‘The Living Lens’ Opens a New Art Window

Corbis is moving into the art market.

The giant image bank established 10 years ago by Microsoft chief Bill Gates has become a major resource for art directors of magazines and newspapers. But, in a new venture, to be launched today at Louis Stern Fine Arts in West Hollywood, 75 historic photographs will be marketed to the public as limited-edition artworks.

All the images are from the Bettmann Archive, a renowned collection of 16.5 million photographs founded in 1933 by Otto Bettmann, a German emigre who settled in New York. Corbis purchased the archive in 1995. Working with master printer Michel Karman and A&I; Photographic Laboratory in Los Angeles, Corbis has published editions of 250 prints of each picture.

Mostly the work of anonymous artists, the photographs include a 1930 shot of a construction worker teetering atop the frame of the Empire State Building; a 1941 image of airline mechanics peering out of huge, capsule-like head protectors; and a 1948 view of Trafalgar Square in the fog. Individually priced at $350 framed or $200 unframed, the photographs will be sold both at the gallery and on the Internet, under the umbrella of the Living Lens, a consumer products program operated by Corbis.com.

It might seem odd for the computer giant to display its wares in a traditional gallery, but the setting provides “a level of credibility” and allows the images to be seen at their best, said Derrick Chasan, vice president of product development at Corbis.

“It’s one thing for us to say, ‘Look, these prints have artistic merit.’ It’s something else for us to demonstrate artistic merit by showing the images in a gallery,” he said. “Also, it’s one thing to see them online; it’s another thing to physically see them. They just come to life in the real world.”

The project began a couple of years ago in conversations with David Alexander of A&I;, who already had a professional relationship with Corbis, Chasan said. “The Bettmann Archive is the largest of the 3,000 collections that make up Corbis’ holding of 65 million images, so we were looking for a way to create something of real value from the archive’s strong offering of black-and-white images,” he said. “We agreed that it would be interesting for A&I; to go into the Bettmann Archive, find images that have both historic and artistic merit and take them through a hand-crafted darkroom process that would create a limited edition of superior quality.”

Alexander immediately enlisted Karman, a prominent darkroom artist who works for A&I; and whose services are in demand by many well-known photographers including Helmut Newton, Sally Mann and Nan Goldin. Last summer, when plans for the project fell into place, the two men went to New York and plunged into an unforgettable experience.

“Looking at that archive was like being in a candy store or getting drunk on images,” Karman said. “The power of those images is unbelievable, not only visually but from the historical context.”

It would have taken far too long to go through the entire archive and many of the negatives are extremely unstable, so Alexander and Karman restricted themselves to a room where hundreds of thousands of prints are stored. Attempting to represent a variety of subjects and a broad sweep of history in images that resonate artistically--or have “the je ne sais quoi quality that makes them click,” as Karman put it--they made preliminary selections.

“Then we had to find out if there was a negative, or if the print on hand was the only thing we could work with. If we had to use the print, we had to be sure it was good enough,” he said. “All those issues came into play.”

Most of the photographs were printed from original glass plates or negatives, but the process was a challenging mixture of old-fashioned darkroom artistry and up-to-the minute digital technology. “The prints we are showing at Louis Stern were hand-printed in the darkroom--in trays like Ansel Adams used, with tongs, red lights and all of that--but from digital negatives,” Karman said.

“What happened is that I first did a set of master prints. And that was very hard to do because of the [fragile] nature of the negatives. It was a nightmarish proposition that required a lot of dodging and burning and manipulation. The master prints were then scanned digitally. The digital department at A&I; did some minor retouching [but only to remove distracting scratches and blemishes], then outputted very high-quality, high-resolution negatives.”

The prints had to be washed for 40 minutes to an hour to remove chemicals and ensure the stability of the images. “Part of the lab is almost like a swimming pool,” Karman said. “We have archival washes running one after another and a staff of people just handling the washing. Then the prints are air-dried on racks. There are no shortcuts.” Each print is numbered and signed on the back by Karman and comes with a certificate of authenticity and information about the subject, he said.

Selling photography as art is hardly a new concept, but Corbis is “trying to gauge market acceptance” with its first Living Lens exhibition, Chasan said. There is talk of a similar show in New York, but he is “a little nervous about scheduling an exhibit in New York if there is a huge demand for the product. We are committed to not producing more than 250 prints of any image, so we are trying to maximize the opportunity in the Los Angeles area before we extend the exhibit to another city.”

*

* “The Living Lens: 75 Limited-Edition Prints From the Bettmann Archive,” Louis Stern Fine Arts, 9002 Melrose Ave., West Hollywood, (310) 276-0147. Ends Jan. 20. Tuesdays to Fridays, 10 a.m.-6 p.m.; Saturdays, 11 a.m.-5 p.m. The collection can be viewed online at https://www.corbis.com/gallery.