Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2012/11/14
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]PESO: This is a letter from the New York TImes Book Review. Do you agree that you can create art only when it's your intention to do so? To the Editor: I read with interest Deborah Solomon?s review<http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/28/books/review/short-nights-of-the-shadow-catcher-by-timothy-egan.html> of ?Short Nights of the Shadow Catcher: The Epic Life and Immortal Photographs of Edward Curtis,? by Timothy Egan (Oct. 28). Solomon is a talented biographer ? I thoroughly enjoyed ?Utopia Parkway? ? but she completely missed the point of Curtis?s life when she referred to him as a great artist. Though galleries try to promote Curtis?s work as art, it?s really more ethnographic photography. While Curtis obviously had a strong aesthetic sensibility, the intention behind his work was documentation of a vanishing race. You can create art only when it?s your intention to do so. RICHARD POLSKY Sausalito, Calif. *The writer is the author of ?The Art Prophets: The Artists, Dealers, and Tastemakers Who Shook the Art World.?* Tina - Tina Manley, ASMP www.tinamanley.com