PHILIP TRAGER: PHOTOGRAPHING INA opens March 25, 2016 at Wesleyan University

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

March 3, 2016
Contact: Clare I. Rogan, Curator Davison Art Center 860-685-2966

DAVISON ART CENTER, WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY, PRESENTS

PHILIP TRAGER: PHOTOGRAPHING INA

Friday, March 25 through Sunday, May 22, 2016

Opening Reception: Thursday, March 24, 2016, 5:00–7:00 p.m.
Conversation at 5:30 p.m. between artist Philip Trager ’56 and Andrew Szegedy-Maszak, Jane A. Seney Professor of Greek, Professor and Chair of Classical Studies

(MIDDLETOWN, CT) – The Davison Art Center, Wesleyan University, is delighted to present the exhibition Philip Trager: Photographing Ina. The exhibition coincides with the publication by Steidl in May 2016 of the book Photographing Ina. The exhibition, like the book, has two parts. The first is a series of immaculately composed black-and-white photographs taken in the 1980s, after 25 years of marriage. The second part, taken in the last decade after 50 years of marriage, reveals Trager’s new color photography—an unexpected and tender meditation on the act of photographing, on perception, color, and light.

The earlier photographs, all in black and white, were created in the 1980s. These crisp, modernist images are closely cropped, with precise attention to form and pattern. Although these are photographs of one individual, Ina Trager, the clarity and formal precision present her as an archetype of a woman in her middle years. The more recent color digital photographs from the last decade open up the view to include her surroundings, and these images playfully acknowledge the photographer, who is visible in the many mirrors in the series. The modernist construction of the first series gives way to the theatricality of overtly posed color images.

Several male photographers are known for their images of their wives. These couples include Alfred Stieglitz and Georgia O’Keeffe, Harry and Eleanor Callahan, and Emmet and Edith Gowin. Producing this work required ongoing collaboration and understanding between artist and model; but unlike many of his predecessors, Trager photographed Ina only at two distinctly different moments in their lives together, and he chose formal poses rather than immediate records of everyday life. The trust and tender connection between Philip and Ina Trager made it possible for Philip to create these moving portraits; yet the moving effect of these photographs is based on his skill and their precision as records of light, form, and color.

Philip Trager is one of the foremost photographers of architecture and dance. He has published twelve monographs of his photographs including New York in the 1970s (also forthcoming from Steidl in 2016). He has exhibited extensively, including selected solo shows at The National Building Museum (in cooperation with the Library of Congress), Washington, DC; the New York Public Library, New York; Jacob’s Pillow, Becket, Massachusetts; and the Baltimore Museum of Art. Trager’s work is held by numerous museum collections including the Museum of Modern Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Center for Creative Photography, The Phillips Collection, and The Bibliothèque National in Paris. A definitive archive of his work was acquired by the Library of Congress. The Davison Art Center, Wesleyan University, holds a complete archive of Trager’s published photographs.

RELATED EVENT:

Thursday, March 24, 5:00–7:00 pm
Opening reception
Conversation at 5:30 p.m. between artist Philip Trager ’56 and Andrew Szegedy-Maszak, Jane A. Seney Professor of Greek, Professor and Chair of Classical Studies
Free and open to the public

Gallery hours are Tuesday–Sunday, 12–4 p.m. (closed Mondays). The gallery is open to the public free of charge. The Davison Art Center is located at 301 High Street on the campus of Wesleyan University in Middletown, CT. For further information, phone (860) 685-2500 or visit the DAC website at www.wesleyan.edu/dac.

The Davison Art Center was established at Wesleyan University with the founding gifts of George Willets Davison (B.A. Wesleyan 1892). Today it holds approximately 18,000 prints and 6,000 photographs in one of the foremost collections of prints and photographs at an American college or university.

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For a high-resolution PDF of this press release, including images, please visit http://www.wesleyan.edu/dac/exhibitions/press/DAC_pr_2016-03_Trager_Ina.pdf