What Galleries Want: Monroe Gallery in Santa Fe, New Mexico

By Holly Stuart Hughes

? Rikki Reich/Monroe Gallery A photo by Rikki Reich, taken on September 11 from the New Jersey side of the Hudson River.

The economic downturn has caused many art galleries to reduce the number of exhibitions they mount, which makes getting gallery representation that more difficult for unsigned photographers. Recently, Sidney Monroe, owner of Monroe Gallery in Santa Fe, New Mexico, revealed what new artists he has taken on over the past couple of years and what made him want to represent their work.

A native New Yorker, Sidney Monroe worked for years with galleries in New York City. His wife, Michelle, is an artist who for a time worked at the Cooper-Hewitt Museum. They knew the late photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt, and through him, became acquainted with many photographers who had worked for LIFE magazine. After 9/11, when they left New York City and decided to open the?Monroe Gallery in Santa Fe, New Mexico, they built on those connections and established a reputation among collectors for representing classic documentary photography from the likes of Carl Mydans, Margaret Bourke-White, John Loengard, Gordon Parks, Bill Eppridge, Charles Moore and Ernst Haas. Increasingly, however, they are showing contemporary photographers. ?We?ve felt strongly over the last several years that we wanted to make a move into more current photography and work with contemporary photographers who are following in the footsteps of the classic photographers we represent,? Sidney Monroe says. He notes that none of the artists he represents created their work to be shown in galleries, but he looks for work that achieves what he calls ?a fine-art quality? and also represents ?a significant moment in history.?

Deciding whether or not to add a photographer to the gallery?s roster means managing expectations. ?There are ten or 15 photographers we?d jump at the chance to have at the gallery, but what would it mean for the other photographers we currently represent?? One solution has been to do group shows on a theme, such as ?human rights,? Monroe says, ?to put everyone in the spotlight.?

The Monroes participate in occasional portfolio reviews, and also follow photojournalists? work in newspapers, magazines, Web sites and blogs. They discovered the previously unpublished images that New Jersey photographer?Rikki Reich shot on 9/11 when they were posted on The New York Times's Lens blog. ?Of all the 9/11 work we?ve seen, it stood out to me,? Monroe says. Reich shot the sequence of black-and-white images of the towers burning and pedestrians fleeing lower Manhattan from the New Jersey shore of the Hudson River. ?It had an epic quality,? Monroe says. ?It was quite striking because it looked like nineteenth-century photography.? Monroe contacted Reich and told her he was eager to represent the work. He took a portfolio of her images to The AIPAD Photography Show New York in March and will be exhibiting it in the gallery this fall. ?It?s a moment in history. It may not resonate with people today, but it?ll have power in ten or 20 years.?

A group show at the gallery titled ?History?s Big Picture? provided the Monroes an opportunity to exhibit a half dozen images by Nina Berman, including images from her book Homeland, about security measures in America after 9/11, and photos of the wedding of a severely burned U.S. Marine, which won a World Press Photo award in 2006. ?I?ve been totally bowled over by Nina?s work for years and years,? says Monroe. In ?History?s Big Picture,? Berman?s images followed photos from World War II and Vietnam.

Monroe also showed the prints from the exhibition to collectors? at the most recent AIPAD fair, but is not representing all her work. ?This is probably a bit non-conventional, but we like to work with the photographer and get to know the photographer and then we like the word to come from the photographer, ?How about you take over my representation?? That?s when we?ll have the conversation about what we can do, what we can?t do.?

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