EXHIBITION OF PHOTOGRAPHY

"THE FACES OF ANGUILLA"

To be displayed in the arrival lounge at the

Anguilla Airport at the end of November 2003

photography by George Krause

exhibition by Julian Davis

SFUMATO ARRIVAL IN ANGUILLA

Julian Davis, local resident of Anguilla brainstormed and set things in motion for the creation of the exhibition �Faces of Anguilla.� Julian studied at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania along with classmate of George Krause, now one of the most gifted and celebrated photographers in the United States. Julian developed the idea for an exhibition of "THE FACES OF ANGUILLA" and invited George to visit Anguilla. George immediately fell in love with the concept and agreed to come to Anguilla. He arrived in August 2003 during Carnival and immediately went to work bringing all of his camera equipment including his "light box".

George, with Julian as his guide and assistant set up the light box at Sandy Ground, Meads Bay, Rendezvous Bay Hotel and other locations and photographed every Anguillian who walked by. After his seven-day stay, George had taken over 200 photographs of Anguilla faces. When he returned home he began the tedious processing and development of the 3 feet wide by 4 feet high powerful and strong black and white photographs.

With the cooperation of Mr. Remington Lake, The General Manager of Anguilla's Airport, thirty six (36) Sfumato portraits will be hanging in the Arrival Lounge at the airport for all visitors to view and to be welcomed to Anguilla.

George Krause has donated these photographs to the people of Anguilla for their enjoyment and posterity of Anguilla's heritage.

George Krause's dream doesn't end here. His dream is to return to Anguilla to complete his exhibition in the departure lounge and the main terminal

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For a sneak preview of the exhibition click here: http://www.georgekrause.com/exhibitions-future/1.htm

BIOGRAPHY OF GEORGE KRAUSE

George Krause was born in Philadelphia. Pennsylvania in 1937. He received a four-year scholarship to the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, where he studied painting, drawing, graphic design, sculpture and photography. It was not until he served in the United States Military, from 1957 to 1959, did he begin to devote his interest and talents to photography full time.

George Krause became one of the nation's gifted photographers. He received the first Prix de Rome and the first Fulbright grant ever awarded to a photographer, two Guggenheim Fellowships and three grants from the National Endowments for the Arts.

His work is represented in collections at The Museum of Modern Art in New York; The George Eastman House; The Library of Congress in Washington D.C.; The Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris; The Philadelphia Museum of Art; and The Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts at Harvard University.

George Krause, until he retired, was the Director of Photography at the University of Houston, Texas. For the past six years, George Krause has been working on and perfecting a unique form of photographing portraits called "Sfumatos".

SFUMATOS

Sfumatos is a term originally coined by Leonardo DaVinci. A literal translation from Italian is "dark smoke". Leonardo used this name to describe a painting technique in which translucent veils of color are overlaid and intermixed to create atmospheric perspective, depth, volume and form. If you have ever played with layers in a photo shop or any other graphics program, particularly utilizing varying percentages of transparency, you have played with digital sfumato and probably have some idea of its potential for visual power and elegance.

To George Krause, Sfumatos is much more than just an important painting technique empowering his visual communication. It is also much of what he is trying to say. He believes visual art in general, and painting and digital media in particular, to be valid, important disciplines, as capable of advancing our inquiries into Truth as any of the other arts or sciences.

HOW THE SFUMATO PORTRAIT SERIES WAS BORN

George Krause, in 1997, was artist-in-residence at Tylee Cottage in New Zealand for six months. The Sarjeant Museum exhibited a series of 36 photographic portraits taken by Krause. Of these images it has been written "for many years he has wanted to explore an idea where the face is viewed as one would view a landscape, a terrain full of peaks and valleys". It wasn't until he arrived at the Tylee Cottage that he found the perfect light for this project. As he climbed the stairs and reached the landing, he was greeted by a small, strange skylight situated in the middle of the slanted ceiling. It is this slant and the thickness of the skylight walls with the sun moving from right to left that reveals the sculptural quality of each face in a new and surprising way. The position of the head is always the same, which allowed George to concentrate on the collaboration between the subject and the photographer. Conventional black and white photography typically assumes that the principal features will be, literally highlighted, with the secondary features in degrees of shadow,

The Sfumato portraits, by contrast, have the light source coming in at the back of the head with the light source, at a 45 degree angle, producing the strange effect whereby it is the principal features that are in shadow and the secondary features highlighted. Such is the intensity of this light in most of these portraits the outer limits of the heads have disappeared, so that the unframed features float disturbingly in a suggestive and destabilized space.

SFUMATO'S PROGRESS

George Krause returned home from New Zealand in the spring of 1998 eager to continue working with the sfumatos lighting and further explore the portrait as a topographical landscape. In order that he could work anywhere and at any hour of the day or night and in all kinds of weather he decided to build a portable skylight. Before he left he measured the width, height and depth of the skylight at Tylee Cottage. To further intensify the effect of the light he put mirrors on the four sides of the new model and replaced the unpredictable New Zealand sun with a powerful strobe. To the original process-the use of a large format camera, 4" x 5" black and white film he added the latest technology. The

negatives are then scanned and worked on in the computer and printed digitally with archival-pigmented inks on large sheets of fine paper. This fantastic new medium allows him much more control and creative freedom