In honor of the AIPAD, Stéphanie de Rougé has created a series of portraits of New York’s principal art dealers. Some are members of AIPAD, some are not. Here are the first 15.
“On February 2, 2012, in the dead of winter, I set out for my first photo interview. No writing assistant, no photo assistant. Just me, them, and a question that had become an obsession: if these people, who’ve seen, handled, exhibited, bought and sold thousands of images in their lives, had to choose only one, which one would it be?
As for my own images, I already had an idea, a frame, a line. For the rest, I experienced these interviews as encounters: I followed the thread of the discussion wherever it led, without adhering to any particular framework, without expecting anything at all. I wrote the story of these encounters at the rhythm I felt them, and in French, my mother tongue.
The 15 gallerists I met over two months offered me the most fantastic course on the history of photography. I saw mind-blowing photographs and priceless treasures. I savored our shared passion for photography.
And by entrusting me with their favorite photographs and the anecdotes behind them, each gallerist pushed me in his or her own way in an unexpected direction: the delicate but inevitable search for my own first photography purchase.
That adventure is now underway.
To the men and women I now call “my gallerists,” an enormous thank you. And to Jean-Jacques and his team at La Lettre as well.”
Stéphanie de Rouge
