How David Attie invented Photoshop in the 1950s – and had his career launched by Truman Capote
Okay, my father didn’t invent Photoshop. But looking at his stunning photo-montages, from an era long before personal computers - and even longer before everyone with an iPhone became a poor man’s…
Warren Thompson:
Stereo Daguerreotypist
Up to now very little was known about American-born stereo daguerreotypist Warren Thompson and the information we had about him was very scant, so much so that nobody knew when and where he was born…
Steven Arnold
A quarter of a century has passed since the death of an artistic legend. We dive deep into his archive to unearth his sublime artworks and remember his story. Art has the capacity to balance…
Julia Margaret Cameron
A Priestess of the Sun
In December of 2017, my wife and I traveled to Sri Lanka for a holiday. Once there, we unexpectedly encountered obscure remnants of a world famous woman whose name was Julia Margaret Cameron. She…
Francesca Woodman: On Being an Angel
Passion. It seethes from her, oozing and then gushing. You could feel the steam coming from her head, like a broken garden hose out of control, pouring hot, super-hot, nuclear and readily explosive.…
Walker Evans
at Centre Pompidou, 2017
This text first appeared as an exhibition review in the Burlington Magazine, October 2017. A giant banner showing the handsome and haggard face of Alabama Tenant Farmer Floyd Burroughs, (1936)…
From Pigment to Light
This essay was first published by László Moholy-Nagy in 1936, and is reproduced here with permission from the Moholy-Nagy Foundation. The terminology of art "isms" is truly bewildering. Without…
How to Become the Greatest Living Photographer!
My father, Erwin, came to New York in July 1939 to advance his photographic career. He had just finished a one-year contract with Vogue (Paris) where he had produced that…
In My Room: Saul Leiter's intimate Portraits
When Saul Leiter passed away at age 89 in November 2013, he left behind two East Village apartments bursting with artifacts from his long, productive, art-filled life. There were lithographs and…
Babylon Halt - Agha's travel photographs
Mehemmed Fehmy Agha (1896 - 1978) was art director at Condé Nast from 1929 to 1943, art directing Vogue, Vanity Fair and House & Garden, as well as overseeing the international editions.Agha is…