Photography of Erik Madigan Heck and Saul Leiter at Jackson Fine Art in Atlanta

Jackson Fine Art in Atlanta presents an exhibition of new works by Erik Madigan Heck from his new series and accompanying monograph, The Garden. This is the gallery’s second solo exhibition of Heck’s painterly large-scale photographs, following 2018’s Old Future.

For The Garden, Heck’s focus turns somewhat inward, photographing his family and studies of the idyllic landscape surrounding their home. Composed over a five-year period, the series intimately explores the birth of the photographer’s two sons and the passing of his beloved mother, juxtaposing these hyper-personal works with more purely aesthetic pursuits — explosions of vibrant color and reimaginings of classical landscapes.

Also on view will be a selection of Saul Leiter’s Painted Nudes. Leiter is known for his enormous contribution in the area of color photography, distinguished by an overall hue and a painterly quality that stands out among the work of his contemporaries. In The New York School, Jane Livingston wrote, “The very fact that color becomes the subject of the photographs places Leiter’s work in another realm—a realm that is unabashedly artistic.”

Leiter has said about his own photography: “I don’t believe that black and white is sacred or that color is profane. In my own work they have both been equally important.”

Leiter developed the practice of painting over his photographs of nude figures, creating hundreds of these works from the 1960’s to the early 1990’s. His combination of two mediums that are traditionally kept scrupulously apart has left us with a striking body of work, recalling both the Impressionists and the erotic energy of Egon Schiele.

About Erik Madigan Heck

Erik Madigan Heck (b. 1983, Excelsior, MN) is an artist working in photography, painting, and film. Heck is the recipient of the International Center of Photography’s Infinity Award, the FOAM Fotografiemuseum talent award, the Forbes’ 30 under 30 award, and The Art Director’s Club Gold Medal for his Old Masters Portfolio published by The New York Times Magazine. In 2019, Heck had solo museum exhibitions at The Musée des Beaux-Art in Le Locle, Switzerland and The Multimedia Arts Museum in Moscow, Russia; public installations at The Houston Museum of Fine Arts, Paris Photo, Photo London, and Photo Shanghai; and relaunched Nomenus – a printed journal focusing on the intersection between photography and painting, where he collaborates with an array of artists and institutions. Heck is a regular contributor to The New York Times Magazine, TIME, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, and Harper’s Bazaar amongst others; and is the author of ‘Old Future’, published by Thames & Hudson and Abrams, and the forthcoming “The Garden” (Damiani).

About Saul Leiter

Leiter’s work is featured in the book “The New York School: Photographs 1936-1963” by Jane Livingston and in “Appearances: Fashion Photography Since 1945” by Martin Harrison. His work is in the collections of The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; The Art Institute of Chicago; The Baltimore Museum of Art; the Victoria and Albert Museum, London; and many other public and private collections.

Starting in 2006 Leiter’s work has experienced a surge of popularity after a monograph, “Early Color,” was published. Saul Leiter lived and worked in New York until he passed away in November 2013.