Arthur Lavine
Photographs: 1940’s - 1970’s

Exhibition:
May 31 to June 29, 2003
(photogalerie 94)

Opening:
Saturday, May, 31, 2003, 6pm
Introduction by Sascha Laue

Finissage:
Sunday,, June 29, 2003, 2 - 5pm

Arthur Lavine
Arthur Lavine was born in December 1922 and has just celebrated his 80th birthday and his 58th year as a photographer. A resident of Trenton, New Jersey, he served in the US Army in the South Pacific during World War II as a laboratory technician and photographer. In the 1950s, he was a freelance contributor to various magazines in New York. He is considered a member of the “New York School of Photography.” His photographs have appeared in Colliers, Esquire, The New York Times Magazine, Glamour, Newsweek, Fortune, Look, Life, Popular Photography, and other magazines. In those early years, he studied photography with Lisette Model, Alexey Brodovitch, Berenice Abott, and Clarence H. White Jr.

In the late 1950s, he worked as a photographer for the Western Electric Company for four years. Later, he managed the photography department at Chase Manhattan Bank for 22 years. He and his staff photographed for in-house publications, annual reports, press releases, trade shows, and much more. His black-and-white and color photography assignments in the US and overseas attracted widespread interest.

He and his wife moved to San Diego, California, in 1992. His photographs “Working Hands” were exhibited at the Museum of Modern Arts in 1955. His pictures can be found in Helen Gee's book “Limelights,” her famous 50's Limelight Photography Gallery and Coffeehouse in Greenwich Village. Lavine's photographs are on permanent display at the Museum of Photographic Arts in San Diego and have been featured in five group exhibitions in recent years. His photographs can also be found in many private collections and those of the International Center of Photography in New York City, the San Francisco Modern Art Museum, and the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston.
His work has been exhibited at the Kodak Gallery, Nikon House, Limelight, The Village Camera Club, Image Photographic Laboratory Gallery, Howard Greenberg Gallery, New York, Stephen Daiter Gallery in Chicago, and various galleries in San Diego. The Howard Greenberg Gallery in New York City and the Joseph Bellows Gallery in La Jolla, California, carry some of his classic images from the 1940s and 1950s.

Lavine's expression in his photographs has always been straightforward and journalistic. Always conscious of form, light, and shadow, he looks for design and sometimes for incongruous elements along with curious counterpoints. He prefers to work with natural light and to show people in their activities and real situations. Usually intuitive, not planned, he moves around to capture his subjects as creatively as possible in the best compositions.