A Mid-Century Eye: Stereoviews by Max Margulis
Thursday, February 27, 7:00 PM
Winter 2003
A Mid-Century Eye: Stereoviews by Max Margulis
Presented by Greg Dinkins
Willem de Kooning in his studio, March 22, 1950
Max Margulis (1907-1996) was a musician, writer, and teacher whose influence on the New York artistic and performing community was strongly felt during his long career. As a co-founderof Blue Note Records and later as a music teacher and voice coach for singers and actors, he was involved in a wide range of creative expression. From 1949 through the 1960s, he was an active stereo photographer.
Within months of purchasing a Stereo Realist camera, Margulis undertook a series of portraits of artists in their studios. He was attracted to the tableaux of Lower East Side storefronts; in this context he also photographed candid street life and shopkeepers. He made many photographs of Cora Ginsburg and friends modeling her collection of 18th and 19th century clothing. He made stereo photographs on several trips to Mexico, often in the company of his friend Aaron Siskind. His family pictures also reflect his sophisticated eye, particularly when the subject was his beautiful and talented wife, Helen Finnell Margulis.
Greg Dinkins has restored and re-mounted hundreds of Max Margulis’s stereoviews. This presentation will include a selection of about 100 slides, with examples drawn from each category. It will be narrated with anecdotes assembled from dozens of interviews with his friends and family.
The meeting includes an informal time for viewing and discussing images after the presentation.
