William Ropp – Tafari – He Who Inspires to Awe
When: Thu., May. 3, 2018 - Sat., Jun. 23, 2018 at 11:00 am - 5:00 pm
THROCKMORTON FINE ART
presents
WILLIAM ROPP “TAFARI – He Who Inspires Awe”
May 3 – June 23, 2018 in New York
“William Ropp is a renowned contemporary French photo-artist known as the Shadow Sculptor. His haunting portraits are compared to paintings and he is famous for using shadow and light in a mesmerizing way. He asks his subjects to stare directly at the viewer in poses of their own design. We are delighted to be showing William Ropp’s unique photo-portraits of Ethiopian natives for the first time at the gallery.”
–Spencer Throckmorton
NEW YORK April 18, 2018 – Throckmorton Fine Art (www.throckmorton-nyc.com) will host its first exhibition by the widely acclaimed contemporary French photo-artist, William Ropp, (b. 1960 Ghent – ) at its New York gallery from May 3 through June 23, 2018.
Spencer Throckmorton says, “TAFARI: He Who Inspires Awe” is a collection of images resulting from William Ropp’s recent work in Ethiopia. There Ropp used a technique he first developed in the early 1990s — to shine a bright beam of light from a 50-year old Czech flashlight to illuminate his subjects, who are placed in total darkness and asked to stare directly into the camera lens in a pose of their own choosing. Ropp relies on an extended exposure time, as long as ten minutes, to capture the dark scene which makes the image a little blurry but sharply defines the subject’s eyes. It’s truly a unique photographic technique that makes Ropp’s work seem somewhat otherworldly, like something created by a painter.”
This technique, and Ropp’s reputation as the Shadow Sculptor, grew out of Ropp’s early career in the theater and time spent photographing images of human figures reflected in distorting mirrors.
Spencer Throckmorton adds that, “A decade ago Ropp began a series of trips which produced new portfolios of portraits of Africans and Gypsies, Mexicans and Russians. Both children and adults. Two of the outstanding series — Children and Dream Memories from Africa — are lauded for the depth of the expressions and vulnerability Ropp captured. Without giving them direction, Ropp captured his subjects’ feelings and emotions with unusual intensity and humanism.”
Arno Rafael Minkkinen, in writing about Ropp in WILLIAM ROPP Faces, said, ‘William Ropp provides his subjects with the freedom they need to participate in the portrait the way they please, the way they are. What his subjects decide to do at the moment of exposure is wholly up to them. I can hear them calling out their commands before the click is made. ……The signature is in the eyes.”
In 2010 Ropp started working in color with portrait photography dominating his attention. The “TAFARI: He Who Inspires Awe” exhibition at Throckmorton makes the best use of color by juxtaposing the mesmerizing images of Ethiopians against the verdant natural setting where they live.
Ropp is the author of several books on the art of photography and has enjoyed exhibitions and workshops for photographers in many locales. The Musée de la Photographie Charleroi, Belgium and the Maison Européenne de la Photographie, Paris jointly organized two recent successful exhibitions. Ropp’s work is included in public collections such as the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Museet for Fotokunst Odense, Denmark, and The New York Public Library (The Spencer Collection). Today, Ropp lives and works in Nancy, France where he continues to produce and develop his own richly toned, black and white and colored portraitures.
About Throckmorton Fine Art (www.throckmorton-nyc.com)
Spencer Throckmorton founded Throckmorton Fine Art in 1980 and maintains a high-profile gallery in New York City’s East 57th Street art district that has become one of the foremost sources for important Latin American Contemporary and Vintage Photography as well as Chinese Jade and Asian antiquities, and pre-Columbian art. The gallery participates in internationally acclaimed fairs, including more than 30 years exhibiting at the prestigious Winter Antiques Show in New York; the Association of International Photography Art Dealers (AIPAD) Photography Show each April, and it stages important annual exhibitions in the spring during Asia Week. It has also published more than a dozen catalogs on these subjects. Demonstrating the gallery’s commitment to connoisseurship, Throckmorton has achieved sales to such major museums as The Museum of Modern Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Getty and The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, as well as The Reina Sofia in Madrid. Portions of collections the gallery was instrumental in forming have been donated to The Louvre. The gallery loans examples on a regular basis to such significant institutions as The London National Gallery.
For interviews and high-resolution images please contact
Susan Bishopric THE BISHOPRIC AGENCY
212 289 2227 [email protected]
If you go-
THROCKMORTON FINE ART presents….
WILLIAM ROPP “TAFARI – He Who Inspires Awe”
May 3 – June 23, 2018
THROCKMORTON FINE ART
145 East 57th Street, third floor, New York, NY 10022
11-5 Tuesday – Saturday
Tel: 212 223 1059. Fax: 212 223 1937 [email protected] www.throckmorton-nyc.com