New York Art World circa 1980-The Book 

Kathleen Agnoli 

Over twenty years ago, I took a series of photographic portraits of friends and artists.  There is a revealingly introspective quality to these pictures and an editor at "The Village Voice" commissioned a series of portraits of New York art dealers.

This rounded out the series for me, and I began to consider the publication of these portraits.  I showed the collection to another editor at that time, she said, "When you show these pictures, people are going to ask, 'Well, why shouldn't I use Avedon or Penn for my portrait needs?'  And you must say, 'Because I'm better!'"

For many reasons, I did not pursue a career in journalism.  I moved to Paris, photographed everyone from Mitterrand and Chirac to traveling dignitaries such as Saul Bellow.  When I returned to New York, I began to paint.  The photographs ended up in the vaults of one museum or another, sometimes as documents of artists in their collections, sometimes on their merits as portraits.

Most of the portraits in The Book are in the permanent collections of:  The Museum of Modern Art in New York, Centre Georges Pomidou and the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, and the Museum Boymans van Beuningen in Rotterdam.

It is possible to order a book or portfolio from this website.

To see some of the portraits, click one of these thumbnails and keep coming back:

Denise Greene,     Edie Baskin,        Leo Castelli,      IIeana Sonnabend,   Mary Boone

Andy Warhol,   Charlemagne Palestine, Julian Schnabel, Lauren Hutton,    Joe Helman

To read more about these portraits, click this thumbnail and come back: 

To get a better picture of these books, click one of these thumbnails.  Don't forget to come back:

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