Sunday at noon is not the usual time for a gallery opening in Los Angeles but last Sunday it was exactly the right time. Leica Gallery opened its doors for a charity called City Hearts: Kids Say Yes to the Arts and the walls were filled with pictures by celebrity and studio photographers and photos by the kids the charity helps. Every year City Hearts stages an auction to raise money for their education programs in Music, Dance, Photography and Shakespeare and many excellent photographers respond with the gift of their work. What was great this year was to see some of the kids who learn through the program, there in the gallery with cameras in their hands making pictures and finding out a little about how the art world works.
The auction began with a private showing at noon and opened to the public an hour later. On the walls were prints by photographers Henry Diltz, Douglas Kirkland, Greg Gorman, Kim Gottlieb- Walker, George Hurrell and Herb Ritts as well as American Society of Cinematographers members James Chressanthis, Richard Crudo, Charlie Lieberman, Emmanuel Lubezki, David Darby, Russell Carpenter and Steven Poster. It was a big, good looking show with something for every taste.
The kids were there too. On a wall close to the entrance hung their prints – lots of them. Evidence that the Say Yes to the Arts program is turning out kids with an eye and the desire to make more than selfies.
http://andyromanoff.zenfolio.com/
http://cityhearts.org/
http://www.leicagalleryla.com/
