Sidney B. Felsen

 

 

 

David Hockney upon returning from Hawaii visit–David introducing us to his new sport coat in Gemini parking lot, Spring, 1983

gelatin silver print

20 x 13.25 in. (50.8 x 33.65 cm)

Gift of the artist

© 1983 Sidney B. Felsen

 

 

 

 

Sidney B. Felsen (American, b. 1924)

Sidney Felsen’s first solo exhibition, Artist’s Proof: Photographs by Sidney B. Felsen, was presented at the University Art Museum (January 25–February 16, 1999). On that occasion, Robert Rauschenberg, whose hands upon a litho stone constitute one of Felsen’s most graceful images, wrote: “Sid Felsen sees and lives every moment as history. Each of the nows are icons that hold the innocence of being here, he and his camera, on the edge of drama before the play, witnessing the process of effort forging the success and lifestyle of comradery and trust that is essential to any collaboration.”Internationally renowned as a co-founder of Gemini G.E.L.—the Los Angeles printmaking workshop and publishing house dedicated to supportive, creative collaboration between master printers and artists—Felsen revealed his own artistic oeuvre with this exhibition. His sensitive and insightful photographs capture the most noted artists of our time—David Hockney, Claes Oldenburg, Elizabeth Murray, Robert Rauschenberg, and Ellsworth Kelly, among others—often as they developed their own projects at the Gemini studio. This David Hockney image, perhaps the most popular in the Museum’s exhibition, is part of a gift by the artist of 72 photographs, a gift that constitutes an important archive of arts activity in Los Angeles from 1969 to 1999.