Keith de Lellis Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition of vintage photographs of sea, sand, and swimming pools, as well as lakes and any other bodies of water associated with summer leisure.

ON THE WATERFRONT features pictures by an international roster of photographers many of whom are being shown for the first time outside of their respective nations. Swiss, Italian, French, Japanese, Spanish, Hungarian and of course American photographers were all inspired by the waterfront, proving that the subject water is universal.

Romanticism and abstraction are a predominating theme in the photography of most of the artists here. Torazi Mayeda, a Japanese photographer living in Los Angeles in the 1920s, photographed a cresting wave as a crisp, diagonal swirl of water. His minimalist aesthetic reads as modern—yet remains a fresh and contemporary composition. This image demonstrates the lasting power of the pictorialist work of Japanese-American photographers active in Los Angeles before World War II.

Swiss-born graphic artist and photographer, Herbert Matter, settled in America after having created a famous series of ski posters that were a triumph of European modernistic graphic design. By the late 1930s he was living in New York, and photographing the beaches of Long Island. In June 1937, Life magazine’s cover photograph was one of Matter’s dramatic images of a model silhouetted against the shoreline at Jones Beach.

Flip Schulke, the late Miami-based photojournalist, was famous for covering Martin Luther King Jr. and the Civil Rights movement for picture magazines and books. This versatile photographer was also responsible for creating a unique and fascinating series of images of underwater water-skiing shots that were published in Life magazine in 1959. These pictures soon spawned a remarkable photo shoot with a young Cassius Clay training in a swimming pool, his powerful arms leaving a trail of bubbles as he jabs the water with his fists.

Photographer Paul Himmel and family have been summering on Fire Island since the 1950’s. His headshot of dancer Patricia McBride on the beach, the young beauty’s hair surf-drenched, is aptly titled “Botticelli Girl”. This iconic portrait study was featured in the landmark “Family of Man” exhibition (MOMA, NY 1955).

The exhibition will include pictures by the following: Herbert Matter, Edward Quigley, Marvin Newman, Gordon Coster, Jean Moral, Nicolas Muller, Flip Schulke, Simpson Kalisher, Paul Himmel, Nino Migliori, Osvaldo Savoini, Vittorio Ronconi, Louise Dahl-Wolfe, Fritz Henle, Betti Mautner, Leonard Misonne, Torazi Mayeda, Xavier Miserachs, Harold Haliday Costain, Clarence White, Angus MacBean, Roy Pinney, Mark Shaw, Mario Perotti, Ralph Bartholomew and others.

Gallery Hours are Tuesday through Friday 11 - 5:30, Saturday 11 - 5.

We are closed on Saturdays in July and August