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• Issue #235
• Article

By Alex Novak

Pete Turner and his Giraffe © Douglas Kirkland

Color photographer extraordinaire Pete Turner died the morning of September 18 at his home on Long Island, NY. He was 83.

PDN (Photo District News) voted him as one of the 20 most influential photographers of all time and in 1981 the American Society of Media Photographers (ASMP) awarded him its Outstanding Achievement in Photography award.

Born May 30, 1934, Turner graduated from the Rochester Institute of Technology in 1956 along with classmates Bruce Davidson and Jerry Uelsmann.

His photographs are in the permanent collections of many major museums, including the Paris Foreign Missions Society (MEP), the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography and International Center of Photography. The George Eastman House has Turner’s archive of work and where his retrospective exhibit, “Pete Turner: Empowered by Color”, opened in 2007.

In 1986, Turner published his first monograph, "Pete Turner Photographs". His second book in 2001, "Pete Turner, African Journey", documents Turner's many adventures in Africa, beginning with his trek in 1959 from Cape Town to Cairo with Wally Byam's famous Airstream caravan.

Whenever a conversation about color photography would come up, so would Turner's name. His work was synonymous with highly saturated color photography that would just ooze off magazine and brochure pages. As fellow photographer Doug Kirkland noted in a tribute in "The Eye of Photography", "His uncompromising eye and rigorous sense of composition and color awed from early on and continues to. The 'Pete Turner Look', 'Pete Turner Blue', 'Pete Turner Red' were part of our reality and perception."

Novak has over 49 years experience in the photography-collecting arena. He is a long-time member and formerly board member of the Daguerreian Society, and, when it was still functioning, he was a member of the American Photographic Historical Society (APHS). He organized the 2016 19th-century Photography Show and Conference for the Daguerreian Society in NYC. He is also a long-time member of the Association of International Photography Art Dealers, or AIPAD. Novak has been a member of the board of the nonprofit Photo Review, which publishes both the Photo Review and the Photograph Collector, and is currently on the Photo Review's advisory board. He was a founding member of the Getty Museum Photography Council. He is author of French 19th-Century Master Photographers: Life into Art.

Novak has published numerous photography articles and columns in several newspapers, including the Photograph Collector, Focus magazine and the Daguerreian Society Newsletter. He has been interviewed extensively on the photography art market by the Financial Times, the New York Times, the Boston Globe, the Philadelphia Inquirer, The Classic magazine, Maine Antique Digest, the Art Newspaper, Art News, Art Business News, Focus magazine, PDN, Black & White magazine, Photographie Internationale, Antiques & the Arts Online, Art Critical and the Photograph Collector newsletter, as well as by many other publications, television programs and websites, both in the USA and in France. He was quoted extensively in the book, "Collectingphotography" by Gerry Badger. He has spoken at numerous photography events and programs.

He writes and publishes the E-Photo Newsletter, the largest circulation newsletter in the field. Novak is also president and owner of Contemporary Works/Vintage Works, a private photography dealer, which sells by appointment and has sold at exhibit shows, such as AIPAD New York and Miami, Art Chicago, Classic Photography LA, Photo LA, Paris Photo, The 19th-century Photography Show, Art Miami, the Daguerreian Society, etc.