College exhibit shows beauty of black and white photography

Posted on January 28, 2013 |

• Feature Article
• Featured
• Middlebury College

By Addison Independent

MIDDLEBURY — May Mantell, a visiting professor of studio art at Middlebury College, this Wednesday will speak about the current exhibit at Middlebury’s Museum of Art — “Black, White, and Beautiful.” Mantell guest-curated the exhibit in conjunction with her January-term course “Introduction to Black and White Photography.”

The criteria for the exhibit were two: that they be exceptionally beautifully crafted silver prints and that they be meaningful works of art made by significant artists.

Once ubiquitous, silver prints are quickly becoming more and more rare. Made in the darkroom and processed in wet chemistry, gelatin silver prints have an exceptional presence as a consequence of the silver embedded in them. Currently most photographic printing uses digital ink processes.

Mantell’s talk will begin at 4 p.m. in the museum galleries at the Center for the Arts.

Mantell, who lives and works in Middlebury, holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Photography from the San Francisco Art Institute and a Master of Fine Arts in Studio Art from Stanford University. She has taught photography and studio art at Stanford, The San Francisco Art Institute, The University of Vermont and Middlebury College. In 2004 she was Christian A. Johnson Artist-in-Residence at Middlebury.

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