Fred McDarrah, Bernard Pfriem, 1963

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Bernard Pfriem (09/07/1916 - 03/07/1996) was born in Cleveland, Ohio. He was most well-known for his large-scale hyper-realistic drawings of … Read more Bernard Pfriem (09/07/1916 - 03/07/1996) was born in Cleveland, Ohio. He was most well-known for his large-scale hyper-realistic drawings of the human figure. Pfriem lived in Mexico from 1940-42, where he was the editor of a Spanish-English magazine published in Mexico City entitled "Mexico Habla." He was an assistant to Jose Clemente Orozco on frescoes in Jiquilpan, Mexico, and to Julio Castellanos on murals in Mexico City. He served in the United States Air Force from 1942 to 1946. Later, Pfriem served as the arts director of the Grey Falcon Press. He founded the Lacoste School of the Arts in France, and served as the school's director until 1989. A retrospective of his work was held in 1963 at the Cleveland Institute of Art. His first one-man exhibition was in 1951 at the Hugo Gallery in New York. He also had solo exhibitions throughout the U.S. and in Paris. He was included in group exhibitions at the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Smithsonian Institute, the Cleveland Institute of Art, and the American Drawing Society, among others. Pfriem's works are in the collections of the University of Arkansas, the Brooklyn Museum, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Corcoran Gallery of Art, and the Museum of Modern Art. --- Over a 50-year span, McDarrah documented the rise of the Beat Generation, the city’s postmodern art movement, its off-off-Broadway actors, troubadours, politicians, agitators and social protests. Fred captured Jack Kerouac frolicking with women at a New Year’s bash in 1958, Andy Warhol adjusting a movie-camera lens in his silver-covered factory, and Bob Dylan offering a salute of recognition outside Sheridan Square near the Voice’s old office. Not just a social chronicler, McDarrah was a great photo-journalist. For years, McDarrah was the Voice's only photographer and, for decades, he ran the Voice’s photo department, where he helped train dozens of young photographers, including James Hamilton, Sylvia Plachy, Robin Holland and Marc Asnin. His mailbox was simply marked "McPhoto." An exhibit of McDarrah’s photos of artists presented by the Steven Kasher Gallery in Chelsea was hailed by The New York Times as “a visual encyclopedia of the era’s cultural scene.” artists in their studios, (Alice Neel, Philip Guston, Stuart Davis, Robert Smithson, Jasper Johns, Franz Kline), actors (Dustin Hoffman, Robert De Niro on the set of “Taxi Driver”), musicians (Janis Joplin, Alice Cooper, Bob Dylan) and documentary images of early happenings and performances (Yayoi Kusama, Charlotte Moorman, Al Hansen, Jim Dine, Nam June Paik). The many images of Andy Warhol include the well-known one with his Brillo boxes at the Stable Gallery in 1964. Woody Allen, Diane Arbus, W. H. Auden, Francis Bacon, Joan Baez, Louise Bourgeois, David Bowie, Jimmy Breslin, William Burroughs, John Cage, Leo Castelli, Christo, Leonard Cohen, Merce Cunningham, William de Kooning, Jim Dine, Mark di Suvero, Marcel Duchamp, Bob Dylan, Federico Fellini, Allen Ginsberg, Robert Indiana, Mick Jagger, Jasper Johns, Kusama, John Lennon, Sol Lewitt, Roy Lichtenstein, Nam June Paik, Elvis Presley, Claes Oldenburg, Yoko Ono, Robert Rauschenberg, Lou Reed, James Rosenquist, Mark Rothko, Ed Ruscha, Robert Smithson, Susan Sontag, Andy Warhol, and others. McDarrah’s prints have been collected in depth by the J. Paul Getty Museum and the National Portrait Gallery, Washington. His work is in numerous public and private collections. See less