Elliott Erwitt, New York City, USA, 1974
Our very own Catherine Couturier was featured in the January Issue 297 of Black+White Photography Magazine UK. In "American Connection," gallery artist Susan Burnstine reports:
"As I approach my 19th year as a represented gallery artist, I’ve witnessed a radical shift in the business. Many bricks and mortar galleries have opted to become private dealers, reduce their presence to online only or, sadly, closed. But there are those that have remained steadfast and persevered through the ebbs and flows of the business, one of which is my longtime gallery representative Catherine Couturier.
Catherine is a dynamo and one of the most entertaining conversationalists you’ll find in the fine art photography world. Her unceasing honesty, side-slapping anecdotes and hilarious Texas charm make her an absolute original. Her unique origin story involved receiving a degree in art history, landing a job that paid a lot more than working at a gallery, hating it, quitting, then finding her path working for the legendary gallerist John Cleary for the next eight and a half years. But when John was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and told her that he had one month to live, her life changed dramatically when he gruffly told her she needed to figure out how to take over the gallery.
There she was, a new mum with an 18-month-old baby on her hip, struggling to pay the bills and having to figure out how to buy the gallery so as not to deny a dying man his final wish. ‘I had planned to own a gallery myself one day, but I wasn’t planning on it that day,’ she says. ‘I was 30. No one opens a gallery at 30 – 40 or 45 maybe.’
Beyond finances, Catherine didn’t know whether anyone would take her seriously due to her young age, but she persevered. ‘I was incredibly lucky that my artists stuck with me and so did the collectors,’ she says. ‘There were a couple (you know who you are) who saved me and my gallery over and over again, when they had no idea I was in trouble.’
For years Cleary had been widely respected for his conservative/classic tastes in photography. With the transition to digital in the fine art marketplace in the mid to late 2000s, Catherine didn’t hesitate to expand the vision of the gallery when she took it over.
‘At the beginning I had a few collectors who would turn their nose up at anything digital – Maggie Taylor was our only artist working and producing work digitally, except for Dan Burkholder who literally wrote the book on creating and working with digital negatives – but now I have zero,’ she says.
As far as current trends in the fine art photo market, she says, ‘The cool thing about photography right now is that everything is seemingly being created in every single way. There’s so much diversity in subject matter and printing styles. Want a huge portrait of a celebrity? You can have it. Want a stunning little silver landscape? You can have it. Want a salt print? A gum bichromate? The world is your oyster in photography right now.’
When considering new work to show in the gallery, Catherine has four main criteria:
1) I have to love it.
2) I have to have not seen it before, meaning it’s not totally derivative or similar to other artists I represent.
3) It has to be well made.
4) I have to think I can sell it.
‘That last bit is the toughest because no dealer really knows what they can sell because they don’t know who’s going to be looking to buy on any given day. We make educated guesses based on experience, but we can get it wrong and sell nothing.’
As for her own collection, Catherine enjoys collecting images of floods since her home in Houston has twice been destroyed in floods. She loves to collect her own artists as well. ‘I’ve been buying Maggie Taylor photographs for 20 years (and I’m only in my forties), and I think I’m up to about 15 Elliott Erwitts. Elliott left us last year after an unbelievable life and career, and waking up and seeing his pieces on a bedroom wall always makes me smile.’
When considering the past 16 years of owning the gallery, Catherine has had many memorable moments with artists around the globe. ‘But one I’m most proud of is giving Mitch Dobrowner his first show ever,’ she says. ‘It’s incredibly rare that I take on an artist from a submission, but an email came through that was well written and had this killer picture attached – Civilization, 2006. That was all it took. I contacted him to see what else he had, and now, 100+ shows around the world later, the rest is history.’"
COURTESY OF BLACK + WHITE PHOTOGRAPHY MAGAZINE (UK) JANUARY ISSUE 297
Mitch Dobrowner, Civilization, 2006
Kate Breakey, White horse in the moonlight, 2021
