NYAB Event - Derry Moore “Vintage + Color”

Derry Moore “Vintage + Color”

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This is Moore’s first solo exhibition in North America. Best known for his photographs of interiors, gardens, and portraits, the exhibition will feature a selection of vintage black-and-white and lush color images of India in the 1970s and 1980s.

Soon after studying with Bill Brandt in 1971, Derry Moore embarked on his first of many trips to India with the intent of documenting palaces before they fell into ruin from disuse. He became enamored with other buildings, remnants of the colonial era, especially with those that had an oddly enchanting mix of British and Indian architecture and sensibilities, and with their inhabitants. In 1997, Moore published these images in Evening Ragas, a hauntingly beautiful study of post-Raj India. He refers to the architecture as well as the individuals as possessing a “hybrid quality— having retained an atmosphere of another era.” These photographs elegantly capture an India prior to mass tourism, changes in technology, and infrastructure— unaffected by the modern world.

“If I were asked what I look for when I take a photograph, the answer would be surprise. When I think back to my early visits to India, I remember being in a constant state of surprise and corresponding awareness. Today I must actively seek out “subjects” to a far greater extent. That said, when found, the occasions are just as exciting; it’s rather like fishing in an increasingly emptied sea.” - Derry Moore.

Derry Moore, the 12th Earl of Drogheda, was educated at Eton and Cambridge. He studied at Oskar Kokoschka’s School of Seeing in Salzburg where he was deeply moved by a book of Atget’s photographs and also by A Night in London, by photographer Bill Brandt. He later became Brandt’s pupil. This association greatly influenced Moore who began his professional career in 1971. In 2005, Moore’s insightful portraiture was the focus of a small retrospective at the National Portrait Gallery. He has photographed John Gielgud, Rudolf Nureyev, Alan Bennett, David Bowie, and many others.

His architectural and interior photographic work have been reproduced in numerous magazines (including Architectural Digest, Men’s Vogue, and Nest), and he has published over a dozen books, notably Notting Hill, A Gardener’s Life, Rooms, Inside The House of Lords, In House, and most recently, his well-received look into the favorite spaces of well-known English cultural figures titled, An English Room. Moore’s work is in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, The Fogg Museum, Harvard University and The National Portrait Gallery, London amongst other notable private collections.

Image: Derry Moore “Young Boy in Burdwan House, Calcutta” (1977) Archival Pigment Print 40 x 40 in.]