HackelBury Fine Art is delighted to participate in ArtHamptons this summer from July 10-13. ArtHamptons is the first and only fine art fair in the Hamptons, and will show a selection of modern and contemporary art. Featuring 55 international galleries specializing in art of the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries, ArtHamptons will offer a special opportunity to view significant artworks in this popular summer location.

You will find us at Booth #D1+D2. To contact us at the booth please call 646 645 4260
or email kate@hackelbury.co.uk

Details of artists featured and works available follow:

HackelBury will present a stunning group of fifteen seascapes by Garry Fabian Miller, exquisitely coloured, capturing delicate changes in light, weather and time. Made in 1977 when Fabian Miller was just eighteen, this series led to immediate acclaim, showing first at the Serpentine Gallery in London and then in his first solo exhibition at Bristols' Arnolfini Gallery. We are pleased to offer these unique works, just released from his private collection. They relate to a larger group of forty photographs (also available), which will be exhibited alongside the paintings of Turner at London's Tate Britain Museum.

© Garry Fabian Miller. Various unique single leaf studies from a group of nine. Each 34 x 41.5cm framed.


Garry Fabian Miller has always used light as the raw material to make strikingly luminous and visceral images. From an early interest in the externals of place and nature, through a developing use of abstraction, Fabian Miller has sought to convey the visual and metaphysical potential of his medium. For over thirty years Fabian Miller has challenged perceptions of contemporary photography within fine art, advancing to become one of its most progressive and important figures internationally. Since the mid 1980s he has made photographs without a camera or negatives. Beginning with the discovery that translucent objects, such as leaves and petals, could act as colour transparencies, he went on to work with coloured glass vessels, pigmented water and oil, and cut-paper forms, placing these materials in contact with photographic paper, or at a distance, before allowing them to filter light or cast shadow patterns. The results are one of a kind, the record of light events captured on photographic paper.

By utilising simple darkroom methods to create these ‘photograms’ and ‘luminograms’, Fabian Miller recaptures the magical allure of photography at its invention in the early nineteenth century, while producing haunting, contemporary artworks. In addition to their beguiling beauty, Fabian Miller’s images evoke symbolic and spiritual associations with powerful forms and entrancing colours.
Garry Fabian Miller’s work has been exhibited and collected widely since 1984, including the Victoria & Albert Museum, London, The Tate St.Ives, Tate Liverpool, Arnolfini Bristol, Newlyn Art Gallery, The Cleveland Museum of Arts, Museum of Fine Arts Houston, The Gilman Collection, Metropolitan Museum of Art New York, ICP New York and Yokohama Museum of Art, Japan. Works from the ‘Exposure’ series shown here were exhibited at the Victoria & Albert Museum, London, in 2005.

Seen above are five from a group of nine single leaf studies that will be featured on the booth. Comprised of leaves from the artist’s own garden on the edge of Dartmoor in south-west England, this selection represents a period of intense development in Garry Fabian Miller’s career. Transitioning away from the camera to work more directly with light, Fabian Miller collapses the distance between artist and subject. Light shines directly through the leaf onto photographic paper, creating a unique, positive image. Just like each leaf, no two studies are alike. These images call to mind the watercolor botanical studies of the nineteenth-century whilst utilising a pioneering technique of modern photographic practice. Similar pieces by the artist have been exhibited with the work of contemporary and friend Andy Goldsworthy, and can be viewed in light of the land-art movement of the late 1970s and 1980s. After completing this series Fabian Miller moved further into abstraction, working solely with light, color and form as the means for artistic expression.

This arrangement features some of the last pieces available for individual purchase from this seminal body of work. One final, large-scale grid from this period is also available; please ask for details.

© Seydou Keita. - 'Untitled - Two Great Ladies' and 'Untitled - Fleur de Paris'

We will also offer a rare, large-scale lifetime print (above left, approx. 120 x 170cm), along with a smaller example of an iconic image from this internationally renowned artist (50x60cm).

Seydou Keïta’s photographs eloquently portray Bamako society during its era of transition from a cosmopolitan French colony to an independent capital. Initially trained by his father to be a carpenter, Keïta’s career as a photographer was launched in 1935 by an uncle who gave him his first camera, a Kodak Brownie Flash, which he had purchased during a trip to Senegal. During his adolescence Keïta mastered the technical challenges of shooting and printing; he later purchased a large-format camera. The larger format not only offered an exceptional degree of resolution, it also made it possible for Keïta to make high quality contact prints without the aid of an enlarger. He began by taking pictures of his family, but he would walk in the street with his camera and often be stopped and asked to take people’s portraits. News of his work reached Mountaga, a successful photographer in the next town and, having learnt to develop and print his own work, Keïta would travel to Mountaga’s house every evening to use his dark room.

In 1948, Keïta’s father gave him some land with a house, ‘behind the main prison’ and Keïta opened his own studio. There were several other photographers working in there in Bamako at that time, but Keïta was considered to be the best. The location of his studio, next to the central station with people converging from the Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso and the Niger, also helped to attract many customers. Many of the men living and working in the city were being influenced by European culture and liked to have their photographs taken wearing stylish and fashionable clothes. However, clothing styles for women were still traditional and they often wore impressive rings, hair ornaments and bracelets or elaborate make-up. It was very important to show off external signs of wealth, beauty and elegance, and Keïta had to find appropriate positions that they liked. Having your photo taken was an important event. The person had to be made to look his or her best. Whether photographing single individuals, families, or professional associations, Keïta balanced a strict sense of formality with a remarkable level of intimacy with his subjects. Like many professional photographers, he furnished his studio with numerous props, from backdrops and costumes, to Vespas and luxury cars. He would renew these props every few years, which later allowed him to establish a chronology for his work. Keïta commented on his studio practice, “It’s easy to take a photo, but what really made a difference was that I always knew how to find the right position, and I was never wrong. Their head slightly turned, a serious face, the position of the hands . . . I was capable of making someone look really good.”
Keïta went to exceptional lengths to bring out the beauty of his subjects and the brilliant patterns of his backdrops proved a particularly effective foil. He worked intuitively, reinventing portrait photography through his search for extreme precision. In 1962 the newly installed Socialist government made Keïta its official photographer; shortly thereafter he closed down his studio, although he remained active until his retirement in 1977. His archive of over 10,000 negatives was gradually brought to light in the early 1990s; Keïta has since achieved international recognition. Inventive and highly modern, his emphasis on the essential components of portrait photography—light, subject, framing—firmly establishes Keïta among the twentieth-century masters of the genre.

Keïta’s work has been exhibited outside Africa since he was ‘discovered’ by Andre Magnin in 1991, with exhibitions throughout Europe, Japan and the United States. As such he enjoyed a great measure of international success and recognition in later life, and continues to be celebrated and exhibited since his death in 2001.

© Malick Sidibé. Gelatin silver prints, approximately 48 x 48". Other sizes available.

Malick Sidibé was born around 1935, in a small village in Mali. Because of his talent for drawing, he was encouraged by his school tutors to enlist in the school of Sudanese Craftsmen in Bamako where he studied jewellery and graduated in 1955. This is where he met Gerard Guillat, who was looking for a student to decorate his "Photo Service" shop and studio. He chose Malick for the job and when it was finished he asked him to stay as his apprentice.

Malick bought his first camera in 1956, and in 1958 he opened his own studio in Bagadadji, in the heart of Bamako, where he still works today. Like Seydou Keïta before him, Malick Sidibé started with studio portraits. But unlike his predecessor he soon became a street photographer and the only young reporter in Bamako at that time.

Malick Sidibé’s pictures reflect the convivial and carefree atmosphere of a post-colonial African capital. But beyond that they are simple, spontaneous, yet extremely beautiful images, illustrating moments of truth and complicity. They reveal Malick Sidibé’s love of people and his passion for photography and allow us to witness another face of Africa. Major exhibitions of Malick Sidibé’s work include the Deitch Projects, New York and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago both in 1999. A vintage show at the Jack Shainman Gallery, New York, as well as the "You look beautiful like that" show at the Hammer Museum, UCLA, Los Angeles and at the Fogg Museum, Harvard University; all in 2002. A major retrospective of his work was exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery, London, alongside fellow Mali photographer Seydou Keïta, in 2003. This was also the year that Malick was awarded the prestigious Hasselblad Prize. Since then his international acclaim has continued to rise. He was awarded the prestigious Golden Lion for lifetime achievement at the Venice Biennale in 2007, the first African artist to be honoured with this prize.

Other works and sizes available, please ask for details.

© Calmen & Bech 'A la Folie I, 2006-08' 3 Gelatin silver prints, approx 80 x 100cm each panel.


Working in collaboration to create captivating and mysterious landscapes, French artists Calmen & Bech consciously retain a sense of anonymity. In their alluring and atmospheric artworks an acknowledgement of time and place is not significant. Instead we are suspended in timeless space: the familiar transcends the everyday and the viewer is introduced to what they describe as ‘the ends of our world.’

Firmly grounded in the strength and beauty of nature itself, the photographs of Calmen & Bech recall the Romantic era and the origins of the photographic medium. They revive artistic values first embraced by masters of nineteenth century photography such as Gustave le Gray, and later by the Pictorialists. The silvered waters of a lily pond, the twisted roots of the oak tree, and the lush grasses of a fog-swept field encourage us to reconsider our relationship to the natural world.

Though influenced by history and tradition, the work of Calmen & Bech offers a unique and contemporary point of view. Creating multiple panels that fragment the landscape, the artists weave texture and form in a way that appears almost cinematic. Shown in sequence, the photographs suggest the narrative for a story never fully told; the conclusion found only in the eye of the beholder.

Calmen & Bech make their worldwide debut at The AIPAD Photography Show 2008, prior to their first exhibition at HackelBury Fine Art in London. Further works are available, please ask for details.

© Doug & Mike Starn, 'Structure of Thought #20' 2001-2007
Framed: 41 1/4 x 48 inches. Archival inkjet prints on cotton rag and Gampi papers with varnish.



Mike and Doug Starn, American artists and identical twins, were born in New Jersey in 1961. Working collaboratively in photography since age thirteen, they continue to defy categorization by effectively combining traditionally separate disciplines such as sculpture, painting, video, and installation. Their work has been exhibited in museums and galleries worldwide for two decades, and has received international critical acclaim for their conceptual approach to photography.

Their work has also been acquired by more than 30 public permanent collections including the Corcoran Gallery of Art (Washington, D.C.), the Museum of Modern Art (NYC), the Metropolitan Museum of Art (NYC), the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (CA), the Jewish Museum (NYC), Maison Européenne de la Photographie (Paris, France), the National Gallery of Victoria (Melbourne, Australia), the National Museum of Contemporary Art (Seoul, South Korea), the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (CA), the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (NYC), the Whitney Museum of American Art (NYC), the Yokohama Museum of Art (Yokohama, Japan), amongst others.

The sweeping scope of their interests has led to fruitful professional and artistic collaborations with German art dealer Hans Mayer, Russian author Victor Pelevin, American actor Dennis Hopper, and NASA and CHSL scientists. Recent works continue the thrust of the Starns' longtime fascination with themes of light and darkness, nature and technology, past and present, part and whole; a distinctive dualism evident since their earliest works.

The Starns have received critical acclaim in The New York Times, Art in America, ARTFORUM, Flashart, and other international publications. They are recipients of two National Endowment for the Arts grants in 1987 and 1995 and The International Center for Photography’s Infinity Award for Fine Art Photography in 1992. In 2005, the Starns were awarded a commission by New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority for a monumental permanent art installation, scheduled for completion in December 2008 at the South Ferry terminal.

Stephen Inggs is a professor of printmaking at the Michaelis School of Fine Art, University of Cape Town. Born in South Africa, he studied Printmaking at the University of Brighton, England and the University of Natal, South Africa. He has exhibited widely in South Africa and is included in private and corporate collections worldwide. In addition to his art practice and teaching he has also collaborated on a limited edition print project with Nelson Mandela, entitled 'My Robben Island'. His body of work consists of powerful yet delicate large scale photographs, each one hand-coated with silver gelatin emulsion onto 100% cotton mould-made paper, using traditional techniques. The handmade, tactile and physical aspects of this process are used deliberately to underline the references to history, transience and the overlooked object. The final result in each piece is a unique and original work of art.

Stephen Inggs work has been exhibited in the UK, South Africa, US, Poland and Australia since 1994. It is included in the collections of the South African National Gallery, Cape Town, Durban Municipal Art Gallery, Durban, Tatham Art Gallery, Pietermaritzburg, Mangosuthu Technikon, Umlazi, University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, University of Cape Town, Telkom SA (Pty) Ltd, Rand Merchant Bank, MTN Group, Library of Congress, USA, Yale University, USA, Northwestern University, USA

For all enquiries please contact: katestevens@hackelbury.co.uk
or telephone 646 645 4260 (during fair dates only)

Back to top of page