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== Limelight Gallery 1954-61 ==
== Limelight Gallery 1954-61 ==
In 1954 she opened New York City's first important post-war photography gallery along with her sister and brother in-law, the Limelight, on [[Seventh Avenue (Manhattan)|Seventh Avenue]] South and Barrow Street.<ref name="VV"/> Limelight's 20 by 25 foot gallery space was supported by a coffee shop seating 150 patrons with revenue from the sale of food and drink;<ref name=":0" /> with most prints selling for between $25 and $60 each (equivalent to $200-$500 in 2019), takings from the gallery sales rarely met expenses. ''[[The Village Voice]]'''s first [[Obie Awards]] ceremony was held at the café.<ref name="VV" />
In 1954 she opened New York City's first important post-war photography gallery along with her sister and brother in-law, the Limelight, on [[Seventh Avenue (Manhattan)|Seventh Avenue]] South and Barrow Street.<ref name="VV"/> Limelight's 20 by 25 foot gallery space was supported by a coffee shop seating 150 patrons with revenue from the sale of food and drink;<ref name=":0" /> with most prints selling for between $25 and $60 each (equivalent to $200-$500 in 2019), takings from the gallery sales rarely met expenses. Nevertheless, the exhibitions attracted regular reviews from John "Jack" Deschin in the ''[[The New York Times|New York Times]],'' and less often by "John Adam Knight" (Pierre de Rohan) in the ''[[New York Post]],'' Mabel Scacheri of the [[New York World-Telegram|''New York World-Telegram'']] and George Wright in ''[[The Village Voice]].'' The latter publication held the first three [[Obie Awards]] ceremonies in the café.<ref name="VV" />


Although the gallery closed in 1961 due to financial and union pressure,<ref name=":1" /> it had pioneered sales of photographs as art, showing the works of prominent contemporary and historic photographers.<ref name="VV" /> <ref name=":0">Helen Gee / Limelight Gallery archive, 1919-2004. AG 74. Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ. https://ccp.arizona.edu/sites/default/files/finding-aid-pdfs/ag74_gee_limelight_0.pdf</ref>
Although the gallery closed in 1961 due to financial and union pressure,<ref name=":1" /> it had pioneered sales of photographs as art, showing the works of prominent contemporary and historic photographers.<ref name="VV" /> <ref name=":0">Helen Gee / Limelight Gallery archive, 1919-2004. AG 74. Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ. https://ccp.arizona.edu/sites/default/files/finding-aid-pdfs/ag74_gee_limelight_0.pdf</ref>
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== Later life ==
== Later life ==
Having committed all her own funds to the gallery and still in debt,<ref name=":1" /> Gee closed Limelight on January 31, 1961 after a show of the work of [[Julia Margaret Cameron]].
Having committed all her own funds to the gallery and still in debt,<ref name=":1" /> Gee sold and closed Limelight on January 31, 1961 after a show of the work of [[Julia Margaret Cameron]]. The new owners continued showing photographs for a short period and, failing to attract reviews, soon discontinued them and once again sold up in less than a year.


Gee continued to reside and work in Greenwich Village as an independent art agent and as a dealer for both United States and international clients in prints, sculpture, and paintings, and specialising in erotic Japanese [[Shunga]] prints.<ref name=":0" /> 
Gee continued to reside and work in Greenwich Village as an independent art agent and as a dealer for both United States and international clients in prints, sculpture, and paintings, and specialising in erotic Japanese [[Shunga]] prints.<ref name=":0" /> 

Revision as of 01:18, 14 June 2019

Helen Gee (1919–2004) was an American photography gallery owner, co-owner of the Limelight in New York City, New York from 1954 to 1961.[1][2] It was New York City's first important post-war photography gallery, pioneering sales of photographs as art. Gee's archive of her work and records pertaining to the Limelight Gallery are located at the Center for Creative Photography at the University of Arizona in Tucson, Arizona.

In the late 1970s, Gee worked as a photography curator, lecturer and writer.

Life and work

Gee was born Helen Charlotte Wimmer in 1919 in Jersey City, New Jersey, to father Peter who had been trained as a church decorator before he migrated from Austro-Hungary. Gee's mother died during her infancy. She moved to New York City when she was sixteen to live with renowned modernist painter, Yun Gee (1906-1963).[3] They were married in 1942. They had a daughter, artist Li-lan, in 1943 and were subsequently divorced in 1947[1][3] after Yun Gee's incarceration due to his mental illness.[4] She later married Kevin Sullivan, but that ended in divorce.[1]

In the 1950s, she came across a photography show at the Museum of Modern Art, which inspired her interest in photography.[1] Helen Gee studied photography with Alexey Brodovitch, Lisette Model and Sid Grossman. After finding work as a photo restorer in the late 1940s,[4] Gee taught herself specialist transparency retouching for commercial and advertising photographers for a living.[1]

In 1954 she opened New York City's first important post-war photography gallery along with her sister and brother in-law, the Limelight, on Seventh Avenue South and Barrow Street.[2] Limelight's 20 by 25 foot gallery space was supported by a coffee shop seating 150 patrons with revenue from the sale of food and drink;[5] with most prints selling for between $25 and $60 each (equivalent to $200-$500 in 2019), takings from the gallery sales rarely met expenses. Nevertheless, the exhibitions attracted regular reviews from John "Jack" Deschin in the New York Times, and less often by "John Adam Knight" (Pierre de Rohan) in the New York Post, Mabel Scacheri of the New York World-Telegram and George Wright in The Village Voice. The latter publication held the first three Obie Awards ceremonies in the café.[2]

Although the gallery closed in 1961 due to financial and union pressure,[4] it had pioneered sales of photographs as art, showing the works of prominent contemporary and historic photographers.[2] [5]

Limelight Exhibition Chronology  

In her gallery Helen Gee organised and presented these sixty-one exhibitions:[5]

1954
1955
1956
1957
  • Izis, January 8-February 17
  • Frank Paulin, February 19- April 2
  • Eliot Porter / Ellen Auerbach, Madonnas and Marketplaces, April 4-May 19
  • Elliott Erwitt, May 24-July 7
  • Morris H. Jaffe, July 9-August 18
  • Lyrical and Accurate, loan exhibition from George Eastman House, designed by Minor White, August 20- September 28
  • W. Eugene Smith, October I- November 10
  • John Cohen, Peru, November 12-December 15
  • Berenice Abbott, Portraits of the Twenties, December 17- January 26
1958
  • David ["Chim"] Seymour, Chirn's Children, January 28- February 25
  • Rudolph Burckhardt / George Montgomery, February 27- April 10
  • Ken Heyman, Bali, Japan, Hong Kong, April 12- May 25
  • Bert Stern, May 27-July 20
  • James Karales, Rendville, USA, July 24- August 31
  • Group show, September 3-30
  • Harold Feinstein, October 2-November 15
  • Gerda Peterich, Dance Portraits November 18- December 31
1959
  • Robert Doisneau, January 5-February 28
  • Harry Lapow, March 3-April 12
  • Dan Weiner, Russia and Eastern Europe, April 14-May 12
  • The History of Photography, loan exhibition from George Eastman House, May 15-June 30
  • Group show: Seven Europeans, July 2- August 13
  • Group show: Images of Love, August 15-September 30
  • Brassaï, The Eye of Paris, October 5-31
  • Group show, November 2- December 13
  • Louis Faurer, December 15-January 18
1960-1

Limelight: A Memoir

In 1997, Gee published her autobiography, itself titled Limelight: A Memoir.[4][2][7], reissued in 2016 by Aperture. Covering mostly her creation and running of Limelight Gallery, the book provides contemporary insights—and gossip—about the society of Greenwich Village of the period, into the lives and personalities of a number of important photographers including Lisette Model and Robert Frank, and provides a balanced appraisal of Edward Steichen's The Family of Man which launched at the Museum of Modern Art the year following Limelight's opening, and increased attention to the medium.

Later life

Having committed all her own funds to the gallery and still in debt,[4] Gee sold and closed Limelight on January 31, 1961 after a show of the work of Julia Margaret Cameron. The new owners continued showing photographs for a short period and, failing to attract reviews, soon discontinued them and once again sold up in less than a year.

Gee continued to reside and work in Greenwich Village as an independent art agent and as a dealer for both United States and international clients in prints, sculpture, and paintings, and specialising in erotic Japanese Shunga prints.[5] 

In the late 1970s, Gee worked as a photography teacher, curator, lecturer and writer.[1] In 1979 she curated Steiglitz and the Photo Secession for the New Jersey State Museum and the touring Photography of the Fifties: An American Perspective for the Center for Creative Photography.

Publications

  • Limelight: a Greenwich Village Photography Gallery and Coffeehouse in the Fifties: A Memoir. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico, 1997. ISBN 978-0826318176.
    • Limelight: a Greenwich Village Photography Gallery and Coffeehouse in the 1950s. New York: Aperture, 2016. ISBN 9781597113687. With an introduction by Denise Bethel.

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f Loke, Margaret, "Helen Gee, Pioneer in Sales of Photos as Art, Dies at 85", The New York Times, 13 October 2004, accessed on 21 November 2013
  2. ^ a b c d e Aletti, Vince, "Helen Gee 1919–2004", Village Voice (New York City), 12 October 2004, accessed on 21 November 2013
  3. ^ a b Staff, "Helen Gee, 85; Her Gallery Pioneered Sales of Photographs as Art", Los Angeles Times, 14 October 2004, accessed on 21 November 2013
  4. ^ a b c d e Gee, Helen (1997), Limelight : a Greenwich Village photography gallery and coffeehouse in the fifties : a memoir (1st ed ed.), University of New Mexico Press, ISBN 978-0-8263-1817-6 {{citation}}: |edition= has extra text (help)
  5. ^ a b c d Helen Gee / Limelight Gallery archive, 1919-2004. AG 74. Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ. https://ccp.arizona.edu/sites/default/files/finding-aid-pdfs/ag74_gee_limelight_0.pdf
  6. ^ Van Haaften, Julia (2018), Berenice Abbott : a life in photography (First ed.), W.W. Norton & Company, ISBN 978-0-393-29278-7
  7. ^ Tallmer, Jerry, "Helen Gee, 85, proprietor of famed Limelight cafe", The Villager (New York City), 20–26 October 2004, accessed on 12 November 2013
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