1. Michel (from the Pier photographs series) 6.5 x 4.5 inches, 1986. The way Michel is posed is reminiscent of Michelangelo's 'The Creation of Adam'. 2. Untitled (from the Pier photographs series) 4.5 x 6.75 inches, 1975-1986. A portrait of Tava working on a mural. 3. Untitled (from the Pier photographs series) Paper: 10 x 8 inches. Image: 8.5 x 5.75 inches. 1975-1986. A Pier warehouse doorway. 4. Untitled (from the Pier photographs series) Paper: 10 x 8 inches. Image: 6.5 x 4.5 inches. 1975-1986. An overexposed, sepia-toned print of a standing nude Hispanic male. 5. Untitled (Portrait of seated man with shades; from the Pier photographs series) 6.5 x 12 inches. 1975-1986 Seal of the Alvin Baltrop Trust is stamped on the back of the photograph. Seal of the Alvin Baltrop Trust is stamped on the back of the photograph.

Alvin Baltrop (1948-2004) Estate Photographs

Private Pre Viewing:

Available Photographs for Sale / Authentification & Provenance available upon request.

Letter of authentification is available from the trustee, upon request, & purchase.

USD$8000 each 

All photographs have the “Alvin Baltrop” estate ink stamp on the verso.

 

 

1.
Michel (from the Pier photographs series)
6.5″ x 4.5″
1986
 
Michel was also a photographer, and appears in another Pier photograph that Alvin shot from above with Michel looking up at the camera. I believe he was wearing jeans and a plaid shirt; I haven’t viewed that particular photograph in years.
 
The way Michel is posed is reminiscent of Michelangelo’s “The Creation of Adam”. This image is also notable as it was shot in the year that the piers were destroyed by New York City to curb the spread of the AIDS epidemic. In 1985, the New York Department of Health and Hygiene closed many sex clubs and “leather bars”; the piers were leveled the following year. Alvin was excited to photograph the piers’ demolition as it gave him a definite coda for the photo essay he started in 1975.
 
Excluding a small indentation on the lower left side near Michel’s extended wrist, the print is in excellent condition.
 
 
2.  
Untitled (from the Pier photographs series)
4.5″ x 6.75″
1975-1986
 
A portrait of Tava working on a mural. 
 
“Sometimes I’d just photograph the rooms, the rust on the walls or the light. Or the murals by Tava. Tava was a friend, and he was well known to a lot of people; he only did his murals where people were having sex.”
 
There are other prints of Tava painting on this same wall with his back toward Alvin’s camera. In this photograph, Tava faces the photographer, and unlike the aforementioned prints, a person is visible through the hole in the wall that Tava is painting on.
 
There are two visible diagonal creases on the upper left portion of the print, and some foxing across the image.
 
 
3.
Untitled (from the Pier photographs series)
Paper: 10″ x 8″
Image: 8.5″ x 5.75″
1975-1986
 
A Pier warehouse doorway. 
 
Some creasing on the upper right border, but not on the image. Some foxing/spotting on the lower border and image.
 
 
4.
Untitled (from the Pier photographs series)
Paper: 10″ x 8″
Image: 6.5″ x 4.5″
1975-1986
 
An overexposed, sepia-toned print of a standing nude Hispanic male who appears in other photographs, shot on the same rooftop. Although he preferred prints with high contrast, Alvin experimented with overexposing a few prints, influenced by certain Post-World War II Japanese photography, e.g. Eikoh Hosoe’s 1963 series “Man and Woman”. The print is on glossy paper.
 
 
5.
Untitled (Portrait of seated man; from the Pier photographs series)
6.5” x 12”
1975-1986
 
 
* None of the prints for sale are signed. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
PROVENANCE:
 
The selection of available prints are in New York, and owned by the trustee of the Alvin Baltrop estate.
≈
 
 
Notes from the Trustee:
 

“After meeting Al in the late 1990s, I volunteered to work as his Assistant, a position I held until his untimely death on February 1st, 2004. In accordance with his Will, I was appointed a Trustee of The Alvin Baltrop Trust.

From 2001 to 2003, Al gave me a few prints for the archival services I provided. None of these prints have been exhibited.”

From 2004 to 2011, the trustee handled all transactions regarding articles, exhibitions and sales of Alvin Baltrop work. The most important were providing Douglas Crimp with information and images for his 2008 Artforum article, a sale to The Whitney in the same year, assisting Douglas and Lynne Cooke with their exhibition “Mixed Use, Manhattan” at the Reina Sophia (Madrid, Spain), co-curating the first Baltrop retrospective at Third Streaming’s gallery in 2011 (New York, USA), and working with Contemporary Arts Museum Houston for Baltrop’s second retrospective in 2012″. 

 
 
 

 

Alvin Baltrop (1948-2004) was born in the Bronx, New York, and spent most of his life living and working in New York City. From 1969 to 1972, he served in the Vietnam War and began photographing his comrades. Upon his return, he enrolled in the School of the Visual Arts in New York, where he studied from 1973 to 1975. After working various jobs ⁠— vendor, jewelry designer, printer ⁠— he settled on the banks of Manhattan’s West Side, where he would produce the bulk of his photographic output.

Powerful, lyrical, and controversial, Alvin Baltrop’s photographs are a groundbreaking exploration of clandestine gay culture in New York in the 1970s and 80s. His work is reflective of the grassroots passion and raw energy of New York City’s underground gay culture. Baltrop focused his lens on the derelict warehouses beneath Manhattan’s West Side piers; which was a lawless, forgotten part of the city that played host to gay cruising, art-making, drug smuggling, prostitution, and suicides. Baltrop documented this scene, unflinchingly and obsessively capturing everything from fleeting naked figures in mangled architectural environments to scenes of explicit sex and police raids on the piers. While the outside world saw New York as the glamorous playground of Studio 54, Warhol’s gang, and the disco era; Baltrop photographed the city’s gritty flipside. His work is an important part of both gay culture and the history of New York itself, and his photographs are a powerful tribute to a long-forgotten world at the city’s dilapidated margins.

 

 

PRESS:

http://www.thirdstreaming.com/alvin-baltrop-trust

https://www.gothamcenter.org/blog/alvin-baltrops-documentary-intimacy

https://www.artforum.com/print/reviews/202104/alvin-baltrop-85276

https://www.artbasel.com/catalog/artwork/76726/Alvin-Baltrop-The-Piers-man-from-behind

https://www.interviewmagazine.com/art/alvin-baltrop-bronx-museum

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2019/aug/18/alvin-baltrop-remembering-new-yorks-forgotten-queer-photographer

https://www.artrabbit.com/events/alvin-baltrop-modern-art

https://www.artbook.com/blog-alvin-baltrop-piers-2020.html

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/11/west-side-piers-when-they-were-naked-and-gay.html

Beyond the Studio & Out of the Closet: Art and Sex on the Waterfront, 1971-83

Perspectives 179: Alvin Baltrop: Dreams Into Glass

Recalling sexual politics on the piers

 

 

 

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