Jane Corkin poses for a portrait in her gallery in Toronto’s Distillery District on March 20.DUANE COLE/The Globe and Mail
It’s become commonplace to observe that we all now carry a camera in our pockets. Yet in truth, quick, cheap photography was accessible throughout the 20th century, from the development of the Kodak Brownie in 1900 to the rise of the Polaroid in the 1950s.
That familiarity could breed contempt, and, as Toronto photography dealer Jane Corkin looks back over her 45-year career, she recalls how hard it was initially to convince anyone that this popular medium was also an art form.
“In the early years, we had to navigate a conversation explaining why photography was art,” she said in a recent interview, describing people’s skepticism: “If I could do it, could it be art?”
Today, the case has been won, and while we amateurs load our phones with thousands of pictures, all art museums collect photography by professional artists. If photography is ubiquitous, it is also celebrated.
Pieces of art featured in Jane Corkin’s gallery. Corkin features works from famed American photographers such as Richard Avedon, Robert Mapplethorpe, Irving Penn and André Kertesz.DUANE COLE/The Globe and Mail
To trace the roots of art photography and demonstrate its long artistic lineage, Corkin invited Stephen Brown, a photography collector and doctor at Sick Kids, to pick works from her own holdings for a 45th anniversary show. Their concept is to match pieces by contemporary artists who use photography with their influences and precedents.
For example, the show includes a large, new piece by Calgary artist Sondra Meszaros that repurposes old photography including images of a woman’s legs in fishnet stockings and a obscuring curtain. It is juxtaposed with some examples of European photo collage from the 1920s and 1930s, the kind of provocative mashups that inspire Meszaros, who then brings a contemporary feminist slant to the objectification of women’s bodies.
To make these pairings, the exhibition relies on some rare early photographs. Corkin, who moved her gallery to the Distillery District 25 years ago and also shows painting and sculpture, is the kind of dealer who buys and holds.
“I have the soul of a collector: I see it, I like it, I buy it – if I can afford it,” she said.
Corkin moved her gallery to the Distillery District 25 years ago, and aside from photography it also shows painting and sculpture.DUANE COLE/The Globe and Mail
Corkin has collected (and sometimes also represented) famed American photographers such as Richard Avedon, Robert Mapplethorpe, Irving Penn and André Kertesz, the Hungarian-born pioneer who is included twice in the show. A 1977 view of Chartres cathedral eschews the obvious façade for a backdoor view, while a notable early work, My Mother’s Hands of 1928, features a surreal elongation of the fingers, as Kertesz made the first experiments with distorting the photographic image.
That is one of the several classic photos included here. Corkin also owns Gertrude Käsebier’s Miss N., a 1901-02 portrait of the New York beauty, Evelyn Nesbit; Dorothea Lange’s Mended Stockings, San Franscisco, a 1934 closeup of a women’s crossed leg showing her carefully stitched repairs; and Swiss artist Sophie Taeuber-Arp’s photograph of herself posing with the Dada head she made in 1920.
It’s no coincidence that all three of these artists are women. Corkin has often found herself buying female photographers. Taeuber-Arp is not as well known as her husband, Jean Arp, but her constructivist abstractions and her involvement in the Dada movement as an visual artist and dancer have been rediscovered in recent years. The 1920 Dada head photograph is now much prized.
To match pieces by contemporary artists who use photography with their influences and precedents, the exhibition relies on some rare early photographs.DUANE COLE/The Globe and Mail
“I didn’t set out to buy female artists, and I didn’t realize they made such a core to the collection until I looked back on it,” Corkin said.
Taeuber-Arp shows the artist in a little bowler hat and a light veil, her face further obscured by the head she is holding in front of her. It’s a smooth wooden sphere of the kind used as a hat stand but painted by the artist with a geometric pattern and outfitted with a long triangle for a nose.
The artist presents a portrait of herself obscured by her art. It’s a photograph that speaks to two of the themes that interest Corkin: abstraction in photography and identity. The third theme she identifies is the environment, a topic addressed obliquely in this anniversary show.
Work by Dorothea Lange, Linda McCartney and Hannes Meyer featured in Jane Corkin's gallery.DUANE COLE/The Globe and Mail
One of the highlights is a series by New Brunswick artist Thaddeus Holownia featuring large and lush closeups of bird feathers. It’s a tribute to his late partner Gay Hansen, an ornithologist at Mount Allison University, where they both taught.
The remarkable sequence of patterns, both powerful and delicate, also speaks to Corkin’s interest in abstraction. Perhaps they are just photos of feathers, yet nobody could question their status as high art.
Between Life and Light: 45th Anniversary Photography Show continues to April 26 at the Jane Corkin Gallery in Toronto’s Distillery District.