New York Public Library to Display Theatre Photography of Friedman-Abeles Studio
The exhibit will feature images from Purlie, Camelot, West Side Story, and more.
Original cast of Purlie
Friedman-Abeles
The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center will celebrate the theatre photography of the Friedman-Abeles
Studio in an upcoming exhibit offering a unique presentation of lenticular
prints. Entitled Reanimating Theater: The Photography of Friedman–Abeles, the exhibit will open March 15 and continue through September 25.
From 1954–1970, the Friedman-Abeles
Studio—featuring the work of Leo Friedman and Joseph Abeles—photographed the majority of the shows on Broadway, including color images that the Library received as slides. The
cost of reproducing these images in the pre-digital era meant that few have ever been seen before.
Rather
than selecting a single shot from these shows, the Library has used the technology of lenticular printing to
simulate animations of several of the shots, giving a
sense of the movement of the original production.
This
exhibition, curated by Doug Reside, will showcase selections of some of the studio’s most iconic images from the original Broadway productions of Purlie, Camelot, West Side Story, and Bye Bye Birdie.
Click here for more information.
