Southerners Figure Large in PDN's Fine Art Issue

PDN has published its Fine Art Issue for 2011, and Southerners figure prominently throughout the issue.

Especially significant is the selection of a portfolio of work by Virginia-based photographer Matt Eich as one of six bodies of work featured in the section called The Curator -- The Search for Outstanding and Undiscovered Fine Art Photography.

One of Matt's images in this portfolio is the image On the Corner (see above) from his ongoing portfolio Sin and Salvation in Baptist Town, made in Greenwood, Mississippi. Matt is certainly not unknown to readers of this blog, and we salute him on this exceptional recognition of his craft.

Also included among five photography collectors under the title "What Collectors Want" are comments from Houston's Joan Morgenstern (who says she wants photographs that make her "hands start to itch") and Wilson, NC's Allen Thomas (who wants photographs from living photographers that are either one-of-a-kind images or prints from small editions).

There is also an announcement of a forthcoming show of work from Lexington, KY photographer Ralph Eugene Meatyard at the Art Institute of Chicago, opening on July 2nd of this year, as well as a new book of essays on Meatyard by Eugenia Parry and Elizabeth Diegel, entitled Ralph Eugene Meatyard: Dolls and Masks, out from Radius Books.

I had not thought of Meatyard as a Southern photographer, but it makes more sense the more I think about it. I wish he and Flannery O'Conner had been able to collaborate on a book together.

Finally, of course, and on a much sadder note, is the tribute to Raleigh, NC photographer Chris Hondros, who along with Tim Hetherington, died earlier this year in Libya. So lets end with an image by Chris that won the Robert Capa Gold Medal in 2005 -- One Night in Tal Afar.

May he rest in peace.