Flooding in Jerry's Neighborhood in Bangkok

This is Jerry's favorite restaurant in the Fall 2011 flooding. It has been here for ages, belonging to a movie star of the 70's.
Jerry's red house is near the tall building in the back ground.
(photo by Namo Kruwatsuthat)

Upcountry Thailand

Jerry was experimenting with using black and white negatives and printing them on color paper stock to better reflect the Thailand of old, when it was called Siam.

Festival at Democracy Monument

New Year's Eve Festival at the Democracy Monument in Bangkok, Thailand

Thailand Backyards

The Poopensie Family has been looking after Mr. Dean, a friend of Jerry's. This house is located in Samutsakorn, Thailand.

40 minutes in Ko Samet, Thailand, 1986. (A different location than the one above, but a nice pairing.)

In Pagan, Burma, 1981

Girl Scouts at Water Lottery, Pagan, Burma 1981

Boys Festival in Pagan, Burma, 1981

Jerry Burchard took a trip to Pagan, Burma in 1981, and found some children celebrations to photograph.

Found Photos by Jerry Burchard

1981 image from Jerry's erotic color series.

Jerry Burchard called the series "Asian Studies."

Goulimine Portraits

One of the guys Jerry met in Goulimine, Morocco in the early 70's.

Italian Circus

When Jerry Burchard was stationed in Italy during 1953-54 as a Navy Photographer, he attended a circus and took photos with a borrowed 35mm camera. During that time Jerry was using mostly 4x5.
Years later Jerry stumbled across these little over-exposed grainy negatives, printed them up, and they were part of the bases of a new way of thinking about photography for him. These are probably his first 35mm images.

Jerry mentioned that "the Navy Jazz musicians friends took me to a circus. They took me to hear the clowns. They told me that the clowns were the best musicians they had ever heard. And they were right."

Jerry Burchard in The 70's.

Portraits of Jerry back in the 70's and 80's, shot by his students.

A Rain Story from Bangkok

.... I came to the Dunk it Donut, whose shop was full of happy teenage Thai boys crowded up against the front windows, and they were waving their arms and cheering with gusto.
Well, I was hungry anyhow, and after my own intrepid journey, I was ready for a hot drink, so I stepped inside the raucous scene, ordered a raspberry jelly donut and a coffee and settled in.

Just outside the shop was a high curb of about twenty inches, which was supposed to keep the sidewalks high and dry from street level, but now was covered itself with a few inches of water.
At this point, all the young women were pausing, and to keep as dry as possible, were raising their skirts before taking the plunge to step down into two feet or water and cross the small alleyway exiting from the center of the mall.

Each time a girl appeared there was high suspense, and then when the dress came up, the boys would go crazy cheering while she would blushingly cross the watery gauntlet, skirts held above the waves, trying to ignore the adolescent raspberries from inside. Ah, Bangkok.

Even the monsoons bring joy and relief. Even the floods renew our love for life. If you really must have a new karma, put on a sarong and hastily change everything underneath. Or let it rain on you.

Jerry Burchard
(Stories from Thailand, 20 years ago.)

Jerry Burchard's Photographic Influences

Andre Kertesz in his home in New York City. Jerry spent a couple afternoons with Kertesz, listening to Andre comment on his photographs. (photo by Jerry Burchard.)

English photographer Bill Brandt. (photo by Jerry.)

FSA photographer John Collier Jr. taught for many years at the San Francisco Art Institute. Jerry was one of his many students and later a fellow instructor at SFAI. (photo by Jerry Burchard taken in the 50's.)

Dorothea Lange also was one of Jerry's teachers at the San Francisco Art Institute. (photo by Jerry Burchard.)

Jerry Burchard appreciated the formal European compositions yet sometimes distorted photographic work of Bill Brandt and Andre Kertesz, along with the humanist qualities of the Farm Security Administration photographs by his instructors John Collier Jr. and Dorothea Lange.
Jerry would also mention that he very much enjoyed the photographs to be found in the National Geographic Magazines, and would have several of the magazines laying about wherever he lived.

Old Spaghetti Factory in North Beach 1962

A contact sheet of snapshots showing the habitués of the

 Old Spaghetti Factory in North Beach, taken around 1962 by Jerry Burchard.

 

(I found this on a blog titled "Not For Fun Only.")

50's Portraits of North Beach Beat Artists

Jay DeFeo

Jay DeFeo

Wally Hedrick.

Joan Brown

Carlos Villa.

These images by Jerry Burchard were shot in the 1950's of the San Francisco North Beach Beat Artist scene, many who were students or instructors at the San Francisco Art Institute (which was called the California School of Fine Arts back then.) It was the last body of work that Jerry oversaw the printing of.

This work along with the art by others can be seen in a group show at:

Beat by the Bay:
SF Artists & Galleries of the Fifties
Curated by John Held, Jr.

Ever Gold Gallery
441 O’Farrell St.
San Francisco, Ca 94102
December 8th, 2011 – January 6th, 2012
Opening Reception: December 8th from 6-10 pm.

Beat by the Bay, curated by alternative art historian John Held, Jr., traces Beat era visual artists through their cooperative galleries. In the Fifties, such spaces as King Ubu, The Six, East and West, Batman and Dilexi, supported artists Jess, Wally Hedrick, Jay De Feo, Fred Martin, Bruce Conner, Lawrence Jordan, Wallace Berman, George Herms, Joan Brown, Manuel Neri, Leo Valledor, Carlos Villa, Roy De Forest and others, who forged a vision equal to those of their poet brethren, interacting with them in these same spaces.

The Ever Gold Gallery exhibition features period work by artist/writer/educator Fred Martin from his personal collection, gallery ephemera from the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art Library artist files, vintage photographs by Jerry Burchard, as well as Beat era posters, photographs, publications, mail art and paintings from noted area galleries, private dealers and collectors.

Jay DeFeo and Her Painting - The Rose

Painter Jay DeFeo working on her epic painting titled The Rose
that she had worked on from 1958 to 1966.

Photographs by Jerry Burchard.