Dorothy Bohm
Blind Musicians, Oxford Street - Before Christmas, 1960-69
Vintage Gelatin Silver Print
32.2 x 28.5 cms
12 10/16 x 11 3/16 ins
11865
Provenance
Acquired directly from the photographer by the previous owner in 2008.Literature
Amanda Hopkinson and Ian Jeffrey, Sixties London. Photographs by Dorothy Bohm, Lund Humphries, London, 1996 (illustrated full page plate 5- cropped to format; also illustrated and discussed p.107)
1960s. Signed, titled and dated in pencil on verso. Image size 32.2 x 28.5 cm. The original invoice from Bohm to the previous owner states 'This is a unique vintage...
1960s.
Signed, titled and dated in pencil on verso. Image size 32.2 x 28.5 cm.
The original invoice from Bohm to the previous owner states "This is a unique vintage print"
"Characterized by emotional receptivity and an immediacy of vision Bohm's images reflect a joy and affirmation of life. The gentleness of Kertesz, the humour of Doisneau, the subtle irony of Alvarez Bravo and the basic humanist approach of all, are ever present in her photographs and rank her in the same league."
Nissan Perez (from Dorothy Bohm Photographs, The Israel Museum, Jerusalem, 1986)
Previously a studio photographer in Manchester, Dorothy Bohm has photographed London since she moved there in 1956, focusing always on the small details of everyday life. She created a major sequence of works through her explorations of various parts of the city during the late 1960s. Ian Jeffrey has described the way that Bohm's capture of this event on Oxford Street picks up on passing minutiae, allowing the viewer to enter the scene and move closer to its protagonists:
"One of the virtues of documentary photography is that it decelerates the event sufficiently to make you aware of what otherwise might scarcerly impinge on consciousness. The group of musicians - if you were just one of the passers-by intent on shopping - might hardly draw a second glance, or any glance long enough to note that the trio range from Blind & Disabled via Blind to Prtly Blind. Then in the course of making those distinctions you might notice that some of the declarations are in applied letters which - when you think of it - would be necessary for a blind person, who would have to use his hands to arrange his label for an audience.
As a result of a lingering inspection of the picture you would inevitably have to put yourself in the subject's position - or empathetically to understand. One of the purposes of documentary, ever since it was established early in the century, has been to enhance awareness of the other as at least like-bodied even if not like-minded.'
(from Sixties London: Photographs by Dorothy Bohm, Lund Humphries, 1996)
Signed, titled and dated in pencil on verso. Image size 32.2 x 28.5 cm.
The original invoice from Bohm to the previous owner states "This is a unique vintage print"
"Characterized by emotional receptivity and an immediacy of vision Bohm's images reflect a joy and affirmation of life. The gentleness of Kertesz, the humour of Doisneau, the subtle irony of Alvarez Bravo and the basic humanist approach of all, are ever present in her photographs and rank her in the same league."
Nissan Perez (from Dorothy Bohm Photographs, The Israel Museum, Jerusalem, 1986)
Previously a studio photographer in Manchester, Dorothy Bohm has photographed London since she moved there in 1956, focusing always on the small details of everyday life. She created a major sequence of works through her explorations of various parts of the city during the late 1960s. Ian Jeffrey has described the way that Bohm's capture of this event on Oxford Street picks up on passing minutiae, allowing the viewer to enter the scene and move closer to its protagonists:
"One of the virtues of documentary photography is that it decelerates the event sufficiently to make you aware of what otherwise might scarcerly impinge on consciousness. The group of musicians - if you were just one of the passers-by intent on shopping - might hardly draw a second glance, or any glance long enough to note that the trio range from Blind & Disabled via Blind to Prtly Blind. Then in the course of making those distinctions you might notice that some of the declarations are in applied letters which - when you think of it - would be necessary for a blind person, who would have to use his hands to arrange his label for an audience.
As a result of a lingering inspection of the picture you would inevitably have to put yourself in the subject's position - or empathetically to understand. One of the purposes of documentary, ever since it was established early in the century, has been to enhance awareness of the other as at least like-bodied even if not like-minded.'
(from Sixties London: Photographs by Dorothy Bohm, Lund Humphries, 1996)