Telberg, Val (Russian, 1910-1995)
Journey the Seine Walk, 1950
Gelatin silver photograph, 9 x 10 7/8
Gift of Roberta Coke DeGolyer Estate, 1995
http://www.museumofnewmexico.org/mfa/ideaphotographic/cgi-bin/display.php?img=telberg.jpg
Val Telberg (Russian, 1910-1995)
Born in Moscow, Val Telberg lived in China, Japan, and Korea during his youth. He studied painting at the Art Student's League, New York, in 1942, where he was exposed to the surrealism movement and experimental filmmaking. To support his painting, Telberg traveled from Florida to Massachusettes, printing photographs of nightclub patrons and working at photographic concession stands where people posed with cutouts of celebrities.
In 1945, he returned to New York and produced narrative, surrealist photographs using sandwiched, bleached or burned negatives and double exposure within the camera. His later work evolved to large scale, scroll-like multiple images.
- Anita Ogard
Selected Bibliography
Coke, Van Deren, and Du Pont, Diana C. Photography: A Facet of Modernism. New York: Hudson Hills Press, 1986.
Coke, Van Deren. Val Telberg. San Francisco: San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 1983.
Telberg, Val. Val Telberg (exhibition). San Francisco: San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 1983.
