Fred W. McDarrah

Bob Dylan, sitting on a bench in Christopher Park (across the street from the offices of the Village Voice since 1960), either salutes or shields his eyes from the sun, January 22, 1965

Gelatin silver print, printed later

11h x 14w in

Signed, titled and dated by photographer recto; Signed and stamped by photographer verso

FMcDarrah010

Fred W. McDarrah

Allen Ginsberg on Central Park Bandstand, 5th Avenue Peace Demonstration to Stop the War in Vietnam, March 26, 1966

Gelatin silver print, printed later

20h x 16w in

Signed, titled and dated by photographer recto; Signed and stamped by photographer verso

FMcDarrah049

Fred W. McDarrah

Leroi Jones, Diane di Prima in Cedar Tavern on University Place, April 5, 1960

Gelatin silver print, printed later

16h x 20w in

Signed, titled, and dated by photographer recto; Titled and stamped by photographer verso

FMcDarrah202

Fred W. McDarrah

Jack Kerouac reads poetry at the Artist’s Studio, 48 East Third Street, February 15, 1959

Vintage gelatin silver print, printed ca. 1959

20h x 16w in

Signed, titled, and dated by photographer recto; Titled and stamped by photographer verso

FMcDarrah203

Fred W. McDarrah

Artist Ed Ruscha with some of his "Gunpowder Ribbon Drawings", December 9, 1967

Vintage gelatin silver print, printed ca. 1967

16h x 20w in

Signed, titled, and dated by photographer recto; Titled and stamped by photographer verso

FMcDarrah204

Fred W. McDarrah

To commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of women’s suffrage in the United States, an estimated twenty thousand women march along Fifth Avenue, here past a banner that reads, ‘‘Women of the World Unite!”, August 26, 1970

Vintage gelatin silver print, printed ca. 1970

11h x 14w in

Signed, titled, and dated by photographer recto; Titled and stamped by photographer verso

FMcDarrah208

Fred W. McDarrah

Andy Warhol at the opening of his exhibition, “The Personality of the Artist,” at the Stable Gallery, 33 East 74th St., April 21, 1964

Gelatin silver print, printed later

16h x 20w in

Signed, titled and dated by photographer recto; Signed, dated, and stamped by photographer verso

FMcDarrah028

Fred W. McDarrah

Artist Faith Ringgold poses with her work, August 30, 1978

Vintage gelatin silver print, printed ca. 1980

16h x 20w in

Photographer's stamps and annotations verso

FMcDarrah147

Fred W. McDarrah

Artist Carolee Schneemann at a private first performance of Interior Scroll, at an art show titled "Women Here and Now," honoring the United Nations’ International Women’s Year, East Hampton, August 29, 1975

Vintage gelatin silver print, printed ca. 1980

20h x 16w in

Photographer's stamps and annotations verso

FMcDarrah143

Fred W. McDarrah

Allen Ginsberg, his longtime companion Peter Orlovsky, and Orlovsky’s brother Lafcadio relax in their apartment at 170 East Second Street, January 9, 1960

Vintage gelatin silver print, printed ca. 1960

10h x 8w in

Dated and stamped by photographer verso

FMcDarrah234

Fred W. McDarrah

Pop artists Tom Wesselmann, Roy Lichtenstein, James Rosenquist, Andy Warhol, and Claes Oldenburg at Warhol’s Factory, 231 East Forty‑Seventh Street (its first location, until 1967), April 21, 1964

Vintage gelatin silver print, printed ca. 1964

11h x 14w in

Titled, dated, and stamped by photographer verso

FMcDarrah236

Fred W. McDarrah

Drag queens compete in the Miss All-America Camp Beauty Pageant at Town Hall, 123 West Forty-Third St., February 20, 1967

Vintage gelatin silver print, printed ca. 1967

11h x 14w in

Signed, titled, and dated by photographer recto; Signed, titled, dated, and stamped by photographer verso

FMcDarrah240

Fred W. McDarrah

A crowd of demonstrators in Chicago’s Grant Park during the Democratic National Convention, sitting around a hill topped by a statue of Union General John Logan, August 27, 1968

Vintage gelatin silver print, printed ca. 1968

11h x 14w in

Signed, titled, dated, and stamped by photographer verso

FMcDarrah243

Fred W. McDarrah

New York Knicks forward Phil Jackson on the hardwood at Madison Square Garden, February 19, 1973

Vintage gelatin silver print, printed ca. 1973

9 1/4h x 7w in

Signed, titled, and stamped by photographer verso

FMcDarrah245

Fred W. McDarrah

Portrait of a parade-goer at the intersection of West Twenty-Third Street and Sixth Avenue during the Sixth Annual Gay Pride March (Gay Liberation Day), June 29, 1975

Vintage gelatin silver print, printed ca. 1975

10h x 8w in

Titled, dated, and stamped by photographer verso

FMcDarrah247

Press Release

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Fred W. McDarrah: New York Scenes
Exhibition: September 20th – November 3rd, 2018
Opening Reception: September 20th, 6 – 8 PM

 

Steven Kasher Gallery is proud to present Fred W. McDarrah: New York Scenes. The exhibition features 100 vintage black and white prints that span the late 1950s to the mid-1970s. The show features McDarrah’s most iconic images alongside never-before-seen work from his extensive archive. The exhibition launches the publication of the most comprehensive survey on the photographer, Fred W. McDarrah: New York Scenes, published by Abrams, which includes more than 270 illustrations and an introductory essay by Sean Wilentz. This is the gallery’s fourth solo exhibition of McDarrah’s work. 

 

The work of Fred W. McDarrah is having a massive resurgence. In addition to our exhibition and the new monograph, a solo exhibition Into the Artist’s World: Photographs by Fred W. McDarrah will open at the Parrish Art Museum in November 2018. Three additional solo exhibitions will open in 2018: Fred W. McDarrah as Mentor at Howl! Arts, New York; Fred W. McDarrah: Imaging The Living Theater, 1968 at the Alchemical Theater Co., New York; and The Beat Generation: Photographs by Fred W. McDarrah at the Beat Museum, San Francisco.  

 

Fred W. McDarrah (1926 - 2007) was the only staff photographer at The Village Voice for decades and was its first picture editor. McDarrah was the eyes of The Voice. His pictures were the graphic expression of the United States’ first, largest and most spirited alternative weekly as it recorded -- and helped create -- the most vibrant decades of the greatest city in the world. Through the medium of The Voice many of his images are lodged in our collective memories of bohemia and the counterculture. He covered New York City’s diverse downtown scenes, producing an unmatched and encyclopedic visual record of people, movements, and events. McDarrah frequented the bars, cafés, and galleries where writers, artists, and musicians gathered, and he was welcome in the apartments and lofts of the city’s avant-garde cultural aristocracy. He captured every vital moment, from Jack Kerouac reading poetry to Bob Dylan hanging out in Sheridan Square to Andy Warhol filming in the Factory, to the Stonewall rebellion. 

 

Celebrated historian Sean Wilentz vividly describes how McDarrah recorded the transformation of Greenwich Village from a local bohemian scene into a worldwide movement. “Fred left behind an unprecedented body of work from inside that movable site as it existed in mid-century Greenwich Village, when, for a while anyway, it shook the nation and the world. Nobody had ever come close to depicting what Fred did, and any future bohemian chronicle is bound to be shot differently from the way Fred did it. He was in the right place at the right time, and when the chance came for him to make the most of it, he didn’t blow it. So as long as there are those who will pay attention, Fred W. McDarrah’s spirit, the spirit inside these pictures, will tell its magical stories.” 

 

Born in Brooklyn, McDarrah bought his first camera at the 1939 World’s Fair in New York City. He served as a U.S. Army paratrooper in Occupied Japan at the end of World War II, camera usually in hand, and then earned a Journalism degree from New York University on the G.I. Bill. When a neighbor, Dan Wolf, told McDarrah that he and Norman Mailer were starting a newspaper to be called The Village Voice, McDarrah signed on. He was associated with the paper for the rest of his life. 

 

Fred W. McDarrah’s photographs have been exhibited at numerous museums, including the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of Art, the Albright–Knox Art Gallery, and the Centre Georges Pompidou. His work is found in numerous private and public collections including the Museum of Modern Art, National Portrait Gallery, the J. Paul Getty Museum, The National Gallery of Art and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. He was the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1972. 

 

McDarrah’s previous books include The Beat Scene (1960), The Artist’s World in Pictures (1961), Greenwich Village Guide (1963), New York, New York (1964), Kerouac and Friends: A Beat Generation Album (1985), Gay Pride: Photos from Stonewall to Today (1994), Beat Generation: Glory Days in Greenwich Village (1996), New York Stories (2001), Anarchy Protest and Rebellion & The Counterculture That Changed America (2003), and Artists and Writers of the 60s and 70s (2006). 

 

Fred W. McDarrah: New York Scenes will be on view September 20th – November 15th, 2018. Steven Kasher Gallery is located at 515 West 26th Street, New York, NY 10001. Gallery hours are Tuesday through Saturday, 10 AM to 6 PM. For more information about the exhibition and all other general inquiries, please contact Cassandra Johnson, 212 966 3978, cassandra@stevenkasher.com