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For Immediate Release Press Contact: Maureen McFadden LISTING: FILM/Special Screenings
DOCUMENTARIES ON THREE GREAT CALIFORNIA PHOTOGRAPHERS HIGHLIGHT CURRENT EXHIBIT “PAIRED” Screening Friday, Nov. 30 at 2 & 7 p.m. IMOGEN CUNNINGHAM * RONDAL PARTRIDGE * HORACE BRISTOL
(Santa Barbara, CA) Enhancing the viewers enjoyment and expanding their knowledge of the current exhibit PAIRED, at East/West Gallery, documentaries on the featured artists Imogen Cunningham, Rondal Partridge, and Horace Bristol will be screening on Friday, November 30 at Center Stage Theatre, 751 Paseo Nuevo, in the heart of downtown at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. Each screening will be followed by a Q&A with filmmaker Meg Partridge and Donna Granata who heads up Ventura based non-profit Focus on the Masters. That organization is beneficiary of 10% of all sales from PAIRED. Also, just announced by E/W gallery owner, Henri Bristol, the PAIRED exhibit will now be extended through December 29.
Three documentaries to be seen are: Portrait of Imogen, (1987) where Imogen Cunningham presents her own work in this Academy Award nominated doc by Meg Partridge. Meg is the daughter of Rondal and granddaughter of Imogen. Shot like a conversation, viewers get an intimate look at one of the 20th century’s greatest photographers. Imogen’s career spanned 75 years and had an enormous influence on the aesthetics of American photography. More than 250 of her photographs are presented in this doc through archival interviews recorded when she was in her late eighties. With a sharp wit and unique perspective on photography, Imogen reveals how she carved out her impressive career while maintaining a household, and raising a family. (28 minutes)
Outta My Light! (2003) This doc traces the life and career of Rondal Partridge, who is still shooting at 90 years old. Rondal began helping his mother, Imogen in the darkroom at age five. At 17 he became Dorothea Lange’s apprentice, driving her up and down the back roads of California as she created her well-known images of migrant laborers. In 1937 and 1938 he assisted Ansel Adams in Yosemite. Rondal absorbed all the techniques his teachers could give him, yet he wears his lineage lightly. For 70 plus years he has been a professional photographer, dedicating himself to his own unique vision. (25 minutes)
The Compassionate Eye Horace Bristol: Photojournalist (1999) on Horace Bristol, was written, produced and directed by David Rabinovitch, Fleetwood Films. Introduced and narrated by Graham Nash, the doc puts Bristol’s larger than life story as a photojournalist in perspective. Bristol virtually disappeared in the mid-50s along with his photographs that were seen often in the pages of TIME, LIFE and FORTUNE. On assignment for the U.S. Navy, he captured some of the most compelling moments of World War II; amidst war and strife, he documented the changing face of Asia and was the first Western photographer to use Japanese lens’; he shot the photos that inspired “The Grapes of Wrath.” His portraits of the migrants were used in casting realistic faces to portray these dust bowl characters in the feature film. His son, Henri, is owner of the East/West Gallery and heads up the Horace Bristol Estate of images. This film won the CINE Golden Eagle & Silver Medal at Houston Int’l Film Festival. (52 minutes)
It’s such a treat to have documentaries available on all three photographers, especially with the current exhibit PAIRED up and running. The screenings will have a short intermission and following the third doc, a Q&A with filmmaker and family member Meg Partridge and Executive Director Donna Granata from Focus on the Masters along with East/West Gallery owner, and son of Horace, Henri Bristol will answer your questions.
Tickets are available at Center Stage Theatre Box Office: $10 general; $5 students. CALL NOW (805)963-0408 or log online & purchase at www.centerstagetheater.org
PAIRED is on exhibit through December 29, 2007 at the East/West Gallery located at 714 Bond Avenue in Santa Barbara, CA 93103, please call (805) 963-4041. www.eastwest-gallery.com
www.eastwest-gallery.com www.imogencunningham.com www.mcfaddenpr.com www.centerstagetheater.org
As part of the “Art for Activism” series, 10% of all profits from the exhibition will be donated to the Ventura based non-profit Focus on the Masters.
MORE BACKGROUND ON THE ARTISTS IN THE CURRENT EXHIBIT:
Imogen Cunningham, a member of group f64 and a pioneer photographer, took the medium from its pictorialist beginnings into its own art form, and worked tirelessly for more than 50 years, from the 1920's through the mid 70's to bring photography recognition as a legitimate art form. As a working mother of three including twin boys, she had "one hand in the dishpan, the other in the darkroom," she was quoted as saying about her career as photographer and her life as a household matriarch.
Rondal Partridge, one of the twin boys, began helping his mother in the lab from the age of five. As a teenager, he began as Dorothea Lange's apprentice driving her up and down the back-roads of California as she photographed the now iconic images of migrant laborers. Intimately associated with some of the great photographers of the 20th century, among them Lange, Edward Weston, Ansel Adams, and Horace Bristol, Rondal Partridge who will be 90 this September continues to display his own take on the world around him, focusing his "Quizzical Eye," the title of his most recent monograph, on his intimate surroundings.
Horace Bristol described Cunningham as a mentor and a friend and Partridge as a confidant and colleague. He spent his early years as a photographer influenced by the likes of Cunningham, Adams, Weston, and Lange. Lange in particular played an important role in his development as a journalist and in capturing intimate moments in the grand sweep of history. As one of LIFE's original staff photographers, Bristol's images of migrant laborers, inspired by Lange's visits to similar camps, were taken with the accompaniment of a young writer by the name of John Steinbeck, who would later base his seminal novel The Grapes of Wrath on the characters he met on their journeys together to California's Central Valley. His photos would later be used to cast the now classic film. He later went on to work with Edward Steichen in the US Navy during WWII, and then settled in Japan to form East-West a photographic agency aimed at documenting the post-war reconstruction of South-East Asia. His career would take an abrupt and painful halt with the death of his wife. Distraught, he destroyed many of his negatives and prints, effectively ending his photographic career. It was not until nearly 30 years later that his work would again be uncovered and shown in public. This exhibition focuses on these three artists and their shared appreciation for the simplicity of form and composition as expression in art, and on the beauty captured by these very different photographers who shared one thing, the skill and desire to capture moments we most often relegate to memory.
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