Mirror Images and Photos — A Metaphor For Self-Reflection?

Jeanette Montgomery Barron

In South Kent, Conn., a gravel driveway unfurls at an incline, revealing a modern, white building at its top. Photographer Jeannette Montgomery Barron’s studio is on the second floor, lined with windows to reveal the property expanding over the hills.

The space was completed about three years ago. In addition to Montgomery Barron’s studio, there is exhibition space for her husband, art dealer James Barron. The couple wanted a private exhibition space, available to visit only by appointment.

Collectors’ visits are easier in this format because they can “come and be the only ones here without other interruptions,” a change from Barron’s former gallery at the Kent Barns.

Currently, The Red Show fills the gallery’s walls, with work by Sol LeWitt, Phillip Guston, Kikuo Saito and other artists.

Jeannette Montgomery Barron points to a structure across the hill. “James does exhibitions in the cabin down there. He uses our whole property as an exhibition space. It’s great and funky.” Then, she draws attention to the Beverly Pepper sculptures lining the driveway and resting just outside the back door.

Shifting back to describing her studio, Montgomery Barron identifies her favorite parts: “I can have the doors open; I feel like I’m outside but I’m really inside — even when the doors are shut, and it’s winter and snowing.” She asserts she would change nothing.

Recently, Montgomery Barron returned to her archives, using old work for future projects. 

She is also continuing with the mirror series that she began in the early 1990s in black and white. The series evolved over time; the last print she has, of a photo she took in the early 2000s, was a large mirror with a “burnt Roman wall behind it.” After that, Montgomery Barron took a pause. 

About seven years ago, she returned to mirrors, now capturing them only in color. Most are taken at her studio here; some are photographed in Rome, Italy, where she and her husband have lived off and on for many years.

The new mirror photographs are, to some degree, a study in the way that the pandemic intensified introspection and self-awareness. 

“These two blue mirrors here came out of COVID,” she said, pointing to two images. “It’s just been a period of self-reflection for many people, me included. So, for me, these blue mirrors are very much about that period.”

She has also been photographing tablescapes. 

“They’re basically photos I take when I’m walking around in Italy, but sometimes here. They’re taken mostly with an iPhone. I just really love looking at tabletops. I walk around, usually, starting late in the morning. 

“I love to work in series,” she added.

But she also does single-themed projects, such as  a collaboration she did just before lockdown with author André Aciman. For “Roman Hours,” published in October 2020, Montgomery Barron took photos of the Italian capital on her iPhone and with a film camera; and Aciman wrote text about why he, too, adores the city where he grew up. Only 1,000 copies were made.

Propped up against the walls of her studio are prints that Montgomery Barron has made of portraits she took in New York City in the 1980s, of friends such as Keith Haring, Alex Katz, Kenny Scharf, many of whom went on to become “historical figures of the art world.”

She turns around one of her best-known portraits: An artist sits comfortably in his studio. It is Jean-Michel Basquiat.

 

Books that Jeanette Montgomery Barron recommends

As requested, here are three of my favorite books! —JMB

• “The Warmth of Other Suns,” by Isabel Wilkerson

• “The Year of Magical Thinking,” by Joan Didion

• “Design as Art,” by Bruno Munari

“There are so many more …”

Jeanette Montgomery Barron and her husband, James, agreed that their private gallery, visits by appointment only, provided a better, distraction-free environment for individual curators to visit James’ shows, and preview Montgomery Barron’s photography. Photo by Sadie Leite

Jeanette Montgomery Barron’s artistic environment is not contained within the four walls of her studio — her whole property is an exhibition space, starting with the sculptures by Beverly Pepper that line the drive up to the house. Photo by Sadie Leite

Jeanette Montgomery Barron and her husband, James, agreed that their private gallery, visits by appointment only, provided a better, distraction-free environment for individual curators to visit James’ shows, and preview Montgomery Barron’s photography. Photo by Sadie Leite

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