Keith de Lellis Gallery will be exhibiting a selection of fine vintage and rare photographs in Booth 224 at this year’s 42nd edition of the Photography Show presented by The Association of International Photography Art Dealers (AIPAD) in New York City. The noteworthy photographs on view from Keith de Lellis Gallery cover an extensive selection of historical and significant content, including a wall dedicated to a fine group of vintage work by master photojournalist Henri Cartier-Bresson (French, 1908-2004) and pictures by African American artists from mid- century to contemporary that document the subjects of music, art and street photography. Renowned portraits by several masters of photography are on display along with stunning scenes of New York at night from the 20th century.
Collected over the past forty years, vintage prints by French humanist photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson on display include photos that were gifted to intimate friends of the artist and prints from his monumental 358- picture, mid-career retrospective and his first exhibition in Great Britain held at the London Royal Academy of Art in 1957. In a large-scale mounted exhibition print of one of his most famous works, a salty old New Englander is seen casually draped with an American flag over her shoulders as she curiously points into the distance while standing in front of a shingled Cape Cod cottage on Independence Day in 1947. This print was included in Cartier- Bresson’s exhibition at the Royal Academy along with another moving photograph on display, this time documenting the sea of distraught mourners present at the funeral pyre of the recently deceased Mahatma Gandhi that took place along the banks of the Sumna River in Delhi, India in 1948. A pair of early vintage prints, both with identical dedications to ‘Bebe and Boris’ written by the artist on verso, capture intimate scenes of the elated crowds who wait in Hyde Park during the celebration of the Coronation of George VI and his wife, Elizabeth, as the King and Queen of England in 1937.
On view is a rare portrait of the famous African American explorer Matthew Henson, who, along with Robert Edwin Peary, embarked on their Arctic expedition in 1909 to historically become the first humans, and for Henson the first African American, to reach the North Pole. Work by several important Black photographers are on display, including Hugh Bell’s (1927-2012) captivating photo Hot Jazz (1952) that was selected by Edward Steichen for ‘The Family of Man’ exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in 1955. Other photographs include Chuck Stewart’s (1927-2017) close-up portrait of an impassioned Duke Ellington on stage, and a piece by Jeanne Moutoussamy-Ashe (b. 1951) taken in 1978 of a tap dancer on the streets of Johannesburg, South Africa as an enamored crowd stands around to watch his performance. A street scene by female African American photographer Ming Smith (b. 1950) documents the Black community of Harlem, where one sees an older woman looking down below to a passerby through her open window, the image aptly titled When You See Me Comin’ Raise Your Window High (1972).
A small grouping of stunning night views of New York City are on display such as a wonderfully composed photograph by Eugene Smith (American, 1918-1978) taken of the Empire State Building from his studio window, and a beautiful pictorial platinum print taken of the Savoy Hotel on Fifth Avenue and 59th Street by Alfred Stieglitz (American, 1864-1946), the historic figure who promoted photography as a fine art form.
The Photography Show is the longest running exhibition dedicated to the medium of photography and is a vital part of New York City’s cultural scene, a must-see among fine art photography collectors (AIPAD 2023). The Keith de Lellis Gallery presents the artistic work of several influential photographers in Booth 224, including Anthony Barboza, C.M. Battey, Jessie Tarbox Beals, Hugh Bell, Alice Boughton, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Mikki Ferrill, Gertrude Käsebier, Jeanne Moutoussamy-Ashe, Ozier Muhammad, Wynn Richards, Coreen Simpson, Al Smith, Beuford Smith, Eugene Smith, Ming Smith, Edward Steichen, Chuck Stewart, Alfred Stieglitz, James VanDerZee, Shawn Walker, Amy Whittemore, and Paul J. Woolf. The Photography Show will be held from March 31 through April 2, 2023 at Center 415 located on Fifth Avenue between 37th and 38th streets.