Grob Gallery is pleased to announce our upcoming Exhibition, Sieff + Haskins which will feature Jeanloup Sieff (1933-2000) & Sam Haskins (1926-2009) both have pioneered fine art photography and one could argue are the second generation of the founding fathers/mothers of fine art photography.
Boths photographers charm comes from a sense of leaving the scene to naturally occur, rather than being painstakingly planned. Maybe this is what fine art photography is truly, pushing the limits of chance, embracing a vague vision but letting it flow into its own direction. In separate interviews both artists talk of old shoots, as spontaneous adventures usually involving just themselves and the model, which explains the sense we feel as we look at these vintage works, intimate, honest, and above everything else real.
For Sieff photography was a passion from an early age, he received his first camera at 14 and was working with Elle by the age of 20. By the end of his life he had worked with nearly every major fashion brand. (Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, Paris Match, Elle, etc) Fashion photography enabled him to show his creative side, referencing classical paintings and using iconic forms of the human body to express an elegance. Like Haskins, the 60s for Sieff where an eventful time, where he found his creative voice and started exhibiting as an artist and transcending beyond the title ‘ fashion photographer’ His use of the wide angle lens as well as his careful selection of the surroundings create a scene as a film maker would, developing these dreamy transparent moods which take us down a calm river of tone.
“I have been searching for time past all my life.”
-Jeanloup Sieff
Haskins took a different direction into the photography world, both men had a similar eye but both have their own unique charm. Haskins found his artistic voice with the production of ‘Five Girls’ (1962) a first of its kind. Haskins’s photobook turned a page on the expression of photography by creating photographic narrative-based stories. His most famous photo story is ‘Cowboy Kate’ 1964 which at the time was seen by all. A truly spectacular contribution to society at the time, by breaking the conventional idea around nudity and removing sexual context by being nonchalant and by giving her a story. Cowboy Kate won the Prix Nadar in the year of its publication, 1964 and was then included in the ICP NY show 'The Open Book: A History of the photographic Book from 1978 to the Present' in 200. Both of which are now high accolades for what is now regarded as a Legendary book. Our favourite work which will be on show are the ‘November Girls’ which show us his true expertise in the darkroom, playing with light and shadow with ease. Accompanying nature and form, again removing the sexualized nature of nudity and pushing it into a realm of its own. Fine art at its greatest.