Santa Fe’s Scheinbaum & Russek Ltd. celebrates forty-five years showcasing 20th-century fine-art photography from masters like Ansel Adams and Edward Weston.
This September, Scheinbaum & Russek Ltd. celebrates forty-five years in 20th-century fine-art photography. David Scheinbaum and Janet Russek, both photographers themselves, describe their gallery as the result of a “series of serendipitous events.”
In 1978, Scheinbaum moved from New York to Santa Fe to work with renowned scholar, curator, and photographer Beaumont Newhall, who is perhaps best remembered today for his seminal 1949 text The History of Photography. Russek joined two years later and began assisting Eliot Porter, a pioneer of color photography.
In a snapshot from around that time, Scheinbaum rests his elbows on Russek’s shoulders and balances a camera on her head. The couple looks as if they can’t stop laughing long enough to force measured smiles. Gradually, the idea of opening a gallery took shape between them.
Scheinbaum & Russek’s first exhibition featured the sculptural photos of Willard Van Dyke, a member of the influential Group f/64 (which furthered the artistry of the medium). As time passed, the gallery expanded to represent not only their early collaborators Newhall and Porter, but also the works of Ansel Adams, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Barbara Morgan, Alfred Stieglitz, and Edward Weston (among others).
Scheinbaum explains, “We didn’t sell much for the first five years. It wasn’t tourists buying work from us, although that happened. In those days, it was artists who appreciated the work we were selling… I think a lot of our longevity has been not just because we’re stubborn, but because we’re both photographers.”
The current iteration of the gallery is located near the end of a long dirt road. Available by appointment, the space is reassuring and intimate. Four leather chairs surround a small table set with fresh coffee, and the walls are lined with prints like La hija de los danzantes (1933) by Manuel Álvarez Bravo.
Their daughter, Andra Russek, now acts as Scheinbaum & Russek’s director. Her expertise in fine-art photography, honed at Swann Galleries and Sotheby’s New York, allows the couple time to focus on creative projects, such as collaborative publications Ghost Ranch: Land of Light (1997), Remnants: Photographs of The Lower East Side (2017), and Images in the Heavens, Patterns on the Earth: The I Ching (2004).
The latter contains images taken over the course of Scheinbaum and Russek’s relationship. Shortly after meeting, he gave her a copy of the I Ching (often translated as Book of Changes), an ancient Chinese divination manual based on chance and the interpretation of visual images. It has been a touchstone ever since.
As Russek says, “You might ask one question over many years and get the same answer, but how you interpret it is completely different each time, because you apply the answer to your situation at that moment. [The I Ching] allows you to see the same thing in very different ways.”
One might describe Scheinbaum & Russek’s approach to 20th-century fine-art photography along similar lines—by preserving the legacy of foundational artists within a contemporary context, they allow the images to evolve and take on new meanings.
