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PRESS RELEASE
Lee Friedlander: Nudes & Mannequin
32 East 57th Street, New York
October 26 – December 22, 2012
Opening: Saturday, October 27, 2 – 4 p.m.
NEW YORK, October 3—Pace and Pace/MacGill are
honored to inaugurate their representation of the
legendary American photographer Lee Friedlander in New
York with Nudes and Mannequin, a two-venue presentation
on view on the second and ninth floors of 32 East 57th Street,
New York, from October 26 through December 22, 2012. The
artist will be present at an opening reception on Saturday,
October 27 from 2 to 4 P.M.
For more than five decades, Lee Friedlander has captured the
American social landscape through his camera
lens. Friedlander is known for his dynamic formal compositions
and poignant visual juxtapositions of subjects drawn from American vernacular culture. A seminal figure in the
history of photography, his lighthearted and ironic portrayals of the modern world explore the medium’s most
central motifs, ranging from street scenes, landscapes and interiors to nudes, portraits, self-portraits, and still lifes.
Pace will present a selection of over fifty of Friedlander’s iconic black-and-white nudes from 1977 to 1991
in the second floor gallery of 32 East 57th Street. The images, taken with a hand-held Leica camera, range from
closely framed figure studies to full-body shots that include elements of his subjects’ personal environments, who
were almost always photographed in their homes. Friedlander’s nudes
will be juxtaposed alongside Bill Brandt’s graphic and dramatic depictions
of the female form and Edward Weston’s photographs of his wife and
muse, Charis Wilson. Friedlander began photographing nudes in 1977
while teaching at Rice University in Texas at the casual suggestion of his
friend and colleague George Krause, who was employing artist’s models
for his own photographs at the time. Fifty-two images from this body of
work were exhibited together for the first time in 1991 at The Museum of
Modern Art in New York City. A new edition of the Nudes monograph,
originally published in 1991, will be released in the spring of 2013 by
Distributed Art Publishers.
Pace/MacGill will feature the first New York presentation of over
twenty photographs from Friedlander’s newest body of work,
Mannequin, on the ninth floor gallery of 32 East 57th Street. Taken
PRESS CONTACT: Nicollette Eason [email protected] +1 212 759 7999
between 2003 and 2011 with a hand-held 35-millimeter camera that Friedlander used earlier in his career, the new
body of work depicts storefront windows in Los Angeles, New York City, and San Francisco. In Mannequin,
Friedlander employs the reflective surface of urban display windows as a compositional device, returning to a
technique he utilized in his street scenes of the 1960s. In the resulting visual hybrids, building facades and skylines
are superimposed on mannequins' bodies and vice versa, with the dim presence of the photographer’s own
reflection often entering the frame. The low vantage point of the photographs monumentalizes the plastic figures,
emphasizing society's obsession with fashion and consumerism. A monograph devoted to Mannequin was
published this year by Fraenkel Gallery in San Francisco.
Lee Friedlander (b. 1934, Aberdeen, Washington) has been photographing the American social landscape since
1948. His work first came to public attention in the 1967 landmark exhibition, New Documents, at The Museum of
Modern Art, New York, alongside that of Diane Arbus and Garry Winogrand’s. The many exhibitions devoted to
Friedlander’s work since that time include a major traveling retrospective organized by The Museum of Modern Art
in 2005. Friedlander’s photographs are collected in depth by major museums worldwide, including the Maison
Europeene de la Photographie, Paris; The Metropolitan Museum of Art and The Museum of Modern Art in New
York; the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; and the Victoria and
Albert Museum, London, among others. The artist recently donated eight photographs to the U.S. Mission to the
United Nations in New York. Friedlander’s archive is located at Yale University, Connecticut.
Since 1970, Friedlander has created and supervised the production of over 30 monographs, including Self-Portrait
(1970); The American Monument (1976); Flowers and Trees (1981); Lee Friedlander: Nudes (1991); Maria (1992);
American Musicians (1999); The Little Screens (2001); At Work (2002); Sticks and Stones (2004); America by Car
(2010) and Lee Friedlander: Mannequin (2012).
Friedlander is the recipient of numerous awards, including The International Center of Photography’s Lifetime
Achievement Award (2006); the Erna and Victor Hasselblad Foundation International Award in Photography (2005);
a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Award (1990); five National Endowment for the Arts Grants
(1972; 1977; 1978; 1979; 1980); and three John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowships (1960;
1962; 1977).
Lee Friedlander lives in New City, New York.
For more information about Lee Friedlander: Nudes & Mannequin or press requests, please contact
Nicollette Eason at 212.759.7999. or [email protected] . For general inquiries, please email
Images:
Lee Friedlander, Nude, gelatin silver print, 16 x 20 inches, 1983
Lee Friedlander, New York City, gelatin silver print, 20 x 16 inches, 2011
Artwork © Lee Friedlander, courtesy Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco and Pace Gallery, New York
One of the world's leading photography galleries, Pace/MacGill has been dedicated to advancing fine art
photography for almost 30 years. Known for discovering artists, representing masters, and placing important
collections and archives into major public institutions, Pace/MacGill has presented some 200 exhibitions and
published numerous catalogues on modern and contemporary photography. Founded in 1983 by Peter MacGill, in
collaboration with Arne Glimcher of The Pace Gallery and Richard Solomon of Pace Editions, Pace/MacGill is
located at 32 East 57th Street in New York City.
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