On the occasion of the publication of the book New York in Color, 1952-1962 par Prestel Publishing, The Showers the Gallery presents a selection of prints, to discover from September 13 to October 31, 2020.
On Sunday October 13 from 1 p.m. to 7 p.m., the gallery will welcome Alex Haas, son of the artist, as part of the sixth edition of A Sunday at the Gallery organized by the Professional Committee of Art Galleries.
My father loved New York. It was his city, but also his muse, and these two aspects are omnipresent in this book. He liked to say that if there was a passport for New Yorkers, he would be the first to get one. From the moment he arrived in 1951, Ernst enjoyed tremendous success, which immediately linked him to this city. But his love for her was not naive: he appreciated the possibilities, the refinement, the rhythm, but he was also aware of her ruthless sides. It is this very sensibility that made him a New York photographer: one day, he photographed Albert Einstein at Princeton University for Vogue, the next day, the arrival of an immigrant boat on Ellis Island. It was at this time that he began his first experiments in color photography in his city. These images would change the course of the history of photography. A selection of these photographs appeared in Life magazine in 1953, in their very first color issue, and many are published in this volume.
Ernst often compared New York to Venice: a beautiful city on the verge of collapse. Over the years, trying to support his family while financing his artistic activity, he experienced difficult ends of the month: to survive, you had to work hard. But this pressure stimulated him. New York wore it. When offered a well-paid job in advertising, it allowed him to finance his trips to the Himalayas or Japan, and he came back with a book project.
He chose to locate his large studio between 55th Street and Seventh Avenue because of its proximity to the Museum of Modern Art (where his works were often exhibited), Carnegie Hall and Central Park. His studio was divided between a living area and a work area. Her huge living room was filled to the ceiling with hundreds of books, records, Tibetan masks and Kachina dolls, pottery from South America, Navajo rugs, Balinese paintings and salvaged objects from all over the world. . Her large bed was covered with buffalo hide – much to the chagrin of her many female conquests. From all this emanated a pleasant mixture of smells, which seized you from the doorstep: you knew then that you were entering the world of Ernst Haas.
The workshop part was white, but could be plunged into total darkness to accommodate screenings. It contained dozens of filing cabinets, where all his transparencies, negatives and correspondence with his old friends were stored, from Robert Capa to Henri Cartier Bresson, all carefully classified by his faithful assistants Marilyn Schroeder, Todd Weinstein and Marina Ospina . Above the drawers stretched a row of lighted tables, on which he spent hours, a magnifying glass over one eye, his back bent, working most of the night, while the noise of the city died down. . With the air conditioning running at temperatures worthy of the Austrian Alps, the freezing cold reminded him of his homeland.
One evening, after a long day at work, he asked me to come with him to take pictures in the neighborhood. It must have been midnight. And we were in the 1970s, crime was rampant. We walked out with his valuable Leica gear and settled in for a shot. Ernst was so focused and elated with what he was doing that he didn’t notice that a group of men, obviously very interested in the material, had just surrounded us. Seeing them, my father, without hesitating or understanding the gravity of the situation, asked one of them to look through the viewfinder, detailing the technical aspects of what he was doing. Then he proposed to another to look too, and so on. They ended up leaving. I sometimes reminded him of this story, which he had no memory of.
My sister Victoria and I were born in New York. My first memory of New York, at least my first sensation, is when we came back from Switzerland when I was about five years old. Installed in the back seat of a yellow taxi, wedged between my father and my sister, I saw the sky of this summer evening approaching to the sound of the taxi meter which ticked off its ticking. On the edge of town stood giant cowboy billboards by the side of the road, with the pictures my father had taken for Marlboro. It made me feel like the city was ours. After the bridge that connects Queens to Manhattan, everything intensified: the heat, the noise, the crowd. We were in the bowels of a monster, and that was where we lived. Inside, we could no longer see the buildings, it was they who were looking at us. Upon arriving at 853 Seventh Avenue, we were greeted by the doormen (who were almost family). The workshop was across from the Carnegie Deli restaurant. My father always brought us to eat there when we returned. Nothing to do with what we ate in Switzerland.
One of my fondest childhood memories is when, when I opened the refrigerator, I found it completely filled with orange boxes of Kodachrome film. Nothing to eat. This is what my father did for his livelihood.
Alex Haas
Son of the artist
Ernst Haas : New York in Color, 1952-62
September 13th to October 31st, 2020
The Showers The Gallery
5, rue Legouvé
75010 Paris
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