Eileen Neff: Between Us

Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania
September 7, 2007 - December 16, 2007
Eileen Neff, Anecdote of the Tree, 1999-2000, C-print mounted on aluminum, 44 x 64 inches, edition of 5. Courtesy of the artist and Locks Gallery, Philadelphia

If for any reason you won't be in Philadelphia between now and mid-December, do yourself a favor and buy a copy of Eileen Neff's catalogue of the show, Eileen Neff: Between Us

Eileen's work is solid, yet poetic and at the very end of the day, rich and soul satisfying. Focusing on the past ten years, this exhibit traces a fascinating and critical shift from the camera to the computer. All of her work emerges from a textured, rich background in painting and sculpture.

What might seem like a reduction to the simplicity of basics is merely an entrée into what I have often found to be mysterious interiors. . . a journey through related thoughts and feelings. But that's me. Treat yourself and find out what you see.

This exhibition is organized by Ingrid Schaffner, Senior Curator, and Patrick Murphy, Director, Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin, Ireland.

-- Lynne Honickman

Curtis Institute of Music

The Honickman Foundation has been a committed supporter of The Curtis Institute of Music through Student Assistance Fund grants and the Lynne and Harold Honickman Fellowship Program which provides a needs based student financial assistance. Considered one of the finest music conservatories in the world, The Curtis Institute of Music was founded in 1924 by Mary Louise Curtis Bok "to train exceptionally gifted young musicians for careers as performing artists on the highest professional level." Enrollment has always been kept very small in order to provide a highly personalized education, the cornerstone of which is one-on-one study with some of today's leading musical artists. All students receive merit-based full-tuition scholarships, ensuring that talent is the sole consideration for admission.

Angela Park, the current Lynne and Harold Honickman Fellowship recipient at Curtis, recently won the award for best Bach performance at the 2005 Stulberg International String Competition. Her Bach performance caught the attention of the judges and earned her the premier position of the first Bach Award recipient. This award was initiated to commemorate Stulberg International String Competition's 30th Anniversary.

Philadelphia Mural Arts

As a result of the amazing success of the first book, Philadelphia's Murals and the Stories They Tell, the Mural Arts Program has been asked to do a sequel. With the support of The Honickman Foundation, the second book, Healing Walls, is scheduled to be published in the fall 2006. It will document and focus on the more recent work the Mural Arts Program has been doing with Philadelphia youth, inmates, victims of crime and young people who are incarcerated. It will also focus on newer projects and block transformations. The second book will bring together stories of art, education and social service. Ultimately, it will illustrate how the arts and education can effect social change for Philadelphia's underserved youth and forgotten communities.

Dreaming in Black and White: Photography at the Julien Levy Gallery
June 17 – September 17, 2006

In celebration of the centenary of the birth of Julien Levy, one of the most influential proponents of modern art and photography, the Philadelphia Museum of Art presented a major exhibition and published a comprehensive catalogue of Levy's collection of photographs.

Approximately 250 photographs, exhibited for the first time in five decades, were drawn from more than 2,500 images acquired by the Museum in 2001 in part as a gift from Levy's widow, Jean Farley Levy, and with a major contribution from longtime Philadelphia residents and philanthropists Lynne and Harold Honickman.

Julilen Levy emerged as a prominent art dealer in the 1930's and mounted the first exhibition in New York devoted to Surrealism. He operated his gallery from 1931 to 1948, with an initial focus on photography.

The exhibition included works by many American artists Levy exhibited, among them Walker Evans, Man Ray, Joseph Cornell and Lee Miller, for whom he organized the only solo exhibition of her lifetime.

The accompanying catalogue presented a study of this long-hidden collection for the first time. The publication includes reproductions of archival material related to Levy's gallery and the collection, including exhibit announcements and correspondence with artists.

Image Credits:
Top: Léonor Fini, 1936, Dora Maar (French, 1907-1997), Gelatin silver print, Philadelphia Museum of Art: The Lynne and Harold Honickman Gift of the Julien Levy Collection, 2001, © 2005 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris

Bottom: Chimneys, c. 1930, André Kertész (American, born Hungary, 1894-1985), Gelatin silver print, 8 3/4 x 6 5/16 inches, Philadelphia Museum of Art: The Lynne and Harold Honickman Gift of the Julien Levy Collection, 2001

The Gershman Y -- Celestial Nights: Visions of an Ancient Land

The Honickman Foundation supported the Gershman Y's exhibit of Celestial Nights: Visions of an Ancient Land on view from February 12 through April 9, 2006. These stunning images of the deserts of Israel and the Sinai at night are by American-Israeli photographer Neil Folberg. The world depicted in Celestial Nights is composed of a delicately constructed order where earthy elements and the heavens mirror each other. In this series of compelling night images, the land and skies of Israel and the Sinai are offered to the viewer as mystical points of entry and departure. Folberg sets an ancient land against the awesome and eternal spectacle of the night sky.
Ballistra, 2000, 16" x 20" paper size, image smaller, edition: 49, toned silver print
Eagle & Antares, Gush Halav, 2000, 16" x 20" paper size, image smaller, edition: 49, toned silver print
Bellcave, 2000 , 12" x 16" paper size, image smaller, edition: 49, toned silver print

PMA Exhibition: Looking at Atget

The French photographer, Eugene Atget produced one of the most influential bodies of photography in the twentieth century. Looking at Atget and the accompanying catalogue documents his work and also provides a closer look at the Museum's recently acquired group of 350 works by Atget from the estate of art dealer Julien Levy and Museum benefactors, Lynne and Harold Honickman.

Philadelphia Art Alliance – Rittenhouse Collects

To conclude their 90th Anniversary celebration entitled “Celebrating Rittenhouse Square”, the Philadelphia Art Alliance presented a three-part exhibition series entitled Rittenhouse Square Collects.

The Honickman Foundation participated in Part Two: On the Square, which featured a diverse group of works culled from some of the most thoughtful and substantive private collections in the Philadelphia area. The installation of these varied collections incorporates juxtapositions of objects, which though unexpected, provide interesting complements and relationships between works. Ultimately the exhibition served to emphasize the range of collecting interests in the Rittenhouse area – providing a rich variety of aesthetic viewpoints from the private sector – and to celebrate the philanthropic spirit of the Rittenhouse community in their support of the visual arts.

From Philadelphia to the Front

From Philadelphia to the Front
On March 12, 2005, as part of Jewish Film Festival 24, The Gershman Y premiered From Philadelphia to the Front, a 40 minute documentary sponsored in part by The Honickman Foundation, featuring six Jewish men in their 80's who recount their experiences fighting anti-Semitism both at home and abroad while in the service of their country during World War II. The film's authors, Judy Gelles and Marianne Bernstein, have used this project to dispel Jewish stereotypes and to fight discrimination on many levels. Since its premier, the film has enjoyed much critical success, and now there is a website with listings of all the upcoming festivals, places, and times of when the documentary will be featured. The film will also be shown in high schools as part of the Holocaust Teaching series and used for discussion in synagogues and museums.

The Photo Review and Painted Bride Art Center

Photo by Christine Welch

In honor of the 35th anniversaries of both Earth Day and The Painted Bride Art Center in Philadelphia, The Photo Review and The Painted Pride have organized the exhibition, Paradise Paved. The exhibition features the work of environmentally concerned photographers Joann Brennan, John Ganis, David Maisel, Robert Glenn Ketchum and Christine Welch.

From behind the lens of these five visionary artists, the images in Paradise Paved navigate between idyllic and apocalyptic landscapes. The exhibition addresses themes from the inherent beauty of the natural world to the despoliation of that beauty through rampant development and suburban sprawl, to the work of environmentalists who are trying to save endangered species.

Curated by Stephen Perloff, editor of The Photo Review, The Honickman Foundation is supporting the catalogue and special issue that will accompany the exhibition. Paradise Paved is on view from April 1 through May 21, 2005

George Eastman House

With help from the Honickman Foundation, the George Eastman House is presenting Photography on the Edge: Create and Be Recognized, an exhibition and catalogue exploring a long overlooked aspect of outsider art - outsider photography, which are works created outside the established photographic field. The 15 artists surveyed include luminaries Howard Finster, Morton Bartlett, Henry Darger, and August Walla. For the first time the work of these artists has been brought together to examine the motivations, methods, and materials that allowed them to create work outside of the mainstream. The exhibition challenges the boundaries that define photograph, encompassing various techniques such as collage, photomontage, and manipulation/tableau. The unifying theme among the artists is their compulsion to create.

The exhibition was curated by John Turner, an art historian and scholar in outsider art, and Deborah Klochko, who is the former Director of The Friends of Photography and a museum educator and independent curator. Photography on the Edge, is on view at Eastman House Jan. 22 through April 10, 2005. The exhibition is accompanied by a 155-page catalogue published by Chronicle Books.

Storm King Art Center

Photo by Richard Bellamy. © George Bellamy.

The Honickman Foundation is supporting Storm King Art Center's first exhibition of color and black-and-white photographs of the sculptures of Mark di Suvero by legendary art dealer Richard Bellamy. Bellamy's involvement with photography began when he started taking photographs of the works of his close friend Mark di Suvero. From 1975 until his death, Bellamy took hundreds of photographs of di Suvero sculptures. Over fifty photographs selected for the exhibition will be installed to reflect Bellamy's vision. The photographs on view testify to Bellamy's passion for sculpture, while also revealing new ways of viewing di Suvero's work.

Richard Bellamy and Mark di Suvero is being organized by David R. Collens, director and curator of the Storm King Art Center. Storm King will publish a catalogue in conjunction with the exhibition which runs from Mid-May through November 13, 2005 and April 1 through November 15, 2006.

The Aperture Foundation

The Aperture Foundation is a public foundation dedicated to promoting photography as a unique form of artistic expression. Over the last fifteen years, The Honickman Foundation has collaborated with Aperture on the publication and promotion of more than thirty-five fine photography books and numerous exhibitions and special events linking emerging and established photographers with patrons of the Arts.

A selection of the publications that THF has supported:

  • Robert Adams,Listening to the River: Seasons in the American West; Perfect Times, Perfect Places; West from the Columbia: Views at the River Mouth

  • Robert Capa, Photographs

  • David Graham, Land of the Free: What Makes Americans Different

  • Robert Glenn Ketchum, Rivers of Life

  • Magnum Photographers, Israel 50 Years

  • Mary Ellen Mark, Twins; American Odyssey

  • Sylvia Plachy, Self-Portrait with Cows Going Home, Unguided Tour

  • Eugene Richards, Through The Ashes

  • Sebastiao Salgado, An Uncertain Grace; Migrations: Humanity in Transition; The Children: Refugees and Migrants

Michael E. Hoffman Collection

In response to the untimely death in November 2001 of Michael E. Hoffman, executive director of the Aperture Foundation, Mary Ellen Mark, Melissa Harris and Lynne Honickman brought together a collection of nearly ninety photographs by many of the most exciting talents in the field of photography. This extraordinary group of pictures was assembled in honor of legendary curator and publisher Michael E. Hoffman (1942-2001) and generously donated to the Philadelphia Museum of Art. More about the Michael E. Hoffman Collection

Camera Work: A Centennial Celebration

Alfred Stieglitz 's seminal journal, Camera Work, published from 1903 to 1917, is considered the most important periodical in the history of photography. Noted for its critical commentary and its extraordinary beautiful reproductions in photogravure and other techniques, Camera Work led the battle, for the acceptance of photography as a fine art. In honor of Camera Work's 100th anniversary, The Honickman Foundation supported Camera Work: A Centennial Celebration. The exhibition opened at the James A. Michener Art Museum in Doylestown, PA in September 2003. The exhibition will travel to the Philadelphia Art Alliance May 13-August 15, 2004 and close at the Erie (Pennsylvania) Art Museum in January 2005.

Philadelphia Museum of Art - Julien Levy Collection

Julien Levy, Jay Leyda, (American, 1910-1988), Gelatin silver print 1932, 5” x 4”, Philadelphia Museum of Art
On September 20, 2001, the Philadelphia Museum of Art dedicated the Lynne and Harold Honickman Gallery in the Modern and Contemporary Wing in honor of the couple's generosity, which enabled the Museum to acquire the Julien Levy Collection. This acquisition was made possible by a gift, in part, from Levy's widow, Jean Farley Levy, and with a major contribution from philanthropists Lynne and Harold Honickman.

The Julien Levy collection of photographs is a trove of nearly 2000 images amassed by one of the most influential and colorful proponents of modern art and photography in the United States in the 1930s and 1940s. More than 130 artists are represented in the collection, and it contains major and little known works by American and European photographers between the World Wars.

The collection also includes a superb group of 362 works by the French photographer Eugene Atget and prime examples by the American masters Anne Brigman, Man Ray, Paul Outerbridge and Lee Miller. In the important works by European photographers closely associated with the Surrealism movement, Max Ernst, Dora Maar, Roger Parry, Maurice Tabard, and Umbo are represented.