Scott Hyde, Artist Photographer

This website is dedicated to display the work of Scott Hyde. The current web show comes from The Real Great Society Album, a book of photo-montages originally published in 1979. The following statement is from the book's introduction:

In 1968, Mark Antman invited me to mount a show of my work at the Darkroom where he was the director. The Darkroom was photography-school-gallery-store operated by the Real Great Society, a non-profit, educational, self help program operating in East Harlem, Bedford-Stuyvesant, and the Lower East side of Manhattan, which is my neighborhood.

My Statement for the announcement to that show describes how these pictures came about:

"For some time I have been aware of, and uncomfortable about, the large price differential between photographic prints made for commercial purposes and those made for sale as exhibition prints. The exhibit print is more expensive, and usually by a large factor. There are some good reasons for this since the exhibit print is made with greater attention to certain qualities such as subtle tonalities, print color, and permanence. Also a good job of mounting and framing commonly involves more time, effort and material costs than making the print itself.

When we decided to present this show as a benefit for the Photography School, it seemed like a good occasion to experiment with new ways to make photographs less expensive and thereby encourage a larger participation in the sale.

The prints in this show will be small montage images - approximately 4x5 inches -centered on 8 x 10 printing paper. They will be offered for sale unmounted and unframed. The option to mount or frame or neither is thus left with the purchaser. The price per print is $5.00."

There are 18 pictures in this group. I call them Suite #1655, which is simply a filing number.

In 1971, at the suggestion of Jerry Bowles, I made 6 more pictures of the same type. These were published in a book, "This Book Is a Movie" edited by Jerry Bowles and Tony Russell. I call this group #1713. Both groups of pictures are printed here.

Scott Hyde