Gay Block
Born1942
Houston, Texas
NationalityAmerican
SpouseBillie Parker

Gay Block (born 1942) is a fine art portrait photographer, who was born in Houston, Texas.[1] Her work has been published in books, and is collected by the Museum of Modern Art, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the El Paso Museum of Art,[2] the Jewish Museum (Manhattan)[3] and the New Mexico Museum of Art.[4]

Biography

Block had been interested in photography since she was a pre-teen, when she started taking pictures of her friends and family using a Brownie box camera.[5] She recalls that she enjoyed taking candid photos and collaborating with her subjects.[6]

By the 1970s she began taking pictures of members of her own affluent Jewish community in Houston.[5] She later photographed an older Jewish community of retirees in South Miami Beach, many of whom were Holocaust survivors. Block also photographed girls at summer camp. In 2006, Block re-photographed women who were the girls in her 1981 series from Camp Pinecliffe, twenty-five years earlier.

Block collaborated with author and rabbi Malka Drucker to create Rescuers: Portraits of Moral Courage in the Holocaust, both a book and traveling exhibit.[5] Block and Drucker traveled to eleven countries and photographed over 100 Christians who had helped rescue Jews during the Holocaust.[5] The exhibit has been seen in over fifty venues in the US and abroad, including the Museum of Modern Art, NY, in 1992.[7]

In 2003, Block's 30-year series of portraits of her mother, in photographs, video, and words, Bertha Alyce: Mother exPosed, was published by University of New Mexico Press and continues as a traveling exhibit. The book, Bertha Alyce, was cited as one of "Twelve Great Books Published During The Year 2003" by the editors of RALPH (The Review of Arts, Literature, Politics, and the Humanities).[8] Her video of the material, "Bertha Alyce", was awarded People's Choice and Best Documentary by the Madrid International Gay & Lesbian Film Festival, Spain. The photographs of Bertha Alyce are not considered a conventional representation of a mother/daughter relationship; instead Block's relationship with her mother is unique.[9] Block's documentary technique is considered by the critic to be "assured, if reminiscent of Duane Michaels or Nan Goldin."[9]

Rescuers of the Holocaust

In 1986, Rabbi Harold Schulweis, author Malka Drucker and Gay Block decided to document activities of non-Jewish Europeans who risked torture and death to save Jews during the Holocaust, a topic they considered both important and under-publicized.[10] Their work would eventually led to a book (Rescuers: Portraits of Moral Courage in the Holocaust), as well as an exhibition of Block's, named Gay Block: Rescuers of the Holocaust travelled to numerous museums, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York,[11] Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC,[12] Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX, University of New Mexico Art Museum, Albuquerque, NM, Houston Center for Photography, Houston, TX.

References

  1. ^ "Gay Block "Love: South Beach in the 80's", NY Art Beat. Retrieved 31 March 2013.
  2. ^ "Gay Block CV". Gay Block. Archived from the original on 19 February 2015. Retrieved 13 March 2015.
  3. ^ "The Jewish Museum". thejewishmuseum.org. Retrieved 3 March 2019.
  4. ^ "SAM: Searchable Art Museum". New Mexico Museum of Art. 2010. Retrieved 27 December 2013.
  5. ^ a b c d Dura, Lucia, ed. (2006). Texas 100: Selections from the El Paso Museum of Art. El Paso, Texas: El Paso Museum of Art Foundation. p. 23. ISBN 0978538307.
  6. ^ Block, Gay (October 2003). "The Universe of Gay Block". THE Magazine. Archived from the original on 24 September 2015. Retrieved 13 March 2015.
  7. ^ "MoMA Exhibitions". Museum of Modern Art. 2002. Archived from the original on 20 February 2003. Retrieved 13 March 2015.
  8. ^ Lark, Lolita, ed. (2004). "Twelve Great Books Published During the Year 2003". RALPH: The Review of Arts, Literature, Philosophy and the Humanities (109). Retrieved 13 March 2015.
  9. ^ a b Reed, Arden (March 2004). "Gay Block at University of New Mexico Art Museum". Art in America. 92 (3): 136. Retrieved 13 March 2015.
  10. ^ Blaustein, Jonathan (23 July 2018). "Risking Torture and Death to Save Jews During the Holocaust". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 7 June 2021.
  11. ^ "Gay Block: Rescuers of the Holocaust". The Museum of Modern Art. Retrieved 3 March 2019.
  12. ^ Fleming, Lee (16 July 1993). "Art". The Washington Post. Retrieved 23 March 2019.

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