#Politics

“My dad used to have an expression. It’s the lucky person who gets up in the morning, puts both feet on the floor, knows what they are about to do and thinks it still matters”

~ President Joe Biden

“We must never forget that art is not a form of propaganda. It is a form of truth”

~ John F Kennedy

“This is essentially a People’s contest. On the side of the Union, it is a struggle for maintaining in the world, that form, and substance of government, whose leading object is, to elevate the condition of men — to lift artificial weights from all shoulders — to clear the paths of laudable pursuit for all — to afford all, an unfettered start, and a fair chance, in the race of life.”

 

~ Abraham Lincoln

"I heard something click, when I photographed the Edmund Pettus bridge November 2022. I heard Sunday March 7, 1965. I heard dogs, horses, cries, all currency blowing in the wind, paying the price of change. Bridges connect, this bridge connects a less than pleasant past to promises of a brighter future. I heard it with my own eyes that night."

 

~ John Simmons

We are excited to share that the “The Power of Photography” exhibition is now on view at the Naples Art Institute in Naples, Florida. This exhibition will feature a selection of over 122 original prints curated by collector and gallerist Peter Fetterman, on view now until April 28th 2024. For more information on visiting the museum, please see below: 

The Power of Photography Exhibition
Naples Art Institue
585 Park Street
Naples, FL 34102

Naples Art Institue and Gallery Store
Monday/Wednesday/Friday/Saturday: 10 am - 6 pm
Tuesday/Thursday: 10 am - 8 pm
Sunday: 11 am - 4 pm

"I heard something click, when I photographed the Edmund Petus bridge November 2022. I heard Sunday March 7, 1965. I heard dogs, horses, cries, all currency blowing in the wind, paying the price of change. Bridges connect, this bridge connects a less than pleasant past to promises of a brighter future. I heard it with my own eyes that night."

~ John Simmons

"My best pictures are always taken when I succeed in establishing a bond of sympathy with my sitter"

~ Doris Ulmann
(1882 - 1934)

"Artists are the gate keepers of truth. We are civilization’s radical voice”

~ Paul Robeson
(1898 -1976)

“The pursuit of Justice is all I have ever known”

~ Harry Belafonte
(1927 - 2023)

“You can’t get away from the element of luck in sports photography, but what makes a great sports photographer is that when we get lucky we don’t miss it”

 

~Neil Leifer

“Pictures have to do with heart and mind and eye and they have to communicate and as long as they do that it’s valid”

 

~ Elliott Erwitt

“Violence as a way of achieving racial justice is both impractical and immoral. I am not unmindful of the fact that violence often brings about momentary results. Nations have frequently won their independence in battle. But in spite of temporary victories, violence never brings permanent peace. It solves no social problem: it merely creates new and more complicated ones. Violence is impractical because it is a descending spiral ending in destruction for all. It is immoral because it seeks to humiliate the opponent rather than win his understanding: it seeks to annihilate rather than convert. Violence is immoral because it thrives on hatred rather than love. It destroys community and makes brotherhood impossible. It leaves society in monologue rather than dialogue. Violence ends up defeating itself.”

~ Martin Luther King
(1929 -1968)

"The child marchers and protesters were some of the most inspiring participants of the Civil Rights movement to me. The authorities arrested thousands of people who were demonstrating for voting rights primarily in Selma and Montgomery, Alabama. The jails were overflowing. They used a sports stadium in Selma to detain people. I realized the kids had formed a certain resolve. They’d seen their parents forced to live a certain way, and they weren’t going to do that. When I saw that, I knew change was imminent. These young students, considering the threat of violence they faced, acted very heroically. One young lady in particular stands out in my mind to this day — Quintella Harrel, a demonstrator for voter registration who was only ten. Her face had that resolve, and to me, she personified inevitable change."

~ Dan Budnick
(1933 - 2020)

“In 1963, Mrs Kennedy came to London for a visit with her sister, Princess Lee Radziwill, who lived there. I read the daily press bulletin from Buckingham Palace and saw they were expected for lunch with the Queen. I ran from outside Princess Radziwill’s home to Buckingham Palace and took this photograph as their limousine was about to turn into the gate. Recently when I showed the photograph to a close friend of Mrs Kennedy’s he immediately said, "That was taken before 1963", And when I asked how he knew, he replied simply, “Because Jackie never smiled that way again after 1963.”

~ Harry Benson

“The children have been a wonderful gift to me and I’m thankful to have once again seen our world through their eyes. They restore my faith in the family’s future”

~ Jacqueline Kennedy

“On April 4, 1968 amidst rising racial tension, Martin Luther King Jr, was shot while the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis,Tennessee. America was shocked, stunned and again pitched into the nightmare of violent death and public agony, not five years after President John F Kennedy’s assassination in Dallas. I was nearby and flew to Memphis and then on to Atlanta to cover the funeral. Arriving in advance of the plane that was carrying the body of the slain civil rights leader, I moved out of the photographers’ allotted area on the tarmac for a moment and caught one frame of his widow, Coretta Scott King and their children as they prepared to step down from the plane. Crowds lined up outside the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta to quietly view the casket and pay tribute to the slain leader.”

~ Harry Benson

“Struggle is a never-ending process. Freedom is never really won, you earn it and win it in every generation”

~ Coretta Scott King
(1927 - 2006)

“It is absolutely clear we need to recognize the universality of human rights, the indivisibility of human rights and we need to find a new energy that motivates young people around the world.”

~ Volker Tucker (UN High Commissioner for Human Rights)

 

“It is in your hands to make a better world for all who live in it”

~ Nelson Mandela

“Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm” ~Winston Churchill
(1874-1965)

“Churchill was arguably the most important man of the 20th Century and one of the reasons I wanted to become a photojournalist. This was Sir Winston’s last visit to his old school, Harrow. For the occasion students added a chorus to the school’s song...“And Churchill’s name shall win acclaim through each new generation."... It brought tears to his eyes. It was his last visit to the school.”

~Harry Benson

"I need to become completely anonymous if I’m to capture the essence, the root fact about the person and not merely their surface."

~Dan Budnik

This is my favorite Arnold Newman image. Such a great environmental portrait with a true sense of destiny as JFK looks to the future. Where is our leader now?