The DC Fine Art Photography Fair: "I want to encourage people to educate their eyes”

By Michael O'Sullivan
Friday, October 5, 2012

 

With the (e)merge art fair's exclusive focus on up-and-coming artists, the organizer of another art fair hopes there's room in the spotlight this weekend for more established names.

 

On Saturday and Sunday, Washington photography dealer Kathleen Ewing will unveil the inaugural DC Fine Art Photography Fair, featuring 15 booths by photography dealers she invited from across the country, each of whom specializes in more traditional imagery than one can expect to see at (e)merge.

 

Ewing will offer a wide range of prints, including a $12,000 photograph by the great Edward Weston (1886-1958) and a $450 image by MacDuff Everton, a contemporary photographer based in California. Washington's Hemphill Fine Arts also will showcase a diverse mix of artists, including Colby Caldwell, William Christenberry, Don Donaghy, Godfrey Frankel, Max Hirshfeld, Franz Jantzen, Tanya Marcuse, Kendall Messick, Anne Rowland, Hiroshi Sugimoto and Julie Wolfe.

 

Dealers include the far-flung and the homegrown. San Francisco's Scott Nichols Gallery, which is known for handling work by Ansel Adams and other members of the famous Group f/64, will participate, along with Multiple Exposures, a contemporary cooperative gallery based at Alexandria's Torpedo Factory Art Center.

 

Ewing says visitors to the fair should expect something completely different than the edgy (e)merge and FotoWeek DC, a photography festival -- returning next month for its fifth year -- that's known more as a broad celebration of all things photographic than as a breeding ground for collectors. Ewing says she thinks that with Washington's educated, culturally connected and visually sophisticated population -- not to mention its booming economy -- the time is ripe for a commercial fair offering a range of price points for both the aspiring and the established collector.

 

"I want to encourage people to educate their eyes," says Ewing, who hopes her fair will introduce the "passion of possessing beautiful works of art" to a new generation. To that end, the fair will feature a free panel discussion on collecting Saturday at 11 a.m.