ON COLLECTING CONTEMPORARY PHOTOGRAPHY
International House Conference Facility
Saturday, Dec 14, 2019
9–11am
Registration: $35 in advance / $45 at door | REGISTER HERE
ON COLLECTING CONTEMPORARY PHOTOGRAPHY
A seminar with Industry Professionals who sell and acquire contemporary photography
A goal for artists serious about their creative practice is acquisition of their artwork by collectors. To help demystify this process, we have assembled a distinguished panel of industry professionals to share their knowledge and insights on the principles and strategies employed. Our experts include a respected gallerist and curators of private, public and corporate collections who will address their particular roles in the procurement of artwork, and impart best practices for artists who wish their creative legacies to include work held in significant collections.
Presenters:
Frish Brandt, President, Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco, California
Naomi Huth, Curator, Joseph M. Cohen Family Collection, New York, New York
Emma Lewis, Assistant Curator, Tate Modern, London, England
Francis Thompson, Capital One Art Program Manager, JLL, Richmond, Virginia
Moderator: Mary Virginia Swanson, Advisor to Artists & Arts Organizations, Tucson, Arizona
BIOGRAPHIES
FRISH BRANDT is President and co-owner of Fraenkel Gallery.
Opened in 1979, the gallery has witnessed the evolution of photography from non-art to high art. The gallery represents work from 19th, 20th and 21st century… and has fun doing so. Over the years as photography’s acceptance grew, the gallery increasingly played with the ever-blurring lines including works by artists in other media. Exhibitions along the lines of “The Unphotographable,” “Edward Hopper & Company” and “Not Exactly Photographs” are a few examples. This year marks the 40th Anniversary of Fraenkel Gallery which is evidenced in the gallery’s list of artists and publications as well as its exhibition history.
In addition to the gallery, Frish serves on the board of San Francisco Art & Film for Teens, the Exploratorium Arts Committee, and is active at SFMOMA in a number of ways including serving on the Director’s Circle committee. Her first job was working for Sears Home Shopping Service in catalog sales, skills that still come in useful when working with collectors from afar.
NAOMI HUTH is the Curator and Senior Collections Manager for the Joseph M. Cohen Family Collection, a large private collection based in New York and Florida. Naomi serves on the advisory board for the Center for Photography Woodstock and has served on the committees for charitable organizations such as the AMREF Health Africa and Independent Curators International. Previously, she has worked at the New Museum, Museum of Arts and Design, Rubin Museum of Art, and the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.
EMMA LEWIS is Assistant Curator of International Art at the Tate Modern. She has curated or co-curated the exhibitions ‘Dora Maar’, ‘Olafur Eliasson: In real life’, ‘Modigliani’ and ‘Wolfgang Tillmans: 2017’; co-organised the conference ‘Fast Forward: How do Women Work?’; and, as assistant curator for Tate’s Photography Acquisitions Committee, is responsible for identifying works for Tate’s collection. Emma has contributed to the catalogs ‘Dora Maar’; ‘The Radical Eye: Modernist Photography from the Sir Elton John Collection’ and ‘Shape of Light: Photography and Abstract Art’ and to monographs for artists including Noémie Goudal and Haley Morris-Cafiero. She is the author of ‘Isms: Understanding Photography’ (Bloomsbury/Rizzoli 2017).
FRANCIS THOMPSON is the Art Program Project Manager at JLL. Over the past decade, he has managed a team responsible for maintaining and expanding a contemporary corporate art collection installed within office buildings throughout North America. During the early part of his role with the collection, he led the curatorial development of its rotating exhibition program which has grown to between seventy and eighty shows a year. On display within the corporate offices, these exhibitions brought in artwork from non-profit art organizations, local museums, university art departments, and corporate employees.
Francis has worked as Assistant Gallery Director for the Ellipse Art Center in Arlington, VA, assistant coordinator for the Mountain Lake Workshops with director/producer Ray Kass, and as Gallery Coordinator for the Virginia Tech Armory Gallery. A native of Virginia, he holds a Master of Fine Arts in Arts Administration and a Bachelor of Arts in Studio Art with a concentration in painting and drawing from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg, VA.
Image: Installation view from The Radical Eye: Modernist Photography from the Sir Elton John Collection, Tate Modern, 2017.
