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Price: $500.00 |
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NEAR MINT CONDITION |
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Extraordinary original and blind stamped 11” x 14” Alfred Statler photograph of the composer conducting. The photograph was taken on January 3rd,1960 at Carnegie Hall with Stravinsky conducting “Le Sacre de Printemps” with the Columbia Symphony Orchestra. Statler was on assignment shooting Stravinsky for a Life Magazine story.
Alfred Statler (1916-1984) a native New Yorker went to Cooper Union to study painting. The War intervened and he was drafted and assigned to a photography unit where he learned to be a photographer on the job. He came back to the United States to his life as an artist and took his wife Betty to Paris to study painting with the cubist Frank St. Leger. Whilst in Paris Betty began taking photographs of scenes around the city. When they returned Betty worked for Time-Life researching photographs and Alfred began taking photographs in his free time of street scenes around the city. With Betty’s help he got placement and a second career was born, one which today is far better known than his art career. Eventually he was sent on assignment to photograph famous figures of the day. In the music world, he was well known for his photographs of: Igor Stravinsky, Leonard Bernstein, Duke Ellington, Van Cliburn and Miles Davis. He also shot other New York City notables like: Andy Warhol, Elie Wiesel, Walter Cronkite and James Rosenquist among others. Statler’s photographic was sold at auction in 2014 after the death of his widow Betty in 2013. We have reviewed all of the lots and could not find this image as offered in the 11” x 14” individual photographs and lots. His photographs are sold at auction with frequency and also by photographic dealers.
Statler was tasked to photograph Igor Stravinsky for a Life Magazine story in 1959. He spent three years photographing the composer, not an easy feat for a story which ran in June, 1962. Stravinsky known to be cantankerous and not easy with photographers must have liked Statler as he gave him full access at home and at work. Columbia Records planned a “Stravinsky Conducts The Rite of Spring” record for 1960 and planned a live performance of the work with the composer conducting the CBS Symphony Orchestra at Carnegie Hall on January 3rd, 1960. This was Stravinsky’s only appearance as a conductor in New York City during the three years Statler spent photographing him
The photograph is spectacular in person, far better than our scan white margin all the way around.. |
IGOR STRAVINSKY - COMPOSER |
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Phone: 212-860-5541 * Fax: 917-677-8247
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