Hello Joshua,
It’s not an easy thing to handle, being as it is, a mixture of two main things: personal, emotional connection; a wider word usually disinterested in anything that isn’t likely to make it money.
At the end of his life, Saul Leiter suddenly became the object of attention from a gallery, books were published and prints sold. This, after a career as a fashion photographer with Harper’s Bazaar and other such publications, a career which, like many in this business, also disintegrated, taking him into obscurity where he had problems paying rent and “the light” - as he was fond of saying after his eleventh-hour rediscovery. People who reach loud public acclaim always have willing sources to take over - and mine - their life’s work.
Personally, I am sort of glad that I no longer print. I have boxes of A3+ prints that I never open anymore, both because they now bore me, and also because they also remind me of times lost, which is depressing.
The last two people to show an interest were my two granddaughters, who after a recent visit, took home with them a collection of prints that now decorate the walls of their respective homes. Sic transit gloria mundi.
I think that anyone who decides to do a lot of printing also has a certain responsibility regarding their eventual disposal.
I inherited a lot of things; some I like and some I would bin, but for the thought that my mother loved them. Where the apartment has space, they are out on show, as it were, but other stuff takes up room in cupboards. In effect, I lack the moral courage to do what I know that my own children will have to face and do with them for me, after I’m up there in the celestial studio.
Is that what was implied with “the sins of the fathers shall be visited upon the sons”?
Good luck; I hope you find a welcoming home for Eric’s works. I have his book; he was a good photographer whilst he was capable of doing that. By the way, is there a chance he might be able to be interested in making iPhone pictures? It creates little mental pressure, can be immediately satisfying and requires no further, complicated input. It could perhaps be therapeutic for him to some degree.
Regards - Rob
