We're starting our Fall print sale tomorrow morning at 6:00. It's an official TOP sale this year, and every purchase will help benefit this site, as well as, of course, the photographer. We're offering three collector prints of new work by my good friend Peter Turnley.
This might sound hard to believe if you've been reading this site for a while, but some readers will need an introduction to Peter. Much as I'd like to keep every reader forever (and do have some readers who have been with me for nearly that long), there's a lot of turnover in this biz, and I get new readers here all the time. And we haven't done anything with Peter in a while.
For those of your who don't know Peter, he's a very unusual photographer. He was at the very top of the photojournalism field for decades—Peter and his twin brother David were featured on the CBS News show "60 Minutes" (a fact he doesn't even mention in his official bio!) and, back when Newsweek was one of the top two weekly newsmagazines in the U.S., he shot many features for them, including 43 covers. He estimates he was on the scene of almost every major world conflict and major world news story for a period of more than thirty years. Apart from Newsweek, his work has been featured in Paris Match, The New York Times, Stern, Harper’s Magazine, Le Monde, Le Figaro, and many other leading magazines all over the world.
Peter Turnley, Paris, 1991
Yet he's also been an art photographer virtually from the very beginning, befriending many of older generation of French humanist photographers in his adopted city of Paris and producing lyrical work that builds on theirs. He has published seven books of his work, both personal and photojournalistic, both alone and in tandem with David: Beijing Spring, Moments of Revolution, In Times of War and Peace, Parisians, McClellan Street, French Kiss: A Love Letter to Paris, and Cuba: A Grace of Spirit. In 2016, he was honored with a major retrospective at Cuba's Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, the country's leading art museum.
Peter's picture "Paris, 1991," of the Eiffel Tower, the Seine, and the rooftops of Paris, became one of the top-selling posters of all time. Signed original fine art prints of the photograph have been highly sought after as well, and, as the result of earlier sales, many TOP readers now own fine prints of "Paris, 1991" too.
(True story—years ago, when I was talking to Peter about having our first sale of his work, I happened to be in a Crate and Barrel store in Mayfair Mall in Wisconsin. As we were talking about "Paris, 1991," I turned the corner, and there in front of me was was a huge framed poster of the very photograph we were talking about on the wall of the store.)
More than anything, though, Peter is a genuine, down-to-earth guy. He continues to work on projects and teaches workshops in Paris, New York, Havana and elsewhere, and many TOP readers who have attended his workshops can attest to his generosity and warmth as a teacher. Workshops in street photography can be extremely dynamic and challenging for amateurs and enthusiasts, and Peter's are known as some of the most exciting; readers often tell me their week with Peter expanded their outlook and improved their skills dramatically.
It's really all about the human connection for him. He values his photographs of quiet, personal moments in the lives of ordinary people all over the world as much as he values his news photographs of cataclysmic world events.
Please come back in the morning to see the new pictures for this year's exclusive TOP print sale.
Mike
Original contents copyright 2018 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.
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