THE PERVASIVE VIEW: VINTAGE PRINTS FROM THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC ARCHIVE at Stephen Bulger Gallery (1026 Queen West) to June 5. 416-504-0575. Rating: NNNN
The National Geographic society has published only 2 per cent of the more than 11 million images in its possession. The society’s unreleased archival treasure forms the basis of this show of 80 extremely rare prints.
[rssbreak]
The range is vast, from Herbert Ponting’s photos of Robert Scott’s South Pole expedition and Hiram Bingham’s first prints of Machu
Picchu to A.B. Lewis’s photographs of New Guinea aborigines. There’s even a series of Baron Wilhelm von Gloeden’s neoclassical prints of Sicilian youths, included in an early issue of National Geographic.
Notice how the more time-intensive medium of the silver gelatin print lends more weight to some of the images, as if serious and slow intent could be read in each detail.
