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.