FOR:
HYDE PARK ART CENTER
Contact: Goldene Shaw 5236 s. Blackstone 505 N. Lake Shore Chicago, Il.
947-9656 60615
Chicago, Il.
828-0326 60611
PHOTOGRAPHY EXHIBITION AT HYDE PARK ART CENTER
A young woman photographer whose censorship battle made news paper headlines last June and a retired Art Institute of Chicago photography professor who got his start in the potato business in Idaho have been brought together by the Hyde Park Art Center for a joint exhibition of their recent photographs.
Opening at the Center, 5236 s. Blackstone on Friday, November 11 with a 7 to 9 pm reception, the photographs of Jane Wenger and Harold Allen will be on exhibit through December 10.
Both artists are concerned with architecture, the difference being that Allen photographs buildings and Ms. Wenger is involved with the landscape of the human body.
Allen’s architectural photographs have been published in books, magazines, and encyclopedias; his prints are in museums and private collections. He has always worked with a press-type 4 ”x5″ camera beginning with a Speed Graphic and later using a Linhof Technika.
Ms. Wenger creates a landscape of the body, isolating and transforming it, disorienting the viewer through the play of forms at once abstract and stunningly detailed. They range in size from 5 x7″ to a bout 16 ”x20″.
The storm over Ms. Wenger’s photographs occurred last June when Artemisia, a co-op gallery for women artists, hung a show at the John Hancock gallery. Her photographs, a self-portrait series were censored; and in protest, other members of the group took their work down from the show before the opening.
A New Yorker, Ms. Wenger who completed course work for a M.S. in Photography at the Institute of Design, Illinois Institute of Technology in 1969 dates a 1974 exhibition in Spokane, Washington as an important milestone. ?rom that show she received an invitation to teach photography at the University of Illinois Circle Campus; Artemisia invited her to become a member and the New York Museum of Modern Art purchased a print.
Allen who grew up in Blackfoot, Idaho, graduated from high school in 1930 (the height of the depression). He worked in the Idaho potato business and on hay and cattle ranches before coming to Chicago in 1937 to attend the School of the Art Institute. An Army Air Force photographer during World War II, he taught photography at the Art Institute from 1948 to 1960 and from 1966 to 1977 when he retired. In 1971 he was named Frederick Latimer Wells professor at the School, and in 1972, the School published his book, “Father Ravalli’s Missions”, photographs and text documenting early Indian Mission churches in the Northwest.
Although the Darger show which closes November 5 is a hard act to follow,” said Center exhibition chairman Philip Pintor. “We think we are bringing together another winning combination. The juxtaposition of buildings and bodies as seen through the eyes of Allen and Wenger gives an awareness of photography as an exciting and artistic medium.”
Gallery hours are: 1 to 4 p.m. weekdays and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturdays.