Peter Hurley Art Gallery opening June 5th at Delmark Records!! Fascinating Drawing Exhibit of Delmark blues artists from renowned photographer/artist/journalist, Peter Hurley!!! Piano ace Johnny Iguana to perform!
Be sure to check out Peter Hurley’s monthly column in LIVING BLUES MAGAZINE, too!
DELMARK ORIGINALS
@ Delmark Studio Gallery by Peter Hurley
Creating original drawings based on my photographs for Delmark Originals Exhibit was inspired by a desire to combine my life’s work as a classically trained artist with my dual-profession as a photographer of musicians for nationally distributed Living Blues Magazine. Since drawing has a been a staple of my skill-set as a career artist, and photography an offshoot of my trained eye, Delmark Originals expresses my dialogue between the visual arts and music.
I’ve often been struck by how stage-lit photographs of blues musician at peak performance share similar characteristics—of passion and dignity—with those reflected in the portraits by Old Masters such as Caravaggio, Hans Holbein, Rembrandt, even Van Gogh. My photography has been influenced as much by them, as it has by jazz photographers such as Herman Leonard, William Claxton, Lee Tanner and Francis Wolff.
The discs of venerable Delmark Records have been on my turntable since my discovery of Jr. Wells’ Hoodoo Man Blues back in the ‘60s. Now, with the label’s re-invigoration by Julia A. Miller and Elbio Barilari, Delmark has embraced and recorded many of the same musical artists I’ve been covering for Living Blues Magazine. My column for Chicago Blues Network’s newsletter, Blues-in-Action, best describes my approach.
Blues Musicians depicted in the Delmark Originals exhibit, all represented by the label at one time or another, are Jimmy Johnson, Deitra Farr, Johnny Iguana, Jimmy Burns, Billy Boy Arnold, Shirley Johnson, Billy Flynn, Mike Wheeler, Eddy Clearwater, Mud Morganfield, Linsey Alexander, Lurrie Bell, Bob Stroger, Willie Buck and Sharon Lewis. Whether the wisdom of age found in the facial features of Jimmy Johnson, the unbridled joy in Demetria Taylor’s smile, or the wry experience in the eyes of Jimmy Burns, a blues musician’s portrait holds the potential for exploring the inner landscape of the mind and soul.
-Peter M. Hurley / April 25, 2023
PETER M. HURLEYWRITER/PHOTOGRAPHER
LIVING BLUES MAGAZINE
SONGWRITER
pmh1951.wixsite.com/blueportraits
https://pmh1951.wixsite.com/blueportraits
PETER M. HURLEYWRITER/PHOTOGRAPHERLIVING BLUES MAGAZINESONGWRITER
pmh1951.wixsite.com/blueportraits
PETER M.HURLEY PHOTOGRAPHY
BIO
Peter M. Hurley
I heard my first Chess record in the early ’60s in my hometown of Atlanta. A friend’s record collection at a 6th grade pool party included Bo Diddley’s first album, the one with Bo on the cover in a white sports coat and black bow tie with his legs firmly planted in a wide flying V. Just as compelling were the mysterious figures of a maraca player in plaid cut off by the left edge of the photo, and the drummer with his face obscured by the guitar neck. Who were these guys? I was riveted to the phonograph player for the rest of the day by the pulsating echo, the throbbing drumbeat and the image. I never made it into the pool with the rest of my classmates.
A family move to Chicago in the early ’60s positioned me for a firsthand experience with blues music later on. A lifetime of rock n’ roll listening had motivated a deeper excavation into the source. I came to discover that many of the post war blues masters I had heard on records, including the great Bo Diddley, were scratching out a living in the Chicago clubs. I would make my way to those clubs, when my age permitted, in the late ’60 and early ’70s.
By and by, I’d become an artist (a painter), and a fascination with jazz inspired a love of album cover art, mostly the Blue Note photography of Alfred Lion. The connection between Lion’s beautifully contrasted images of jazz musicians in the studio and Italian master Caravaggio’s stark and dramatic chiaroscuro had not escaped my artist’s eye.
Now I realize that for most of my career as a visualist I’ve been trying to recreate that “album cover art”. My blues photography for LIVING BLUES MAGAZINE and two books on blues is a fulfillment of that promise. Photographing the soulful expression of a blues man or blues woman in action under a spotlight in a cramped club is akin to emulating the drama of an ecstatic subject in a Caravaggio painting.
