About the artist:
Born in St. Louis Missouri, Volkmann left the Mid-West for the cosmopolitan atmosphere of NYC, then Paris, where his photographic career began in the 80's, primarily working for beauty, fashion, advertising and editorial clients in Europe.
A one-time jazz and ballet dancer, Volkmann returned to his first career, camera in hand, bringing his knowledge of movement and the human body to his new vocation with telling effect. “This experience gave me an understanding and respect for the body - its movement through space, its tension and releases. I try to bring that to a photograph”.
“His dance photographs are studies in form and the grace of movement, revealing the performers’ strength, poise and kinetic symmetry. Volkmann’s stark, simple lighting defines and emphasizes taut lines of musculature. Through his lens, he captures the dancers’ fluid motion, freezing in time their liquid dynamics and transforming them into discrete, geometric images.”
As a Dance photographer, he has collaborated with The Alvin Ailey Company, Dance Theater of Harlem, David Parsons, Feld Ballet, Philobolus, and The Monte/Brown Dance Company. The latter has honored him by naming a suite after him "The Volkmann Suite", a dance created with inspirations from his photographs.
As a Personality Photographer, some of the people he has photographed include: Actors/Actresses: Michael Douglas, Melanie Griffith, John Turturro, Marcia Gay Hardin, Sean Young, Jennifer Beals, etc.
Performers: Penn & Teller, Ahmad Jamal, David Sandborn, etc.
Choreographers/Directors: Judith Jamisen (Alvin Ailey Co.); Arthur Mitchell (Dance Theater of Harlem); Elisa Monte and David Brown (Monte/Brown Dance); David Parsons, Tony Scott, among others.
Some of his commercial clients included Germaine Montel, Clairol, Revlon, Coty, Maybelline, Cheseborough Pond, Bloomingdales, Saks Fifth Avenue, Christian Dior, Honda, BMW, Fuji Film, and Leica.
Past shows include the Soho Photo Gallery in New York, as well as other shows in Minneapolis and the Il Diaframma in Milan.
Known in both America and Europe for Editorial, Fashion, Celebrity, Figurative, and Portrait work, and featured in European magazines including, Italian Bazaar, Vogue Homme, Marie Clare, Viva, and Marie France. He also had portfolios published in Collectors Photography, French Photo, Amica, and Zoom. Selections of his work with the Nude are featured in the book "Exquisite Creatures”, William Morrow & Co.
All prints are printed in his Studio in Up-State - Hudson NY.
On Archival Rag Paper, with Archival pigment ink to Giclee standards.
Signed numbered and dated(year printed) in pencil below the image.
Sent in a tube by courier with signed certificate of authenticity.
