ARTISTS,
WRITERS, PHOTOGRAPHERS
Through
October 25, 2009
Admission: Free
Museum Hours: Tuesday through Sunday: noon to 5 pm and Friday noon to 8 pm
 |
BERNICE
ABBOTT, James Joyce, 1927, gelatin silver print Gift of Reverend Edwin B. Fountain |
There has always been an affinity among the different branches of the arts and friendships between its practitioners. In the museum collection, we find intriguing examples of photographers who have made portraits of other artists: novelists, poets, musicians, performance, and visual artists.
Berenice Abbott’s portrait of James Joyce, on view in this exhibition, is one of the most famous images of the writer. When Abbott got her start working for photographer Man Ray in Paris, she entered a cultural world that fostered connections to such luminaries as avant-garde writer Gertrude Stein, Dada artist Marcel Duchamp, and fashion designer Coco Chanel. In that milieu, it is easy to imagine writer James Joyce dropping by Abbott’s studio so that she could photograph him. A number of renowned artists are pictured in this exhibition, among them photographers Robert Frank, Edward Weston, and Alfred Stieglitz; poet Allen Ginsberg; and artist Georgia O’Keeffe.
Many of the subjects depicted are those Lexington can call her own, either by birthright or by long association with the city: photographer Ralph Eugene Meatyard; writers James Baker Hall, Guy Davenport, and Wendell Berry; artists Arturo Sandoval and Louis Bickett; and musician John Jacob Niles. These portraits reflect the close relationships between two important cultural circles in Lexington in the second half of the twentieth century—a literary community centered around the University of Kentucky and a photography community centered around the Lexington Camera Club.
Some artists, like Hall, are both writer and photographer, and naturally part of both circles. However, members of the Lexington Camera Club not only made portraits of their fellow photographers, but also photographed friends in the wider arts community. Meatyard’s portraits of the writer Guy Davenport and musician John Jacob Niles, are a case in point. Many also had ties to the university. Bob May, a key member of the camera club, had an enormous impact on the art museum.
His passion for photography led him to collect work by leading twentieth century practitioners, such as Imogen Cunningham, whose portrait of Stieglitz is on view here. He bequeathed his collection along with his own photographs—a total of more than 1,200 works—to the museum and left an endowment to fund the purchase of photography and to promote photography education. More than half of the photographs shown here—including the portrait of him by Dennis Carpenter—were either part of his bequest or purchased with funds he provided.
