Heirloom Tomatoes To Hang

At New York Botanical Garden

Victor Schrager Photos Of Varieties Grown

By Amy Goldman Opens August 12

Both at 1 1/2  cols.

“Yellow Group” —©Amy Goldman and Victor Schrager

“Red Brandywine” —©Amy Goldman and Victor Schrager

FOR 8/8

NEW YORK BOTANICAL GARDEN THE HEIRLOOM TOMATO AUGUST 12 w/2 cuts

ak/gs set 7/30 #747215

BRONX, N.Y. — Thirty-three glorious color portraits of heirloom tomatoes — a sampling of the amazing varieties of tomatoes grown every year in the garden of food writer Amy Goldman — will fill the Arthur and Janet Ross Gallery at The New York Botanical Garden beginning August 12.

The images are unabashed homage to the heirloom tomato in all of its rich variety of color and form. Photographer Victor Schrager’s bold photographs harken back to the great tradition of botanical art and illustration, leavened with a decidedly modern sensibility. The exhibition runs through August 30, 2009.

On the same day as the exhibition opens, Bloomsbury USA is publishing Amy Goldman’s The Heirloom Tomato: From Garden to Table. The book features 200 heirloom varieties selected from 1,000 grown and tested by the author herself on her farm in Rhinebeck, N.Y.

The book offers the pedigrees of the tomatoes along with data regarding size, weight, type, brix scale (sweetness) and seed source. Many of the seeds tested have been passed down through generations, which occasions the telling of some very charming vignettes of the people involved in developing and preserving the seeds.

In this book, as in her previous ones, Goldman teamed with Schrager to present the portrait of each variety.

The images on view include artfully arranged still lifes such as “Amy’s Theorem,” a tabletop display of tomatoes of every hue, shape and size brimming from serving dishes, goblets and spoons with a lushness reminiscent of an Old Master painting. “Cherry Group,” an arrangement of cherry tomatoes in a rainbow of shades, evokes a festive holiday display of brightly colored ornaments. “Sweet Pea Currant” is sparser, almost lyrical in composition. “Big Ben” and “Constoluto Genovese” capture the monumental voluptuousness and sensuality of hefty beefsteak tomatoes.

Schrager’s work has been exhibited in numerous collections, galleries and museums around the world, including the Whitney Museum of American Art. From September 30, 2007, into July 2008, an exhibition of his monumental photographs of heirloom squashes and melons was on display in the Ross Gallery at The New York Botanical Garden. He has been a frequent contributor to Martha Stewart Living and House & Garden magazines and has photographed for numerous books, including Anatomy of a Dish by Diane Forley, which won the best photography award in 2003 from the James Beard Foundation.

The New York Botanical Garden is a museum of plants located at Bronx River Parkway (Exit 7W) and Fordham Road. For information, 718-817-8700 or www.nybg.org.