What Artist, if Only One Could be on Your Walls

[Tin Can]

To clarify the dilemma,

What if you could have only 3 photographic prints, all by one artist hanging in your home for the rest of your life.

Disregard genre, price, value and size. One artist.

Any 3 Prints in the world yours for life AS THE ONLY Art on your walls.

However, you can never sell them, profit in any way and they would not be transferred to your spouse, heirs or estate after you die.

The Art would simply disappear...



A riff on the 1955 to 1960 TV show, 'The Millionaire' and the preceding 1932, 'If I Had a Million'.

[bob carnie]

Three prints by Brassai

[JMB]

The new criteria adds an important element to the selection (namely focus upon something essential in the viewers conception of art). But ultimately they underscore just how difficult it is to separate how different artists can satisfy a particular conception --even a very powerful conception. But here goes (with a twist):

Photography: Man Ray (But the separation breaks my heart and invokes tremendous injustice).
Painting: Vincent van Gogh
Sculpture: Rodin

One, and only one artist?

Vincent van Gogh

[pepeguitarra]

Here are some of the few:


https://www.artsy.net/artwork/ansel-adams-still-life-with-egg-slicer-san-francisco

https://noisydecentgraphics.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/2007/11/10/salgado_anta3.jpg

https://www.1stdibs.com/art/photography/landscape-photography/sebastiao-salgado-suruwaha-amazonas-brazil/id-a_3066381/

http://aaphotoandenvironmentalist.blogspot.com/2010/04/early-career.html?m=0

https://www.lowerylandscapes.com/zion/tu1e61fdrnl0uoqtrtcg07ndxd03su

One and only one artist (photographer):

https://www.artsy.net/artwork/ansel-adams-still-life-with-egg-slicer-san-francisco

[Bruce Watson]

Disregard genre, price, value and size. One artist.

Any 3 Prints in the world yours for life AS THE ONLY Art on your walls.

Either Adams, or Porter. Either one, both inspire me in (considerably) different ways. But I could live with three of Adams' Yosemite images, or three of Porter's dye transfers. Either one. I'd be a happy man.

[John Layton]

Edward Weston...but so many of his works swim equally in my head that I can choose only one - Pepper #30. Hmmm...maybe add the "two nautilus" print to this, and maybe also one of Charis in the dunes...this or one of Tina M. singing. (then again...Orozco?) very difficult to choose!

[Jac@stafford.net]

If I could afford his work, Emmet Gowin.
One example: https://www.moma.org/collection/works/46763

[Tin Can]

Jac, dreams are free...in fact we can't stop them...


If I could afford his work, Emmet Gowin.
One example: https://www.moma.org/collection/works/46763

[Jac@stafford.net]

Jac, dreams are free...in fact we can't stop them...

I have had unsatisfactory results printing from a dream, and I have tried! I kid you not, Randy, it's a nightmare.

[Peter Lewin]

I would be thrilled to have works by either William Clift or Paul Strand. If forced to chose (and price was no object), Strand. (One of the three would be his White Fence, 1916)

[andreios]

Probably Josef Koudelka - most likely his panoramas.
But I could live with some things by Josef Sudek as well..

[Eric Woodbury]

Oliver Gagliani

[Andrew O'Neill]

Anything by Andre Kertesz.

[William Whitaker]

Me.

[archphotofisher]

Carleton Watkins

[Andrew Tymon]

Thomas Joshua Cooper.

[jnantz]

The Horses > Starn Twins
A film still from Black White Grey > Maholy Nagy
Dust Rising > Man Ray

[Tin Can]

Will, I was fishing for that answer :)

Not to denigrate anyone's opinion or desire.

However, I would also choose my own 'Work!', as Maynard G Krebs (https://www.metv.com/stories/maynard-g-krebs-was-televisions-first-hipster) would shriek.

I really enjoy making and viewing MY art!

This thread and the other one have been very educational for me. I never heard of many of the favorites and looked each one up.

Keep em coming, please...




Me.

[Eric Rose]

Edward Weston

[Greg Y]

Bradford Washburn

[William Whitaker]

Will, I was fishing for that answer :)

Not to denigrate anyone's opinion or desire.

However, I would also choose my own 'Work!', as Maynard G Krebs (https://www.metv.com/stories/maynard-g-krebs-was-televisions-first-hipster) would shriek.

I really enjoy making and viewing MY art!

This thread and the other one have been very educational for me. I never heard of many of the favorites and looked each one up.

Keep em coming, please...

If I take myself seriously at all, then surely I must be self-inclusive? That's not to put me on par with the masters. Nor so vain as to put myself above others. It's just an honest answer.

[Mark Sampson]

It's a very large question. Three years working at a world-renowned art museum makes me want to think very hard about my choice. If I decide at all, I'll post my answer...

[PRJ]

I think it would be among the golden triumvirate for me. Weston, Kertesz and Gibson. Each for their own reason, but it would be hard to choose...

[Peter Lewin]

A slight digression triggered by several responses. In the "real world," I have a family room where I hang lots of photographs, say 60% of my work, and 40% purchased. The purchased work is intermingled partly because I love looking at it, but also to give me a point of comparison for my own. When my own prints blend in, I know I am seeing and printing well; if it sticks out like a sore thumb, I know I have work to do. So to come back to this thread, my choice(s) are aspirational, I want the best quality prints and ways of seeing that I can find on the wall. It doesn't mean I wouldn't continue to pursue my own photography, and compare it to my "new" standards (in my earlier post I chose Clift or Strand), but it also says I wouldn't choose to hang my own prints (as per the "only 3 prints hanging forever" rule) and not have anything to compare my work to.

[drewf64]

Edward Weston
1. Floating Nude, 1939.
2. Knees of Dancer, 1927.
3. Pepper, 1930. (The one shown in "Photography and Modernism" as Plate 38.)
*** This, IMHO, is a beautiful book!

[Laminarman]

Tough questions but probably three of Adams Yosemite images, or two Yosemite and his Leaf, Glacier Bay or maybe a portrait. I just don't tire looking at them.

[aclark]

James Ravilious.

Alan

[bigdog]

Chema Madoz

[John Kasaian]

My kids artwork, on the fridge door with magnets :cool:

[aaronnate]

Hard to decide.

I used to think an Adams mural-sized print would be perfect but lately not so much. I seem to be moving back to my roots here in the AZ desert, and love of impressionism.

Monet _The Avenue and 2 Water Lillies. I'll need a bigger room too because I want the BIG ones
or
R.C. Gorman_ The Monarch, Chilli Peppers, Navajo Mother.

[Alan Gales]

My kids artwork, on the fridge door with magnets :cool:

John, you have a great perspective on life!

[Per Madsen]

August Sander.

[Vaughn]

I would have my work up -- but which three pieces would be difficult to choose. I'll keep the fridge for snapshots of my boys.

[Drew Wiley]

Who has any wall space left??

[DonJ]

Brett Weston.

If not restricted to photography, van Gogh.

[Tin Can]

If you had read the OP, you would have found only 3 prints in your home was a stipulation.

Go back to post 1.


Who has any wall space left??

[Drew Wiley]

Oh, Thanks, Randy. In that case, I won't specify exact images, but I'd want a big Carleton Watkins albumen print, something Brett Weston, and something Atget toward the end of his life.

[Tin Can]

Good to know!

[Drew Wiley]

I did have specific images in mind. The Watkins: perhaps only one in existence due to the 1906 SF earthquake and fire, and now rather mold stained; but it's an 18x22 inch albumen print of a point blank Calif. buckeye tree in winter (no leaves, just branches and buckeye nuts. It's been a largely ignored image, probably because one needs to view it in person full scale to duly appreciate, but is one of the very earliest and very best examples of true photographic modernism, well before even Atget or Stieglitz or Sheeler did anything comparable. Atget: one of the St Cloud pool reflection series. Nothing in photography is grander. Brett W: again, something deceptively simple but endlessly rewarding: a 20X24 of a curled "dead leaf Hawaii 1984". He didn't print big very often; but that particular image works best large. If I were permitted a fourth print, it would be Julia Cameron's platinum portrait of Florence Fisher 1872 - a pre-Raphaelite cliche, yep, but visualized and printed so superbly that it transcends the stereotypes, just like most of her work.

[Peter Lewin]

Drew: just to be picky, the OP specified 3 works by one artist. Can you meet his terms? Your choices are great, but now you have to chose between Watkins, Brett Weston, Atget, and Julia Cameron :).

[Drew Wiley]

Well, I'd still have to put Watkins at the head of the line, but really should default to my first answer: I don't have any wall space left!

[Vaughn]

I grew up with a couple 18x22 Watkins on the walls -- I suppose that instead of my work, I could go out with Watkins still on the walls. (after all there is no rule saying I can't have portfolio boxes of my work and of others in the backroom!) The two Watkins images I grew up with (two Central Pacific steam locomotives, passenger cars with people standing on top, Cape Horn, Sierras...and a vertical of the Three Brothers reflected in the Merced River. The one Drew mentioned of the buckeye sounds like a fine third.
http://portlandartmuseum.us/MWEBimages/IMAGES/PERMANENT%20COLLECTION/1990/1997_0058_0150_P.jpg
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_zKHf9vT23pA/TUr3t6VARsI/AAAAAAAAAAU/eYHexo9jmWc/s1600/carleton-watkins-the-three-brothers.jpg

[John Olsen]

My own work. It's my life and my house, and if only one person gets the honor, it's me. The BIG problem though, is selecting best images out of more than 30 years of hard work. Too bad about the lack of humility and all that, but I love what I do or I wouldn't bother. We should all strive to satisfy ourselves, first and foremost.


Stick up for yourselves.

[Drew Wiley]

I have some very nice antique prints. But I mainly use my own walls for tests, including various bellyflop alternate ways of framing, media permanence, etc. - I like hard experience experimenting and establishing quality boundaries before I potentially offer anything to a client. My best prints stay on shelves or in big flat files. But I'm running out of space just for those! But I'm a horribly harsh critic of my own work. If I can live with a specific personal image on the wall year after year, I figure it's a winner. Without going into detail, I could kick myself for not trading a couple of prints with someone named on this thread several times, back when that was still possible. But I badly needed cash sales, so that's what I took. I could also kick myself for not buying a couple of really exceptional Cameron prints for 2K apiece. But that was a lot of money to me way back then, and simply unrealistic.

[mike rosenlof]

Imogen cunningham. One of her botanicals, like maybe the white magnolia, her portrait of Frida Kahlo, and I haven't picked the third, but maybe the unmade bed and bobby pins.

[Pat Kearns]

Merg Ross, and the three would be, Reeds, Reflections and Mono Lake. If it could only be one it would be Reeds. The reeds and their reflections on the nothingness of water is brilliant.

[Sfroza]

Stleglitz.

The prints that I would have on my wall would be. The photograph of Georgia O'Keefe's hand with the silver bracelet on the V8 Ford spare tire. Because of the style. The second would be a cloud equivalents. Down to the last, it is difficult to make the final selection. I would select The steerage. My thought is that each represent different disciplines in photography. Commercial/fine art, abstract and photojournalism/street. I don't think that I would ever become tired seeing them. After forty five years I still go back to them for inspiration.

Michael