Introduction
The 1970s was an exciting decade for the entire field of fine art photography in America. Its study and practice within colleges and universities was also rapidly expanding as new undergraduate and graduate MFA programs were being established across the country. It was in this context that Northlight Gallery at Arizona State University (ASU) was evolving from its infancy into being a nationally recognized venue for the exhibition of significant fine art photography. It was also at this same time that what was to become the Solari Foundation Collection, that now contains in excess of 5,000 images, saw its earliest beginnings.
Prior to 1975 the photography program at ASU consisted of two faculty in the studio area and one faculty member teaching the history of photography. By the early 1980s there were five studio faculty and two photographic historians. The program had more than doubled in a very short period of time. Such rapid growth created excitement in both faculty and students as they felt united in their joint efforts to claim what they felt was photography’s rightful place within the university community. This growing acceptance of photography as a legitimate area of academic study was mirrored within the culture at large as photography found new attention as a fine art during this same period as witnessed by Time magazine’s cover story on Ansel Adams ending the decade in 1979.
It was in this setting that I came to ASU in the mid-1970s with a job description that included responsibilities to help Northlight Gallery evolve to the next level of professionalism. When I arrived, Northlight was a name that graduate students were using for a variety of temporary exhibition venues, such as local coffee houses, for the display of their own work. I had the opportunity to turn this student interest in the exhibition of photography into an academic class with a professional on-campus designated space devoted to the exhibition of young emerging photographers and at the same time teach many of the fundamentals of running a professional exhibition space. In the gallery’s early years there was a delicate balance between student involvement and faculty management that helped energize students to come up with not only ideas for exhibitions but also everything else, including sources of funding that began at the level of selling t-shirts on the campus malls in order to buy glass for the next exhibition.
Nasrallah Behbehani (BFA, 1977) was a student in the photography program who gave a great deal of time and energy helping formulate the then-developing structure of Northlight Gallery and was a central figure in the fund raising efforts of Northlight Gallery’s early years.
The development of Northlight Gallery to its present state as an internationally recognized venue for the exhibition of fine art photography could not have happened without the parallel developments Professor Bill Jay was establishing within the area of photographic history at this same time. It was not only his unequaled knowledge of the history of photography that was exciting students—necessitating larger and larger lecture halls each semester—it was also his unique way of presenting history that made it real and very much alive for all in his presence.
I would often bring a gallon jug of collodion to Professor Jay’s lectures on wet plate photography in the 19th century, since my other duties included teaching late 19th century printing processes and I had access to an array of chemicals. The bottle would be opened and passed around the darkened lecture hall so students could directly experience the smells of the explosive ether and alcohol that permeated the life of a photographer during this era—a practice certainly not to be repeated today. It was one such lecture about the Daguerreotype that sent Mr. Behbehani in search of local thrift stores that resulted in the purchase of a small Daguerreotype necklace purchased for $5.00. When he returned to show his find to Professor Jay and was offered $50.00 on the spot, he was hooked. So began a collection that now, some 40 years and 5,000 plus items later, contains full sets of Camera Work and Edward Curtis’ The North American Indian, as well as works from many of the most prominent photographers of the 19th and 20th centuries.
As Behbehani continued collecting throughout his life his generosity allowed this collection to be placed in the care of Northlight Gallery as an extended loan. All too often wonderful collections of photography are kept in bank vaults rarely seeing the light of day and rarer still are they ever allowed to be used. With the Solari Foundation Collection being housed at Northlight Gallery, students have the unique opportunity to assist in the organization, storage, general care of, and exhibition of major works from photography’s past that most other students across the country were seeing initially only as Ektachrome slides and now as off-color digital projections in darkened lecture halls.
In a very real sense, the beauty of photography’s history was now accessible to students on a very different level. The surface gloss, the thinness, and even the yellowing edges of an 1860s albumen print—the very essence of a physical presence—could be touched (albeit with white gloves) and understood in the same way the collodion had been smelled in the photographic history lecture hall. The Solari Foundation Collection functioning in this
educational context has been a true gift to countless students over the years that defines a major component of the photography program within the School of Art at Arizona State University, one of the most highly recognized in the country.
When Behbehani approached me in 2011 with the idea of producing a catalogue from the collection along with the request that I oversee its conception, design, and execution, I could only say “yes” (admittedly, after much reflection since I had just retired) as I came to see this request as a symbolic circle defining and completing an important aspect of my professional life that I had begun some 34 years earlier.
It was my belief that such a project should include student involvement as much as possible. A volume of highlighted works from the collection was envisioned that would present a full-page reproduction of a single work from significant photographers to be accompanied by a one-page student-written and faculty-edited essay. Professor Betsy Fahlman, taught a seminar in the spring of 2013 for School of Art undergraduates and graduate students which resulted in the essays accompanying the highlighted works, and Liz Allen, Curator at Northlight Gallery and Manager of the Solari Foundation Collection supervised additional research with students that will result in an accompanying exhibition upon publication.
Featured Works would be Volume I, and two additional volumes would also be produced with thumbnail illustrations that together would represent a complete catalogue raisonné of the Solari Foundation Collection. The logical structure due to the make-up of the collection was to reproduce the Edward Curtis’ The North American Indian volumes and portfolios along with a complete collection of Camera Work in an additional volume (Volume II), and all of the additional 19th, 20th, and 21st century material in a following volume (Volume III). Volumes II and III would also include thematic essays, written by students and edited by Professor Fahlman, which would help provide a photographic, historical, and social context for the work included in each volume.
Once this decision was made to divide up the collection into three separate but unified volumes, there remained many possible ways to organize the diversity of material in each volume. Featured Works, Volume I, would be presented in chronological order with no image being reproduced larger than its original size. This results in the most accurate presentation of the original object as well as conveys the diversity within the collection that includes such a vast number of 19th and 20th century photographic processes, small individual objects, and large prints, as well as albums, publications, and ephemera that range greatly in size as well as substance.
Volume III of the catalogue raisonné contains the greatest amount of diversity and therefore contained the largest number of possible options for organization. There are many 19th century albums depicting views of the Middle East that contain photographs by various photographers. It was decided to present this material maintaining the integrity of the album rather than arranging the images by photographer irrespective of the albums in which those images appeared. Volume III also contains individual prints and portfolios in addition to stereographs, with Daguerreotypes, ambrotypes, and lantern slides, organized by object designation.
With the publication of these three volumes, access to the immense cultural wealth held within the Solari Foundation Collection has been greatly increased. Let it not be forgotten that it is only through the generosity of Nasrallah Behbehani that this collection has been available to countless students over the past decades, helping them formulate careers as well as enriching their lives, and now with this publication that generosity expands to offer a printed gift to all those fortunate enough to be able to peruse its pages and discover its wonders.
James Hajicek
Executive Editor
Solari Foundation Publications, 2017