Stella Johnson | runner up in JMC award

Photographer Stella Johnson received a 'runner up' nod in this year's Julia Margaret Cameron Award for Women Photographers.

Another Panopticon Gallery artist Karin Rosenthal picked up First Prize in the Professional: Nude section of the awards for her image, "Vortex".

Vittorio Sella | Photo of the Day

Vittorio Sella, Crevasse on the Glacier Blanc, Grand Sagne
and Ecrins, Alps, August 13, 1888.
© Fondazione Sella. Courtesy Panopticon Gallery / Decaneas Archive, Boston, MA.

This photograph will be featured in the upcoming exhibition,
HEIGHTS OF OBSERVATION
The Photographs of Vittorio Sella (1859 - 1943)
September 9 - November 8, 2010

With the greatest of ease | Boston Globe review

William Wegman, best known for working with his beloved Weimaraners, was photographing bulldogs for a commercial shoot in May when Panopticon Gallery’s owner Jason Landry and independent curator Jeffrey Keough stopped by his New York studio. The artist would gently toss the dogs a short distance onto a landing pad, according to an affectionate and comic essay by Keough. When the shoot was finished, Keough writes, Wegman turned to his assistant and said, “I want to throw more dogs."

In came Wegman’s Weimaraners Penny, Candy, and Bobbin. Penny and Candy cheerfully submitted to being thrown. Bobbin, who has a sore hip, was excluded, even though, Keough reports, he “begged to be involved.’’

William Wegman, Untitled (Flying Dog #2), 2010

Four stunning, funny images from the brand new “Untitled (Flying Dog)’’ series are included in “William Wegman: Inside/Outside,’’ a delightful exhibit Landry and Keough have organized at Panopticon. The four describe an arc as a Weimaraner, almost as fluid as a drop of mercury but with more personality, rises into the air against a warm sepia background and begins to descend.

Wegman has been photographing Weimaraners for more than 30 years. The images receive popular acclaim because the dogs — gorgeous, velvety beasts — express such soulfulness and naked trust, and because Wegman often does witty and surprising things with them. That’s what folks relate to and laugh at. But Wegman’s acute attention to form makes his work art rather than greeting-card fodder, and the flying dogs are a perfect example. They stretch, gather, and fold, each reading like a Japanese Zen master’s calligraphic stroke.

“Inside/Outside" features 38 enchanting prints, some shot in the studio, others outdoors. “Washed Up’’ features two dogs lying on the beach, eyes closed, one with a leg draped over the other. They’re almost human, but their tone and contours are not unlike those of the rocks in the background. In “Psycho,’’ a gray dog peeks out from behind textured glass (the kind you find in a shower door), eyes wide, a canine Janet Leigh.

Each shoot is a collaborative and improvisational performance. That sounds chaotic, but Wegman’s photos distill the chaos into form, relationship, and narrative, and into art just about everyone can appreciate.

-Cate McQuaid, Boston Globe - July 21, 2010
(for a copy of the original post, click here)
(for images that appeared in the Boston Globe, (click here)

On Being an Artist | Neal Rantoul

I am always pleasantly surprised when Neal Rantoul stops by the gallery to show me prints. Often times I find that it isn't always new work, but work that he has done over his long career as an artist. It is interesting to see how an artist and the projects that they work on move from point 'a' to point 'b'. It's like marking a child's height on a door jam, watching the pencil marks gradually climb up the wall. Time is what each artist has, and over time, they grow, they learn, they share, and ultimately a sense of accomplishment is realized.

I received an email this week from Neal with a short statement that he wrote a few years ago on his thoughts on being an artist. Enjoy!

"Thirty-five years ago, when the concept of being an artist for the rest of my life first dawned on me, I had little to show; no skills, little education, no ability to define what it would be like to bean artist and few mentors. But my job seemed clear: I needed to learn my chosen discipline and produce work. This I proceeded to do, learning as I went, adding a series of photographs or a group of pictures that were an idea, concept or an interest on top of a stack of others that would grow over a whole career. This program entailed life-long learning. Parts of my process would change: my understanding of the medium would grow and evolve during these years. Photography too would change; movements in contemporary art and society would affect me in obvious and subtle ways. However, the requirement was to make the best work I could, to stay active, to produce work that was both quantitatively and qualitatively as consummate as I knew then how to make it. This I’ve done. As I grew and understood more about photography as an art form, and worked to master my technique and refine my aesthetic, I became more comfortable with my place in the discipline. I no longer was aspiring to be something. I was heavily engaged in the making. Finally, I have sought, quite simply, to make a contribution to the medium of photography."

-Neal Rantoul

More Wall Space | More Exhibitions

Panopticon Gallery will have more exhibition opportunities in the future as we prepare to expand into an additional space inside the Hotel Commonwealth. The soon-to-be-renamed room will give us twice as much wall space to have exhibitions.

The inaugural show in the new room will be with Panopticon Gallery artist Harold Feinstein. We will also be hosting gallery events in the space starting this fall. Check our website for more information.

Bradford Washburn | The Last of His Kind

There is a new paperback book available about the life and times of photographer and mountaineer Bradford Washburn.

(courtesy of Amazon.com)

Before his 30th birthday, Bradford Washburn was already a legendary mountaineer, completing four major first ascents on his way to becoming the greatest mountaineer in Alaskan history. Soon after, Washburn took over the creaky New England Museum of Natural History, which by his retirement in 1980, had become the renowned Boston Museum of Science. Washburn (1910–2007) was also an innovative cartographer as well as a self-taught photographer whose aerial shots garnered major acclaim. A longtime friend of Washburn and a former mountaineer, Roberts (No Shortcuts to the Top) is an ideal candidate for writing Washburn's biography, but the book lacks the depth of compelling biographies. Roberts's decision to extensively profile Washburn's various expeditions (and those of others) offers no insight on the man, while contributing to the book's glacial pace.

On a different note, the 2011 Bradford Washburn calendar just arrived in the gallery. if you are interested in one, contact the gallery.

Finally | A Flickr Page

Panopticon Gallery finally has a Flickr page. We recently posted photos from our last two opening receptions and we'll continue to fill it up with photos from all of our upcoming events.

We've also started a Visitor's Album where we'll post portraits of our (famous and not so famous) friends whenever they stop by.

Wegman reception | A smashing success!

We just want to say thanks to the hundreds of people who came out to support the opening reception for William Wegman: Inside | Outside. It was a smashing success! It also doesn't hurt when the Boston Globe, Boston Phoenix, Boston Metro and the Improper Bostonian all come out with blurbs about the show on the same day. Many thanks!!!!!

William Wegman and Jason Landry at the Opening reception for

William Wegman: Inside | Outside on July 8, 2010.

John Woolf | Panoramas & Diners

John Woolf is an accomplished fine art photographer who has spent a career capturing the urban landscape. His portfolios include panoramas of Boston, Chicago, Providence and New York City. His cameras vary from 8x10 large format, to panoramic and digital.

In Woolf's most recent series Night Road, he digitally composites multiple individual photographs into one large image to capture the various tones of light that appear in a photograph.

John Woolf and Neal Rantoul will be having a 2-person exhibition at the Scollay Square Gallery at Boston City Hall from July 12 - August 27, 2010.