AA at Andrew Smith Gallery

[Kirk Gittings]

I was visiting the Andrew Smith Gallery yesterday with out of state friends and I was pleasantly surprised by a new AA exhibit hung-three bodies of work from early to late making it the most extensive AA exhibit I have seen short of Ansel Adams at 100. Many prints I had never seen before in person and many I'd never seen before period. Mostly from the Arrington collection I think. It is up for like a year Andy said. Also through August is the icing (for me)-a Ray K. Metzker exhibit (a mentor of mine at UNM in the 70's).

http://www.andrewsmithgallery.com/home.html (but there's more hanging than the web galleries show.)

[Hans Berkhout]

It is really nice to see/read some of his personal notes,jokes as part of this exhibit. Quite a character. Even a bit in "French".

[John Olsen]

I just saw several AAs at the Tokyo Museum of Photography in May. Don't know if I could stand a more massive humbling, but this is a good reason to save up gas money, Thanks.

[welly]

I'm going to the opening of an AA exhibition here in Sydney this evening. Really looking forward to it as it'll be the first AA's I've seen in person.

[Merg Ross]

Thanks for posting this, Kirk. Ansel will no doubt get a lot of attention here, but it was the mention of Ray Metzker that caught my attention. We exhibited together in some major group shows in the early and mid-1960's, and then I lost track of him. Perhaps his attention turned more to teaching, but I have always liked his early work. Callahan was a definite influence, but Ray added his own vision as can be seen in this exhibit. Excellent work, and wonderful to see it being presently exhibited around the country.

[Kirk Gittings]

Well said Merg. He and Calahan were working along the same lines for awhile-maybe when Ray K was in Chicago. But Ray K did have his own vision for sure and diverged dramatically into the 70's and 80's. Guess what Merg-some of those images are going for 75K!