N&W RR 1961 Marshalling Yard                                           ©George S. Zimbel

Michael Dell, the founder of Dell computers announced that he and some colleagues have purchased the Magnum file of working prints..the entire collection. It will be housed temporarily at the  Ransom Center of the University of Texas in Austin…where all the work will be scanned front and back thereby creating an incredibly important visual archive of the 20th Century. This news made me think about a row of boxes on the top shelf of Pix Inc.’s former Park Ave. Office. They contained hundreds of prints of Erich Salomon , (1886- 1944) one of the first and most important documentary photographers of the 20th century. Where are those prints? I don’t know. No one will have to ask that question about the Magnum archive. Thank you Michael Dell.

Magnum and I seem to have crossed passed many times always in a collegial way. I knew Cornell Capa from the late 1940’s.
In  1961 Xerox Corp. decided to have a more documentary feel to their annual report and hired me to do the shoot. It worked very well and they were so enthralled with this approach that they decided to hire the entire Magnum crew for the following year! I was not too happy about that but was busy working on the Norfolk & Western project, so it was ok. Raliroads are more interesting than copy machines.

This is where the story get’s complex. Those of you who have read my bio know that my uncle, the architect B.Sumner Gruzen was a very big influence on my work. His son Jordan, now one of the principals in Gruzen Samton Architects has a son Alex who attended the Village Community School in a class taught by my friend  Sari Grossman who was the former picture editor of Argosy magazine. She  had decided to make a career in early childhood education. Too bad for the photographers and good for the children. Alex and his friend Christopher Gonzalez Aller were in her class. Sari remembers them as “little terrors.” Christopher is the son of Peggy Mahoney Gonzalez Aller of Madrid, a  longtime friend of my wife Elaine Sernovitz Zimbel. They both worked at the United Nations from 1953 – 1955.  Christopher is now an expert in Old Master Paintings and lives in Madrid. Alex is now Senior Vice President Consumer Products Group at Dell Computers in Austin Texas. And now you see why I am writing this and why I am sending Alex Gruzen a copy of my catalogue “George S. Zimbel, IVAM 2000″ to give to Michael Dell. He really values documentary photography. It’s like family

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George’s View Feb 3, 2010

In  January 1955, I was in Paso Texas  working on a story about a young couple . He was in the army and they lived modestly off base. She was pregnant and in the post WWII world an army career semed secure and stable. I don’t know how I found them, but they were amenable to my tagging along and photographing their life. I was working for a revived SEE  Magazine under two excellent editors, Norman Lobsenz and Marvin Albert. The idea was to give LOOK some competition and LIFE a nudge with some excellent photographic essays. I was staying with my  friends, Ralph & Bronia Lowenstein. Ralph later became the dean of Journalsm at Florida State Univ.

Anyway, I  had difficulty concentrating on the shoot because I was thinking about Elaine Sernovitz, an amazing woman writer who was then working  at the United Nations.  Just before leaving  New York she told me not to bother calling her when I got back.  As she has learned subsequently, I don’t listen, and with Ralph’s permission made a long distance call to New York and asked her to marry me.  I was surprised and very happy when she said “yes.”

We decided to rendezvous in New Orleans and  have a simple ceremony. Visits to the families in Milwaukee and Boston would come later. To compress the following events, I drove my Volkswagon all the way across Texas, at a steady speed of 58mph (the maximum), picked up my watch at a hock shop in Corpus Christi and arrived in New Orleans where I stayed with my cousin Henry Freidman who was a  tourist guide in the  Old Quarter.

I had a message waiting for me from Lynn Marret, my agent in New York.  Marvin  and Norman had been fired, she had rushed over to their office with a bottle of  Scotch and managed to get a check cut for money owed. (The good old days!) Then, to modify the pain she told me that she had gotten me an assignment  to photograph Bourbon Street New Orleans, for a  high end startup men’s magazine that was going to compete with Esquire.

I called Elaine with the bad news/good news and I think she saw me wobbling on the marriage idea. I assured her that I wasn’t. When the money arrived from Lynn in New York, I bought  the wedding rings, and film for the Bourbon Street shoot. With  the help of my cousin Henry. ”Sure you can shoot the strippers; shoot whatever you want. I know everybody on the street.”  I shot for three days and developed the film in the bathroom of the motel where I had moved. Each morning I would  cut the negs and put them in a  proof printing  frame on my doorstep using POP (Printing out paper.) No developer necessary..they were like the red proofs you got from portrait studios in the 1950’s. I captioned, quickly got them out of the light and into and evelope and mailed them to New York. Shortly after the last batch arrived in New York, Lynn sent me a telegram saying the shoot was rejected and they were giving me a $100 kill fee.  What news!!– just before our wedding!

Years later  “Woman at the Bar “  was taken into the collection of MOMA and ICP.  Chelo was included in Bill Ewing’s book “The Body.” (Thames & Hudson 1994)  The entire essay was the subject of  my  book  “Bourbon Street New Orleans 1955 “  published by Les Editions du Passage, Montreal 2006. Of course that didn’t  help us  then.  Freelance people are survivors. We survived and after 55years have four children and  nine grandchildren.

Take a look:  http://www.georgezimbel.com/collection/bourbon_street/

george

Jon Toensmeyer was a banker at the Hanover bank in New York, located at 250 Park Avenue. It handled corporate accounts such as the Archdiocese of New York, Union Carbide, Kodak , and other giants.

As a young freelancer I had plenty of trouble with banks..they didn’t like freelancers, and I think they like them less now.  I mentioned this to my friend, Willard Block who I believe was working at  CBS, another Hanover account.  He suggested that I go see them. Well, I did, and of course I wasn’t corporate, I wasn’t rich, I wasn’t in any category that a corporate bank  would welcome, so they politely told me that I couldn’t open an account with them.

As I started to morosely exit, a white haired gentleman behind a beautiful desk in the bank officer’s section motioned for me to come over.

“What’s the problem young man?” he asked. I told him.

“What’s that in your hand?” I told him. It was my portfolio..all 11/14″ b/w prints.  “Let me take a look.” he said. I did.   He went through it slowly and then said “fine work”. I think we would be happy to have you as a customer. ”

He set up an account, and later when he ascertained that I was working pretty regularly, he would always ask to see new work. In one of these sessions when I complained that it was  good to work on the Kodak account, but bad to wait  more than  90 days to get paid (some things never change), he  laughed and said  “J.Walter Thompson been paid for your work for Kodak in 30 days and invested that money in 90 day notes, so let’s do a turnabout”. He pulled out a small stack of blank notes and said ” When you finish a job and have it billed out, you can fill in one of these and get immediate credit. Don’t forget to cover it when you finally get paid” . I did and he did.

He later became one of the sponsors for our adopted daughter Jodi,  and soon after retired . He made sure I was passed on to his successor who used to delight in inviting me to lunch in the corporate dining room where my long hair and beard  turned a few well barbered heads.

Thanksgiving Day morning in Woburn Mass. was time for the traditional football competition between the adjacent towns of Winchester & Woburn. I remember  that #54’s nickname was “Butch.” I don’t  remember his last name.

The camera was my 4/5″ Speed Graphic with a Graphex shutter and a 4.7 Ektar 127mm Kodak Lens. Yes, Kodak  did make some lenses during wartime. There was no chrome on this camera..all  flat black. It was the  wartime model.

The negative & the original print have disappeared, but I am still here and was able to scan from the first yearbook at our high school which I miraculously still have. I was the photographer…big surprise.

So Happy Thanksgiving to all our friends in the States. I think Woburn won the game.

george

George Zimbel’s Flatiron Building 2001 wil be offered at Yann Le Mouel auction in Paris on 21 November 2009. (#154).
This is the first time this prints has been exhibited and auctioned. Printed and signed by GSZ.

Marty Forscher  once complained to me that I didn’t break my cameras often enough to really stay in touch, so he would have to invite me to lunch at  the Algonquin Hotel. Then we could talk and catch up.  His wife Marian, his good friend, his good  advisor, his good ski and golf buddy, and at the end, his good care-giver emailed me that  Marty died on September 30  due to heart failure with minimal pain.

I first met  Marty in 1948 when Professional Camera Repair Service was located at 420 Lexington Avenue in New York City and was a relatively small shop.  It expanded into a miniature United Nations as Marty, now in the new quarters at 37 W. 47 St. hired and trained people of diverse backgrounds in the art of dealing with extremely emotional professional photographers and their gear.

When available equipment couldn’t meet the requirements for a particular kind of photograph, Marty would invent something. The last time I  spoke to him he told me that he had a camera on the moon! He had modified a Hasselblad for the use of the astronauts and they had to leave it there to cut down the weight of the return trip to earth. He also invented the Poloroid back for the Nikon which substantially reduced the stress level  of many  assignment photographers so they knew  when they had the shot.  It was a precursor to checking  the back panel of a digital camera

He was extremely proud of his relationship to Edward Steichen who became a father figure to him after they went off to war to record the role of the Navy during WW II.  The story is that Vic Jorgensen,  came into  Peerless Camera Store where Marty worked the counter, and told him that a group of pro’s were part of a new photographic unit being formed by  Steichen for the U.S. Navy.  This unit needed a camera repair man.  Marty took a Leica home, disassembled it and by the next morning had put it back together  in perfect working order. He got the job.

His genius became apparent to  Steichen and all  who worked in the unit. After the war, he had an impressive group of photographer’s who  already depended on his know how, and so began Professional Camera Repair Service.

The shop had an aura of quiet concentration coupled with an amazing energy from the highly charged pro’s who came to get stuff fixed and  swap stories of their latest exploits. There was also a bulletin board for equipment for sale, all of course checked out and in perfect condition ready for work.

I had an idea that Professional Camera Repair would be a  good place  to show work to colleagues…a visual sharing.  Marty  agreed. So, I had my first New York exhibition there…prints  push-pinned into a  cork board. The precious photographic art scene had not yet started in New York.

He  knew  the human role photography could play in the 20th century.  This was before the degrading term “photo-op”  was invented. He was a social democrat in the best sense of the word  and helped photographer’s who were involved in causes he felt would make the world a better place.

He had so many stories.  After Marty  retired, I wanted to record them. He said no and I understood. They were his personal treasures and he would  freely share them with friends, but not the avaricious media.

All I can say now, with tears in my eyes is that  he was a mench who expanded the meaning of that word for me personally and for my photographic colleagues.  My family sends our condolences to Marian and her family.

george  zimbel

Working with computers can be seductive. and the more I do it the more seductive it becomes. But really it is at least once removed from the real thing. That is why I decided to go back into my own red light district  and make prints of new work that languishes in negative envelopes on my enlarger table.. Oh, the poor enlarger…a Leitz  Focomat with a long pole that has gone through a fire that cracked it’s lens and condenser.  I think you would agree that it was schmucked.

However, if you believe in resurrection  you will know it has been given a new life. New lens, new condensers, new base, new easel etc. When I say new I mean about 40 years old. It looks old and so do I. Good people offer me their seat on the Montreal metro.

So with all this blather, what  did I actually print?  It  was   Flatiron Building NYC 2001 .  I needed a negative that would test my refrigerated Agfa Classic Paper.  It’s fine. First look at the content, then look  with special emphasis on the tonality.   It has a range of whites and blacks that would have made John Ebstel happy.

See Yann Le Mouel Auction,  Paris 21 November 2009 (#154)

george

Flatiron Building, NYC 2001                                                                ©George S.  Zimbel

In 1954  there was a lot of new construction  in NYC…everything tall. I realized that there were views of Manhattan that had never been seen before and suggested a piece titled “New Views of New York” to the N.Y. Times magazine. They said yes. One of my main remembrances, besides the fantastic views was walking up 60 flights of stairs to get the vantage point I wanted. This summer,  while vacationing near Lac Taureau Quebec, Elaine and I saw a practically vertical new road. We decided to drive up .  What we saw was a view of the lake that  had not been possible before. Using  my 48 year old M4 Leica  &  57 year old Leica Elmar 35mm lens, (my nostalgia kit)  I shot a few frames of Tri-X. The result is not as dramatic as the NYC photograph, but I find it calming to  have this grainy Elmarish image and have decided to use some of my  precious refrigerated Agfa Classic paper to make a print which I intend to enjoy. Manhattan Looking South 1954   &   Lac Taureau Quebec 2009     ©George S. Zimbel 1954/2009