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| Carol Dass |
Typed Live,
Excuse Errors…
A Mark Sink Retrospective
For the last five decades, Mark Sink has expanded our understanding of portraiture using a wide range of experimental and alternative processes, sometimes obsessively. With various aim and shoot cameras - oftentimes the Polaroid SX70 or the plastic toy, Diana Camera - Sink has harnessed his considerable gift of gab to flatter, cajole, and excite his subjects. Sink’s photographs of even the most exalted celebrities demonstrate his vibrancy, flirtation, and his interest in the act of “holding still,” a concept, for Sink, which reveals what is most important and present in his subjects.
This exhibition shares all sides of Mark Sink; from family, to his instrumental role in initiating key institutions and collaborations in the Denver Art scene, and, of course, his founding role in Colorado’s Month of Photography and The Big Picture Show. Without pretension, he continues to invite and include everyone to be a part of a story seen through his lens.
The work included in this retrospective shares the history of how Sink’s family legacy, his archives, and his process informs our understanding of a collective moment in time; and in doing so anticipates his influence on the future of photography in Colorado.
xo,
RedLine
P.S. with special thanks to the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Bonfils-Stanton Foundation, Colorado Creative Industries, Colorado Photographic Art Center, Devon Dikeou, Susan Froyd, Kristen Hatgi, Rupert Jenkins, MeowWolf, The David & Laura Merage Foundation, RedShift Frames, Master printer Bob Jewett, Scientific & Cultural Facilities District, and The Resident Society Members.
Flower face portrait of Mark Sink, 2012
Pigment print
Courtesy of Robischon Gallery
ORIGINS
James Lawrence Breese Sr.
The parallels in the lives of Sink in the 1990s and his great-grandfather, bon vivant photographer James L. Breese in the 1890s, are reSinkable. Breese photographed turn-of-the-century New York and, like Sink, was involved in numerous photographic and social movements that were defining the art and culture of his day. Breese’s uncle, Samuel Finley Breese Morse (inventor of the telegraph and co-founder of the National Academy of Design) brought the Daguerreotype to America after hearing Daguerre speak in France and took one of the first photographs in America “portrait of a young man,” in 1840.
Breese’s carbon prints, lantern slides, glass negatives, writings and ephemera vividly document his experiences in the 19th century Gilded Age of wild fun and excess. He owned and operated the Carbon Studio, in partnership with pictorialist Rudolf Eickemeyer Jr., a member of Alfred Stieglitz's Photo Secession.
He was co-founder of the NY Camera Club, and part of a bohemian group called "The Carbonites”. His then-famous "One of 1001 Nights" salons attracted renowned individuals, artists, writers, and friends like, Stanford White, Nicola Tesla, John Singer Sargent, Evelyn Nesbit, and Modernist art critic Sadakichi Hartmann.
The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree—Breese won many awards during his career and was described as being "the leader of New York's new school." This year, Denver art critic Ray Rinaldi called Sink “a legend in the photo community of Colorado and beyond.”
Samuel Finley Breese Morse (1791 - 1872) American painter and inventor, a pioneer in the development of the electric telegraph and co-creator of Morse Code.
Samuel F. B. Morse
Portrait of a Young Man 1840
Daguerreotype
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Morse the "father of American photography" This is one of the first photographs taken in America.
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James L. Breese Sr.
Carbon Studio, 1896
Photogravure
Portrait of James L. Breese, 1896
Platinum print
Portrait of Miss Evelyn Nesbit, 1901
Platinum Print (modern reproduction)
James L. Breese Sr.
The Zephyr (The Wind), 1892
Platinum on glass
James L. Breese Sr.
Untitled, 1897
Platinum on glass
James L. Breese Sr.
Self Portrait King Henry VIII for the Bradley Martin Ball, 1894
Carbon Print
James L. Breese Sr.
Woman in suit (early street photography), 1897
Pigment print
James L. Breese Sr.
Eloise Lawrence Breese, 1902
Platinum Print
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Eloise Lawrence Breese married Lord Willoughby de Eresby in Westminster, England.Julian Fellowes pulled on Eloise Breese for inspiration for the BBC American Series, Downton Abbey’s Nora Crawley.
James L. Breese Sr.
Carbon Studio Camera, 1896
Camera Club of New York
James L. Breese Sr.
Camera Club of NY, 1897-1903
Book
Camera Notes was a photographic journal published by the Camera Club of New York from 1897 to 1903. It was considered the most significant American photography journal of its time. "James L. Breese and William A. Frasier were the primary inspiration for the Camera Club of NY. "
Samuel Finley Breese Morse
Portrait of Illinois Senator Sidney Breese(Colleague and friend of Abraham Lincoln), 1840s
Oil on Canvas
James L. Breese Sr.
Under the mistletoe, 1896
Patented “Art-Relievo” platinum photographic print 3-dimensional photographic reproductions in 'absolute relief' (embossed)
Rudolf Eickemeyer Jr.
Studio partner of James L. Breese
Portrait Evelyn Nesbit, 1901
Tired Butterfly, 1902
James L. Breese Sr.
Family’s First Car, 1904
Platinum Print
Certificate (car racing)
Certificate given to James L. Breese Sr. for racing in the Ornmond-Daytona Beach Automobile Race; predecessor to Daytona 500, 1905
James L. Breese Sr.
Tanty, Jim and Sidney Breese, 1905
Carbon Tissue Print
Anonymous
Photograph of James L Breese, Winner of Mt. Washington Hill Climb, 1904
Platinum print
James L. Breese Sr.
(Isabella, Alice, Katharine Beacher Stowe), 1897
Carbon Print (reproduction)
The group of three women represents three generations:
The woman in the center is Isabella Beecher Hooker, active in the women's suffrage movement of the 19th century; to her left is her daughter, Alice Hooker Day; to her right is Alice's daughter, and Isabella's grand-daughter, Katharine Seymour Day.
James L. Breese Sr.
'Le Desir': Portrait of Yvette Guilbert, 1896
Carbon print
Portrait Painting and Photography
James L. Breese, "Le Desir": Portrait of Yvette Guilbert, 1897, Carbon print.
Camera Notes, April 1899
Sadakichi Hartmann
Breese produced one plate that deserves unstinted recognition-the portrait if Yvette Guilbert, Called "Le Desir," which shows that he only meant it to be a study. Although this picture contains enough of a certain phase of Yvette Guilbert’s art, a certain wanton forgetfulness, characteristic of this "Lady of Vain Virtue," as Rossetti might call her, it is not , and could not be a portrait. We Americans have never known the real Yvette Guilbert --the " female faun"-- and all on account of her wearing a wig here, while in Paris she appeared with her own cartory red hair. In New York she was a naughty pre-Raphaelite maiden while at the "Concert Parisian" she represented Ugliness singing the misery and frivolity of modern society. Nor was I aware that the lilies of the valley expressed desire: lilacs would have been more appropriate. Or did the Carbon Studio wish to convey that nervous Yvette Guilbert fell into a trance by inhaling the pure innocent odor of lilies if the valley-- a combination of refinement and naivete, as we see in Chevannes’ mural decoration? I hardly think so.
About Alfred Stieglitz as a portrait photographer I am not equally certain. We all know that a student of photography could not have ( in certain references to technical usages ) a better master than he. He is a fanatic of simplicity, but has done too few portraits, and these not individual enough to make a estimate . In his exact and cold like science, which may be a merit as it happens to represent a professor-he has succeeded very admirably indeed. The monstrous line of the left arm and the veins of the right hand however disturb my enjoyment.
The Carbon Studio salons and costume balls, 1897
The Carbon Studio salons and costume balls, 1897
James L. Breese Studio
Press Clippings
1893 - 1903
James L. Breese Jr. Personal Photographs/Documentation
First airplane to complete a trans-Atlantic flight, May 27th, 1919
(Eight years before Lindbergh)
Documentation and fabric memento
James Breese Jr witnessed and photographed one of the first Wright Brothers two-person flight, 1905
James L. Breese Sr.
Snapshots from automobile, 1905
Photo album (Breese personal)
James L. Breese Sr.
Ornmond-Daytona Beach Automobile Race, 1905
Photo album (Breese personal)
James Breese Jr.
Car Camping, 1910
Photo album (Breese personal)
Road trip Across the US from Washington State to NYC in a Model T Ford and a new baby, 1910
Pigment print
James L. Breese Sr.
Frances in the BLM Runabout (Establishing Shot), 1907
Photo Album (Breese Personal)
Ortho Cushing
Frances racing on cliff edge in the Breese BLM Runabout, 1907
Print Ad from color lithograph.
“Americas first sports car”
BLM - Breese, Lawrance, Moulton Motor Car and Equipment Co.
James L. Breese Sr.
Portrait of Tanty Sitting, Southampton NY, 1898
Pigment print
Frances Miller
More about Tanty, 1980
Books
1955 Triumph TR 2
Sports car with historical images of family and automobile history, 1976-2023
“They are amazing simple machines of design, beauty and function. In the early 1950s the Triumph TR2 debuted running 124 mph with a simple standard factory engine; a Ferguson farm tractor engine.” - Mark Sink
James L. Breese Sr.
Souvenir of 1001 Nights (Photographs from personal album), 1896
Carbon Tissue Prints
Various invitations with titled portraits of;
Mrs Clapp,
Katharine Seymour Day,
Miss Brice,
James L. Breese Sr
Mrs Emily Hoffman (Diana Vreelands mother)
Ortho Cushing(with falcon)
Mrs Leslie Cotton, Miss Post (feather in hair)
Ortho Cushing (with instrument)
Miss Emily Hoffman dancing (image was used by her daughter Diana Vreeland for the NYC Met Gala 1991 invitation).
Family
Betsy Freeman (Mark’s niece)
Makeabowl, 2022
pigment print
Jenny Freeman (Mark’s sister)
Untitled
Gouache on paper
Ann and Charles Sink
Aspen Co, circa mid 1950s
Pigment print
Sink’s mother and father, Ann and Charles Sink, settled in Denver in 1956. They were committed art advocates in the city. They were integral to the forming of the Alliance for Contemporary Art (AFCA), which helped bring Modern and Contemporary Art to the Denver Art Museum (DAM)and helped build its landmark Gio Ponti building.
Ann Sink was a skilled abstract and landscape painter. As a student, she met Frida Kahlo and worked with Diego Rivera in his Mexico City studio. In 1963, she became a founding member of The Nine artist collective. Later in life she taught summer workshops for the DAM, Jewish Community Center, and other venues supporting arts and culture.
Ann Sink
Still Life, 1956
Oil and marble dust on canvas
Ann Sink
Yellow
Oil and marble dust on canvas 1960
Charles Sink opened his own successful design firm in 1962. He studied architectural design with Walter Gropius at Harvard University, alongside his classmate I.M. Pei, and won many awards, including Colorado’s Architect of the Year Award (1984). His civic activities included Chair of the Denver Art Commission from 1968-1983.
Harry Bertoia
Concept for Diamond Chair, 1950
Monotype print on tissue
Harry Bertoia
Diamond Chair, 1952
Dutch Walla
Charles Sink & I.M. Pei's Hilton Hotel (consultants) on hyperbolic paraboloid at Zeckendorf Plaza, 1960
Silver print photograph
Mark Sink
Taylor Mead and me
Denver Mud People, 1988
Silver gelatin prints
Street performance in South Bronx NY at Fashion Moda Gallery.
FIRST WORK
Sink’s first art ventures began on the Auraria campus in the mid 1970’s, using scanners, lithography, silkscreens, and Xerox machines.
The NYC International Society of Copier Artists (I.S.C.A) and Criss Cross magazine, published in Boulder by artist Clark Richert and others, helped inspire Sink’s interest in correspondence art. Out of all this activity came one of the first Xerox art shows in Denver, at Phil Bender's Pirate Art Oasis, circa 1981
Between 1983 and 1986, Mark Sink, Eric Havelock-Baille, and Reed Weimer produced four one-of-a-kind issues of The Codex. Each sold-out issue consisted of a bound portfolio of original photography, printmaking, xerography, “street art,” fiction, and poetry. The Codex provided a critical artistic link between artists and the fine art community. Issues were placed in countless archives, foundations, private and public collections, including The Guggenheim Museum, Whitney Museum, The DAM, Printed Matter, and Franklin Furnace.
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Before he met Warhol in 1981, Sink worked for one of the only contemporary art galleries in Denver at the time, the Sebastian-Moore Gallery. Owner’s Christy Sebastian and Mimi Moore taught him the ins and outs of running a gallery and producing exhibitions.
His training paid dividends when Emmanuel Gallery director Carol Keller gave him the chance to curate a series of exhibitions. From then on, the idea of convening people from different communities became central to his arts practice.
Mark Sink
Experimental Darkroom Color Work, 1980
multiple exposure series
Self Portraits (Mark Sink)
Wanting to be in Interview Magazine Series, 1981
Hand colored silver print
Video Still (Body parts), 1981
C-Print
Presented in one of the first video art exhibitions in Denver at Spark Gallery. Documented in Clark Richert’s Colorado Art Newspaper.
Homemade cardboard box over tv ad projector with cardboard tube lens.
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Andy Close with Chemicals 1, 1982
Multiple exposure, light drawing, body fluids
Andy Close with Chemicals 2, 1982
Multiple exposure, light drawing, body fluids
Marylyn and Figure, 1982
Multiple exposure, light drawing, body fluids
Mark Sink Floral Series
Orange Poppy, 2005
Scanner image pigment print
Life cycle Still lifes #1, 1996
C-prints
Shooting star, 1994
Silver gelatin print
Four Callas, 1990
Silver gelatin print
Dying Tulips, 1990
Silver gelatin print
Life cycle Still Life #2,
C-prints
Peonies, 2015
Pigment print from Collodion Wetplate
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Diana Camera
Mark Sink
Nymph Series, 1995
Silver gelatin print
Lisa NYC, 1987
Silver gelatin print
Denver International Film Festival, 1993
Sandwiched negatives / silver gelatin print
Untitled, 1994
Sandwiched negatives / silver gelatin print
Venice Flooding, 1996
Silver gelatin print
The Flatiron, 1986
Silver gelatin print
Gramercy Park, 1984
Silver gelatin print
Paris At Night, 2005
Silver gelatin print
From Notre Dame, 1987
Silver gelatin print
Central Park Tree, 1987
Silver gelatin print
Pont Neuf, 1987
Silver gelatin print
[End Cap]
Mark Sink
My Mothers Cat: One Hundred and One Uses of a Dead Cat, 1980
Silver gelatin print
Mark Sink
Body Xerox, 1979
Xerox copy machine print,
Mark Sink
“My body within” Light Paintings 1-4, 1980
Series with performance artist Susana Amudrian
Silver Prints
Mark Sink
Rock Photography, Early 1980s
Silver gelatin prints
Lin Esser with E. Shepherd Stevenson,
Lily Rose at Mercury Cafe circa 1981
Phil Bender, Jimmy West of The Rock Tots, Steve Knutson (Singer), Kevin Meilinger (Drummer), Jeff Froyd (guitarist) the Young Weasels
Denver Collage Club
The Denver Collage Club is a loose-knit Salon founded by Mark and Mario Zoots. Its first meeting was at RedLine in 2013. Since then, members have exhibited together each Month of Photography. The Salon’s mission is to share and learn about current and historical work, and progressive ideas on the topic of collage today.
Phil Bender
Untitled (Champagne Wire Series), 2010
Assemblage
Laura Shill
Forever, 2015
Cyanotype
Adam Milner
Gathered Drapes I & II 2011
Cut magazine on paper
George Perez
A Lack Of (Family Series), 2017
Cut photograph
Mado Resnick
Untitled, 2014
Collage
Mario Zoots
Untitled (Dots), 2014
Collage
Mario Zoots
Untitled (hand & head), 2018
Collage
The Unperson Project (Susana Moyaho & Andrea Tejeda)
La Muchacha, 2020
Collage Collaboration
The Denver Salon
The Denver Salon was formed by Sink in 1993. Like salons hosted by his great grandfather, James L. Breese, Denver Salon members showed work, discussed art and ideas, and explored experimental practices. Shows of their work took place in NYC, Japan, and at the DAM. Numerous members are still active in Colorado today.
Chris James
Suncor, 1995
Silver gelatin print
Joel Dallenbach
Frank and Mary, 1992
Silver gelatin print
John Hallin
Untitled Urban, 1991
Silver gelatin prints and wire
Sylvie Tillman
Untitled
Silver gelatin print
John Hallin
Untitled Urban Landscape, 1991
Silver gelatin prints, wire
Claire Cornell
Untitled (School Portrait Series), 2004
C-Print with rhinestones
Kevin O'Connell
White Cocoon, 1999
Platinum print
Wes Kennedy
Overman Series, Untitled, 1986
Silver gelatin print
Wes Kennedy
Bird Box, 1994
Silver gelatin print
David Zimmer
Beetle and Spoon, 1992
Mixed media
Paul Schroder
Lilith,1993
Silver gelatin print
Inna Valin
Untitled Biblical Series, 1995
Sand colored silver print
Eric Havelock-Bailie
Linda Dershang 1983
Silver print
Reed Weimer
Stairs,Vernazza, Italy, 1994
Silver gelatin print
Alt. Process
Cyanotypes
The basic cyanotype recipe, where prints are developed outdoors by the sun, has not changed since scientist Sir John Herschel introduced it in 1842. Julia Margaret Cameron, a close friend to Herschel, sought to master the process through her portraiture and, like the Sinks, decorates her familiar and famous subjects with costumes and adornments for extended poises. Both Herschel and Cameron are named as Sink’s “heroes” and clear influences to his and Kristen’s practice. Cyanotypes were notably used in Herschel’s era by Anna Atkins. Her floral work inspired Sink and his daughter, Poppy, to make their cyanotype floral series.
Mark and Poppy Sink
Flower contact prints, 2021
Cyanotype
Mark Sink
Cloud Series, 2016
Cyanotype on cotton
Dot Series
Sink’s “Dot” series of collages explore time and impermanence, the visible and the non-visible. The manipulated and embellished images of deceased family members and teachers convey the fragility of life and memory, and are a reaction to his inherently “male gaze.”
Lucy and Dots, 2019
Silver print with vinyl dots
Andy and Dots, 2021
Carbon print with vinyl dots
Dad and Dots, 2017
Silver print with vinyl dots
Figure and Dots, 2019
Silver print Polaroid negative with vinyl dots
My Third Grade and Dots, 2021
Silver print with vinyl dots
Cameraless Series
Mark Sink
Wine Glasses, 1995
Vessel Series
Cameraless photograms
Let There Be Light Star Series 1-2, 1997
Flour, Salt, Baking Soda on photo paper
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Mark Sink and Kristen Hagti
Wonderbound Dance Company,2010
Carbon print on aluminum
[Back Wall]
Collodion Wet Plates
Mark Sink and his wife, Kristen Hatgi, use the historic wet plate collodion process and antique cameras to create modern ambrotypes and tintypes. The photograph is created by pouring a thin layer of collodion on a glass or tin plate before sensitizing it with silver nitrate. Collodion on glass is known as an ambrotype; poured on tin it’s called a ferrotype or tintype. This process was developed by Frederick Scott Archer in 1851. Among famous photographers who used it are William Henry Jackson and Matthew Brady (who learned the process from Samuel Finley Breese Morse).
By the turn of the 20th century, new inventions such as film and paper prints had made image making far easier, and wet plates fell out of favor. Contemporary artists like Sally Mann, Scully & Osterman, and locally, Chris Perez, Hunter Helmstaedter, Sink & Hatgi, are at the forefront of its revival.
Mark Sink and Kristen Hatgi Sink
Various portraits 2007 - 2018
Ambrotypes & Tintypes
5x6 - 8x10
Polaroid Series
Mark Sink
Polaroid Famous Face Series, 1981-2023
Polaroid photographs
Sink spent decades documenting famous people in New York City and Denver using a Polaroid SX-70. He would cover the light sensor with tape so the camera would open up for a long exposure, and then would paint in the light. After the polaroid was taken Sink would have his subjects sign them.
New York City
Mark Sink first met Andy Warhol on the CSU Fort Collins campus in 1981. The two hit it off, and Sink became the Colorado rep for Warhol’s Interview magazine.
By 1984, Sink was living in downtown Manhattan and shooting photographs for the Patrick Fox Gallery, where he had a studio. Visits to The Factory, Warhol’s famed studio in NYC, resulted in many informal portraits of Warhol; including taking walks, relaxing and their occasional dates. They were exhibited nationally and published in magazines, newspapers, and in the posthumous “Warhol Diaries.”
Sink’s association with Warhol led to his friendship with Jean-Michel Basquiat. His best-known image of Basquiat shows the artist in front of a canvas with the words "Man Dies.” It was made in June 1988. In August of the same year, Basquiat died of an overdose in his loft at age twenty-seven.
Sink made many hundreds of portraits of Basquiat and other rising artists in the Tin Room, a hangout in the back of the Fox gallery. Many of his images are double exposed or created from multiple negatives, most were made with a Polaroid or a Diana plastic camera, which he used for more than thirty years. His commercial clients included New Yorker magazine, Vogue, Details, and others. Sink was a staff photographer for Men’s Guide to Fashion and Circus.
Mark Sink
Jean-Michel Basquiat "Man Dies", 1988
Pigment print
Jean-Michel Basquiat Smoking, 1987
Silver gelatin print
Jean-Michel Basquiat Drawing, 1987
Silver gelatin print
Andy Warhol Mountain Man, 1983
Silver gelatin print
Andy in Aspen (snowmobile crash), 1983
Silver gelatin print
Andy Warhol at the Factory, 1982
Silver gelatin print
Andy Warhol Close-up at The Factory, 1981
Light jet print
Andy Warhol (smiling) at The Factory, 1981
Light jet print
Andy Warhol Calvin Klein Touch, 1982
Light jet print
Mark Sink
Reflections of Andy series 1981-85
Pigment print
“My newest series are these recently discovered reflections of Andy. I had passed over these on the contact sheets not seeing the series of Andy Warhol in the store windows while out on walks with him.” - Mark Sink
Mark Sink
Jean-Michel, 2021
Deterioration Series
Pigment Print
Andy, Mick Jagger, and Watts
Dinner with Andy at the Odeon restaurant in Tribeca
Contact Sheet, 1982
C-print
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Andy Warhol
Campbell’s Soup Can T-Shirt, 1981
Silkscreen
“Andy told me personally that they used the original Campbell’s soup silkscreen for the t-shirt and then destroyed it, so Andy told me to buy a lot of that t-shirt” - Mark Sink
Mark Sink & Open Press Denver
Julie Rising x 12, 1997
Photo silkscreens printed at Mark Lunnings Open Press Denver
Hand painting technique inspired by the prints we made at Warhol’s Factory.
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