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Richard Lohmann Biography
Richard Lohmann earned his B.A. in Photography and Design in 1979. After graduation he worked for the Imogen Cunningham Trust making platinum prints made from Imogen's glass plate negatives. He later earned his M.A. in Photography in 1985 from San Francisco State University.
He began making hand-coated platinum prints in 1977 in part, because he responded to the mood and character he saw in the vintage platinum prints of P.H. Emerson and Frederick H. Evans. He loved the work of early platinum revivalists like George Tice and Tom Millea, and was drawn to the ambiguous reference to time created by the print 's warm tones. The print color suggested that the image might have been made in another time, perhaps in another era. Additionally, he felt that the tonal softness of these prints helped create a mood of quiet reflection. Because then, and now, he wants to create something that is in the words of Brian Eno “extremely calm and soothing, something that invites you in, rather than pushes itself upon you”.
At the time of this writing, twenty-seven years after he made his first platinum print, time and technology have brought him a beautiful gift: Digital Imaging. He can now make prints on fine-art rag paper using permanent carbon pigments. These prints share the same warmth and texture as his platinum prints, but produce a wider dynamic range of tones. This new way of working gives him digital control that replaced the Zone system, which broadens his palette and gives him image-making opportunities never before possible. Prints made with warm tones on rag papers have become a part of his visual vocabulary. As a romantic working in the realist medium of photography, the use of carbon pigments allows him to create images that appear independent of time, which removes his imagery from the realm of popular culture and softens the hard-edged of realism of photography. In the words of David Bayles and Ted Orland from their book Art and Fear: “What counts, in making art, is the actual fit between the contents of your head and the qualities of your materials.”
He is currently producing a body of work titled Atmosphere, where he is working with visual metaphor. “For me the use of metaphor is magical because it permits constant reanalysis and defies simplicity. Look at an image once and you may see one thing; look again and you will see more. Metaphor is more that an architect of comparison, it allows me to create links between many things, internal, external, large and small.”
In 1985 Richard received grants from the San Mateo Arts Council and the Peninsula Community Foundation, and again in 1991. In 1995 he received a Fellowship from the Bernheim Foundation in Kentucky, as the artist in residence. In 1997 he received an exhibition grant from Philanthropic Ventures Foundation.
His images have been exhibited at the Photographers Gallery in Palo Alto, The Saret Gallery in Sonoma, The Edward Carter Galleries in Gualala, and Delaware, The Alinder Gallery, The Platinum Gallery in Santa Fe, and Peter Fetterman Gallery in Santa Monica.
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