WIDE WORLD PHOTO STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

An Automobile Used to Cross the Pudding River, Barlow, Oregon, 1932

7x9-1/16 Vintage Photograph

$900

Americana: A Diary

Vintage Photographs from
The New York Times Photo Archive

July 13, 2002 through August 31, 2002
Opening Reception: Saturday, July 13, 2002, 2 to 4 pm

Gallery Hours: Tuesday through Saturday, 10 am to 6 pm

The Fahey/Klein Gallery is pleased to present Americana: A Diary - vintage photographs from the New York Times Photo Archives. Included in the exhibition will be vivid pictures of heroes, presidents, victory parades, victims and perpetrators of riots and disasters, quirky human interaction, and comic relief - thematically tied together by the inclusion of the American flag - somewhere in the picture. "Underlying them all is the gripping immediacy that makes news photography not only an indispensable presence in the daily paper but a vital part of history." (Pictures of the Times, A Century of Photography from the New York Times, MOMA, New York)

"The back of the print traces the process through which the image on the front burrowed its way into our collective consciousness. We can no longer see these pictures as they were seen when they first appeared, because each has come to stand for something much greater than the incident it records…the passage of time makes almost all photographs more interesting: what was taken for granted at the moment of exposure - a style of clothing or automobile design, for example - becomes an object of fascination once it is no longer common…Once a picture appears in the paper, it is part of the news no matter who made it or how it got there." (Peter Galassi, Pictures of the Times, MOMA, New York)

The photographs on display are objects of history in their right - handled and worn in a way that shows their usage - many having written notations from picture editors, grease pencil markings for cropping suggestions and captions used for the accompanying news article. Each is dated or stamped when the image was used. The photographs are powerful and made more interesting by the documentation and the provenance physically on the print. Accompanying articles to each photograph are available online from the New York Times.