JMW Auction Gallery – Important 19th & 20th Century Photography Auction
November 4 at 3 pm
1094 Morton Boulevard, Kingston, New York 12401
www.jmwauction.com
845-389-1933

KINGSTON, N.Y. On Friday, November 4, at 3 pm, JMW Auction will conduct a Nineteenth and Twentieth Century photography auction. The sale will be highlighted by the Richard G. Miller estate collection of Nineteenth and Twentieth Century hand-painted, tinted and colored photographs. These were collected since the 1980s and in the family home until now. Also included will be a collection of Twentieth Century photography from the New York City estate of Evelyne Daitz, former owner of Witkin Gallery.

Photographers included are Arthur Tress, Lucien Clergue, James Arthur, Neelon Crawford, Naomi Savage, Eadweard Muybridge, Guus Ryven, Michael Eastman, Pepe Diniz, Stephen H. Willard, Margaret Bourke-White, Les Krims, Stephen Salmieri, Hank O’Neal, Lilo Raymond, Max Waldman, Edmund Teske, Richard Flynt, William Abronowicz, Lida Moser, Yousuf Karsh, Walker Evans, W. Eugene Smith, Chester Malick, Stanley Wulc, Doug Prince and others.

Also, a large collection of panoramic photographs, stereoviews, albums, cabinet cards, CDVs, postcards, cameras and accessories and more will be offered. A biography on Richard G. Miller and overview of the collection, was written by his son Jason.

“The Richard G. Miller collection of painted photographs was collected by my father in the mid-late 1980s and very early 90s. He was actively building the collection at the time of his death in 1993. Richard was a well-known art and antiques dealer. He was a regular dealer at New York’s 26th Street Annex, along with numerous other weekly and seasonal shows across the Northeast: Brimfield, Stormville, Perkiomanville, Shupps Grove, Renninger’s, Papermania and others.

“He ran his own antiques store on lower Broadway in Newburgh, N.Y., owned the Pine Bush Grange Hall (home of Mark Vail Auctions) and produced or coordinated art and antiques auctions in the Hudson Valley. His antiques stock was large and wide-ranging. From furniture to smalls, he gravitated to the odd and the unique — among other things he appreciated quack and ephemera. One of his greatest interests was antique photography. He bought all he could lay his hands on — mostly Nineteenth and early Twentieth Century work, of all kinds, a wide range of processes — from daguerreotypes up to gelatin-silver prints, cased, framed, loose, in albums, glass and film slide collections, cabinet and visiting cards, photo-postcards, negative collections, you name it. Subject matters ranged as wide as the geography he covered on buying trips — in seemingly every small town from upper Maryland to Massachusetts, deep into Pennsylvania and so far upstate in New York that you’d swear you were in Canada, or at least Vermont or Ohio.

“Among the photographs he found, the ones he treasured most were those he called “painted photographs” — simply put, photographic prints that have been altered with the application of paint or pigments. He found that there was no variety of photographic product that had not been “improved” at some time or other by a little application of this or that. There are daguerreotypes with their silvery faces interrupted by tiny spots of paint and sparkle highlighting the sitters’ jewelry or blushing their cheeks, tintypes with fantastical backgrounds added behind the subject, and with elaborate rugs painted beneath their feet. There are poster-sized enlargements mounted on canvas that are completely overpainted with oils, and elaborate collages and montages of photographs, lettering, allegorical scenes and lurid colors all laid on thick.

“My father was an artist — trained as a sculptor — but also a dealer, and he understood that most photography has been an image-making tool and the basis for a commercial product. He was fascinated by the enthusiasm with which photographers readily altered their prints to suit their markets’ needs. He saw through the common notion that past photographers only strove to represent ‘reality’ — and instead was amazed at how they readily combined paint, chalk, ink, pastel, and other mediums with photographic prints to create images somehow greater than the sum of their parts. While early photography is sometimes portrayed as a great schism in artistic representation whereby painting somehow died and henceforth mirrors with memory took the stage, my father saw that Nineteenth and Twentieth Century photography quite often was practiced alongside, and literally in combination with, the commercial and social painting and printmaking practices of the day. The overlap between the portrait painter, the graphic designer, the printmaker, the sign painter and the photographer is readily visible in this collection, where photography was used as a means to artistic and commercial ends — where if photography alone couldn’t produce the kind of image desired, other mediums were called in to complete the job.”

The auction previews are Wednesday and Thursday, November 2-3, from noon to 6 pm.

JMW Auction is at 1094 Morton Boulevard. For information, www.jmwauction.com or 845-389-1933.

Previews Wednesday & Thursday Nov. 2 & 3 from 12-6-pm
There will be over 400 lots included in this Photography auction, highlighted by the large estate collection of 19th and 20th century hand painted photographs from the Richard Miller collection. (Please go to our website and click details for the biography, and history of the collection). Also, a wonderful selection of 20th century images and portfolios from the estate of Evelyne Daitz, for- mer owner of the Witkin Gallery in New York City. Included are works by Arthur Tress, Lucien Cler- gue, James Arthur, Neelon Crawford, Naomi Savage, Eadweard Muybridge, Guus Ryven, Michael Eastman, Pepe Diniz, Stephen H Willard, Margaret Bourke-White, Les Krims, Stephen Salmieri, Hank O’neal, Lilo Raymond, Max Waldman, Edmund Teske, Richard Flynt, William Abronowicz, Lida Moser, Yousuf Karsh, Walker Evans, W. Eugene Smith, Chester Malick, Stanley Wulc, Doug Prince, and others. Also, a large collection of Panoramic photographs, albums, postcards, cdv’s, cabinet cards, snap shots, stereoviews, some ephemera, cameras, accessories and more.