The Alan Klotz Gallery To Show Harvey Stein's Coney Island Photographs

Written by Oswald Herschprung Friday, 24 June 2011 22:15

New York City.- The Alan Klotz Gallery is pleased to present "Harvey Stein: Coney Island 40 Years", an exhibition of Harvey Setein's photographs of Coney Island from 1970 to 2010, This exhibit coincides with the publication of "Coney Island 40 Years" (published by Schiffer Publishing Ltd). Harvey Stein has been a fixture on the New York photo scene for many years. He has photographed the city from every angle with every kind of camera, at every time of day and night.  Beyond these shores he has led photographic seminars and workshops all over the world. He's gone everywhere, and for the last 40 years he's been going to Coney Island, where New York City flows into the Atlantic Ocean at the end of Ocean Avenue, in Brooklyn. There is a particularly Brooklyn flavor to Coney Island, and it's not just the Nathan's hot dogs or the cloyingly sweet smell of cotton candy mixed in with the salt air, it's the beckoning path of the boardwalk, the signature architectural landmarks of the parachute jump, the Wonder Wheel and the Cyclone, but mostly it's the people who go there.

They are the old Brooklyn Middle Class, and yet they are different from the crowds at The Rockaways, just to the south and east, or even to the Ukrainians and Russians who have annexed Brighton Beach right next door, little Odessa, as it is now called. They have an attitude which is about themselves, and how they identify and display themselves, but it's also about the character of the place where they have chosen to go to play out their small exuberant public performances.  Make no mistake about it, Coney Island is a theater, always was, and there is no shortage of actors here. And that's where Harvey Stein comes in. "Harvey Stein: Coney Island 40 Years" is on view at the gallery from July 7th through August 19th.


Harvey is an affable guy who likes to hang around the edges of the action, he views things with a wry eye and a knowing smile, although he often just waltzes in and becomes part of the dance. That's when he's at his best, when he sees things from no remove at all. His just published book, "Coney Island 40 Years", published by Schiffer is the reason for this show (there will be a book signing at the opening on July 7th from 6-8 pm). Although Harvey has done another Coney Island book in color, this one is in gritty black and white, which contributes to the nostalgic feeling for the past, that is informing the present, while it rapidly becomes the future.  Harvey was around for a lot of transitions, starting at the end of Coney Island's post-war Golden Era, to it's slide into seediness, and now it's renaissance at the hands of the moneyed developers, into what is sure to be reminiscent of Times Square's Disneyfication. Stein shows us that there is a Coney Island continuity that maintains itself through all this, that the place is greater than the forces molding it. It's denizens are the ones projecting its aura, not the sanitizing marketing of the developers. Harvey Stein is seconding that motion in every picture he takes.


The Alan Klotz Gallery (formerly Photocollect, Inc.) have been dealers in fine 19th and 20th century vintage photography and emerging contemporary work for the past 25 years. During that time they have sold many important photographs to the finest museums and private collections from New York to Tokyo, Sydney and Hong Kong. The Alan Klotz Gallery is a member of the Association of International Photography Art Dealers. They attend all the major trade shows and travel extensively to buy as well as to sell. At home they hold Collector’s Seminars to attract and encourage new collectors. They also act as auction purchasing consultants and agents. Alan Klotz definitely comes to photography from the academic side. He has an MFA in photography with a concentration in museum practice from the Visual Studies Workshop in Rochester, NY. While there he studied primarily with Nathan Lyons the Workshop’s director, and the late Beaumont Newhall, the preeminent photographic historian, and the then director of the International Museum of Photography at the George Eastman House. Mr. Klotz was an intern at the Eastman House where he worked with the Alvin Langdon Coburn Estate. He studied printmaking and bookmaking with Joan Lyons and took workshops with such notables as Robert Frank, Frederick Sommer and Dave Heath. While in Rochester he also worked for channel 21 (PBS Rochester) as a cultural reporter and critic and produced a documentary film on dissent in the Soviet Union which aired in several PBS venues. His teaching career spans 25 years beginning in Rochester where he taught history and criticism at the Rochester Institute of Technology and supervised the graduate photography gallery. Since then he has taught at the Rhode Island School of Design, the ICP/NYU program, and at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, NY. He has lectured extensively here and abroad and has written numerous articles, reviews and book essays on photography. He began Photocollect gallery in 1977 and divides his time between New York City and Stone Ridge, NY. Visit the gallery's website at ... http://www.photocollect.com

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