Keith de Lellis Gallery will re-open September 6 at our new location--1045 Madison Avenue (between 79th & 80th Street)--with the exhibition, Déjà vu, a re-collection of our best of show over the past ten years.

Since our inaugural show in 1997, Keith de Lellis Gallery has mounted more than 40 exhibitions of vintage photography appealing to both the traditional-minded as well as offbeat collectors. Exhibitions ranged from the industrial aesthetic of photographer Margaret Bourke-White and colleagues Gordon Parks and Gordon Coster at Fortune and Life Magazine to the fashion work of Louise Dahl-Wolfe and George Hoyningen-Huene that graced the pages of Harper’s Bazaar. Advertising and other types of commercial photography, seldom seen in galleries, by Edward Steichen, Ralph Bartholomew, Edward Quigley and others revealed the innovations that took place when photographers and American commerce first joined forces to create images that would sell goods to the American public.

Over the years, the gallery presented popular themes in group shows--nautical images in Ship/Shape; Times Squared, nostalgic views of Times Square before its makeover in the 1990s; Motherhood, as explored through the diversity of images depicting mothers in every possible guise--from the sentimental to the humorous. The gallery also devoted several exhibitions to rediscovering the work of some forgotten but gifted American photographers--such as Simpson Kalisher, Wayne Miller, Harold Haliday Costain and Flip Schulke. By 2000, the gallery was well on its way to bringing along international talents to the New York scene. A group show featuring the work of mid-century Italian photographers--Spiagge--the beach, was an auspicious start, leading to one-person shows for participant Nino Migliori (Neorealismo and Signs). Depicted in the work of Italian photographers were the following motifs that were the basis of exhibitions: Paesaggio demonstrated the Italians’ penchant for experimentation with a new vision in landscape photography, while The Bicycle, became a recurring symbol, as it was the primary mode of transportation in post-war Italy, and our favorite, April Showers, made a rainy day seem cheerful with its plethora of fanciful umbrellas. (See attached for a complete listing of exhibitions)

...COMING IN OCTOBER

In late October, the gallery will feature an exhibition honoring the hundredth anniversary of Lincoln Kirstein, who was a pivotal figure in art and to American cultural institutions such as The American School of Ballet, the New York City Ballet and the Museum of Modern Art. By With To and From, (title from an anthology of Kirstein’s writings), will include not only photographs, but also prints and drawings that reflect the life, art, and history of a fascinating American. Included will be works by Paul Cadmus, Pavel Tchelitchev, Jared French and Margaret French and others, that were formerly in the collection of Kirstein and his circle of artists and friends.

Photographer George Platt Lynes produced sublime studio portraits of the artists and intimates that surrounded Kirstein. His outstanding ballet photographs capture the original portrayals of these now classic performances.

In the 1940’s Paul Cadmus, Jared French and his wife Margaret--known as Pajama--collaborated on the production of highly stylized photographs taken during idyllic summers spent with Kirstein on Fire Island. These images, more personal in nature, memorialize moments that would otherwise be lost to memory.