June 3, 2017, 3:00 to 5:00 pm
Artist’s Reception, Works on Paper Gallery
Between Past and Future: Clemens Kalischer’s Vermont

“I just watch very quietly. I tend to be very quiet. People hardly notice me . . . I tried to take totally candid photographs. When they feel that I am totally absorbed then they get totally absorbed.”  Clemens Kalischer

Born in Germany in 1921, Clemens Kalischer fled with his family to France in 1933 and escaped to the United States in 1942.  A self-taught photographer, the images that first made his reputation were photographs of fellow refugees arriving in New York after the war, and graphic, modernist evocations of streets and buildings. But Kalischer’s heart was not in the city, and in 1951 he moved to Stockbridge, Massachusetts.  Here he focused on creating photo essays of the people he had encountered in the rural and urban areas of India, Israel, Europe, the American South, as well as New England.

Clemens Kalischer (b.1921) Marlboro Music Festival: Van Cliburn and James Levine, 1956 Silver Gelatin Print, 11 x 14 inches © Clemens Kalischer Image courtesy of Images Gallery and Studio

Kalischer often came to Vermont seeking material and in this exhibition – Between Past and Future: Clemens Kalischer’s Vermont – the viewer is treated to over thirty images including some taken during six decades of photographing the Marlboro Music Festival with images of  Van Cliburn, Rudolf Serkin, Pablo Casals, among others.  Many are from his Peacham series documenting people in their daily struggles on the land or in the factory.  His Vermont work is deep and varied, comprising thousands of images traversing more than six decades, and we are excited to share his work through this exhibition.

His work appears in the permanent collections of places such as the Library of Congress, the International Center of Photography and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He has exhibited at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York City, the Museum of the Jewish People in Tel Aviv, and the site of the former Nordhausen concentration camp in Germany near where he grew up.   Between Past and Future: Clemens Kalischer’s Vermont is on view May 27 through September 4.