Neil Folberg

Neil Folberg (born April 7, 1950) is an American-Israeli photographer and gallerist.

Early life and education[]

Folberg was born in San Francisco in 1950. His father was Joseph Folberg, a San Francisco gallerist.^[1][2][3]

At the age of 16, Neil was invited to study with Ansel Adams at a photographic workshop which Adams had established in Yosemite National Park. Shortly after, in 1967, he enrolled at the University of California at Berkeley, intending to focus on the natural sciences, but ultimately switching to photography studies, under the guidance of William Garnett—who became the head of Berkeley's school of architecture and design at the time—and under the mentorship of Ansel Adams.^[4]

Photography career[]

Folberg moved to Israel in 1976, where he began a series of color photographs of the southern desert landscapes. These—along with photographs he took in the Sinai Desert and Jordan—appeared in his first book, In a Desert Land, published by Abbeville in 1987 (first edition). Folberg's second book, And I Shall Dwell Among Them, consisted of a series of photographs, commissioned by the Aperture Foundation, in which he examined the internal and external architecture of historic synagogues throughout the world. The book was published by Aperture in 1995, and went on to win the National Jewish Book Award for Visual Arts in 1996.^[5]

In 2001 Aperture published Folberg's third book, Celestial Nights, a series of black and white photographs, shot in the late 1990s and early 2000s, created by digitally combining separate negatives, of starry nights along with detailed representations of the earth beneath them.^[6]

Folberg later teamed with Lin Arison to create his fourth book, Travels with Van Gogh and the Impressionists, which was published in 2005 (Abbeville Press).

In 2013, Folberg released his fifth book, Serpent's Chronicle (Abbeville Press), a series of staged photographs depicting the biblical myth of Adam and Eve from the snake's perspective. The book was accompanied by a solo exhibition of the series at the Reuven Rubin Museum in Tel Aviv.^[7]

In 2016, Folberg released his sixth book, Taking Measure, a series of 32 photographs shot over two years in Iceland and the Faroe Islands. The book went on to win the prize for best digitally printed book, at the British Book Design & Production Awards, the following year.^[8]

Publications[]

• In a Desert Land. Abbeville, 1987.
• And I Shall Dwell Among Them. Aperture, 1995
• Celestial Nights. Aperture, 2001.
• Travels with Van Gogh and the Impressionists. Abbeville, 2005. With Lin Arison.
• Serpent's Chronicle. Abbeville, 2013.
• Taking Measure. 2016.

Collections[]

Folberg's work is held in the following public collections:

• Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City^[9]
• Bibliothéque Nationale, Paris^[10]
• Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.^[11]
• San Francisco Museum of Modern Art^[12]
• LACMA^[13]
• Philadelphia Museum of Art^[14]
• Museum of Fine Arts, Boston^[15]
• National Gallery of Australia^[16]
• Yale University Art Gallery^[17]
• Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art^[18]
• The David and Alfred Smart Museum of Art^[19]
• Canadian Centre for Architecture^[20]
• George Eastman Museum^[21]
• Tel Aviv Museum of Art^[22][23]
• Israel Museum^[24]

Jerusalem gallery[]

In 1998, following his father's death, Folberg moved his father's Mission Street "Vision Gallery" to Jerusalem, Israel, where it remains to this day.^[25]

References[]