In the spring of 1979, Jeffrey Fraenkel was the 24-year-old founder of a new San Francisco gallery focused on photography, scheduled to open later that year with an exhibition of mammoth plate photographs by Carleton E. Watkins. His ambition was to show “the best photo work available,” he wrote, spanning the 19th and 20th centuries. As part of that effort, Fraenkel reached out to two contemporary photographers, Lee Friedlander and Garry Winogrand, writing to tell them that he “very much want[s] to represent and exhibit your work.”
In the letters Fraenkel wrote to each, he explains the focus of the gallery and describes his faith in their work, noting that “I believe [the] work is most definitely salable, and have little doubt that I can create a market for it on the west coast.” Fraenkel goes on to invite them to give him a call (collect) to talk more about his vision for the gallery. We can assume they were interested—along with numerous publications, today the gallery has presented 12 Winogrand exhibitions and 19 solo shows with Friedlander.
Learn more about Fraenkel Gallery’s history on our Timeline.