Henry Wessel's black and white Photographic exhibition at the Grolier Club September 8, - November 14, 2026

Glimpse the photographer Henry well acclaimed photographs of American life, and landscape of the America West at the Grolier Club!! Worth seeing how his eye capture the essence of the 1070's 

Henry Wessel – Photographs and Books On View September 8 – November 14, 2026

NEW YORK CITY — The Grolier Club presents a spotlight exhibition on photographs and books by Henry Wessel (1942–2018), curated by Grolier Club member Jack Gray from his collection. On view from September 8 through November 14, 2026, in the Club’s Second Floor Gallery, Henry Wessel – Photographs and Books features more than 65 photographs, including Wessel’s “Incidents” and “Traffic” portfolios in their entirety, and highlights from Wessel’s full body of work from more than four decades. A catalogue, published by The Grolier Club, will be available this autumn.   Wessel first came to prominence in 1972 with a solo exhibition at The Museum of Modern Art, New York, and his practice initially centered on exhibitions with related catalogues. He later moved emphatically to making sequences of photographs intended as one work. These were issued as portfolios and published as books with minimal context.   Curator Jack Gray met the artist in 1976, when he was one of Wessel’s undergraduate students at the San Francisco Art Institute. Gray began to collect Wessel’s work while still a student, and a chance meeting 20 years later led to a close friendship. Wessel’s work now forms the core of Gray’s personal collection. “Hank and I often looked at photographs together. We loved talking about them. A core dialogue centered on a question: What made an interesting photograph?,” writes Gray. “His commitment to making what he called ‘still photographs that function as visual haikus’ was consistent throughout his career.” Exhibition Highlights One of Wessel’s earliest works on view is Untitled (1968), a photograph of a deserted road with mountains in the distance, bisected by a telephone pole. This work was featured in MoMA curator John Szarkowski’s influential 1973 book Looking at Photographs: 100 Pictures from the Collection of The Museum of Modern Art as the last of the 100 images, and Wessel was the youngest photographer included in the book. Another enigmatic early work on view, San Francisco (1973), features an older man in a dark suit, seen from behind as he stands on a beach and looks out at the ocean.

Wessel’s “Traffic” and “Incidents” portfolios are shown in full in the exhibition. “Traffic,” 28 black and white photographs made in the 1980s and issued as a portfolio in 2017, is limited to images of people in cars, taken from a car. Wessel commuted from his East Bay home to his teaching job in San Francisco and discovered that he could take advantage of the morning and evening light to photograph on the road. He prepared the camera for one-handed use—because “a glance was enough”—and soon he was looking forward to the daily drive. The “Incidents” portfolio was assembled in 2012 from 27 black and white photographs that Wessel had taken over decades; none had been published or exhibited before. The images are fleeting moments in everyday California life, often bathed in Wessel’s signature bright sunshine, such as Incidents No 5 (undated), in which passengers in a car seem to emerge from the shadows with each closer look.

In the 1990s, Wessel created the “Real Estate” and “Night Walk” projects. “Real Estate” was his first sustained project in color, as he returned to a subject and approach that attracted him from the first roll of film he shot—photographs of houses taken from a car window. In 1995, walking his dog at night in the Sunset Park neighborhood of Los Angeles, Wessel became fascinated with how the world is reconfigured by the lights at night, finding inspiration for his “Night Walk” series: “The spot lighting of particular areas, the lack of ambient light, the unnatural way that shadows are cast, all take us to an unfamiliar place, a world that is stage-like with its implied drama.” The exhibition also features select work by photographers who inspired Wessel, such as Walker Evans, Weegee, and Helen Leavitt, as well as friends and peers like Tod Papageorge, Garry Winogrand, and Lee Friedlander. Publications by German publisher Steidl, which closely collaborated with Wessel to reproduce his work with great attention to detail and minimal text, are also on view, including books of Incidents and Traffic/Sunset Park/Continental Divide.  Wessel said, “I don't have an attitude of going out to take pictures. I simply take pictures. If there’s light out and my eyes are open, it’s usually reason enough to be able to work. It’s the facility that the camera provides that makes photography to me a very vital medium, a very challenging medium and in a sense, a very indulgent medium. The preparation to work is almost nonexistent.”

Programming The Grolier Club will present free public programs related to the exhibition, including a panel on Wednesday, October 28, at 6:30pm. More information and updates can be found at http://grolierclub.eventbrite.com.   Upcoming Exhibitions Pioneers in Hand Papermaking: 50 Years of Innovation at Dieu Donné September 8 – November 28, 2026 Ground Floor Gallery   Black Brilliance: An American Chronicle December 3, 2026 – February 20, 2027 Second Floor Gallery   Uncertainty and the Quantum Revolution December 16, 2026 – March 13, 2027 Ground Floor Gallery   Crossing Boundaries: Women Travelers and Writers in South and Southeast Asia, 1715-1945 March 4 – May 15, 2027 Second Floor Gallery   About The Grolier Club Founded in 1884, The Grolier Club is America’s oldest and largest society for bibliophiles and enthusiasts in the graphic arts. Named for Jean Grolier (1489/90-1565), the Renaissance collector renowned for sharing his library with friends, the Club’s objective is to promote “the study, collecting, and appreciation of books and works on paper.” Through the concerted efforts of an international network of over eight hundred men and women—book and print collectors, antiquarian book dealers, librarians, designers, fine printers, binders, and other artisans—The Grolier Club pursues this mission through its library, its public exhibitions and lectures, and its long and distinguished series of publications.   Visiting The Grolier Club 47 East 60th Street, New York, NY 10022  212-838-6690, www.grolierclub.org Hours: Monday–Saturday, 10 am to 5 pm Admission: Exhibitions are open to the public free of charge  Image Captions/Credits (top to bottom): Henry Wessel, Incidents No 5, no date, gelatin silver print. © The Estate of Henry Wessel Henry Wessel, Untitled, 1968, gelatin silver print. © The Estate of Henry Wessel Henry Wessel, Traffic No 24, no date, gelatin silver print. © The Estate of Henry Wessel Henry Wessel, Real Estate No 90467, no date, C-print. © The Estate of Henry Wessel #thegrolierclub,henrywesselphotographs#fineartmagazineblog.blogspot.com #sunstormfineartmagazine.com#artfunphotography#artfunlandscapes#artfunnow

 

Chris Ballantyne exhibition at the Steven Zevitas Gallery, August 7, 5:30- 8 pm. See details below.

Chris Ballantyne, Pool Overgrown, 2026, acrylic on panel, 36 x 48 inches (91.4 x 121.9 cm) Please join us Tomorrow, August 7th, from 5:30 - 8pm for the opening reception of a solo exhibition with Chris Ballantyne Request a Preview CHRIS BALLANTYNE On view through August 29, 2026 Opening reception: Friday, August 7, 5:30 - 8 pm Steven Zevitas Gallery is pleased to present a solo exhibition of paintings and works on paper by Chris Ballantyne. The exhibition will be on view through August 29, 2026, with a reception on August 7, 2026 from 5:30 - 8 pm.    Chris Ballantyne’s practice exists at the intersection of the natural world and man-made interventions. Each work is painted directly onto wooden panels, allowing thinned acrylic paint to seep into the grain, while thicker applications rest on the surface. This interplay of materials mirrors the works' central tension: the convergence of natural and organic materials. Though the paintings evoke a palpable human presence, figures are never depicted. Instead, traces of erosion, synthetic structures, and spatial demarcations allude to human intervention and manufacturing. Yet even within these constructed environments, wildlife unrelentingly pushes back. Grass reclaims an empty concrete pool, reaching its roots toward the basin below; overgrown foliage engulfs a backyard fence, disregarding its attempted confinement; and a vibrant green weed emerges from the center of a meticulously-sectioned displacement of dirt. Across Ballantyne's work, the natural world resists containment, quietly but relentlessly reclaiming spaces shaped by human hands. Learn more --> CHRIS BALLANTYNE (b. 1972, Mobile, AL) lives and works in New York, NY. He was the recipient of several awards including the Tournesol Award and Residency at the Headlands Center for the Arts in 2004, a Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant in 2005, and a Tamarind Institute Invitational Residency in 2013. His work is included in public collections such as the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, the Art Rotterdam Foundation, Rotterdam, The Netherlands, and the Judith Rothschild Foundation, New York, among others. Ballantyne received his BA from the University of South Florida, Tampa in 1997 and his MFA from San Francisco Art Institute in 2002. This is the artist’s fourth solo exhibition with the gallery. He has been the subject of over fifteen solo exhibitions in New York, Los Angeles, Berlin, Nashville and San Francisco.

Steven Zevitas Gallery // Z'M Projects | 450 Harrison Ave #47 | Boston, MA 02118 US #stevenzevitasgallery#fineartmagazineblog.blogspot.com#sunstormfineartmagazine.com #artfunnow#artfunpretty#artfunboston#artfunlandscapes#artfunnew

Casy Chalem Anderson exhibits at THe F=Romany Kramoris Gallery Sag Harbor, August 13- September 3, 2026

The Spark Before the First Brushstroke

In the 07/29/2026 edition: 
By casey on Jul 28, 2026 05:45 pm

Sharing the beginning of an oil painting……………

Most people imagine that a painting begins when the brush first touches the canvas. For me, it begins much earlier.

A few days ago, I was driving through Sag Harbor on my way to Southampton. As I passed Long Beach, something caught my eye. Along the edge of the bay, wildflowers had appeared as if overnight. Tall Queen Anne’s lace rose above the grasses, surrounded by delicate lavender blossoms that seemed to have volunteered their way into the landscape. Behind them was the bay, an extraordinary teal blue, deep and luminous, almost jewel-like in the morning light.

I pulled over.

I carefully walked into the grasses, taking photographs from every angle. Not because I intended to copy what I saw, but because I didn’t want to lose the feeling of that place. I knew immediately that this wasn’t simply a beautiful view; it was the beginning of a painting.

I still had to get to my errands, so the drive ahead became part of the creative process. I turned off the radio.

When an idea takes hold, I don’t want anything competing with it. My mind becomes completely absorbed. I begin asking myself questions. What size canvas wants to hold this scene? Should the flowers dominate, or should the sweep of the bay carry the painting? How much sky? What colors will capture that impossible blue-green water? Which greens will make the grasses glow?

It’s one of the greatest pleasures I know.

There is an excitement that comes before a painting exists, when everything is still possible. I don’t know exactly what the finished painting will look like. In fact, I never do. The reference photographs are only the starting point. The painting grows from memory, emotion, and intuition as much as observation.

That uncertainty is part of the magic. By the time I arrived back at my studio, I wasn’t thinking about the errands I had planned that day. I was thinking about pulling out a canvas, laying out paint, and searching for the right mixtures to capture the colors I had just witnessed and the feeling they left behind.

The painting now sits on my easel, still unfinished.

Its composition continues to evolve. Some flowers will disappear. Others will become more prominent. The grasses will shift. The light will find its way across the canvas in ways I can’t yet predict.

That is what I love most about painting. The finished work is never simply a record of a place. It is a record of being moved by a place.

Until next time,

Casey

 Show: Romany Kramoris Gallery, 41 Main Street, Sag Harbor, NY, August 13 – September 3, reception on Saturday, August 15, 5-6:30 PM

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