Catamount Arts is pleased to announce the opening of Elsa Dorfman: The Big Picture (Family and Friends), an exhibition of 20 x 24 inch Color Polaroid prints by acclaimed portrait photographer Elsa Dorfman. Co-hosted by the St. Johnsbury Business and Professional Women’s Association, the show opens on Thursday, March 10 from 5:30-7 pm. Refreshments will be served. The reception is free and open to the public and refreshments will be served, and all are welcome to attend.
“Dorfman has made strong portraits of one of the most important issues today. Her pictures are both biting and poignant.”
— Mary Ellen Mark
ABOUT THE EXHIBITION: For the past 34 years, photographer Elsa Dorfman has produced personal and commercial portrait photographs of what she calls “affection and survival.” Her current exhibition at Catamount Arts features images taken for NO HAIR DAY—the visual story a single afternoon in the lives of three women, all undergoing treatment for breast cancer. In the dozen large-format Polaroids, the three appear strong, anxious, fun-loving, private – in short, they display a gamut of human emotions and behaviors compressed into a day. Filmmaker Bob Burns Burns recorded the photography session, and the resulting film NO HAIR DAY was produced by PBS as part of the Independent Lens series. Also featured in the exhibition are private family portraits that include Dorfman’s nephew Matt Power, the acclaimed late writer who grew up in Middlebury, Vermont.
ABOUT THE ARTIST: Born in 1937 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Elsa Dorfman studied French Literature at Tufts University before working at Grove Press and The Evergreen Review in New York. Moving back to Cambridge, she earned an MA in education from Boston College and briefly taught elementary school before learning to use a camera. Informal portraits of close friends Allen Ginsberg, Robert Creeley, Laurence Ferlinghetti and others started her career as portrait photographer. Her oversized Polaroid camera, one of only six worldwide, is used to create very large prints (20″ x 24 inches). Dorfman now works in New York and in Cambridge, where she also lives.
FREE SCREENINGS: During the course the exhibition, Catamount Arts will present free screenings of the documentary film NO HAIR DAY at 7 pm on Wednesday evenings, March 16, 23, 30 and April 6, as well as Sundays, April 17 and 24 at 3:30 pm. Screenings of this rarely seen footage are free an open to the public. All are welcome to attend.