Marc Selwyn Fine Art is pleased to announce our upcoming installation of Lee Friedlander’s Stems series.
In anticipation of knee replacement surgery in the 1990’s, Friedlander prepared himself for a sedentary existence and decided to explore still life photography. Away from the city and the American social landscape, the artist turned his eye to the vases of fresh flowers his wife placed on the dining table:
“I began looking at the whole vase and very quickly found myself most interested in the stems. Not only would the stems fall into wild array, the vases produced with them a kind of optical splendor. They added a perverse note to the optical qualities of the fine camera lenses. Helter-skelter light refractions and optical exaggerations, as well as compound reflections, happened naturally.”
Defying the traditional notion of a floral still life photograph, Friedlander’s Stems are the most luminous, unconventional and creative images of his storied career.