E-Photo
Issue #23  12/15/2000
 
Openings At Paris Galleries

By Alex Novak

The Herschtritt father and son team opened their show: "Portraits 19th and 20th Century", which is well worth going to at their gallery in the sixth arrondissement, an area of up and coming restaurants and art galleries. I particularly liked the Izis portrait of Tabard (appropriately a double exposure). The show runs through January 27. I was able to walk across a bridge to the Carrousel du Louvre and Paris Photo from the gallery in about 15 minutes.

On Friday night, I went to Philippe Doublet's private space for a rare public opening of his showing of Wadi Hammamat. The photographs (mostly cyanotype) by J. Couyat and P. Montet (images of hieroglyphics from this area) helped them publish their important work on this area's hieroglyphic writings, which are considered by many to be the most comprehensive in Egyptology. I bought a nice piece from this group.

The exhibit on everyone's lips was the Raoul Ubac show at Renn, which is located at 14/16 rue de Verneuil, 75007 Paris. The show will run through January 27. Dealer Christian Bouqueret curated the show.

There was also a major book purporting to be a Catalogue Raisonne, published by Editions Leo Scheer. I own one major Ubac piece, which I doubt made it into the Catalogue Raisonne, although it was known to Bouqueret. I'm sure he just forgot. I haven't seen the book yet, but I understand it was very well done.

Novak has over 47 years experience in the photography-collecting arena. He is a long-time member and formally board member of the Daguerreian Society, and, when it was still functioning, he was a member of the American Photographic Historical Society (APHS). He organized the 2016 19th-century Photography Show and Conference for the Daguerreian Society. He is also a long-time member of the Association of International Photography Art Dealers, or AIPAD. Novak has been a member of the board of the nonprofit Photo Review, which publishes both the Photo Review and the Photograph Collector, and is currently on the Photo Review's advisory board. He was a founding member of the Getty Museum Photography Council. He is author of French 19th-Century Master Photographers: Life into Art.

Novak has had photography articles and columns published in several newspapers, the American Photographic Historical Society newsletter, the Photograph Collector and the Daguerreian Society newsletter. He writes and publishes the E-Photo Newsletter, the largest circulation newsletter in the field. Novak is also president and owner of Contemporary Works/Vintage Works, a private photography dealer, which sells by appointment and has sold at exhibit shows, such as AIPAD New York and Miami, Art Chicago, Classic Photography LA, Photo LA, Paris Photo, The 19th-century Photography Show, Art Miami, etc.