RUTH ORKIN | PHOTOGRAPHER

Ruth Orkin was the only child of Mary Ruby, a silent movie actress, and Samuel Orkin, a mechanical wizard, and grew up in Hollywood during the heyday of the 1920's and 1930's. She was given a Univex camera when she was 10, and began developing her own photographs at 12. A passionate movie fan, Orkin was an avid autograph hunter, but soon began photographing celebrities instead. At the age of 17, she took a monumental bicycle trip across the country to attend the 1939 World's Fair in New York City. At 21, she became a messenger at MGM Studios, but left because the cinematographer's union did not accept female members.  

Orkin moved to New York in 1943. She took baby pictures during the day, and was a nightclub photographer. In the mid-1940s she became a photojournalist for many of the major magazines including Life, Look, Horizon, and Ladies Home Journal. In the late 1940s, she captured classical musicians such as Leonard Bernstein, Isaac Stern, Serge Koussevitzky, Aaron Copland and others during rehearsals at Tanglewood and at Lewisohn Stadium in New York City.  

In 1951, Orkin went to Israel with the Israeli Philharmonic, where she lived on a kibbutz for several months and photographed her experiences. She then went to Italy, and it was in Florence where she photographed her signature image "American Girl in Italy." She also traveled through Venice, Paris, Rome and London. Orkin first met PM photographer, Morris Engel at The Photo League, and in 1952 they married while making the classic film, "Little Fugitive." It was nominated for an Academy Award, and won the Silver Lion at the Venice Film Festival. Francois Traffaut has credited the film with starting the New Wave. They went on to make a second award winning film together called "Lovers and Lollipops."  

In 1959, Orkin was named one of "The Ten Top Women Photographers in the U.S." along with Dorothea Lange and Margaret Bourke-White by the Professional Photographers of America. Her priorities turned to raising a family, and Orkin used her camera to photograph her two children. First, her son Andy and three years later, her daughter Mary. From her Central Park West apartment, she watched the seasons change outside her window and for the next 30 years documented what she saw. These photographs became the subject for two books "A World Through My Window" (1978) and "More Pictures From My Window" (1983). Her monograph "A Photo Journal" was published in 1981, and exhibitions and lecture tours followed. In 1985, after a long struggle with cancer, Orkin passed away in her apartment surrounded by her wonderful legacy of photographs, and the view of Central Park outside of her window.

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All images © Ruth Orkin

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FELICE PEZZANO | ART

Felice Pezzano e' un'artista che scolpisce e dipinge le sue oniriche figure femminili, faunistiche e floreali, in una dimensione eterea e sensuale, dove il sogno e la fantasia, si concretizzano in un tratto scultoreo dinamico fluido, in cui lo smussamento di ogni angolatura rende le sue forme rotanti nella spazialita' materica, aspetto tanto emblematico dell'arte Futurista.

Le figure di Pezzano vengono scomposte a creare una personale astrazione geometrica "segni che fuoriescono dal quadro", la materia scultorea viene decontestualizzata in un processo, che la nobilita facendola viaggiare da una finalità di uso produttivo edilizio a elemento scultoreo pittorico, caratteristica tipica della corrente del Nouveau Realisme.

Pezzano elimina il confine netto tra pittura e scultura, i suoi quadri sono: nello stesso tempo scultura, che vivono della spazialità e dell'intensità della luce, che penetra all'interno dell'Opera dandogli vita e tridimensionalità scultorea.

L'opera di Felice Pezzano affonda le radici nelle grandi correnti del primo Novecento, quali: Futurismo e Surrealismo e si evolve fino a comprendere le espressioni più contemporanee quali lo Spazialismo di Lucio Fontana e una sorta di Neo Espressionismo per poi arrivare ad una distinta e matura personalità artistico creativa.

Critica di Alessandro Marini

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COAL NOT DOLE | MICHAEL KERSTGENS

In 1984, with the UK miners’ strike at its peak, I decided to travel to Britain and document the dispute. Born in Wales, and with a godfather who was managing director of the Llanelli-based mining supplies company Thyssen Schachtbau Great Britain Ltd., I imagined it would be easy to get close to the action.

Yet the strike was brutal and had torn a rift through British society. People were wary of me, as an outsider, and so I was limited to photographing events on the periphery, but not the striking miners and their various activities. The tide turned when I resolved to travel to the heart of the strike in Yorkshire and there met the activist Stuart “Spud” Marshall. Spud trusted me immediately and opened the door to photograph not only the heat of the action but also more intimate moments beyond the picketing. I photographed soup kitchens, meetings behind closed doors, and the wives of striking miners who first became politically active through their help and support in organizing the protest. I photographed families at home or with friends at occasional festivities, and striking miners picking low-grade coal to heat their houses. I documented the pride and courage of workers who were deeply rooted in the mining community.

The strike of 1984/85 was the last significant labour dispute in the UK. It marked the end of an era and the beginning of a new age of industrial relations, both in Britain and beyond. The documentation shows how this process shaped the lives of many and how it transformed the country forever. Nearly 30 years after the strike, I returned to record the changes. These photographs, including some of “Spud”, who still lives there, are also included in the book.

All images © Michael Kerstgens

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