September 15 2023: The Eye of Photography: NJG : Jeannette Montgomery Barron : JMB
In December 1984, Jeannette Montgomery Barron was invited by Bruno Bischofberger to photograph Jean-Michel Basquiat at his Great Jones Street studio, New York City. This was to be the first of two sittings. With only a birdcage, a chair, together with an unfinished painting as props, Jeannette shot three rolls of 120 film, 36 images – layering light and shadows in her signature black and white. As Francesco Clemente describes “Jeannette Montgomery Barron is an elegant woman and an elegant photographer. She conveys the widest range of expressivity with the minimum amount of means. The secret of her good luck is that she travels light”. Jeannette would later return to photograph both Basquiat and Warhol – again shooting 36 frames, during their infamous painting collaboration at The Factory, in the spring of 1985.
