A Treasure Trove

Last week I had the unexpected pleasure of attending the opening of the Vernon Collection of Photographs at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. From the story in the LA Times: “The artworks were amassed by the late Marjorie and Leonard Vernon, pioneering Los Angeles collectors whose trove surveys the history of photography in the works of 700 artists, including leading 19th and 20th century figures.” Michael Govan, Director of LACMA, called the Vernon’s collection the most important private collection of photographs in North America, and was clearly proud that he had been able to bring it to Los Angeles, with the gracious help of Wallis Annenberg and the Annenberg Foundation.

The exhibition, curated by Charlotte Cotton out of some 3500 photographs, features just over 70 prints, from two exquisite little Henry Fox Talbot’s, up through the giants of mid-century abstraction: Callahan, Siskind and Sommer. What became evident in walking through the exhibition is that the pieces presented were not just a Talbot, or a Le Gray, or a Watkins, or a Callahan, but these were some of the best examples from each artist’s entire oeuvre.

The Le Gray photograph, The Great Wave, 1857 (above) is just one example. It is an albumen print from a glass plate negative that measures about 13 by 16.5 inches. Gordon Baldwin, the renowned photo-historian pointed out that this photograph was actually made from two negatives, one exposed for the rocks and sea and another exposed for the much brighter sky and clouds. The barely noticeable overlap of the two in-darkroom exposures is visible along the horizon line to the far right of the print. It’s a powerful image at a monumental scale, for the time, and masterfully printed.

Go see the rest in person. The show is up until February 1, 2009.

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