Clemens Kalischer (b.1921)
Peacham: One Room Schoolhouse, 1958
Silver Gelatin Print, 8 x 10 inches
© 2017 Clemens Kalischer
Image courtesy Image Photos

Between Past and Future: Clemens Kalischer’s Vermont

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, Kalischer first made his reputation with 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.

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 including images of such icons in the music industry as Van Cliburn, Rudolf Serkin, Pablo Casals, among others.  A large group is from his important 1958 Peacham series, which captures both a timeless sense of a traditional culture rooted in patterns of work and play, and the explosive vitality of youth at a high school dance.  His Vermont work is deep and varied, comprising thousands of images traversing more than six decades.