VINCENT VALLARINO PHOTOGRAPHS UNSEEN REALITIES TIMELESS BEAUTY
Vallarino’s photography has been featured in numerous exhibitions and may be found in many private and public collections, including:
The Addison Gallery of Art, Andover, Massachusetts
The Sheldon Art Gallery, Lincoln, Nebraska
The De Saisset Art Museum, Santa Clara, California
The Berkshire Museum, Pittsfield, Massachusetts
The Clarence Kennedy Gallery, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Polaroid Collection, Cambridge, Massachusetts
The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts
The Currier Museum of Art, Manchester, New Hampshire
The Victoria and Albert Museum, London, England
Forbes Collection, New York, New York
The Bibliotheque National, Paris, France
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UNSEEN REALITIES TIMELESS BEAUTY
VINCENT VALLARINO PHOTOGRAPHS
UNSEEN REALITIES TIMELESS BEAUTY
In the late 1960s and early 1970s I was privileged to have studied with photographer Minor White for several years. He would tell me, “It’ s not what it is but what else it is.” It took me many years to understand the depth of these simple words. He instilled in me the ability to trust and follow my intuition, which took me to places I never imagined I could go. With my 8 x 10 view camera in hand, I slowly learned to capture what occurred on these intuitive journeys. I gradually became a consummate craftsman which enabled me an uninterrupted flow while photographing. A new door had opened for me and photography became second nature.
My focus has always been on beauty and form. The detail that my large negatives depict allows the reality of my subjects to form a super-realism that otherwise is unseen. Capturing reality in its simplest form is pure abstraction. Through my photographs I attempt to rearrange abstractions into an unrestrained sequence of mental images that become the essence of fantasy.
The following pages contain a group of photographs taken over a 55-year period. They are entities unto themselves that embody my personal dreams of my own fantasy reality and how I view the world.
Vincent Vallarino Millbrook, New York
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3 Calla #3, 1972, Millerton, New York
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Luxembourg Woods #2, 1974, Fishbach, Luxembourg
“ Flowers act as a powerful subject, allowing one’s intuition to run wild while being drawn into their seductive abstract aura.”
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Peony #2, 1993, Millbrook, New York
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“Landscapes are abstractions of an unseen reality and photography is the only medium that can reveal that reality after the print exits the darkroom.”
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Ship Rock, 2011, Navajo Nation, San Juan County, New Mexico
“ Photography used properly is pure passion and revelation.”
10 Calla #2, 1972, Millerton,
New York
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Floating Rock, 1970, Inn Unique, Crawford Notch, New Hampshire
“ Whenever distracted by the chaos surrounding nature, I’ve always zeroed in on the emerging detail of the simplest form, creating the purest abstraction.”
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Calla #5, 1971, Conway, New Hampshire
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“The most difficult approach to photography is through realism.”
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Civita di Bagnoregio, 1969, Italy
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Floating Poppies, 1992, Millbrook, New York
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Calla and Poppy, 1987, Millbrook, New York
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“For me, my attraction to nature and its forms is an inexhaustible source of inspiration.”
21 Landscape in Time, 1969, Diana's Bath, New Hampshire
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Two Floating Callas, 1990, Millbrook, New York
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Vertical Calla Bud with Leaf, 1991, Millbrook, New York
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“Beauty appears when one has great respect for one’s subject and photographs it for what it is and not who you are.”
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Luxembourg Woods, #3, 1974, Fishbach, Luxembourg
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Calla #5, 1972, Millerton, New York
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Calla #11, 1972, Millerton, New York
“Nature has all the abstract and simplified forms that any artist could imagine.”
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Fishbach Woods, 1974, Fishbach, Luxembourg
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“Creating form and its revelation is the nucleus of my photography. Bringing it to life is a driving force that comes from within.”
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Peony #1, 1993, Millbrook, New York
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Calla Lotus, 1990, Millbrook, New York
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Calla Bud with Stalks, 1989, Millbrook, New York
“Visualizing beauty and form are nothing if not sensually motivated.”
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African Daisy #1, 1971, Conway, New Hampshire
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Audubon Center #2, 1972, Sharon, Connecticut
(Opposite) Audubon Center #1, 1972, Sharon, Connecticut
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“Nature choreographs both composition and movement creating a ballet of trees with their lines in time, vanishing in depth.”
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Luxembourg Woods #1, 1974, Fishbach, Luxembourg
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Electric Rocks, 1976, Kennebunkport, Maine
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Cypress Point, 2004, Point Lobos Carmel, California
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43 Two Callas Touching, 1989, Millbrook, New York (Opposite) Calla #10, 1971, Conway, New Hampshire
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“Self-invention begins with allowing your intuitive flow to take you to places you never dreamed of arriving. Only then do you begin to reveal yourself to yourself.”
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Eruption Over Heimaey, 1974, Westman Islands, Iceland
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Nasturtium Leaf #1, 1970, Conway, New Hampshire
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Clematis in a Chinese Bowl, 1992, Millbrook, New York
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Calla #6, 1971, Conway, New Hampshire
Vincent Vallarino was born in Austin, Texas in 1953 and grew up in the Mount Washington Valley in Conway, New Hampshire. He began photographing at age 14 while attending prep school and was exhibiting his photographs by age 16. In 1971, he studied photography with Minor White and Stephen Gersh in Boston. While studying at Apeiron in Millerton, New York , he apprenticed under Paul Caponigro and Michael Hoffman, publisher of Aperture . Many of his early photographs deal with form and abstraction through still lifes which he has continued to photograph for the past 55 years.
Five trips to Iceland from 1970 to 1975 found Vallarino photographing the rugged landscape and lava swept landmasses of this incredible terrain. He became a member of the Polaroid Collection in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1972, and then moved to Lucerne, Switzerland, where he was assistant editor of Camera magazine under legendary art director Alan Porter. While in Europe, Vallarino spent many months photographing the woods in Luxembourg.
Vallarino is not only a photographer but a collector and dealer of fine art photography. From 1976 through 1986, he amassed a large collection, the “History of Photography” which was donated to The Currier Museum of Art in Manchester, New Hampshire. His noteable collection of fashion photographs was donated to the International Center of Photography in New York City. In the years to follow, Vallarino and Stephen Gersh started a company in Essex, Massachusetts called Light Works , which was one of the first photographic printing and portfolio production facilities of its day.
In 1982, Vallarino met Richard Avedon and assisted in developing the famous Christian Dior advertising campaign in which he was one of the models, Oliver Dior. Later that same year, Vallarino and Nicholas Callaway published, in mammoth size, one of Avedon’s most famous photographs entitled “Kinsky and the Serpent,” shocking the current day photography market. In 1983, Vallarino edited Francesco Scavullo’s retrospective monograph and launched a series of worldwide exhibitions of the photographer’s life work. In 1988, he and art dealer Abby Taylor started The Greenwich Gallery in Greenwich, Connecticut, which specialized in 19th and 20th century American and European paintings. In 1993, The Currier Museum of Art in Manchester, New Hampshire acquired a master set of Vallarino’s photographs for their permanent collection and staged a 25-year retrospective exhibition. Vallarino served on the Board of Directors of the Fine Art Dealers Association from 1996 - 2010.
In 2006, Vallarino established Vallarino Fine Art, specializing in American Post War artists with a focus on the New York School of Abstract Expressionists. He has published 25 catalogues and short films on the subject. His influence in reintroducing numerous artists and many women artists from this period has had an important impact on the art market and art world.
Vincent Vallarino lives in Millbrook, New York with his family on an estate once owned by Henry Flagler’s Family.
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