. for the opening of Maggie Taylor and Jerry Uelsmann: Intersection. Both artists will be in attendance for the opening, and Maggie will be signing copies of her three most recent books.

Inspired by one another, Jerry Uelsmann and Maggie Taylor's work often intersects in various ways from subject matter to theme to the physical appropriation of negatives. Despite any similarities they may share, their work is completely distinct from each other in the different processes used to achieve their final products.

Over the past forty years Jerry Uelsmann's work has been exhibited in over 100 solo shows throughout the US and abroad. Uelsmann's work combines several negatives to produce one seamless, black and white print, which have often been described as surreal. Uelsmann has been the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship. He began teaching photography at the University of Florida in Gainesville and became a graduate research professor of art at the University in 1974. Uelsmann is now retired from teaching but is still producing art.

After dedicating over ten years to still life photography, Maggie Taylor began using the computer to create images in 1996. Taylor is a pioneer in digitally created art images and her work is featured in Adobe Photoghop Master Class: Maggie Taylor's Landscape of Dreams, published by Adobe Press in 2005. Her whimsical photographic creations made her the perfect candidate to illustrate Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, published by Modernbook Editions, Palo Alto, 2008. Taylor's work has been exhibited in one-person exhibitions across the US and abroad and is present in numerous public and private collections.

We hope to see you Saturday to experience these works for yourself!

Greetings from AIPAD!

(A panoramic view of John Cleary Gallery's booth, courtesy of Dan Burkholder -- click to see full image)

AIPAD is in full swing, and I've barely had time to sit down and catch my breath! After a slightly horrendous day of travel (including three standby flights and detour to Baltimore), I finally made it to New York and set up our fabulous booth, which features Mitch Dobrowner, Jessica Somers, Dan Burkholder, Charles Grogg, Maggie Taylor, and books by 21st Editions on the walls.

People have been steadily pouring into the booth since the show opened Wednesday night -- which has left all of us exhausted but is great for busines. Many of the prints in bins and on walls have sold, sold, sold!

Hard at work!

(from left) Katie Kelly and Catherine Couturier with John Cleary Gallery, and Lance Speer and Crissy Welzen with 21st Editions

I've also been able to catch up with friends from other galleries, collectors I don't get to see often, and a few of my favorite artists.

Artist Dan Burkholder with gallery owner Catherine Couturier

 

Artist Charles Grogg, who will have a show in our gallery from March 27 to April 24

Artist Michael Donner with his print "Dreaming Tree"

Artist Isa Leshko with "Dangling Legs" from her new series

Catherine Couturier with artist Jessica Somers

Unfortunately, Maggie Taylor and Jerry Uelsmann, Elliott Erwitt, and Keily Anderson-Staley stopped by before we thought of taking pictures, but I had a great time catching up with all of them in person.

There's an hour left in the day, so we're kind of at that point. I "borrowed" one of the Lucie awards from 21st Editions to practice my acceptance speech for "World's Best Gallery Owner."

If you haven't had the chance to come out yet, tomorrow is the final day: Sunday March 21 from 11:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. Visit and say hello!