Pete Turner is the third artist who has artwork displayed in the library. There are 4 photos total, which are all displayed on the third floor in the learning commons, where the seating area is in the main landing. Below there is more information about the artist.
Pete Turner (Donald Peter Turner; 1934-2017)
Pete Turner, who died on September 18, 2017, at the age of 83, was a key pioneer of color photography. According to Sean Corcoran, Turner began his career at a time when color photography was limited mainly to commercial purposes. (1) Turner’s obituary in the New York Times reports that he was developing his own color prints by the age of 14. The artist was quoted as saying: “I love black and white photography, but somehow I got seduced by color…I remember going to the art supply store as a kid and looking at watercolor paint boxes and thinking, ‘These are beautiful.’ ” (2)
Although Turner tended to blur the lines between “high” and “commercial” art (one of the photographs seen here served as an album cover for Wes Montgomery’s Road Song), he artfully manipulated hue and saturation to produce brilliantly colorful, dreamlike images such as we see here. The four photographs recently installed in the Mortola Library are part of series of seven “Selected Color Images” given to Pace by distinguished alumnus Nathan M. Perlmutter (LSB ’71).
Every year since 1999, Nathan Perlmutter has made regular gifts of art photographs to his alma mater. The cumulative Perlmutter gift now amounts to an impressive group of over 200 objects, rivaling the holdings of other university collections. Included are works such noted artists as Tom Baril (American, b. 1952); Lucien Clergue (French, b. 1934); Ralph Gibson (American, b. 1939); Alen MacWeeney (Irish, b. 1939); Joel Meyerowitz (American, b. 1938); Gilles Peress (French, active in the U.S., b. 1946); Joyce Tenneson (American, b. 1945); and Peter Turnley (American, b. 1955). Over the past several years, some of these photographs have been installed in public spaces at Pace, including a series of Brazilian scenes by Kristin Capp (American, b. 1964) on view nearby in the ground floor corridor in Willcox Hall adjoining the David J. Pecker Lecture Hall and Stephen J. Friedman multi-purpose room.
Installed here, left to right:
Blue Walls and Light, 2002; printed in 2003. Chromogenic color print. Pace University Art Collection; Gift of Nathan M. Perlmutter; Accession number 2004.1.1.
Road Song, 1967; printed in 2003. Chromogenic color print. Pace University Art Collection; Gift of Nathan M. Perlmutter; Accession number 2004.1.5.
Boat Wake, 1995; printed in 2003. Chromogenic color print. Pace University Art Collection; Gift of Nathan M. Perlmutter; Accession number 2004.1.6.
Ibiza Woman, 1961; printed in 2003. Chromgenic color print. Pace University Art Collection, Gift of Nathan M. Perlmutter; Accession number 2004.1.1.
Kim de Beaumont, Ph.D.
University Curator
1 From the introduction to Pete Turner: Empowered by Color, catalogue of an exhibition held at the George Eastman House International Museum of Photography and Film, Rochester, New York, from Aug. 12, 2006 through Feb. 4, 2007. (https://www.peteturner.com/Bio/index.html)
2 Richard Sandomir, “Pete Turner, Whose Color Photography Could Alter Reality, Dies at 83,” New York Times, September 22, 2017 (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/22/arts/pete-turner-dead-color-photographer.html).
Pace subscription access to the New York Times: https://rlib.pace.edu/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/newspapers/pete-turner-whose-color-photography-could/docview/1942135858/se-2?accountid=13044
