Will McBride Art

11 x 14" vintage silver gelatin photograph, signed by Jack Mitchell. Multiple exposure of nude and closeup of his hair. Comes directly from the Jack Mitchell Archives with a certific...

Stripper Performers, Atlanta, 1996 by Leonard Freed is an 11" x 14" vintage print, stamped on verso (back of photo) with Freed's copyright stamp and signed (back of photo) by the art...

11 x 14" vintage silver gelatin photograph, signed by Jack Mitchell. Comes directly from the Jack Mitchell Archives with a certificate of authenticity. This photograph was from a session for After Dark magazine and was selected and signed by Jack Mitchell as one of his favorites. Jack’s artist statement on his work for the magazine: “After Dark was a magazine of entertainment, theater and the arts. It was a popular magazine, with a gay slant, enjoyed by many gay men, and some broad minded women and men. As well as (I learned years later) many closeted male youngsters. The magazine was ahead of its time, as advertisers were reluctant to place ads in an essentially gay magazine at that time. Today they swarm like bees to place their own hot ads in gay publications. I had been photographing on assignment for Dance Magazine well before After Dark was created. Being a friend of William (Bill) Como, the Editor, and being gay, I was called into service, for the life of the publication, to photograph many of the handsome young men and women, who were featured in After Dark. Needless to say, this was enjoyable work for me, Because, mixed in with the hot-looking young guys and gals sent to my studio were some famed performers like Debbie Reynolds, Giancarlo Giannini, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Natalie Wood, Placido Domingo, Sergio Franco...

11 x 14" vintage silver gelatin photograph, signed by Jack Mitchell. Comes directly from the Jack Mitchell Archives with a certificate of authenticity. This photograph was from a se...

11 x 14" vintage silver gelatin photograph, signed by Jack Mitchell. Comes directly from the Jack Mitchell Archives with a certificate of authenticity. This photograph was from a session for After Dark magazine and was selected and signed by Jack Mitchell as one of his favorites. Jack’s artist statement on his work for the magazine: “After Dark was a magazine of entertainment, theater and the arts. It was a popular magazine, with a gay slant, enjoyed by many gay men, and some broad minded women and men. As well as (I learned years later) many closeted male youngsters. The magazine was ahead of its time, as advertisers were reluctant to place ads in an essentially gay magazine at that time. Today they swarm like bees to place their own hot ads in gay publications. I had been photographing on assignment for Dance Magazine well before After Dark was created. Being a friend of William (Bill) Como, the Editor, and being gay, I was called into service, for the life of the publication, to photograph many of the handsome young men and women, who were featured in After Dark. Needless to say, this was enjoyable work for me, Because, mixed in with the hot-looking young guys and gals sent to my studio were some famed performers like Debbie Reynolds, Giancarlo Giannini, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Natalie Wood, Placido Domingo, Sergio Franco...

11 x 14" vintage silver gelatin photograph, signed by Jack Mitchell. Comes directly from the Jack Mitchell Archives with a certificate of authenticity. This photograph was from a se...

Kate #3, 2002 by Leonard Freed is a 10” x 8” hand printed, signed by the photographer black and white photograph, stamped "vintage" by the Freed estate on verso (back of photograph)....

11 x 14" vintage silver gelatin photograph, signed by Jack Mitchell. Comes directly from the Jack Mitchell Archives with a certificate of authenticity. This photograph was from a session for After Dark magazine and was selected and signed by Jack Mitchell as one of his favorites. Jack’s artist statement on his work for the magazine: “After Dark was a magazine of entertainment, theater and the arts. It was a popular magazine, with a gay slant, enjoyed by many gay men, and some broad minded women and men. As well as (I learned years later) many closeted male youngsters. The magazine was ahead of its time, as advertisers were reluctant to place ads in an essentially gay magazine...

11 x 14" vintage silver gelatin photograph, signed by Jack Mitchell. Comes directly from the Jack Mitchell Archives with a certificate of authenticity. This photograph was from a se...

Kate #4, 2002 by American photographer Leonard Freed is a 8" x 10" signed black and white photograph, stamped vintage on verso (back of print). Model Kate remains forever complicit i...

Kate #4, 2002 by American photographer Leonard Freed is in the photographer's series "Kate." This is an 11" x 14" gelatin silver photograph signed verso (back of photo) by the Freed ...

Savannah Spirit Waiting Silver gelatin on Ilford multigrade paper, signed, edition of 5 Scroll for more on the artist and this series and an excerpt from the recent monograph, The Archive #6: Savannah Spirit, published by Quiet Lunch: "When I first saw Savannah Spirit’s early nudes, I felt immediately struck by their power and awareness. Of course, they were traditionally beautiful, with classical lighting and shadows from Venetian blinds. Some of them were sexy, in the way bodies are sexy. But they weren’t sexualized. Looking at them, I felt powerful. I felt good. They depicted the body of an adult woman viewing herself with love. I’ve been devoted to them ever since. To me, these portraits invoke the power of a landscape. The way the light rolls over the body evokes the body’s connection with the earth, with sunrise and its long deep shadows. The patterns of darkness can break the figure into geometry, creating a distance between the viewer and the image, as in End of An Era and Staying Abreast. Yet others, like Resist and Be The Woman You Needed When You Were Younger, create direct address, and sometimes empathy. Sometimes, the viewer takes the vantage point of the artist, and the piece becomes a further study in introspection. The titles, like The Bottom Line and Read Between the Lines, often invoke idioms, figures of speech, or stereotypes that themselves point back to the culture that produced them. As conceptual components, they are both playful and political, which, when juxtaposed against image to elicit a mood or reaction. For me, it’s different every time. I am often pricked to discover how the vernacular of Hollywood capitalism, juxtaposed to a powerful, nude self-portrait of a woman, almost always feels a bit surprising–as if I wasn’t expecting her to be there. Recent works, like Network, use both shadow and mirror to create a doubled image, the artist and her reflection, further suggesting the sense of a dialogue with the self. The two bodies are not a mirror image, though seen in a mirror: a conversation between two sides of oneself, rather than a literal twinning. Over the past decade, as this series took on greater and deeper life, Savannah and I have had countless wonderful discussions about women, bodies and art. As a former artist’s model, early in her career, she participated in the form of power that was available to her: that of the quieted muse. She knew she was being objectified, she recalls, but at least she was included in the club. I instantly recognized that message. She was still creating her own work, though, and one day, she realized she’d had enough of seeing herself through someone else’s lens. She turned the camera on herself, and began to take a very different kind of picture. During the pandemic, the feeling of being alone with oneself can sometimes feel overwhelming. These recent pieces reflect that agitation of the dialogue alone, the being with oneself, seeking connection..." - Katie Peyton Hofstadter Classic black and white silver gelatin print, signed by the artist Savannah Spirit. This is a self portrait of the artist. Categorize between self-portrait, contemporary feminism, take back control, I am my own muse, my body my choice...