E-Photo
Issue #253  8/3/2022
  • Issue #253
  • Article
 
Pop-Up Photography New York! Was a Successful Launch in NYC

By Alex Novak

One of the many top images that Vintage Works, Ltd. brought to the Pop-Up Photography show was this stunning Man Ray Portrait of a Half-Hidden Man With Expressive Hands (Russell H. Greeley)
One of the many top images that Vintage Works, Ltd. brought to the Pop-Up Photography show was this stunning Man Ray Portrait of a Half-Hidden Man With Expressive Hands (Russell H. Greeley)

Because of the limited space at AIPAD's Photography Show and the cancellation of several tabletop fairs, a new photography show, "Pop-Up Photography New York!" was launched. The show was held the Friday and Saturday, at the Executive Hotel Soleil at 38 W. 36th St., New York City.

The hotel was just two blocks from the AIPAD show itself, between 5th and 6th (Avenue of the Americas) Avenues on 36th St.

Exhibitors included in the show were:
--Andrew Smith Gallery, LLC (Tucson)
--PhotoVintageFrance/Bruno Tartarin (Arnaville, France)
-- Adn Patrimoine/Adnan Sezer (Paris)
--Classic Photography Magazine (Paris)
--Contemporary Works/Vintage Works/Alex Novak (Philadelphia)
--Seagrave Gallery/Nolan Beck (Santa Cruz)
--Lunn Ltd./Christophe and Flo Lunn (Paris)
--Michael Lehr (New York City)
--McIntosh Collection (Los Angeles)
--The Hulett Collection/Michael Hulett (Tulsa)
--Rare Photography (Toronto)

As you can see, my own company exhibited here, not only taking a group of tables, but also an additional room to show framed work. Admission was free and masks were required (and handed out free to attendees that didn't have masks).

For me, the show was a big success, given my relatively low costs (about $12,000 all in). We sold very close to six figures, and may still do so. Traffic at the show was strong and steady most of the two days, although during the lunch hours noon through 1 pm it fell off enough to eat our own lunch, which was provided by the show management.

We saw and sold to a number of European clients. Many curators, as well as top collectors, appraisers, auction personnel and dealers, came by, including the Metropolitan Museum's Jeff Rosenheim and Stephen Pinson; the New York Library’s Joshua Chuang; Houston Museum of Art's Malcolm Daniel and Lisa Volpe; the Rijks Museum’s Dr. Hans Rooseboom and Mattie Boom; the National Gallery of Art's Sarah Greenough and Gregory Most; Weston Naef, Curator Emeritus of the J. Paul Getty Museum; Keith Davis, former head of photography for the Nelson-Atkins Museum; St. Petersburg Museum of Fine Arts Photo Curator Jane Aspinwall; major 19th-century collector and donor Michael Sachs; and many of the photo dealers from the AIPAD Photography show.

Several five-figure images that we contracted for and shipped later, included a large, famous vintage Henri Cartier-Bresson of Schoolchildren Looking from the Top of Notre-Dame Cathedral at the Seine River, Paris to a new client from Kansas City.

We sold a wonderful gum print by Heinrich Kuhn of his children playing on a hillside to a young French couple, along with a vintage Andre Kertesz distortion. Plus one of my Houston clients bought a great vintage Josef Sudek, Stag's Moat (Study of Trees) that was the actual image used in Sudek’s 1964 book “Sudek”. One of my clients, a long-time friend from Philadelphia, bought a Tree Study near Barbizon, possibly by Cuvelier. We sold an Asylum image by Charles Negre to the National Gallery of Art’s Library Image Collection.

I had found James Bond producer Michael Wilson, who is a good friend and a top photo collector, wandering in the hotel lobby on Thursday, the day before the show, and took him down for a preview to see what was set up already for the show. He bought a sweet Eva Watson-Schutze platinum portrait, and is currently considering half dozen or so images that he found in our online Summer Sale afterwards.

We sold quite a number of Stanko Abadzic photographs and books. Stanko won last year's National Prize for Photography in Croatia (Toso Dabac). You can also see an interview with Stanko on YouTube with English subtitles here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EsEfSzEx7iw. His work was also featured earlier this year in the German magazine, Soul of Street, Photography & Philosophy, Issue #33. We sold his work in multiple prints to several people at the show and from our websites just prior to and after the show. He has been our hottest contemporary artist at the moment, and his work is in our Summer Sale too, which you can see here: https://iphotocentral.com/common/result.php/256/Stanko+Abadžic/0/0/8.

Andrew Smith and I worked very hard to promote this show, AIPAD's show and the overall week of photography there in NYC. We sent out emails to hundreds of thousands of photography buyers and promoted the show in conjunction with Artsy as a show partner, as well as in an insert in Classic Magazine, which also had a table and distribution at the fair. The dealers who participated were professional and brought interesting and well-priced material from all eras (19th, 20th and 21st centuries) and locations. There was something for everyone at the show, whether for a top-end collector or a museum or a beginning young collector. I think the show was a success and the dealers that I spoke to had a good time and made some good sales.

Novak has over 47 years experience in the photography-collecting arena. He is a long-time member and formally 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. 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 had photography articles and columns published in several newspapers, the American Photographic Historical Society newsletter, the Photograph Collector and the Daguerreian Society newsletter. 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, etc.