Robert Doisneau, Le Manège de Monsieur Barré (Mr. Barré's Carousel), 1955
Dear Friends,
John Cleary opened his gallery right here on Gallery Row in 1996, making this year the 30th anniversary. While I didn’t start working for John until 1999, didn’t buy the gallery until 2008, and didn’t change the name until 2012, we decided we wanted to celebrate John’s entrepreneurial spirit and love of photography with a show in his honor.
I thought John told me his first exhibition was a Robert Doisneau show. One collector said it was all André Kertész, and one said it was just a selection of best hits like our annual Deck the Walls. So to make sure I cover all bases, our next exhibition will be midcentury French street photography which both John and I always loved. We’re calling it Thirty Years: The Legacy of John Cleary Gallery.
We’ll have up a Kertesz from a collector who bought it from John at that first show back in 1996. We’ll have a print of the first photograph John ever bought. I’d love to hear from any of you who were there at the very beginning of the gallery’s life. Do you remember specific pieces? Did you buy anything from that first show? Should we take a poll on what that show actually was?!
Over the next few months, I’d also like to start collecting stories about John, the gallery, and the Houston photography world. Almost everyone except, unfortunately, John is still around, and I’d like to memorialize the last 30+ years any way I can. Send me an email. Send me a video. Audio notes work. Or come to the gallery, and we’ll set you up with some lights, a camera, and a chair and leave you to film to your heart’s content. Photographs (Mike Marvins promises he’ll send me one of John on a donkey in Boquillas, Mexico) are of course always welcome!
While I’ve only been in this world for 26 and a half years, not 30, I have been looking for a way to properly celebrate the strides everyone in the Houston photography community has made over the last 30+ years. Fotofest has given so many photographers opportunities they never could have had on their own. HCP’s new campus and offerings will be the best in the country. The MFAH has the largest photography collection in the US! So many of you were monumental in building all of it, and you were all monumental in giving me the fun and fulfilling life I’ve had for the last 26 and a half years. So, let’s celebrate on June 27 with the opening of Thirty Years: The Legacy of John Cleary Gallery. The last 30 years are really something to celebrate!
Love,
Catherine
Share this:
Robert Doisneau, Le Manège de Monsieur Barré (Mr. Barré's Carousel), 1955
Dear Friends,
John Cleary opened his gallery right here on Gallery Row in 1996, making this year the 30th anniversary. While I didn’t start working for John until 1999, didn’t buy the gallery until 2008, and didn’t change the name until 2012, we decided we wanted to celebrate John’s entrepreneurial spirit and love of photography with a show in his honor.
I thought John told me his first exhibition was a Robert Doisneau show. One collector said it was all André Kertész, and one said it was just a selection of best hits like our annual Deck the Walls. So to make sure I cover all bases, our next exhibition will be midcentury French street photography which both John and I always loved. We’re calling it Thirty Years: The Legacy of John Cleary Gallery.
We’ll have up a Kertesz from a collector who bought it from John at that first show back in 1996. We’ll have a print of the first photograph John ever bought. I’d love to hear from any of you who were there at the very beginning of the gallery’s life. Do you remember specific pieces? Did you buy anything from that first show? Should we take a poll on what that show actually was?!
Over the next few months, I’d also like to start collecting stories about John, the gallery, and the Houston photography world. Almost everyone except, unfortunately, John is still around, and I’d like to memorialize the last 30+ years any way I can. Send me an email. Send me a video. Audio notes work. Or come to the gallery, and we’ll set you up with some lights, a camera, and a chair and leave you to film to your heart’s content. Photographs (Mike Marvins promises he’ll send me one of John on a donkey in Boquillas, Mexico) are of course always welcome!
While I’ve only been in this world for 26 and a half years, not 30, I have been looking for a way to properly celebrate the strides everyone in the Houston photography community has made over the last 30+ years. Fotofest has given so many photographers opportunities they never could have had on their own. HCP’s new campus and offerings will be the best in the country. The MFAH has the largest photography collection in the US! So many of you were monumental in building all of it, and you were all monumental in giving me the fun and fulfilling life I’ve had for the last 26 and a half years. So, let’s celebrate on June 27 with the opening of Thirty Years: The Legacy of John Cleary Gallery. The last 30 years are really something to celebrate!
Love,
Catherine
Comments (0)
Add a Comment