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• Issue #262
• Article

Irving Penn, Girl in Bed (Jean Patchett), New York, 1949/1970.

The two long-established photography dealers, Vintage Works Ltd. of Chalfont, PA, and Galerie Francoise Paviot of Paris, are exhibiting together again in November at Paris Photo in Booth B24. You can expect the finest in historical and contemporary photography on display.

A special exhibit of 30 photographs on the portrait will be featured this year on the shared center wall of the booth. Drawn from the inventories of both dealers, the mini-exhibit is entitled "A Small History of Photography through a 175 Years of the Portrait". Or in French: "Une Petite Histoire de la Photographie à Travers 175 Ans du Portrait". On the featured and shared wall, the two photography dealers will exhibit portraits from a circa 1847 Hippolyte Bayard early photograph of Georgina Benoist with a bouquet of flowers, and an 1850 Southworth & Hawes full-plate daguerreotype of "The Two Sisters", all the way through early 19th-century portraits by Charles Nègre and Nadar, and on to Disderi's uncut carte-de-visite sheet of portraits of the photographer and marine artist Jean-Baptiste-Henri Durand-Brager and a family portrait by Lewis Carroll of Alice in Wonderland fame.

The earliest portrait on the special portrait wall will be one by Hippolyte Bayard of Georgina Benoist with a bouquet of flowers, 1847.

These are on top of an important 1850s ambrotype portrait of Juan José Holzinger, an important German officer and figure in the Mexican-American War and another important carte-de-visite, this one of "Summer Days" by Julia M. Cameron. Add in a Calotype of a Scottish piper by Hill & Adamson, a paper negative of a young maiden by Julien Vallou de Villeneuve, and an iconic group of the Guide Lanusse and His Family by Jean-Jacques Heilman to finish off the 19th-century portraiture.

The 20th century is also well represented in this joint display, from several Brassaï portraits (one of his famous prostitute images) to Man Ray photos, including a self-portrait, a portrait of a Half-Hidden Man With Expressive Hands, and one of the eccentric Marchesa Luisa Casati. Other modern masters like Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Doisneau, Barbara Morgan (Martha Graham, "Letter to the World" or "Kick"), Andre Kertesz (a self-portrait with Lajos Tihanyi in a cutout of a plane), Carlo Mollino and Josef Sudek (an early portrait of his lover Milena Vildova) have extraordinary portraits on display.

Eugene V. Harris, Peruvian Boy with Flute, 1950s.

An important vintage print of Laszlo Moholy-Nagy by Lucia Moholy is another rare image. A 1950s portrait of Picasso with a scarf for peace (and signed by Picasso) taken Jack Nisberg will be one of many portraits of the famous and notorious on the wall. Perhaps one of the most famous portraits (but exceedingly rare in early signed prints) is that of the Peruvian Piper by Eugene Harris, which was the front cover of the Family of Man book and "theme photo" for this seminal exhibition of 1956. Harris died of a heart attack in 1978. Cartier-Bresson is represented by a vintage portrait of the surrealist writer André Pieyre de Mandiargues.

One of Ann Mandelbaum's color works will represent the contemporary portrait world. She is represented by Galerie Francoise Paviot.

Of course the two noted photo dealers will show many other important vintage and contemporary photographs through their booth.

Carlo Mollino, Ricerche in Vetrina, 1935c.

Vintage Works will show a series of exceptional and early Gustave Le Gray photographs and his American disciple J.B. Greene. Another magnificent 19th-century salt print by the rarely seen Benjamin Brecknell Turner of "The Oak Tree in Winter, Hawkhurst, Kent, UK" will be on display.

For 20th-century photographs, Vintage Works will exhibit among many: a Man Ray Rayograph; Irving Penn's platinum print of "Girl in Bed" (Jean Patchett); two early Imogen Cunningham iconic images (Unmade Bed and Two Calla Lilies); a number of Andre Kertesz photographs made for exhibition; and several vintage Jacques Lartigue images of his daughter and of racing cars, including the famous "Courses de Bob", often considered the first modern "snapshot".

Dora Maar, Composition pour un Photomontage, circa 1932-35.

Contemporary Works, part of Vintage Works, Ltd., will also have Tom Shillea's work on the wall and available at the show. The featured piece on the wall is called "Portrait of Djuna", a moody image of a veiled woman. Work from other of the company's represented artists will be on hand at request, including prints from Stanko Abadzic and Tom Baril.

Alain Paviot will have one of the most unusual images in the booth: a mummified hand through the action of magnetism, which was photographed in early 1913 by Gaston Durville. Durville (1887-1971) was a French physician who, with his brother, André Durville, was one of the initiators of naturism in France during the interwar period. They were the sons of the occultist, magnetist and hypnotist, Hector Durville.

The Paviot's will also have a wonderful surreal signed Dora Maar photomontage from about 1932-35 with great provenance, among many other modernist and contemporary pieces.