Yesterday, by sheer luck, I discovered the greatest and most complete black and white photgraphy exhibit I have ever seen ! I was STUNNED!
The owner of Turnbull Wine Cellars has what is described as the largest private collection of black and white photographs in the United States. I have no doubt, after seeing the gallery yesterday, that this is true.
Ansel Adams, Margaret Bourke-White, Jane Bowen, Clarence Sinclair Bull, Marsha Burns, Imogen Cunningham, Walker Evans, Burt Glinn, Edward Weston, Dorothea Lange, Yousuf Karsh, Paul Strand, Jock Sturges, Edward Steichen, Roy Schatt, Peter Satckpole, and more and more and more.
You walk into the tasting room and in just this one small area there are more original and signed fine art prints in this one spot than at any location I have seen. There are so many prints that the employees break room, the bathroom hallways, everywhere you look are prints....the owner has so so so many prints he has obviously run out of places to put them. The employees break room with original Adam's prints. Just to cover the walls I guess ?!
It gets better. The "reserve tasting room" has another 50-100 prints. Original "Moonrise Over Hernandez" ! Stunning prints from every major fine art black and white photographer of the last century! I mean we are talking about prints that most of us have only seen in books! Stunning ! Prints by masters that I have never seen even in books!
It's crazy! It was like a photographers heaven! I have lived in the San Francisco Bay Area all my life. The exhibit open last year but I have never heard of it. I don't see any mention of it on the web.
Oddly enough it's free. This is an exhibit that I would gladly pay to view. It's not to be believed. Apparently the exhibit's prints rotate from time to time....that's how many prints this man owns. The reserve tasting room is open to the public on Saturdays...but check with them to be certain.
This collection could fill a meuseum in San Francisco or New York...the fact that it sits unknown at a "small" winery tasting room left me stunned !
Go north on Hwy 29 from Napa.....Turnbull Winery.
www.turnbullwines.com Peter