The day was brutal, the cold unrelenting, it entered my bones, it is there still. We found a way to brighten it, we fed and grained the animals, we went to see George Forss at his Theater Of The Arts. We had planned to listen to some opera from Lincoln Center – George has loved opera his whole life – but we couldn’t stay as long as we wished because of the storm, which was already icing up the roads.
George had a great treat in store for us, he showed us a video of some interviews and profiles of him done in the 1980’s – with the Tom Brokaw on the Today Show, a segment on Entertainment Tonight, and a beautifully shot piece by the BBC, which followed George around New York City and then superimposed George’s photographs on the scenes and buildings they had captured.
We dimmed the lights, listened to George’s “surround sound,” were warmed by his pole heater in the middle of the room, George is an artist every day in every way.
It was striking to go back in time and see George at the zenith of his career, as this street peddler from Brooklyn was getting accolades from some of the most famous photographers in the world. George sat next to Maria and I, eating popcorn with us, petting Red, watching quietly as his life and work came across on the screen. He gave me a computer file, I’m trying to figure out how to upload it and share it with all of you on the blog. George is going ahead with his own Kickstarter project, it is called “The Way We Were,” he will seek roughly $9,000 in funding to self-publish a book of his pre-911 photographs of New York, brilliant images that have never been published. We have begun working on the page, it won’t be up for a couple of weeks.
George was discovered by David Douglas Duncan, one of the most famous photographers in the world, when Duncan saw his work spread out on a Manhattan sidewalk, for sale for $5 apiece. Soon, George was in Time Magazine and all over television, getting praise for his work from photographers all over the world. I watched George as these videos popped up on his big screen, I could see it was affecting him, but George doesn’t talk much about his emotions. It sure affected me, especially the scenes of George hustling his photos on sidewalks, dodging the police and the rain, and of his mother, crippled with arthritis, struggling to talk for the television interviewers.
In the films, George seemed a bit lost, as he said in one of the interviews “I am always an outsider,” and that is true. Celebrity did not come naturally to him, he is never glib or easy talking about himself.
As we left George and Donna Wyndbrandt, his longtime lover and companion, came to the door to kiss one another goodbye. Next week George and I are unveiling our first photo show together at the Round House Cafe in Cambridge, N.Y. There will be a reception for us and the show on September 20 at 7 p.m. at the Round House, more details to come.
George is a special man, a genius and a good friend. I hope to spent many quiet afternoons with him, listening to the opera from New York, munching his popcorn in the paper “popcorn” bags Maria brought him.