b/w silver gelatin photograph
1978
20 x 16
edition: 50
signed in pen.
b/w photograph, 1978, 16 x 20, edition: 50, signed in pencil.
Tress uses a bed, the juxtaposition of two rakes and a scattering of fallen leaves to enter a sexy anthropomorphic world. Often men are called "rakes" to suggest amoral activity. In this vintage image #8/50, the men are suggested by two actual rakes. The Getty Museum recently acquired more than 80 works by Arthur Tress for its collection. He is one of America's most prodigious and diversified photographers, one whose creation of an individual mythology in a universe of kitsch can make sense of the meaning of life, death, and the hereafter. Tress created his series "Open Space in the Inner City" for which he received a New York State Council on the Arts grant. In 1972 he got a National Endowment for the Arts grant for his "Dream Collector" series. In 1976 he received a second New York State Council on the Arts grant for his "Theater of the Mind" series. In 1980 he published a book on the male nude called, "Arthur Tress: Facing Up, A 12-Year Survey". His major retrospective "Talisman" traveled from 1986-1988, opening at the Photography Gallery in London and then moving to the Museum of Modern Art, Oxford, U.K., Frankfurter Kunstverein, Frankfort, Germany and the Musee de la Photographie, Charleroi, Belgium.
