E-Photo
Issue #138  12/16/2007
 
Births, Deaths and Other News

IT'S A GIRL! German photo dealers Annette and Rudolph Kicken have a new baby girl. Mother and daughter are doing fine. It was the reason that neither of them were in the Kicken booth at Art Basel Miami. Congrats to the parents.

WHAT'S IN A NAME ANYWAY? Is it Art Basel Miami? Art Basel Miami Beach? ABM (sounds like a new missile guidance system)? ABMB? The folks at Art Basel are going to be lost without their founding director, Sam Keller, especially with this name thing getting a bit out of whack this year. No one could quite figure out what to call the show this year after years of calling it and grimacing at the same time: "Art Basel Miami". Suggestion: leave it alone.

LEONARD VERNON LEAVES THE SCENE. Los Angeles collector Leonard Vernon, a founding member of the Getty Museum Photographs Council, has died. Weston Naef emailed council members about the passing: "Leonard and his wife, Marjorie, were serious collectors of photographs long before the Getty jumped on board in 1984 and his presence will be greatly missed. As a family, the Vernons have lent support and encouragement to museums from Santa Barbara to San Diego and from Malibu to Riverside. With its holdings in depth of Ansel Adams, Josef Sudek, Edward Weston and many, many other photographers, the Vernon Collection has been a generous lender to numerous Getty exhibitions, including Edward Weston: Enduring Vision that is now on view. A service was held at Hillside Memorial at 11:00 a.m. on Wednesday, October 31."

MARVIN COHEN PASSES AWAY. Yet another Getty Photographs Council loss: new member Marvin Cohen passed away. With his wife, Anne, Cohen was an avid collector of studio glass, contemporary ceramics, art deco furniture, and photography. The Cohens' interest in photography began in 1989 with classic mid-century black-and-white photography, but evolved to include large-scale color work. Anne will remain on the council.

JACK NAYLOR PASSES AWAY. Nearly immediately after selling his photography and photographica collection at Guernsey's in New York City this October, Jack Naylor, who attended the auction in a wheelchair, passed away. Jack was a dear man and a longtime collector known affectionately by everyone in the photography field. His health had been rapidly deteriorating over the past year. He claimed to have taken the famous photograph of Margaret Bourke-White in front of a plane in a heavy leather jacket, and was friends with photographers Bourke-White, Bradford Washington and Harold Edgerton--among others.

MARKET TEST. Christie's will test the market for Diane Arbus and William Eggleston photographs next year when it sells the Bruce and Nancy Berman collection of over 2,500 photographs across three separate auctions. The Arbus group will sell in the April 2008 auction and the Eggleston's in October 2008. The rest of the collection from early American masters such as Walker Evans and Dorothea Lange to post war luminaries will be sold off in April 2009. The collection is one of the largest and most important of its kind to be privately held in Southern California. Selections have been publicly exhibited, most recently at the J. Paul Getty Museum in the fall of 2006. "Where we live: Photographs of America from the Berman Collection" was an exhibition of 170 prints by 24 important contemporary artists. The catalogue from this show was reviewed in an earlier E-Photo Newsletter.

NEW DIGS. The Southeast Museum of Photography opened its new building in Daytona Beach, FL last month. The facility will more than double the museum's gallery, support and program spaces in the new Mori Hosseini Center on the Daytona campus of Daytona College. Located directly on International Speedway Boulevard, the complex will also house Daytona College's renowned culinary program and restaurant. The center promises to be an important landmark cultural destination, and a major addition to the cultural life of Florida.