Re: Richard Benson's new book
Judy, I would hardly call Richard Benson a "Johnny-come-lately." Some
of his printing work (ink on paper) is down right amazing. He first
came to my attention in the mid 1980's when a student at Yale mentioned
Benson's work with printing (photographic) on aluminum plates for
permanence. See for example:
Calvin Tomkins, Profiles, “A SINGLE PERSON MAKING A SINGLE THING,” The
New Yorker, December 17, 1990, p. 48
ABSTRACT: PROFILE of Richard Benson, photographer & printer of
photographic books. In 1986 he received a 5-year MacArthur Foundation
grant of $212,000. He has revolutionized photography He has invented a
method of printing photographic negatives in acrylic paint on
light-sensitized sheets of aluminum. The black-and-white prints made in
this manner have a tonal richness & subtlety that is not found in
conventional photographs. The best of his color prints look more like
paintings than photographs. Each print requires hours & hours of work.
The result of this intensive labor is a unique image; to make another he
would have to repeat the entire process. Benson supports his family
mainly through his work as a printer. In the field of publications
dealing with photography as an art his work is considered to be in a
class by itself.
--greg
Judy Seigel wrote:
Quote:
It is a poor process, which we see here at its best in this
landscape made in French town about 1910. Despite its occasional
successes, gum bichromate is a poor process, unable to render the
clear and beautiful tonalities that lie at the core of the
photographic medium.
Some day someone will make an anthology of all the "cores",
"essentials," and unique attributes of photography handed down to us by
"experts" since day one. Not to mention all the (false) pronunciamentos
about gum:
This Benson fellow is not only a Johnny-come-lately, he's obsolete, as
even a newbie reader of this list would know. (Tho his dummkopf-itude is
outranked by John Schaefer, who spent long hours and many tubes of paint
with David Scopick in the grand chore of listing the BEST mix for every
color in gum printing for his book on "alternative processes" -- both
"experts" blissfully unaware that just naming the colors, eg., "yellow
ochre," "venetian red" or "viridian green," is meaningless, because
every manufacturer has its own mix, names, additives and pigment sources.)
Not to mention that if all photography could claim for itself were
"clear and beautiful tonalities," it would have died dead and forgotten
the moment inkjet printers arrived (assuming you could carry an inkjet
printer into bed, bath and beyond)... But that's not why I write at
this moment, which is to note something I'd forgotten, and now recall,
thanks to the above-mentioned "wisdom."
We had a list discussion some months ago about Bill Jay's book on
Demachy, which, as I noted, was mostly nekkid ladies, plus a (very) few
coy side views of men. But I recently came across a small book on my own
shelf, which I'd picked up somewhere or other: "Robert Demachy" from the
"Collection Photo Poche" with an introduction by Michel Poivert.
1997, Editions Nathan, Paris, ISBN 2-09-754 117-8. I forget the price,
but not a lot.
Many of the 61 prints shown are gums, including of course many firm
fleshed young ladies in the altogether, but the variety, colors, and
handling in all media (most of them pigment prints of one kind or
another) are just as "photographic" as whatever Benson's ideals may be
(tho I take him as from the
how-many-tones-can-dance-on-the-head-of-a-pin school of photography
founded by -- what was his name ... Anstel somebody??? -- the fellow who
gave the world arithmetic in Roman Numerals).
Anyway, these Demachy's, even in cheap repro, show "clear and beautiful
tonalities" of many shades -- tho if that's all you look for....
zzzzzzzzzzzzzz, I just fell asleep.
PS: The book is in French, tho little more difficult than "Nu au lit,
gomme bichromatee, vers 1900."
J.
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