Revised for date

FOR 2-16

SNOWDON PHOTOGRAPHS TO DEBUT IN NYC AT GODEL & CO. MARCH 1

AK/GS SET 2-6 #687492

NEW YORK CITY — Chris Beetles Gallery, St James’s, London, and Godel & Co. Fine Art, New York, is presenting “Snowdon: An Exhibition of Photographs” at Godel & Co. Fine Art through April 12.

Following the success of his first selling show this autumn in London, the gallery is holding the photographer’s first exhibition in New York.

A longstanding contributor to Vogue, Vanity Fair, The New York Times, The Sunday Times and virtually every other high profile publication on both sides of the Atlantic, Snowdon is a photographer who has recorded and defined his generation. He has documented the rich and poor, theater and film, high society, fashion and social change.

Snowdon photographed many celebrities, and the exhibit features a large number of these, including portraits of his first wife Princess Margaret, Princess Diana, Rudolf Nureyev, Laurence Olivier, Nancy Reagan, Eric Clapton, Bert Bacharach, Margaret Thatcher, Leonard Bernstein, Salvador Dali, David Hockney, Franco Zeffirelli, Henry Moore, J.R.R. Tolkien, Noel Coward and Jack Nicholson.

In direct contrast to such a glamorous roll call is his photojournalism work for The Sunday Times Magazine. Beginning in the mid-1960s his coverage of mental illness, poverty and other disadvantaged peoples spanned two decades and is his most moving body of work. A selection of the most powerful of these images are included in the exhibition.

Other highlights include his classic advertising, fashion and travel photography, presenting a photographic record of changes in style and taste during the last 50 years.

The National Portrait Gallery in London holds 117 of Snowdon’s pictures and held a retrospective show in 2000 that toured to Edinburgh, Vienna, Moscow and the Yale Center for British Art in the United States. He has published 23 books in his career, four since turning 70, and still works and travels extensively.

Featuring more than 80 pictures in total, the exhibit provides a retrospective of one of the most versatile photographers of the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries.

Godel & Co. is at 39A East 72nd Street, between Park and Madison Avenues. A fully illustrated catalog is on sale. All images can be seen on www.godelfineart.com and www.chrisbeetles.com.

For information, 212-288-7272.

Revised for date

JEFF STEVENS’ PHOTOGRAPHS AT PROVIDENCE’S BANKRI GALLERY, 1 CUT

AVV 2-16 #688885

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — The BankRI Turks Head Gallery is presenting “Photographs by Jeff Stevens” at the downtown BankRI branch in the Turks Head building, One Turks Head Place. An artist’s reception will take place Thursday, March 15, from 5 to 8:30 pm; the exhibit will remain on view through April 4.

When he was a young boy, Jeff Stevens accompanied his dad to work on Saturdays. His father, award-winning photojournalist Thomas D. Stevens, had a job taking photos for the Providence Journal and soon the younger Stevens found himself emulating his dad. “By the time I was 10,” Stevens recalls, “I was taking pictures and developing film. I had my own plastic camera and I was printing photos.”

Although the younger Stevens considered photography as a career, he really did not want to follow in his dad’s footsteps. Stevens says he “thought about it for five minutes,” but realized he liked photography as “an avocation, not as a day-in-day-out job.” Instead he attended Brown University, graduating with a bachelor of arts in materials engineering, a major he describes as “somewhere between chemical and civil engineering — with less math and more labs.”

Stevens continued taking photographs and, like his father’s work, these photographs told a story, but Stevens added his own touch, incorporating artistry and irony in the work. The advent of the digital camera freed Stevens from the darkroom and brought about “instant gratification.” Stevens’ first show was at the Sockanosset branch of the Cranston Public Library in 2004.

Stevens’ photographs take everyday objects out of their natural context. He magnifies a subject, deconstructs it and then manipulates it to become a totally unique object far removed from its original state. Stevens often avoids taking photographs of people, preferring instead to focus on the patterns and contrasts in nature. Yet his vision of nature’s subject matter is anything but natural. He digitally manipulates the images, adding and subtracting color, detail and contrast.

The BankRI Galleries are curated by Paula Martiesian. Martiesian is a Providence-based artist and arts advocate. For information, 401-456-5015, extension 1330, or www.bankri.com.