When in San Francisco recently, I discovered the Robert Tat Gallery. Not only because I was drawn to the work by Karl Struss on exhibition, but because Robert himself was so engaging. It’s a rare thing when you enter a gallery and the owner looks up with a big smile and spends the next half hour sharing works from his amazing collection. This first image of the Brooklyn Bridge is still calling to my wallet. What I loved was how intimate the works were: 3.75″ x 4.5″, and they are far more beautiful in person. More information on Karl Struss follows:
” Karl Struss (1886-1981) studied with Clarence White from 1908 to 1912, and his talent was soon discovered by Alfred Stieglitz who published eight photogravures by Struss in the April 1912 issue of Camera Work. That same year Struss became a member of Stieglitz’s Photo-Secession. Significantly, Struss was one of the first photographers to use modernist compositions in his pictorialist photographs. In 1916 he co-founded the Pictorial Photographers of America. Struss became a successful commercial photographer, with work appearing in Vogue, Vanity Fair and Harper’s Bazaar. After WWI, Stuss moved to Hollywood, where he had a second career as an Academy Award winning cinematographer working for Cecil B. DeMille and others.”