Hiroshi Sugimoto: Photogenic Drawings

Fraenkel Gallery is pleased to present a major new body of work by Hiroshi Sugimoto. Inspired by the earliest photographic experiments of William Henry Fox Talbot, the 19th century inventor who developed the negative-positive process, Sugimoto refers to his newest pictures using Talbot’s own term, Photogenic Drawings.

The China Bridge over the River Avon at Lacock Abbey, April 3, 1840, 2009
toned gelatin silver print, 48-7/8 x 41-1/2 inches (framed) [124.1 x 105.4 cm]

Working from Talbot’s original paper negatives, Sugimoto’s vastly enlarged prints are arresting in their detail and atmosphere. The artist’s collaboration with Talbot encompasses the panoply of subject matter that has formed the backbone of photographic history—still-lifes, landscapes, architectural views, and portraits.

Lace, 2009
toned gelatin silver print, 48-7/8 x 41-1/2 inches (framed) [124.1 x 105.4 cm]

By returning to, and enlarging, these traces from the origins of photography, Sugimoto’s Photogenic Drawings re-examine the magical effects of these first ‘drawings with light’.

Asplenium Halleri, Grande Chartreuse 1821 – Cardamine Pratensis, April 1839, 2008
toned gelatin silver print, 48-7/8 x 41-1/2 inches (framed) [124.1 x 105.4 cm]

Works on View

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