STOLEN MOMENTS
14 Women Photograph Their World
Closing in on the end of a decade and ringing in the New Year, the Keith de Lellis Gallery is featuring the work of fourteen classic female photographers up until January 31, 2020. 4×14 exhibits four vintage photographs from fourteen distinct and talented photographers, an encapsulation of their individual styles and approaches to photography. All monochrome and shot anywhere from the late 1800s to the 1970s, the images featured encompass all walks of life, from the everyday and familial, to the fashionable and celebrity-centered. The perspectives vary from the city streets of Chicago and New York, to the rural landscapes of Appalachia, Europe, and the wild west.
The featured artists are names such as Margaret Bourke-White, known as one of the first and foremost female war photographers, treading into the Soviet Union during times of crisis in the early 1900s; Mikki Ferrel, whose photographs seem to be in a constant state of movement as her subjects shimmy and sway with undisguised joy; Charlotte Books, who was the one and only female photographer to shoot for Look Magazine, a popular bi-weekly in the mid 1990s; Esther Bubley who expertly captured the everyday life of everyday people and made it a sacred art; Louise Dahl-Wolfe whose fashion photography flourished as she highlighted the beauty of many a woman; and Janine Niépce who took her love of photography and meshed it with her spark for the feminist civil rights movement, capturing those around her just as passionate about liberation.
The exhibition is a balanced reminder that through the times and ages, people never change in nature quite as much as we would think. Quiet and beautiful moments come alongside those which are more tumultuous and trying. Yet, we as people respond in the ways we know how and continue on. In the end, 4×14 is a reminder of passing time, trends, and customs. It evokes the thought that the world keeps spinning as we each find our own paths and stories.
