Printer Savant: Lumiere Press and the Art of the Photo Book

20 June - 23 August 2024

Overview

“More than thirty years have passed since I became aware of the small, amazingly well crafted, and inspirational Lumiere Press books,” said Howard Greenberg. “These precious objects, with their personal and beautifully written essays, sensitively illustrated photographs, and materiality that beckoned one to touch, handle and feel their essential nature, impressed me deeply. Little did I know that my first encounters would lead to a years-long collaboration, successful in every possible way, with Michael Torosian, aka Lumiere Press.”

An exhibition exploring the relationship between master book maker, Michael Torosian of Lumiere Press and gallerist Howard Greenberg will be on view at Howard Greenberg Gallery from June 20 through August 16, 2024.

Printer Savant: Lumiere Press and the Art of the Photo Book celebrates the decades long collaboration of Howard Greenberg Gallery and Lumiere Press. The exhibition will present a selection of fine art books by the Press alongside works by Bruce Davidson, Dave Heath, Consuelo Kanaga, William Klein, Dorothea Lange, Saul Leiter, Leon Levinstein, Ruth Orkin, Gordon Parks, Flip Schulke, W. Eugene Smith, and Edward Steichen, who were featured in books by Lumiere Press.

For more than 35 years, Howard Greenberg and Michael Torosian have shared a common aesthetic in publishing photography books beholding the medium’s potency and eloquence. Together they worked on several notable and award-winning books, including Howard Greenberg Gallery: Twenty Five Years (2007). One book on Edward Steichen was proclaimed “the most beautiful book ever presented on Steichen” by the photographer’s family.

Printer Savant: Lumiere Press and the Art of the Photo Book focuses on photography from Greenberg and Torosian’s simultaneous and cooperative careers. On view in the exhibition are a wide selection of limited edition books by the Press alongside images from Bruce Davidson’s 1959 Brooklyn Gang series; Dave Heath’s brooding portraits of Greenwich Village youths in the late 1950s and early ‘60s; William Klein’s amusing New York City urchins in the 1950s; examples of photojournalist Dorothea Lange’s documentary photographs from her travels around the U.S. from the 1930s to the ‘50s; Saul Leiter’s color work from the streets of New York; sidewalk views shot from Ruth Orkin’s window; poignant portraits by Consuelo Kanaga and Gordon Parks; World War II photographs by W. Eugene Smith; and Edward Steichen’s studies of flowers.

Today, Lumiere Press is the only fine press in the world devoted to producing limited edition photography books. Owner Michael Torosian began working in book publishing in 1981 and was able to acquire machinery that is no longer available today. His most recent book is the memoir Lumiere Press: Printer Savant & Other Stories (2022). The term printer savant was bestowed on Torosian by a guest at his first book launch who was fascinated that he had learned without guidance or training the art of “casting type from molten lead, printing the sheets of paper on a hand-cranked, hand-fed press, and folding, sewing, gluing, and binding the books by hand,” writes Torosian in his memoir. In 2024, Torosian was named the recipient of the Robert R. Reid Medal for Lifetime Achievement in the Book Arts in Canada by The Alcuin Society, a non-profit association promoting the finest in Canadian book design since 1965.

An opening reception will be held on Thursday, June 20 from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m.