Fine Art Photography Exploring Cultural Commentary, Internal States of Mind and Poetic Expression.
In January 1922 Alfred Stieglitz (1864-1946), generally considered the father of American photography, suggested the December issue of the publication “MSS” be devoted to asking the question: “Can A Photograph Have The Significance Of Art.” Over 40 luminaries in the arts were invited to send letters in response to the question. Among those who responded were Marcel Duchamp, Carl Sandberg, Georgia O’Keefe, Waldo Frank and the composer Ernest Bloch.
The Jewish Community Library in San Francisco hosted a lecture by Eric Johnson on Ernest Bloch’s photography on May 8, 2012. The lecture was a rare occasion when Bloch’s direct decendants were in attendance including his four grandchildren Ernest Bloch II, Joni Metolius, Sita Milcev and Pencho Dimitroff along with Pencho’s son and wife and daughter.
A major exhibit of prints made by Eric Johnson from Ernest Bloch’s negatives was mounted at the Oregon Jewish Musuem in Portland in 2011. Including 40 prints made in 1974-75 from negatives dating from 1897-1955, the show is by far the most extensive survey of Bloch’s photographic work. See the installation here.
Associated with the exhibit Johnson produced a book surveying Bloch’s photography. The first published survey including 80 of Bloch’s photographs,
“A Composer’s Vision: The Photographs of Ernest Bloch” is available to purchase at Blurb.
In June of 2009 Eric traveled to Washington DC to donate prints he made from Bloch’s negatives in the 1970’s to the Library of Congress. A collection of 102 prints covering 45 years of Bloch’s life were donated to the Music Division. This collection is the largest Bloch archive and this donation added significantly to the quality and depth of the LOC collection.
See a blog from the Music Division: “Remembering Ernest Bloch.”
Eric Johnson wrote an article about the beginning of his work with Ernest Bloch, and published it in Aperture Magazine in 1972, titled: A Composer’s Vision Photographs by Ernest Bloch (Eric Johnson, Aperture magazine 16.3).