North Gallery
David Halpern
New Perceptions of Reality
March 10 thru May 4, 2008
Tulsa photographer David Halpern’s favorite subjects are found in nature—landforms, water, rocks, trees, clouds—and the variables that alter our perceptions of them—light, wind, rain, snow and fog.
Born in Nashville, Tennessee in 1936, he began taking pictures with a “box camera” when he was a child. At the age of 12, he learned to process film and make prints, and first exhibited his images at 15. Now, more than half a century later, the art and science of photography has grown exponentially and the technology has undergone radical changes. Halpern says he has changed as well, philosophically and intellectually.
“Once it was the process of making the picture that held my attention; now it is the challenge of discovering new images—interpreting my subjects and making them seem meaningful and relevant to others. Once I was preoccupied with photographic technique; now I’m more interested in how the image speaks. Though I owe much to photographers like Ansel Adams and Edward Weston, my greater influences are painters like Albert Bierstadt and Thomas Moran. When I work, I concentrate on mastering the moment and not what someone else did or might have done.”
As a landscape photographer for more than a half century, Halpern says he is motivated by an awareness that all environments change in time with the impact of public use, commercial exploitation and natural phenomena. “I have always tried to show viewers of my photographs a natural world about which I care deeply and which I believe is worth protecting and preserving. My approach is neither sermonic nor adversarial; I prefer to let the images speak for themselves.”
Perhaps best known for two award winning editions of Tulsa Art Deco, he has recently authored Pilgrim Eye, a self-revealing chronicle and collection of images. He has served 11 times as a National Park Artist-in-Residence including at Colorado’s Rocky Mountain National Park and Black Canyon of Gunnison, Bryce Canyon National Park in Utah, Glacier National Park in Montana, and Acadia National Park in Maine.
From 1992-1998 an exhibition of Halpern’s photographs commemorating the seventy-fifth anniversary of the National Park Service traveled to 40 locations throughout the U.S. Entitled By a Clearer Light, that exhibition was seen by more than 400,000 people. In 1999 it became a permanent part of the National Park Service collection and is held in the archives at Rocky Mountain National Park.
Halpern attended the University of Missouri and, in 1958, received his B.A. degree from Vanderbilt University. His work has been exhibited at museums and galleries across the country and is in several public and private collections. In 1977, the selection of two of his photographs to hang in the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Office Building in Oklahoma City, marked the first time photography had been purchased by the GSA, under its Art-in-Architecture program.
Halpern has taught at the University of Tulsa, Philbrook Museum of Art and Oklahoma State University-Okmulgee and regularly conducts workshops in landscape, architectural and digital photography. David and his wife Sue live in Tulsa.
Sponsored by the Oklahoma Arts Council. For more information contact Scott Cowan at 405.521.2931 or scott@arts.ok.gov.
The North Gallery is located on the 1st floor of the State Capitol and open daily from 8:00-5:30.