Lot 154 D

Her series "42nd Street Studio" brought sudden international success for Joyce Baronio in 1980. She was taught photography at Yale by Walker Evans and spent four years photographing the men and women performing in the sex shows of the New York red light district centred around Times Square. Unlike other photographers, who were often fascinated by the seedy atmosphere of the sex industry, Baronio was interested in the people behind the poses. The images she made of them were taken in a specially rented studio, brightly lit by a window. "I simply thought of the performers as people and I wanted to see what would happen if I shot them in bright natural sunlight, literally in a new light." Thus, Baronio's viewpoint is not a voyeuristic one, the images are devoid of pornographic undertones and instead highlight the individuality, beauty and vulnerability of the subjects. The book of these works from this series entitled "42nd Street Studio" which was self-published by Baronio in 1980 won the Award for Excellence of the American Institute of Graphic Arts and in 2005 one of the photographs (lot 156) was chosen as the title image for "The Oxford Companion to the Photograph".