This year's Photo San Francisco, the third such show was able to maintain its audience level despite a wild ride on the stock market prior to the show's opening. According to show promoter and photo dealer Stephen Cohen, the gate for the four days was just a hair above last year's show at 3,800 versus 3,700.

"All in all, I think it was a good show," Cohen told me. "Considering all that's happening it was fine. The show looked the best that it ever has and the opening reception was great...In this economy where everything like costs are rising and sales are not, flat is good."

Cohen concluded, "Some dealers had a moderate fair, and some did very well."

That was indeed a fair assessment. Several of the dealers either told us it was their best show ever or that they did very well. A significant number of others, including ourselves, had a much weaker show than last year, although our show last year was the best that we had ever done, so it may not be a fair comparison. There seemed to be less of the big buyers at the show this year, but those that did come were still very active in the lower and mid-level areas. Terry Etherton, Henry Feldstein, Paul Kopeikin, Galerie Pernkof, Northern Lights, Dave Winter, Scott Nichols (thanks for the key, Scott) and others reportedly had strong results.

While I did not get a chance to visit every booth, I particularly liked the Chicago Institute of Design material at Stephen Daiter's booth, the Sonya Noskowiak material at Paul Hertzmann's booth (he and Susan now represent the estate), the modernist material at Bruce Silverstein's booth, and the overall selection at Howard Greenberg's booth (always a strong group).

My particular thanks to fellow photo dealers Barry and Gretchen Singer ( singer@singergallery.com ) for their wonderful and kind hospitality when my girlfriend Danielle and I came visiting their abode in Petaluma. By the way, their spacious gallery in Petaluma (7 Western Avenue) is simply great and they have some super images up on the walls. I thought a nature series of 10 images by Brett Weston that they had for sale was at a very reasonable price, considering that some of the individual prints might normally sell for half of the asking price for the group of ten.
 

Private photo dealer Charles Schwartz Ltd. has joined the I Photo Central website group and will use the iphotocentral database system to exhibit his own website's inventory. Charles Schwartz Ltd. specializes in 19th and 20th-century vintage photographs from around the world and is an Association of International Photography Art Dealers (AIPAD) member.

A longtime member of the photography community, Charles Schwartz is a collector, photographer and independent dealer in New York City. Schwartz operates by appointment and through his websites, http://www.cs-photo.com and http://www.iphotocentral.com His eclectic inventory ranges from cased images and early paper prints to European and American Modernism to vernacular photographs. His email is csltd@cs-photo.com

In addition to offering images for sale, Schwartz's own website features several of his special projects. One on-going project focuses on the history and uses of the camera obscura. Schwartz installed a camera obscura in his home several years ago and has used it in a variety of photographic experiments. He posts some of this work on the site, along with historical information and imagery.

Another of the site's sections highlights the work of H. C. Anderson, an African-American photographer in Greenville, Mississippi from the 1940s through the 1960s. As a portrait and event photographer, Anderson documented life in this middle-class Black community through an era of tremendous change. A book of Anderson's work, entitled Separate But Equal, will be released in October by Public Affairs.

You can view the 350-plus images from Charles Schwartz by going to http://www.iphotocentral.com/search/search.php and putting in CharlesSchwartz (without any space and capitalizing the C and S) in the keyword space and hitting the Search button.

The I Photo Central site recently became available to other photography dealers after extensive software programming to make putting up images even easier. Schwartz is the first to join the IPhotoCentral site after these changes were finalized at the end of June. Other dealers are now encouraged to call us at 215-822-5662 or to contact us at anovak@comcat.com to find out how they can have their own site and join the IPhotoCentral site at the same time for one low monthly fee of only $250. Putting up and changing items on the site is easy and quick. No programming or HTML work is required, although you will need to scan or shoot your images into jpeg files. You can also put up Special Exhibits pages and promote your gallery shows on line. A low one-time set-up fee is also required. With nearly a million hits per month and about ten thousand user sessions served per week, IPhotoCentral has become the web destination of choice for photo collectors, curators and dealers.
 

Bonhams, the privately owned British fine art auction house, has just acquired Butterfields auction house from eBay Inc. The agreement includes the purchase of 100% of Butterfields' stock, including Butterfields' traditional auction business and certain real estate occupied by Butterfields in San Francisco and Los Angeles.

With galleries in both San Francisco and Los Angeles, the new U.S. company will continue to trade as Butterfields. The acquisition was funded entirely from Bonhams' own resources, without recourse to external borrowing. It comes just a year after Bonhams merged with fellow UK company, Phillips Auctioneers (not to be confused with the European and New York auction company Phillips) and follows closely on the heels of eBay's new relationship with Sotheby's. All three of the now-merged auction houses have, from time to time, dabbled in photography, but none seem to have had the staying power to battle it out with Sotheby's and Christie's on this front.

A spokesman for eBay Inc. said the acquisition of Butterfields in April 1999 facilitated eBay's entry into the fine and decorative art and collectibles categories. The purchase also helped eBay reach out to a new class of buyers and sellers. In September 2000, eBay and Butterfields launched eBay's Live Auction technology attempting to bring the traditional showroom auction to Internet users. But the acquisition never really seemed to jell, and the tension between the high-flying Internet company and the bricks-and-mortar auction house seemed to build as plans to move auctions from the showroom to the on-line venue failed to work as planned. EBay originally acquired Butterfields for $260 million in stock.

The sale to Bonhams of Butterfields and its wholly owned financing subsidiary closed on July 31, 2002. The sale to Bonhams of certain real estate currently occupied by Butterfields is expected to close in Q4 of this year. Financial terms of the two transactions were not disclosed, however, they are not expected to have a material impact on eBay's Q3 or Q4 2002 consolidated financial results. In other words, eBay did not come close to recouping their purchase price on this fire sale.

The current incarnation of Bonhams was formed by the merger in November 2001 of Bonhams & Brooks and Phillips Son and Neale, UK. Today, Bonhams is reportedly the world's oldest and largest auctioneers of fine art and antiques remaining with British ownership.

In an earlier move eBay announced that it had agreed to acquire PayPal, Inc. The acquisition, which is subject to various stockholder, government and regulatory approvals, is expected to close around year-end 2002.

EBay calls this purchase "a natural extension of eBay's trading platform, the acquisition supports the company's mission to create an efficient global online marketplace."

EBay will acquire all of the outstanding shares of PayPal in a tax-free, stock-for-stock transaction using a fixed exchange ratio of 0.39 eBay shares for each PayPal share. Based on eBay's stock price on July 5, 2002, the acquisition is valued at $1.5 billion. According to preliminary estimates, the recognized purchase price is also expected to include approximately $18 million for acquisition-related costs. The calculation of the final purchase price may vary "significantly" from these estimates, and will depend upon a number of factors, including the length of time necessary to close the transaction, and the value of eBay stock at closing.

PayPal, which, according to eBay, will continue to operate as an "independent brand", is a company that provides online payment. Approximately 60% of PayPal's business takes place on eBay, and you can be assured that if the past is any indication, eBay will now jam PayPal down every vendor's throat whether they want it or not. Not surprisingly eBay's current payment service, eBay Payments by Billpoint, will be phased out after the close of the transaction.

For auction news with an even bigger impact on the photography field, see the Insider News Briefs below.
 

MOVING ON...Well, it is official: Sotheby's London's Philippe Garner has jumped ship to Phillips auction house, where he will take over worldwide direction of photography and 20th and 21st century design for the firm. It is likely that Roger Therond's famed photo collection will follow Garner, as well as possibly Andre Jammes' final installments (yes, there is still more left). Those auctions could make for a potent start for Garner at this house, and could finally put Phillips on the map when it comes to the photography market in Paris and New York. Phillips already owns Tajan, which was the major Paris house for photography in recent years. It is possible that Phillips will now become a major player in photography and decorative art due to Garner's impact, but it is still too early to see how all of this shakes out. It is certainly welcome news to see that the talented Garner is still working in the photo trade, but will Phillips be the right horse? We will have to follow this one closely. Now if I can only get them to send me catalogues...

MORE MOVING ON...After just one year, Rick Wester has left Gagosian Galleries to pursue photography projects privately. Wester had previously headed up Christie's worldwide photography efforts...

STILL MORE MOVING ON...My former assistant director, Phillip Prodger, has also just been appointed Assistant Curator of Prints, Drawings and Photographs at the St. Louis Art Museum. As the press release reads: Phillip brings to the Art Museum experience as a guest curator at Stanford University's Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts, where he curated exhibitions on the photographer Eadweard Muybridge, as well as at the Natural History Museum in London, where he curated an exhibition on photographs collected by Charles Darwin. He has also been a curatorial intern at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and a lecturer in photography at the Hong Kong Arts Centre. Phillip holds a B.A. from Williams College, an M.A. from Stanford University, and has submitted his dissertation for a Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge on "Art and Artists in the Circle of Charles Darwin." He has published numerous articles on the history of photography, and is the author of "Time Stands Still: Muybridge and the Instantaneous Photography Movement," a book forthcoming from Oxford University Press. My congratulations to both him and his respective institution...

JAIL TIME FOR TAUBMAN...Former Sotheby's chairman and still controlling stockholder (although frantically searching for a buyer before the stock price drops completely out of sight) Arthur Taubman has lost his legal appeal and has reported to jail. Taubman began serving a prison sentence in a Rochester, MN prison hospital at 1 p.m., August 1. Jack Fox, a spokeperson, said Taubman had no outstanding medical problems but would probably be held in the medical unit because of his age...Meanwhile the settlement credit coupons that were supposed to go to Sotheby's and Christie's customers may finally be on their way. The US Court of Appeals of the Second Circuit just upheld the earlier decision. Unless someone else appeals this latest court determination, the coupons should start to head out the door soon...Moody's lowered ratings on about $200 million of debt securities from Sotheby's, questioning the auction company's strategies as it seeks a buyer of a controlling interest. Sotheby's stock has dropped recently in daily trading to as low as single figures...

A NEW NYC PHOTO SHOW...Add the weekend and Monday following the fall auctions in New York to your hotel reservations. Photography at the Armory (the name is definitely confusing because the show will be held at the Jacob Javits Center) is scheduled in an odd Friday to Monday timeframe immediately after (and even during Christie's) the NY fall auctions. The show management expects to get 80-90 dealers to show their wares--both vintage and contemporary, a la Paris Photo. Vintage Works has signed up for the show, which, if it comes off, runs from October 25-28, 2002.
 

Weighing in at over 20 pounds and sporting its own carrying case as well as slip case, the new Alfred Stieglitz: The Key Set, Volumes One and Two, by the National Gallery of Art's Sarah Greenough, Julia Thompson and others from the NGA staff is one of the most astounding pieces of research work ever done in the photography field. Published by Harry N. Abrams, Inc., this massive and beautifully printed book is a deep well of information on Stieglitz and his circle. The list price is $150, but it is already being discounted to $105, which is a great price.

There is so much information here to absorb. Greenough takes you from Stieglitz's earliest years as a young amateur to his last years as a photographer. As is common with academics, sometimes Greenough's footnotes provide the most interest and poignancy, as, for example, when she briefly quotes a Stieglitz letter near the end of his life to Edward Weston: "The Dead Poplars are really a Self Portrait."

While Greenough's beginning essay is generally masterful and well written, I can not help but wonder why the other women in Stieglitz's life got such short shift, while Georgia O'Keefe, who was the donor of the "Key Set" (the largest single collection of Stieglitz's work, selected especially by Stieglitz himself), got such an overwhelmingly positive and sympathetic portrayal. While I realize that--as Sarah notes--Stieglitz apparently eliminated some images in the Key Set that might offend O'Keefe, there is still enough here to draw attention to Stieglitz's other affairs. Even Dorothy Norman, one of several important affairs that Stieglitz maintained, is dismissed with words like "far more worshipful and willing" than the "passive and resigned" (at that point) O'Keefe. Stieglitz's often-difficult relationships with the women in his life are somehow submerged here. His nude and seductive pictures of many of the women he had torrid affairs with, his very young relatives and even his friends' wives are scandalous even today, and yet are rarely commented upon by Greenough and group except in the most innocent of context.

This is perhaps only a minor negative note though, when one sets it against the rest of the fine article and the nearly 1,700 perfectly printed and documented images that follow. The bibliography, list of exhibitions of Stieglitz's own work, a chronology of processes and techniques by Stieglitz, and another essay on his portfolios by Thompson just add to the wealth of riches in this book. When--on top of all of this--you factor in the references on where other copies of specific images are currently, the obvious years of efforts seem all very worthwhile. Kudos to Greenough and the National Gallery of Art staff.
 

It is always a pleasure to read the work of two of my favorite curator-writers--Malcolm Daniel and Mark Haworth-Booth. Unlike many academics, both have learned to inject style, drama and interest into their language. I had already seen the marvelous show that this book was drawn from at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, so this book, Benjamin Brecknell Turner: Rural England through a Victorian Lens, provoked considerable anticipation.

Published by V&A Publications and distributed by Harry N. Abrams, Inc., this 128-page book is listed for a reasonable $39.95. The color printing was done in Italy, but I must say I was a bit disappointed in its quality after seeing the actual work itself glowing off the walls of the Canon Exhibition Room in the V&A. Not that the printing is terrible. It is just that it suffers against the prints themselves. Therefore, if you have not yet seen Turner's prints (and what a shame that would be), you will probably think the printing is lovely.

The images, as in most photography books, are the real reason to buy this title. They represent a strong selection of Turner's work from what is undoubtedly the most important album that he put together, but you should not just skip over the essays.

Daniel and Haworth-Booth do not disappoint. They are both true writers with a flair for drawing you into the story--and stories they are that they have written under the bland headings of "Introduction: The State of the Art" by Daniel and "Benjamin Brecknell Turner: A Biography" by Haworth-Booth.

Malcolm's thesis is that there is something important about Turner's images being integrally "English" and very unique. But I am not sure this is such a crucial point; after all, culture and an individual's vision almost always have this effect on photography. I think the primary difference between French and English photography is that French photographers largely come from an artistic background and English photographers come from a scientific or business background, or both. Turner came from a business background but had many scientists as friends.

Daniel picked out some French images to compare the differences between the French and English. I am afraid though that if I picked out the French comparisons instead of Malcolm, I think I could have found some "dead ringers" for Turner among the truly rural images there. However, I did find his flare for setting out an examination of this premise to be informative, thought-provoking and entertaining.

Leave it to Mark to begin his biography of Turner with an examination of a photograph of the photographer himself. And how can one fail to like a man who appreciates wine and makes it the subject of one of his first images? Mark makes you like this man through his fully fleshed-out sketch of Turner's life and interests.

The main author of the book is Martin Barnes, associate curator with Mark at the V&A. The overall work that Barnes accomplished in helping to organize this book and show is commendable, and there is much good information in his article on the Turner album itself in his book essay "Photographic Views from Nature." It is a work of research that makes a major contribution to our understanding of 19th century amateur photography in Rural England and it is ably done.

I just wish it were not such an "academically" written essay. While Daniel and Haworth-Booth both use footnotes the way they were meant to be used--as references to the source material, Barnes--as too many academics do--succumbs to the urge to footnote too much instead of incorporating the ideas in the actual flow of the story, thereby enriching it. His essay is a bit dry for my taste, writing as if this were a Ph.D. thesis rather than a book to be shared with the Photography community at large.

But Barnes' grasp of the field of early photography is impressive, so I am sure that he will continue to improve his style with each of his endeavors. He merely needs to get some of his obvious enthusiasm for photography to actually show on the printed page.

If you are a publisher or an author, you can send review copies to: Alex Novak, 258 Inverness Circle, Chalfont, PA 18914 USA. Sending us a copy does not insure that you will get a review, but we do try to cover books that we feel will be especially helpful to our newsletter readers. We will not consider a review unless a copy of the book is actually sent.