THE CHRISTOPHER HYLAND COLLECTION OF PHOTOGRAPHY
Cape Cod Museum of Art
60 Hope Lane
Dennis, Massachusetts
Through August 8
Christopher Hyland, a leading New York City textile
merchant and designer, has been a collector of beautiful
and storied objects since his youth. In this exhibition,
Hyland reveals his exceptional eye for the evocative
through photographs from his collection.
The display includes works by some of the most influential and gifted
photographers of the 20th century, including Edward Weston, Marcus
Leatherdale, Herb Ritts and Robert Mapplethorpe, and serves as a tale
of two odysseys — that of the collector and that of the medium itself.
The exhibition begins with an iconic image: Andreas Feininger’s “The
Photojournalist.” It is a dramatically posed portrait, and the camera
appears almost as a mechanical extension of the subject’s eyes, allowing
his mind to view the world anew. The ability for anyone to pick up
a camera and to engage in this experience is one of the reasons the
medium appeals to Hyland. He recently observed that many of us will
“at one point in our life…execute a masterpiece in a photograph…and
thus be able to stand among the masters” — thus photography can be
the great equalizer.
“By Way of These Eyes” is an eclectic collection that includes subdued
still-lifes and erotically charged vignettes, encompasses the whimsical
and the profoundly serious, references classical beginnings and
celebrates their evolution into modern expressions. The images are
best characterized by the power of their compositions and the complex
layering of images and meanings that ask us to contemplate the past,
present and future all at once.
The photographs of John Dugdale have a transient quality that invites
the viewer into the soul of the artist. Dugdale’s images are reflective
and at times heartbreaking, but imbued with a sense of hope. By
contrast, wonderment and whimsy inform Thomas Barbey’s complex
visual concoctions that blend reality with the absurd (and owe much
to surrealist photo master Jerry Uelsmann). In “Judgment Call,” the
deceased ascend as apparitions to the doors of St. Peter’s Basilica, while
others tumble downward, presumably cast to hell; Barbey’s hell appears
here to be a Caribbean island. In another image that challenges our
assumptions, Greg Gorman’s “Patrick and Johan” is a modern day pietà
that speaks to both racial harmony and compassion.
Numerous photographs celebrate the emerging power of women in the
20th century. Whether they are common folk, like those depicted in
Sarah Hart’s images of Russian women, or of Olympians, as in Herb Ritts’
glistening nude portrait of Jacqui Agyepong, there is a profound sense
of strength and character. These are not traits held exclusively by grown
women, as we see in Sally Mann’s “Holding Virginia.” The arresting and
disquieting image is of her young daughter, who gazes at us with a gritty
intensity that reveals unusual focus and determination.
The photographic giants of the 20th century — Edward Steichen, Paul
Strand, Edward Weston and Henri Cartier-Bresson — are represented in
their full modernist glory, capturing that moment in history when the
photographer realized the transition from the static to the kinetic, and
took the medium from realism towards Abstract Expression. Strand’s social
realism is accompanied by his micro images of flowers from his gardens in
Orgeval, France. “Behind the Gare, St. Lazare,” Cartier-Bresson’s seminal
photograph, is an entire novel, overflowing with individual images that
combine to make one of the most intriguing photographs of the 20th
century. Beside it is André Kertész’s “Chez Mondrian,” a crisp portrayal
of the artist’s studio in which line and positive and negative space are
brought together to create one of the finest interior portraits.
The collection is brought full circle through a series of color photographs
that take Hyland’s collection from its classical past to the present in
richly colored, computer-made photographs.
Hyland is also an avid and gifted photographer, and several of his
works are included in the exhibition. A group of seven images entitled
“Transformation” offers a series of portraits in which Hyland progressively
designs and adorns a rather rough-looking individual. In the process,
Hyland transforms his subject from one of potential threat and volatility
to that of an almost ethereal tribal deity. The series touches on many
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