George Eastman House International Museum of Photography and Film is commemorating its 60th anniversary in 2009 with a deluxe portfolio of 12 photographs created by celebrated international artists. The featured artists are Edward Burtynsky, John Divola, Harri Kallio, Mark Klett & Byron Wolfe, Astrid Kruse Jensen, Richard Misrach, Abelardo Morell, Lori Nix, Erwin Olaf, Martin Parr, John Pfahl, and Alex Webb. Their portfolio photographs represent the wide range and variety of approaches, techniques, and aesthetics that characterise today’s photographic art practice. Special preview events are being held in New York City and Los Angeles in November to showcase the portfolio. For more information, and to view the photographs, visit the Eastman House website.

Website: George Eastman House 60th Anniversary Portfolio

George Eastman House Press Release

George Eastman House presents Sixtieth Anniversary Portfolio

Limited edition features color photographs by international artists

ROCHESTER, N.Y. — George Eastman House International Museum of Photography and Film is commemorating its 60th anniversary in 2009 with a deluxe portfolio of 12 photographs created by celebrated international artists. A limited edition of 25 Sixtieth Anniversary Portfolios is being sold to collectors and institutions.

The featured artists are Edward Burtynsky, John Divola, Harri Kallio, Mark Klett & Byron Wolfe, Astrid Kruse Jensen, Richard Misrach, Abelardo Morell, Lori Nix, Erwin Olaf, Martin Parr, John Pfahl, and Alex Webb. Their portfolio photographs represent the wide range and variety of approaches, techniques, and aesthetics that characterize today’s photographic art practice. All of the featured artists have been exhibited at George Eastman House, with each represented in the collection.

“It is inspiring to see the enthusiasm with which these outstanding artists have joined us in this endeavor,” said Dr. Alison Nordström, Eastman House urator of photographs. “We celebrate our past by looking to the future; the museum best known for its 19th-century holdings is clearly committed to living artists and contemporary art. Eastman House has focused on recent history and on international artists, with the portfolio artists representing the United States, Canada, The Netherlands, Finland, Denmark, and the United Kingdom.

Proceeds from the portfolio will support the Eastman House’s continued work in international exhibition and scholarship, and in the stewardship of its collections. The Sixtieth Anniversary Portfolio is housed in a handcrafted archival gallery box, with a blind-stamped titled, made by Brewer-Cantelmo Co. Inc. in New York City. A printed colophon precedes the photographs along with a separately bound booklet that includes reproductions of the 12 featured photographs plus an essay by Nordström.

In the essay Nordström notes, “Photographs have significance both as images and as objects … This portfolio is a thing, painstakingly crafted and housed, signed and numbered, to be preserved for generations so as to outlive us and our time. This concern with an object’s material existence is at the heart of much of our mission here at the Museum. We grow and care for our vast and important collection so that it may matter after we are gone. It is our message to the future. At the same time, the photographs in this box, like the photographs in the Eastman House collection, are also images, and, as such, they are ideas, manifestations of culture, personal expressions and the embodiments of a particular artist’s vision. It is this aspect of photographic meaning that we consider when we produce exhibitions, publications, teaching aids and other forms of interpretation. It is fitting that this special box of photographs should embody both aspects of what we do here.”

Net W Imagery, located in Buffalo, N.Y., has been chosen to produce the photographs, using a fine arts process known as Giclée. Each 16x20-inch print is matted with 8-ply, 20x24-inch archival board. The portfolio is in an edition of 45 — with 25 as a numbered edition and the remaining 20 as artists’ proofs. The participating artists will receive portfolios for participation in the project, with additional proof portfolios remaining at George Eastman House.

Special preview events are being held in New York City and Los Angeles in November to showcase the portfolio. The first five portfolios have already been sold. For more information on the portfolio, and to view the photographs, visit the Eastman House Web site at eastmanhouse.org/portfolio.

The artists of the Sixtieth Anniversary Portfolio:

Edward Burtynsky (Canadian, b. 1955)
Edward Burtynsky received a bachelor’s degree in photographic arts from Ryerson University in 1982. He has had more than 75 solo exhibitions, including a mid-career retrospective organized by the National Gallery of Canada in 2006 and the 2009 exhibition BURTYNSKY: OIL at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. He has published five monographs and his awards include the TED Prize, The Outreach award at Rencontres d’Arles, The Flying Elephant Fellowship, and the Roloff Beny Book award. In 2007 he was awarded the title of Officer of the Order of Canada. His photographs are included in public and private collections all over the world.  He lives in Toronto, Canada.

John Divola (American b. 1949)
John Divola received a master of fine arts degree from the University of California in 1974. He has taught photography and art at numerous institutions including California Institute of the Arts (1978-1988), and since 1988 he has been a professor of art at the University of California, Riverside. Since 1975, Divola has had more than 75 solo exhibitions and has published six monographs. His photographs are included in more than 50 museum collections and he is the recipient of numerous grants and fellowships, including the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship (1986-1987), and four National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships. He lives in Riverside, Calif.

Harri Kallio (Finnish, b. 1970)
Harri Kallio received a master of fine arts degree from the University of Art and Design, Helsinki, in 2002. Since 1999, Kallio has had six solo exhibitions and numerous group showings. His work has been featured at the Aperture Gallery, in the George Eastman House exhibition Why Look at Animals? (2006), and Photography’s Ectopia: The Second ICP Triennial of photography and Video (2006) at the International Center of Photography. His first monograph, The Dodo and Mauritius Island, Imaginary Encounters, was published in 2004 and was followed by an exhibition of the same name at the Columbus Museum of Art in 2007. He is the recipient of numerous Finnish Arts Council grants, and in 2007 was awarded the Josef Albers Foundation Residency. He lives in New York City.

Mark Klett (American, b. 1952) and Byron Wolfe (American, b. 1967)
Mark Klett received a bachelor’s degree in geology from St. Lawrence University in 1974. He graduated with a master of fine arts degree from the State University of New York at Buffalo and the Visual Studies Workshop in 1977 Klett has received numerous awards, including a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship (2004). His work is widely represented in public and private collections and he has had more than 75 solo exhibitions. Klett has authored more than a dozen books and was named a Regents Professor at Arizona State University in 2002. He lives in Tempe, Arizona.

Byron Wolfe received a bachelor’s degree in social and biological evolutionary systems from the Johnston Center, University of Redlands in 1989, and a master of fine arts degree from Arizona State University, Tempe in 1998. Wolfe is a Lantis University professor at California State University, Chico Department of Communication Design. He is the author of three books, and his work is held in numerous public and private collections. His work has been featured in more than 30 exhibitions. He is a 2009 recipient of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship.  He lives in Chico, Calif.

Astrid Kruse Jensen (Danish, b. 1975)
Astrid Kruse Jensen was educated at The Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam and completed an master’s degree at the Glasgow School of Art, Scotland, in 2002.  Her work has been published in numerous journals and her first monograph was published in 2006.  Kruse Jensen has been awarded several artist residencies including the Centro Cultural Andratx in Mallorca, Spain (2008). She has had 15 solo exhibitions since 2004 and more than 50 group showings since 2002, including the 2005 George Eastman House exhibition, Vital Signs.  Her work is represented in collections in Europe and the United States. She lives in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Richard Misrach (American, b. 1949)
Richard Misrach graduated from the University of California, Berkeley in 1971. Since he started to photograph in the late 1960s, Misrach has been featured in exhibitions worldwide, including the 1996 mid-career retrospective organized by the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. He has received numerous awards and fellowships including four National Endowment for the Arts grants and the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship. Misrach has published more than a dozen monographs and his work is widely collected, held in more than 50 major public and private collections. He lives in Berkeley, Calif.

Abelardo Morell (American. b. Cuba 1948)
Abelardo Morell graduated from Bowdoin College with a bachelor’s degree in 1977 and, in 1981, completed a master of fine arts degree at Yale University School of Art.  He is now a professor of photography at Massachusetts College of Art and Design.  Morell has published seven monographs and is the recipient of many awards and fellowships, including the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship. His artist residencies include the Alturas Foundation in Texas (2008-2009) and the Happy and Bob Doran Artist-in-Residence at the Yale University Art Gallery (2008-2009). Morell has had more than 75 solo exhibitions since 1988 and his work is held in over 50 collections worldwide. He lives in Boston.

Lori Nix (American, b. 1969)
Lori Nix lived most of her life in the rural Midwest before moving to Brooklyn, N.Y., in 1998 where she still resides. She has received numerous photography awards and most recently was a recipient of a Light Work Artist in Residence grant, which was accompanied by an exhibition and monograph of her work. Nix is also a 1998 recipient of a Greater Columbus Ohio Arts Grant and a 1999 recipient of an Ohio Arts Council Individual Artist Grant. She participated in the Artist in the Marketplace program at the Bronx Museum of the Arts in 2000. Her work is held in numerous public and private collections.

Erwin Olaf (Dutch, b. 1959)
Erwin Olaf has lived and worked in Amsterdam since the early 1980s and is well known for his success in both advertising and fine art photography. Since winning first place in the Young European Photographer competition in 1988, Olaf has been the recipient of numerous awards. His photographs have appeared in more than 50 exhibitions including a mid-career retrospective at The Hague Museum of Photography (2008). His work is held in more than 30 collections worldwide and he has published more than a dozen monographs.

Martin Parr (British, b. 1952)
Martin Parr studied photography at Manchester Polytechnic from 1970 to 1973. He has been featured in more than 75 exhibitions, including a mid-career retrospective organized by the Barbican Art Gallery and the National Media Museum (2002). Parr became a full member of Magnum Photos in 1994 and was appointed professor of photography in 2004 at the University of Wales Newport campus. Parr’s work is widely represented in public and private collections and he has been featured in more than 50 publications. In 2004 Parr was guest artistic director for Recontres D’Arles and in 2006 he was awarded the Erich Solomon Prize. He currently serves as curator of the 2010 Brighton Photo Biennial.  He lives in Bristol, U.K.

John Pfahl (American, b. 1939)
John Pfahl received a bachelor of fine arts degree from Syracuse University, School of Art in 1961 and a master of fine arts degree from Syracuse University, School of Communication in 1968. He was a professor at Rochester Institute of Technology from 1968 to 1985 and has been an adjunct professor at the University of Buffalo since 1986.  Pfahl has had more than 75 solo exhibitions and numerous group exhibitions since he was featured in George Eastman House‘s 1971 exhibition, 60’s Continuum. Pfahl’s photographs are held in more than 50 collections worldwide and he has published seven monographs. Pfahl has been the recipient of two National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships and is a member of George Eastman House’s Board of Trustees.  He lives in Buffalo, N.Y.

Alex Webb (American, b. 1952)
Alex Webb received a bachelor’s degree in history and literature from Harvard College in 1974. That same year he began working as a professional photojournalist and joined Magnum Photos as an associate member in 1976, and became a full member in 1979. Webb has received numerous awards and fellowships including a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in 1990 and a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2007. He won the Leopold Godowsky Color Photography Award in 1988 and the Leica Medal of Excellence in 2000. Webb has published seven monographs and his work has been featured in more than 75 exhibitions in the United States and Europe, with his photographs held in numerous public and private collections. He lives in Brooklyn, N.Y.

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