Portraits

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From the publisher:The final undertaking of New York photographer David Seidner was this series of historically styled portraits. Drawing from the paintings of nineteenth century m asters Ingres and John Singer Sargent, Seidner's images faithfully mirror the seriousness and sensitivity of the period in the faces of contemporary high society characters.Seidner was 42 when he died in 1999, leaving a photographic legacy that was broad and complex. The works in this book are portraits of the rich, the successful, and the unknown dressed in 19th-century costume. Using a very formal, nearly shadowless light granting an icy tone to each image makes for remarkable work glorifying the steady gaze shared by camera and subject. Each portrait can appear as a nearly perfect representational painting of what it is: a carefully composed and posed photograph that places current people in another time. The rich texture of clothing fabrics, the carefully prepared confidence in these men and women, and a gifted photographer have come together to construct a book that is unusual--spare but elegant and a final showcase for an artist with very special talents. A brief text by Richard Martin, curator of the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, provides an appreciation for these complex mergings of aesthetics and people--who, through Seidner's eye, become timeless. -- Library Journal Show more