MICHAEL ANDREAS RUSS - Rough Print
till 20th December, 2008
Michael Andreas Russ is an avantgardist. Born in Berlin in 1945, he came to America at the age of thirteen. In 1965 he settled in New York and attended Renata Manhardt's New York actors workshop ande began taking pictures of his fellow acting students. Self taught, searching for his own style, he began shooting and processing images to look as though they come off the silver screen. Grainy horizontal pictures in black and white 'The still picture appearing in subtle motion', which he toned and hand colored. His portfolio was built around fashion tests for New York modeling agencies. Wilhelmina, Ford, Zoli's.
He joined the Freelance Photographer's Association, housed in a small studio on top of the Blake Hotel at Times Square, shared by 30 photographers from all over the world. His first breakthrough was an eight page spread for MEN'S WEAR magazine in 1969.
In 1971 he shot twenty one pages for GQ's design showcase. In May of 1973 Michael's style was featured on the cover of ART DIRECTION Magazine. He liked shooting female erotica and contributed to three PLAYBOY PRESS books.
His career lept forward after moving to Paris in 1976, when he developed 'sujets de chambre', sequential room stories, for VOGUE HOMMES. His hand tinted images, which he calls TinTones were published in German PLAYBOY and leading European trade, fashion and avant garde magazines. His postcard edition THE COMPAGNIE was included in the MUSEÈ DES ARTS DECORATIFS, a LOUVRE annex.
In 1981 he moved to Los Angeles and had a TinTone exhibition at the CHINA CLUB entitled "PRUSSIAN BLUE". Whereupon TOM WAITS commissioned the cover for his album SWORFISHTROMBONES. See more in Michael A. Russ' Swordfishtrombones Cover Art Gallery >>
Michael A. Russ' Fine Art Print Editions you can purchase here >>
Michael also co-directed Tom's music video "IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD".
From 1986 - 1995, back in Germany he developed his fine art TINTONE Negative/Positive photography. These 'one of a kind' silver gelatine TinTone images were published in various portfolios, ART WORK W&V, magazine galleries and on the covers of prestigious COLOR FOTO Magazines.
In 1994 he produced an experimental promotional TV spot entitled OCEANS for VOX TV in Europe. After returning to L.A. in 1995 and long habitations in Santa Fe, New Mexico, he exhibited TINTONE Iris/Giclee prints at THE IMAGE HOUSE GALLERY, THE PARAMOUNT and at FULLER's LODGE Gallery in Los Alamos N.M.
The large scale AluDiBonds/Silver TinTone images shown at ART CENTER BERLIN are limited to an edition of 7.
Since 2001 Michael commutes between Los Angeles, NY, Hamburg and Berlin.
TinTones
Michael A. Russ's TinTones are based on 35mm Tri-X film. His "one of a kind" silver gelatine prints are sometimes chemically toned/tinted, often masked/solarized and handcolored. Some are photographically inverted. The large scale TinTone silver images shown at Art Center Berlin are the culminative result of an edition of 7 AluDiBonds/Silver.
