One of the great things about living in New York for a photographer and someone who appreciates photography is the opportunity to see so much great photography on display. There are museums, there are galleries and there are auction houses where one can see photos almost every day or a few times a year. However, the largest display of photographs happens once a year, when the galleries and dealers of the Association of International Photography Art Dealers (AIPAD) come to town for the annual Photography Show, taking place this weekend from May 20-22.
I attended the show on Saturday for several hours and things seemed a bit different this time. For one thing, this is the first time that the show has been held in person since 2019 due to Covid. (Everyone was required to show proof of vaccination or a recent negative Covid test and mask wearing was encouraged.)
The other thing that was different was the venue. When I first began attending AIPAD shows over 20 years ago, the Photography Show was held on two floors at the New York Hilton hotel in midtown Manhattan. After that, it was held on one very large floor at the Park Avenue Armory on the east side of Manhattan. After the Armory stopped or limited its hosting of art shows, the AIPAD dealers then moved west to Pier 94 on the Hudson River. Now that the pier is being renovated and presently unavailable, from what I was told, the current venue is Center415 at 415 Fifth Avenue in Manhattan – once again in midtown and on two floors.
Regarding the venue, it’s smaller than the previous locations, with one dealer telling me that a limited number of spots were available there, so not all members could set up shop and I noticed that some dealers doubled up to share booths. I was also wondering why I didn’t see some galleries that were listed as being there, only to find out later after looking at the floor plan that these galleries were located in a section beyond the café, which I had thought was basically the end of the line. (I guess I should check the plan next time.)
Nonetheless, there was certainly plenty to see and, of course, that’s really what the show is all about.
When I come to a show like this, I always look forward to seeing good work by photographers I was unfamiliar with, and a prime example of that is a man named Tony Vaccaro, whose work was shown by the Monroe Gallery of Photography from Santa Fe. I had literally never heard of him before, but there before me was a wall covered with beautiful fashion photographs in color and black & white from the 1950’s and 1960’s – though I think my favorite was a 1947 photograph of a violinist playing his instrument on a narrow street in Venice. Not only that, Mr. Vaccaro was there himself at age 99 and I was happy to have spoken with him for a few minutes.
Another photographer new to me was a woman named Melissa Shook, who taught photography at the University of Massachusetts Boston and whose work was shown by dealer Miyako Yoshinaga from New York. According to what I read and was told, Ms. Shook’s mother died when she herself was only 12 years old, so she decided to do a series of self-portraits from time to time to record herself as something that her own daughter could remember her by. Some are clothed, some are nude, some are serious, some are zany, but put together, these small prints from 1972-73 create a very interesting picture of someone trying to memorialize herself for a loved one. (She died in 2020.)
Of course, discoveries cannot only be made in the way of new photographers, but also by newly seen photographs by known photographers. One such photograph was a tiny print by Harry Callahan – probably a contact print from a 2 ¼ inch square negative – titled “Chicago, 1953” at the Stephen Daiter Gallery from Chicago. This little print shows two out of focus silhouetted figures, one large and one small, against a white background. I was told that two figures are the photographer’s wife and daughter, if I remember correctly. It is both abstract and representational at the same time and almost perfect in its simplicity, and to me was one of the highlights of the show.
Two others, both at the Scott Nichols Gallery, are “Rummage Sale” by Imogen Cunningham and “Sheep and House, Mendocino Coast, California.” I think of Imogen Cunningham as doing mostly doing still lives and portraits, so it was interesting to see an example of street photography from her. Likewise, I think of Ansel Adams as doing landscapes, and while I knew he photographed other things, as well, I don’t know if I had seen this one before.
One of the nice things about coming to this show is the opportunity to meet some of the photographers whose work is shown. In past years, I’ve met photographers such as Arnold Newman, Lucien Clergue and Jerry Uelsmann. This year, it was good to see Flor Garduño at Throckmorton Fine Art (she showed me some new prints that she had recently made), Jefferson Hayman at Michael Shapiro Photographs, and at the Obscura Gallery from Santa Fe, Susan Burnstine, who told me about how she makes her own cameras to create her out-of-focus images, and Rashod Taylor, who told me about how he processes his tintypes.
As for the galleries themselves, there were too many to mention here, but I will try to mention some of those whose photos appealed to me the most or which I found particularly interesting.
The Peter Fetterman Gallery from Santa Monica had a large space, including one wall covered with photographs from his new book, The Power of Photography. Among the fine works shown were those by Sebastião Salgado, Penti Sammallahti, Sabine Weiss and Gianni Berengo Gardin. His space was one of the relatively few that had bins with photographs to look through, and in one of these I found one of my favorite prints of the whole show, Michael Kenna’s “White Bird Flying, Paris, 2007,” which was another discovery for me.
Another gallery that I always like to visit is the Scott Nichols Gallery from Sonoma, California, both for the chance to speak with its amiable owner and for a chance to look through the classic black & white imagery that he brings. (I also had a nice chat with the gallery’s assistant, Kristy.) One of the most interesting items on the wall was a signed print of Edward Weston’s “Nude Floating (Charis), 1939.” According to the description, this is the only signed and mounted vintage print of this image. Apparently, Weston only made four prints of this image (with the other three being in museums or institutional collections), as the description stated, “out of respect for Charis, who disliked the photograph because she thought she looked dead in it.”
The Staley-Wise Gallery from New York always brings interesting imagery, much of it from the world of fashion. On display was a large print of Richard Avedon’s “Dovima with Elephants,” some small and interesting color prints by Bert Stern and Art Kane, but for cuteness factor, the definite winner was Peter Beard’s “Cheetahs, Kenya, 1966.”
Certainly of note was the Etherton Gallery of Tuscon’s large display of Joel-Peter Witkin’s large prints. Witkin’s images range from the grotesque to the beautifully sublime (in its own strange way), and there were examples of both on display here. Like him or not, his work is difficult to ignore.
The Atlas Gallery from London brought a wide range of imagery, including works by David Seymour, George Hoyningen-Huene, Marc Riboud, Ernest Withers, Bill Brandt and Lucien Clergue, as well as a small print of Rudolf Koppitz’s 1925 absolute classic, “Bewegungsstudie (Movement Study”) and some color Polaroid nudes by Franco Fontana.
Michael Shapiro of Westport, Connecticut, also brought a lot of classic imagery, including works by Walker Evans, Irving Penn, and Man Ray. I especially liked “City of London” by Robert Frank (a photographer perhaps best known for his photographs made in the Unites States), a classic nude by Bill Brandt with its unusual point of view, a vintage, signed nude by Edward Weston, and an early 1929 print by Edward’s son Brett Weston (who signed the matte board just below the image, rather than lower down on the board as he would later do).
One of the more amusing sets of photos that I saw was the “Uranium Robots” series by Les Krims, displayed by the Joseph Bellows Gallery from La Jolla, California, along with some vintage 1970’s photographs of New York City by Bevan Davies and Baldwin Lee.
Keith De Lellis from New York featured interesting prints from some African-American photographers who I was unfamiliar with, including Chuck Stewart and Ozier Muhammad, plus a large print of Flip Schulke’s “Ali Underwater.”
The Stephen Daiter Gallery, in addition to the aforementioned print by Harry Callahan, featured some large portraits by Dawoud Bay, plus some gritty images by Robert Frank and Elliott Erwitt.
Several galleries presented works by Latin American artists. Throckmorton Fine Arts from New York presented works by Flor Garduño, Graciela Iturbide, Mario Algaze and Luis Gonzalez Palma. Utopica from Sao Paolo, Brazil, presented interesting works by Brazilian artists Adenor Gondim, Celso Brandão and Fernando Lemos, while Galeria Vasari from Buenos Aires, Argentina, once again displayed compelling images by the German-Argentine photographer, Annemaire Heinrich.
Hans P. Kraus from New York specializes in vintage imagery and displayed some fine 19th century prints by William Henry Fox Talbot, Gustave LeGray and Julia Margaret Cameron, but perhaps the most striking image was a much more modern photo of lightning by Hiroshi Sugimoto. Also displaying 19th century imagery was The 19th Century Rare Book and Photography Shop from New York, with the Jewish People’s Collection (including a photo of famed actress Sarah Bernhardt as Hamlet) and early photographs from China, while the Robert Koch Gallery from San Francisco featured some 19th century prints of ancient Egyptian monuments by John Beasley Greene, in addition to 20th century works, including a nice, small 1946 nude by Josef Ehm.
Finally, I need to mention some large color prints that I saw, including Jeffrey Milstein’s dizzying view of New York centered on Columbus Circle at the Robert Klein Gallery from Boston, the three oversized portraits by Ervin A. Johnson (no, not the former basketball player; I asked) at Arnika Dawkins Gallery from Atlanta and some fanciful images by Maggie Taylor at the Catherine Couturier Gallery from Houston, who also displayed some black & white nudes by Stanko Abadzic.
Overall, while this year’s show was smaller than in past years and I missed getting to some galleries, it was still an overwhelming experience as before and it was good to have the show back after a two-year hiatus, with many fine images there to be seen. I look forward to finding out what next year’s show will bring.
Figures of Grace 
Dave,
Thank you for the post concerning the AIPAD Photography Show. Inspires me to attend this event in the future. I was unaware of the existence of this show and the extensive works there.
One of your best, and most informative articles in my mind. Very much enjoyed all of your included photos of the artwork.
Thanks, Alan Jackson
Thank you for the reply, Alan. The show is normally held in New York every year in the springtime. You should be able to subscribe to their e-mail list. If you decide to attend in the future, please let me know.
Wonderful! Thanks for posting these photos.Conrad Conero
You are welcome, Conrad.
What an informative and fascinating post. Living in the rural depths of British Columbia I can only dream of being immersed in such a wonderful collection of images representing a broad sweep of photo history, technique, creativeness and so on. Thanks for this Dave.
I’m glad you like the post, Derek. You can always pay a visit to New York to see the show for yourself one day.