The End: Montauk, N.Y.

For Immediate Release and Listings: Galleries/Auction Houses

Sotheby’s Presents Exhibition of Photographs Celebrating the Launch of Michael Dweck’s book The End: Montauk, Long Island

On view September 16-18, 2003

Works document the uninhibited beauty and culture of Montauk

New York, NY, August 2003––Sotheby’s New York, located at 72nd Street and York Avenue, will present an exhibition of 60 recent photographic works by Michael Dweck, all selected from his upcoming book The End: Montauk, Long Island (Little Bean, 2003). Dweck’s black and white works will be on view from September 16 through 18, 2003. A portion of all sales of photography and the book will benefit the American Cancer Society.

Dweck’s work explores the beach, the surrounding landscape, and the uninhibited, often hedonistic beauty of the people of who contribute to Montauk beach culture. From young surfers on the beach and in their motel rooms to local fishermen and more famous individuals like Julian Schnabel and Peter Beard, all the portraits have a genuine, honest quality that are captured in an authentic, unsentimental style. There also appears to be timeless, remote quality in this body of work—a sense of a lost generation or a different value system far removed from New York culture. In depicting the local surf culture of Montauk, or The End (as it has been dubbed by the locals) Dweck also reminds us of what life was once like on the south fork of Long Island—before the grand developments and chaotic traffic jam on Route 27.

It is evident that at the core of Dweck’s work is the presence of nature and its indelible effect on his subjects. The power of the ocean swell, the wind and sand and the sharpness or lack of light; all these elements permeate the work to a degree which is both grounding and exhilarating for the viewer.

The 200-page book, also entitled The End: Montauk, Long Island, will accompany the exhibition and includes many additional photographs not on view at Sotheby’s. With a travel-diary format, the book is designed by Jeremy Miller and contains essays by Peter Beard, David Lauren, Rusty Drumm and Michael Dweck. It also features color paintings by William Quigley, black and white and some tinted and color photographs as well.

Born in 1957, Michael Dweck lives and works in New York. He has been visiting Montauk since the 1970s. Dweck studied photography and fine arts at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. He began his career in advertising and has received a Gold Lion at the Cannes Film Festival. Two of his short films are in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York. This will be Dweck’s first solo exhibition.

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Note to press:

Images available upon request.

Private preview: Tuesday, September 16, 6-8pm. RSVP: 212-606-7389.

Artists website: www.michaeldweck.com