Cook, Camilla. Jill Freedman Hello + Goodbye, essay for exhibition catalog. Chroma Fine Art Gallery, Katonah, NY. Spring 2022
Cook, Camilla. Fresh Pics: Contemporary Art in Connecticut Ridgefield Guild of Artists Exhibition Catalog. 2010
Cook, Camilla. Fresh Pics: Contemporary Art in Connecticut Ridgefield Guild of Artists Exhibition Brochure. 2010
Cook, Camilla. Pioneering the Genetic Revolution: Eduardo Kac and The GFP Bunny Project. Graduate dissertation. 2009
"House Parties! 'First Blush: The Joy of Beginnings' Opening Reception at SM Home Gallery, Greenwich AtHome Magazine, July/August, 2018.
Villarreal, Alexandra"Ushering in Fall Season with 'Punch and Sizzle' Art Show." Greenwich Time, October 4, 2017 (cover story)
Hodara, Susan. "Liza Lou's Handmade Sea of Sparkling Glass" New York Times January 2, 2016. (Camilla appears seated, second from left)
"Mark Making: The Collaborations of Alanna Fagan and Nomi Silverman", Laura G. Einstein. VENU Magazine, September/October 2013 (p 68,69, 80)
"Hope Now Hangs on The Walls of Preemie Unit." Ariela Martin. New Haven Independent, November 2, 2012
"Get It Fresh! New RGA Shows Ready for Their Closeups." Laurel Tuohy. Ridgefield Patch, January 24, 2010
"'Fresh Pics' Featuring Local Artists Opens Jan. 23." Rita Papazian. Norwalk Citizen, January 15, 2010
"A 'Fresh' Look at Connecticut Art - Ridgefield Exhibition Features 52 Local Artists." Rita Papazian. The Westport News, January 13, 2009
"Exhibition Celebrates Connecticut Art." Stamford Plus Magazine, December 22, 2009 and Norwalk Plus Magazine, December 22, 2009
"Fabulous Fairfield: Meet Some of Fairfield's Most Fabulous Women" Fairfield County Business Journal, May 11, 2009
"Pens and Paintbrushes: Consultant is in the Business of Art." Harold Davis. Stamford Advocate & Greenwich Times, November 14, 2008
"Annual Holiday Show and Sale Opens November 25 at Silvermine in New Canaan." Westport Minuteman, November 18-24, 2005
"For Some Students, A Local Museum Became the Ideal Classroom." Shannon Hicks. Newtown Bee, August 25, 2000
FOREWORD
Camilla Cook
To us all. We are all we have.[i]
Jill Freedman (1939-2019) was a self-taught photographer who focused her lens on the streets of New York City. From mid-1960 through late-1980, she photographed people whose lives were not often recorded, connecting with folks who lived on the rough margins of American life, portraying them as “noble but not necessarily heroic.”[ii] Her subjects included anguished protestors, victims and perpetrators of violence, offbeat characters, gritty hustlers, selfless heroes, circus workers, and scrappy kids. Freedman’s photographs portray the chaos, rage, instability, humor and tenderness that emerged when lives collided amid crammed urban settings.
Freedman’s photographs were completely of-their-time, and yet reflected the enduring scope of the human condition. She was part of a “special group of photographers who captured a critical time and perspective in America’s history.”[iii] She recorded places and lifestyles that have changed beyond recognition, but conveyed timeless themes: power struggles, survival, conflict, reconciliation, love, despair. She deeply regretted the endurance of injustice, and was moved to document the plight through her viewfinder. “I had to see what was happening, to record it and be part of it, I felt so bad… (But) of course, it was old stuff from the start. Poverty is ancient history (and) history doesn’t change much...Nothing protects the innocent. And no news is new.”[iv]
What set Freedman apart from other photojournalists was her commitment to live alongside her subjects, to immerse herself in their intimate lives and unfiltered experiences. Her photographs carry the nuanced perspective of an insider. For the six-week entirety of the Poor Peoples’ Campaign in Resurrection City in Washington, DC, Freedman lived in a squalid tent alongside other protestors. She spent two years shadowing firefighters in Harlem and the South Bronx and another two years accompanying police officers on their beats in the Ninth Precinct in Alphabet City and Midtown South. Freedman and her friend, Brigid Maryjohn Murnaghan spent two months travelling across the country with the Clyde Beatty-Cole Brothers Circus.
Her home and darkroom were located above Greenwich Village’s Sullivan Street Playhouse for 24 years, and in Harlem for 12 years. Each day, Freedman’s Leica M5 camera served as her invisibility cloak[v] allowing her to record the seedy disarray of the city in all its trashy glory. She produced an unflinching visual diary of lives playing out on the streets, in the fringes of society. “There are days I walk down the street feeling its ugliness on my skin like a sunburn. Other days when I can hardly catch my breath for the beauty of it.”[vi] Over the years her photographs recorded the unwelcome changes that came with gentrification. She lamented that “real estate has replaced neighborhoods.”[vii] She grieved the loss of what she called “my New York” when her rent tripled in 1990, and she was forced to move.[viii]
Freedman died in 2019, leaving a legacy of iconic photographs in collections including The Museum of Modern Art, NY; The New York Public Library, NY; The Jewish Museum, NY; The International Center of Photography, NY; The George Eastman House in Rochester, NY; The Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC; The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX; and The Bibliothèque Nationale de France. She received numerous awards, including two grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, an Alicia Patterson Foundation Fellowship and an Honorary Fellowship of the Royal Photographic Society. Her photographs have been published in Life magazine, and she is the author of seven monographs: Old News: Resurrection City (Grossman, 1970); Circus Days (Harmony, 1975); Firehouse (Doubleday, 1977); Street Cops (Harper & Row, 1982); A Time That Was: Irish Moments (Friendly Press, 1987); Jill’s Dogs (Pomegranate Art Books, 1993) and Ireland Ever (Harry Abrams, 2004).
Hello + Goodbye
“If it’s not good enough, don’t show it,” Freedman deadpanned to an audience in a 2016 lecture. [ix] With the utmost respect for Freedman, Chroma Fine Art Gallery’s curator, Rita Baunok, selected the highest-quality, signed, vintage gelatin silver prints for the exhibition, Hello + Goodbye. As a professional photographer and dark-room printer herself, Baunok appreciates the technical craft of photography - from the click of the shutter to the final darkroom processes. In making the final selection, Baunok culled through scores of photographs with the help of Freedman’s cousins Nancy Schiffman-Sklar and Susan Hecht. “All of Jill’s work is incredible,” she explained. “I know Jill’s standards and her commitment to production value. I wouldn’t show anything other than the absolute finest quality prints.” The exhibition features some of Freedman’s most iconic images from well-known projects, with a few lesser-known pieces sprinkled in.
In her monographs, Freedman often included text alongside her images. These quotes, musings, stories, observations and memories served to contextualize the photograph and give voice to the subject. Freedman’s personal notes and markings were highlighted in the layout of this exhibition catalog, which reprinted the back and front of the original hand-printed photographs. In fact, the title of the show came from the words “hello + goodbye” scribbled by Freedman on the back of the photograph Baunok selected to characterize this exhibition: a presumed self-portrait of the photographer’s shadowed arm waving from a moving vehicle. The personal greeting presented Baunok with an opportunity to introduce this passionate, well-regarded photojournalist to her gallery visitors. Always in motion, with an unwavering empathy for humanity, the photograph is a fitting testament to Freedman creative spirit. “Go out and take pictures,” Freedman advised students, for “there’s a million stories.”[x]
[i] Freedman, Jill, Resurrection City, 1968. Published by Damiani, 2017, 2nd edition.
[ii] Leland, John. “Jill Freedman, Photographer Who Lingered in the Margins Dies at 79,” New York Times October 9, 2019, sec B, p.14.
[iii] Bryant, Aaron. “Jill Freedman: Visual Discourse on Gender and Civil Rights Leadership” essay printed in Jill Freedman, Resurrection City, 1968. Published by Damiani, 2017.
[iv] Freedman, Jill, Resurrection City, 1968. Published by Damiani, 2017, 2nd edition.
[v] Jill Freedman lecture at the School of Visual Arts on July 1, 2016.
[vi] Excerpt from an unpublished manuscript, quoted by Niko Koppel. “Through Weegee’s Lens,” New York Times, April 27, 2008, sec CY, p. 1, 8.
[vii] Jill Freedman lecture at the Miami Street Photography Festival in 2016.
[viii] Jill Freedman lecture at the Miami Street Photography Festival in 2016.
[ix] Jill Freedman lecture at the Miami Street Photography Festival in 2016.
[x] Jill Freedman lecture at the Miami Street Photography Festival in 2016.
Cook, Camilla. Jill Freedman Hello + Goodbye, essay for exhibition catalog. Chroma Fine Art Gallery, Katonah, NY. Spring 2022