About The Collection & The Artists
My parents, Simon and Rhyna Goldsmith, were a commercial artist and a classical musician. They both moved to Manhattan in the 1920’s, met in the 1930’s and cultivated a serious avocation in photography. Over the next four decades their 16” by 20” black and white art prints (from 2¼ x 2¼, and later 35 mm, negatives) were exhibited locally, nationally and internationally. They had a few photos published in Life and the Saturday Review.
Working in their bedroom darkroom in our small apartment in Queens they produced hundreds of prints and meticuously numbered each negative, contact sheet and print (many of which have exhibition awards and stickers on the back). They were humble people, but dedicated to their art and they played a small, but important role in the nascent days of modern photography.
They were extensively involved in the early camera club scene in New York City, and were long-time members of the prestigious Hypo Club. My mom was the secretary of the Photographic Society of America for several years. They began traveling internationally in the 1960’s and eventually visited 65 countries. Both had a good eye, Rhyna perhaps more for people, Si a bit toward the abstract.
They were what I suspect nowadays would be called “bohemians”, though to me they were just my parents … with some unusual interests. My mom played violin in Antonia Brico’s groundbreaking Women’s Symphony and my dad spent time at the Art Students League and was on their board. They passed away in their 90’s two months apart in 1996 and I have been maintaining their tens of thousands of negatives, slides and prints (as well as my dad’s art work) in a temperature- and humidity-controlled storeroom since then.
We are now curating this remarkable, large and intact collection. It is a representation of its era, a pre-digital world where photography was a unique and uncommon endeavor and the foundations of today’s visual experiences were being laid down.
I like this photo – it reflects their nature. They were sweet, smart people, enthusiastic about their interests, open to new experiences and fun to be with. It pleases me that while this photo is about them, it includes just a bit of me – a little boy filled with the wonder of seeing remarkable images appear like magic on photographic paper.
— Gary Goldsmith