April 2024 Roundup Related to GME Titles, Artists, and Colleagues

April 2024 Roundup Related to GME Titles, Artists, and Colleagues

Happy May from Gartenberg Media Enterprises! Today, we’re reflecting on screenings, events, and celebrations from April, in New York City and beyond, related to GME colleagues, as well as titles and/or artists in our collection that we distribute to the North American university market. Notably, films by Warren Sonbert and Jean-Pierre Melville played at Sweet Void Cinema and Film Forum, respectively. GME also highlighted Hugh Bell’s portraits of jazz legends for International Jazz Day, and reflected on Jack Mitchell’s photos of dancer and choreographer Arthur Mitchell, founder of Dance Theatre of Harlem, on the occasion of DTH’s festival-style weekend of performances at New York City Center.

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GME Celebrates International Jazz Day with Hugh Bell: Jazz Portraits and Album Covers

GME Celebrates International Jazz Day with Hugh Bell: Jazz Portraits and Album Covers

April 30th was declared International Jazz Day by UNESCO in 2011, and has since become the world’s largest celebration of jazz. In honor of International Jazz Day, GME highlights photographs from the Hugh Bell collection that capture a number of jazz legends from the 1950s through the 1980s.

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Video Librarian List Billie Holiday Documentary One of Best Documentaries of 2021

Video Librarian List Billie Holiday Documentary One of Best Documentaries of 2021

BILLIE, directed by James Erskine, is a portrait of legendary singer Billie Holiday based on more than 200 audio interviews conducted by journalist Linda Lipnack Kuehl in the 1970s. A compelling look at the jazz legend who should never be forgotten. The film includes rare photos of Billie Holiday taken by Hugh Bell, licensed to the production by Gartenberg Media, the exclusive representative of the Estate of Hugh Bell.

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Announcing Updated Clip and Photo Licensing Section of GME’s Website, Highlighting Our Work with Todd Haynes’ THE VELVET UNDERGROUND Film

Announcing Updated Clip and Photo Licensing Section of GME’s Website, Highlighting Our Work with Todd Haynes’ THE VELVET UNDERGROUND Film

GME provided scenes from Gideon Bachmann’s UNDERGROUND NEW YORK (1968), Peter Emmanuel Goldman's ECHOES OF SILENCE (1964), Jonas Mekas’ AWARD PRESENTATION TO ANDY WARHOL (1964), SCENES FROM THE LIFE OF ANDY WARHOL (1963-1990), and WALDEN: DIARIES, NOTES, AND SKETCHES (1969), and Warren Sonbert’s AMPHETAMINE (1966) to Todd Haynes and Swish Productions for upcoming Film Forum release and Apple TV+ broadcast of THE VELVET UNDERGROUND.

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Kino Lorber Releases Billie Holiday Doc with Hugh Bell Photos Licensed from GME

Kino Lorber Releases Billie Holiday Doc with Hugh Bell Photos Licensed from GME

Now available on DVD and via streaming services from Kino Lorber, BILLIE (2020) is a documentary about the singer who changed the face of American music, and the journalist who died trying to tell her story. Directed by award-winning filmmaker James Erskine, the documentary is based on 200 hours of interviews conducted from 1970 to 1978 by journalist Linda Lipnack Kuehl. Kuehl had intended to write a definitive biography of Holiday, and her research comprised interviews—taking up 125 audio cassette tapes—with Count Basie, Tony Bennett, Charles Mingus, and Sylvia Syms, among many other colleagues in the jazz world. She also spoke to Holiday’s cousin and childhood friends, as well as to her attorneys and the FBI agents who kept her under surveillance, due to both her drug use and her outspoken antiracism.

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GME Licenses Hugh Bell’s Photographs of Billie Holiday for James Erskine Documentary

GME Licenses Hugh Bell’s Photographs of Billie Holiday for James Erskine Documentary

Available in the U.S. as of December 4th, BILLIE (2020) is a documentary about the singer who changed the face of American music, and the journalist who died trying to tell her story. Directed by award-winning filmmaker James Erskine, the documentary is based on 200 hours of interviews conducted from 1970 to 1978 by journalist Linda Lipnack Kuehl. Kuehl had intended to write a definitive biography of Holiday, and her research comprised interviews—taking up 125 audio cassette tapes—with Count Basie, Tony Bennett, Charles Mingus, and Sylvia Syms, among many other colleagues in the jazz world. She also spoke to Holiday’s cousin and childhood friends, as well as to her attorneys and the FBI agents who kept her under surveillance, due to both her drug use and her outspoken antiracism.

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National Museum of African American History and Culture Acquires Hugh Bell Photographs

National Museum of African American History and Culture Acquires Hugh Bell Photographs

As Black History Month draws to a close, Gartenberg Media Enterprises (GME) is pleased to announce that the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) has acquired six lifetime silver gelatin prints from the Hugh Bell archive for their permanent collection. Says GME Fine Arts Curator David Deitch, “In preserving the legacy of an artist, there is nothing more gratifying than the prestige that comes from a museum acquiring his work. We are especially pleased that NMAAHC, the premiere international institution dedicated to the history, culture and artistic achievements of the African American community, recognizes the significance of Hugh Bell ‘s photographs within this context.”

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Hugh Bell Photographs in "Art of Jazz: Form/Performance/Notes" – The Ethelbert Cooper Gallery, Harvard University – February 3rd through May 8th

In 2014, Gartenberg Media Enterprises was engaged on an exclusive basis by the Estate of Hugh Bell to manage the collection of Hugh Bell’s photographs and to further the artist’s legacy. We are therefore proud to announce the featuring of photographs by Hugh Bell as part of "Art of Jazz: Form/Performance/Notes" exhibition to be held at The Ethelbert Cooper Gallery of African & African American Art. Held in collaboration with the Harvard Art Museums, the exhibition explores the interaction between jazz music and the visual arts.

Billie Holiday (1957)

Billie Holiday (1957)

From The Cooper Gallery Website:

“Art of Jazz” consists of three exhibits at two venues. “Form,” a collection of work drawn from the Harvard Art Museum’s permanent collection, is presented in the Teaching Galleries at the Harvard Art Museums. “Performance” is a collection of books, album covers, photos and other ephemera in the Cooper Gallery’s lobby and front galleries. Scholars Suzanne Blier and David Bindman curated both of these installations. “Performance” at the Cooper includes modernist painter Beauford Delaney; photographers Hugh Bell and Carl Van Vechten; along with a sound installation accompanying the series of artist created album cover installations."


 
Self-portrait

Self-portrait

 

Hugh Cecil Bell was born in 1927 in Harlem, New York City to parents from the Caribbean island of St. Lucia. As a young man he first attended City College, and then graduated in 1952 with a degree in Journalism and Cinematic Art from NYU. After NYU, Bell put his Film Degree to use and found work as a cameraman for television commercials.

Early in his career, Bell was befriended by the cinema verité pioneer, Richard Leacock, who was interested in helping minorities find a professional footing. Bell assisted Leacock on the shooting of several documentaries, including “Jazz Dance” (1952). He also accompanied Leacock on several trips to Spain, where Bell met and photographed the world-famous Spanish bullfighter, 

Dominguin, as well as Lauren Bacall and Ernest Hemingway. Bell’s friendship with Leacock continued to deepen, and over the ensuing decades, he photographed the Leacock family in an extended series of candid portraits at their family home.

In 1952, Bell shot his first of many legendary photographs of jazz greats,“Hot Jazz.” In 1955, Edward Steichen selected “Hot Jazz” for the groundbreaking exhibition “The Family of Man” at The Museum of Modern Art. Over 2 million photos were submitted and only 503 were selected. The exhibit showcased work from 273 photographers including Dorothea Lange, Edward Weston and Irving Penn. This was the first instance of Hugh Bell’s photographic work being shown alongside these towering figures of modern photography.

During the 1950’s, Hugh Bell frequented all the top Jazz clubs in New York City such as the Village Gate, the Open Door Café and Circle in the Square. He encountered and photographed many legendary musicians, including Billie Holiday, Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, and Sarah Vaughan. Bell’s lifelong passion for taking Jazz photographs, often referred to as his “Jazz Giants” series, has been published in books and magazines. His jazz photographs have also graced the covers of innumerable vinyl jazz records.

In addition to jazz clubs, Bell went to and photographed local boxing matches, dance performances and legitimate plays, including Jean Genet’s “The Blacks,” a seminal theatrical production starring James Earl Jones, Roscoe Lee Brown, Cicely Tyson, Maya Angelou, and Godfrey Cambridge, that was mounted at the St. Mark’s Playhouse in 1961.

Bell opened his own studio in Manhattan in the 1960’s. Over the course of the ensuing decades, he worked as a commercial photographer. He produced photographs for print advertisements; many of which were targeted specifically to the Black community.

Interspersed with his commercial work, Bell also focused on portraiture. During this period, he is most known for his images of the female figure. In 1970, a series of these portraits were published in Avant Garde magazine in a feature entitled, “Bell’s Belles”. Throughout this period, he also traveled to the West Indies, focusing on the region of his geographical heritage. He photographed carnivals in Trinidad and Haiti, and daily life in Antigua. He also traveled to Brazil, where he took photographs of the local citizenry.

Hugh Bell passed away on October 31, 2012. He left behind an extensive and wide-ranging photographic legacy that is now ready for rediscovery.


For more information about the Hugh Bell archive and his photographs, please contact:
info@gartenbergmedia.com


All Photographs, © The Estate of Hugh Bell