“For heaven’s sake, dear Mr. Meidner, you aren’t going to throw down your brush and palette and become a photographer, are you? …Don’t take offense at the machine. Here too, it’s the spirit that creates value… Photography is something great. It doesn’t do any good to step back and cry. Join in, but hurry! Photography marches on!”
-Helmar Lerski to the painter Ludwig Meidner, 1930
Howard Greenberg Gallery is pleased to announce an exhibition of photographs from the 1930s by Helmar Lerski (1871-1956). Lerski was an artist with a multi-dimensional career as a portrait photographer, actor and cinematographer, freely moving through each discipline throughout his life. He is best known however for his series of monumental portraits of tightly cropped heads and hands featuring dramatic and complex lighting schemes.