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Jim Munford
Retrospective
October 9 - November 9, 2003


A photographic retrospective (1953 - 2003) of the streets, barrooms, parks and other gathering places where New Yorkers assemble to harass or entertain each other.
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Press Release

A photographic retrospective (1953 - 2003) of the streets, barrooms, parks and other gathering places where New Yorkers assemble to harass or entertain each other

New York, NY - Gallery49 is pleased to present a selection of over 60 vintage and recent photographs taken by Jim Munford in New York City over the past half century. These include views of life in the Barrio at the beginning of the Puerto Rican migration to the city, images of the Astor Beaux Arts Ball in 1956, Halloween marchers, jazz musicians, Gypsy flamenco guitarists, children at play in the streets and adults at work; telling moments in the lives of the people in Hell's Kitchen, Chinatown, Washington Square and the barrooms of Brooklyn; vivid portraits of grotesques and eccentrics, as well as the common man.

New York is one of the most photogenic cities in the world, and its bustling people and towering buildings have been a lodestone for photographers since the 19th century. Jim Munford is an example of the power of the photographer to do more than either record truth or create beauty; he accomplishes both those ends in images that often transcend the aesthetic and the documentary in this dynamic panorama of what the city and its people have looked like over the past half century. In the great tradition of Cartier-Bresson, Lange, and Leipzig, he has artfully captured the spirit of time and place in a variety of familiar and unfamiliar areas of the city, illuminating the commonplace moments of its life in powerful black-and-white silver gelatin prints from the 1950s to the present.

When asked about his work, Jim Munford recalls that his career in art began in the 1940s when he visited New York as a merchant seaman and experienced "bright visual moments" in neighborhoods like Little Italy and Harlem. "A few years later, when I finally had a camera in my hand," he reports, "I went in search of such moments." He credits his sensitive use of light to the paintings of Hopper, Turner, and Vermeer, but his technical mastery of his medium began with his study under the great photographer David Vestal in the late 1950s. In the next decade, he studied with Lisette Model, along with fellow students Diane Arbus, and with Life photographer W. Eugene Smith, who later worked with him as a consultant and contributor when Munford edited and published The Journal of Visual Medicine.

Jim Munford has combined careers in photography and publishing since 1953. His works have been presented at the Museum of Modern Art in a group show curated by Edward Steichen as well as in solo exhibitions in galleries in Boston and New York. His latest solo show at Gallery@49 will be on view through November 9. The opening reception in the artist's presence will take place on Thursday, October 9, from 6 to 8 P.M. and will feature a live musical performance by The Howard Williams Jazz Trio.

Gallery@49 is located at 322 West 49th Street (between 8th and 9th Ave.) Gallery@49 can be reached by subways E, C to 50th St. or N, R to 49th St. Gallery Hours: Tuesday – Saturday 12- 6 pm. For additional information or visual material please call (212) 767-0855 or e-mail: info@gallery49.com