© Mona Kuhn. Courtesy of the artist and Edwynn Houk Gallery, New York

Mona Kuhn: Works

Edwynn Houk Gallery is pleased to present “Mona Kuhn: Works,” an online exhibition of photographs from throughout the artist’s celebrated career, including prints exclusively presented in the Online Viewing Room. The exhibition is live from 4 March - 17 April 2021, in celebration of Women’s History Month in March and the publication of a monograph of the same title in April.

Acclaimed for her contemporary depictions, Kuhn is considered a leading artist in the world of figurative discourse. Throughout a career spanning more than twenty years, the underlying theme of her work is her reflection on humanity’s longing for spiritual connection and solidarity. As she solidified her photographic style, Kuhn created a notable approach to the nude by developing friendships with her subjects, and employing a range of playful visual strategies that use natural light and minimalist settings to evoke a sublime sense of comfort between the human figure and its environment. Her work is natural, restful, and a reinterpretation of the nude in the canon of contemporary art.

Mona Kuhn was born in 1969 in São Paulo, Brazil and is of German descent. Her work is in private and public collections worldwide, including The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles; George Eastman House Museum, New York; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Musée de l'Elysée, Switzerland; Musée de la Photographie de Charleroi, Belgium; Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, Japan; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; The Louvre Museum, Paris; Pérez Art Museum Miami, Florida; and the Buhl Foundation, New York. Monographs of Kuhn’s work include Photographs(2004), Native (2009), Bordeaux (2011), She Disappeared into Complete Silence (2018), Bushes and Succulents (2018) and Mona Kuhn: Works (2021). The artist lives and works in Los Angeles.

Visit the Online Viewing Room here.

Lillian Bassman, "A Report to Skeptics," Suzy Parker, April 1952, Harper's Bazaar, Gelatin silver print, Collection of Eric and Lizzie Himmel, New York © Estate of Lillian Bassman — Lillian Bassman, "A Report to Skeptics," Suzy Parker, April 1952, *Harper's Bazaar,* Gelatin silver print, Collection of Eric and Lizzie Himmel, New York © Estate of Lillian Bassman

Modern Look: Photography and the American Magazine

New York, NY, October 14, 2020 — The Jewish Museum will present Modern Look: Photography and the American Magazine, an exhibition exploring how photography, graphic design, and popular magazines converged to transform American visual culture from 1930 to 1960. The exhibition will be on view from April 2 through July 11, 2021.

The exhibition highlights a time-period during which avant-garde strategies in photography and design reached the United States via European émigrés, including Bauhaus artists forced out of Nazi Germany. The unmistakable aesthetic made popular by such magazines as Harper’s Bazaar and Vogue — whose art directors, Alexey Brodovitch and Alexander Liberman, were immigrants and accomplished photographers — emerged from a distinctly American combination of innovation, inclusiveness, and pragmatism.

Dick and Adele, c. 1947, printed 2005 Gelatin silver print, Saul Leiter Foundation, New York © Saul Leiter Foundation, courtesy Howard Greenberg Gallery — *Dick and Adele*, c. 1947, printed 2005 Gelatin silver print, Saul Leiter Foundation, New York © Saul Leiter Foundation, courtesy Howard Greenberg Gallery

Featuring over 150 works including photographs, layouts, and cover designs, the exhibition considers the connections and influences of designers and photographers such as Richard Avedon, Lillian Bassman, Lester Beall, Margaret Bourke-White, Louis Faurer, Robert Frank, William Klein, Lisette Model, Gordon Parks, Irving Penn, Cipe Pineles, and Paul Rand.

Modern Look: Photography and the American Magazine is organized by Mason Klein, Senior Curator, The Jewish Museum.

The accompanying catalogue by Mason Klein, with essays by Maurice Berger, Leslie Camhi, and Marvin Heiferman, is published by the Jewish Museum and Yale University Press. The essays draw a lineage from European experimental design to innovative work in American magazine design at mid-century and offer insights into the role of gender in fashion photography and political activism in the mass media.

Gordon Parks, Portrait of Helen Frankenthaler, photographed for Life Magazine, May 13, 1957, printed 2018 Archival pigment print, The Jewish Museum, NY, Purchase: Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation Fund, 2018-75, Artwork © The Gordon Parks Foundation — Gordon Parks, *Portrait of Helen Frankenthaler*, photographed for *Life Magazine*, May 13, 1957, printed 2018 Archival pigment print, The Jewish Museum, NY, Purchase: Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation Fund, 2018-75, Artwork © The Gordon Parks Foundation

Modern Look: Photography and the American Magazine is made possible by The Mimi and Barry J. Alperin Family Fund, a gift from the estate of Gaby and Curtis Hereld, Phillip and Edith Leonian Foundation, Heidi and Richard Rieger, Wyeth Foundation for American Art, Lisa S. Pritzker, Ronit and Bill Berkman, John and Helga Klein, and Ellen Schwartz Harris. Additional support is provided by The Skirball Fund for American Jewish Life Exhibitions, Horace W. Goldsmith Exhibitions Endowment Fund, The Alfred J. Grunebaum & Ruth Grunebaum Sondheimer Memorial Fund, and other generous donors. This project is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Please click here for more infomation about this exhibition.

© Mariette Pathy Allen, “Kay (Ex-Green Beret),” 1978-1989, Vintage dye transfer print from the portfolio “Transformations” (Edition of 50), 15 x 22 inches, Courtesy of ClampArt, New York City.

Mariette Pathy Allen Transformations

ClampArt is pleased to announce “Transformations”—Mariette Pathy Allen’s first solo show with the gallery.

Mariette Pathy Allen has been photographing the transgender community for over forty years. Through her artistic practice, she has been a pioneering force in gender consciousness, contributing to numerous cultural and academic publications about gender variance and lecturing across the globe. Her first book, published in 1990, was titled Transformations: Crossdressers and Those Who Love Them. The publication was groundbreaking in its investigation of a misunderstood community.

The series “Transformations” started with black-and-white images in New Orleans on the last day of Mardi Gras 1978: “[W]hen by fluke, I stayed at the same hotel as a group of crossdressers, one of whom became a friend,” writes Allen. “This chance meeting took me into a mostly closeted world of men who need to express their ‘feminine sides. . .’ Realizing early on that I had stumbled upon something potentially liberating and almost completely misunderstood, I set out to ‘de-freakify,’ and to offer a different view.”

© Mariette Pathy Allen, “Vicky West Dancing the Cancan with My Daughters, Cori and Julia, Bridgehampton, NY,” 1982, Gelatin silver print (Edition of 15), 12 x 18 inches, Courtesy of ClampArt, New York City.

Allen produced a portfolio of 11 dye transfer prints to coincide with the release of the book, Transformations. The exhibition at ClampArt includes the complete portfolio of color vintage prints, which consists of portraits of crossdressers shot in the late 1970s and 1980s. The same series was exhibited 30 years ago in January 1990 at the Simon Lowinsky Gallery in New York City. ClampArt’s show also includes a selection of black-and-white prints by Allen shot in the same era.

Mariette Pathy Allen’s second book, The Gender Frontier, is a collection of photographs, interviews, and essays covering political activism, youth, and the range of people that identify as transgender in the United States. It won the 2004 Lambda Literary Award in the Transgender/Genderqueer category. Other books by the artist include TransCuba and Transcendents: Spirit Mediums in Burma and Thailand.

Please click here for more infomation about this exhibition