An exhibition of photos by the late Marti Friedlander, launching tonight at Queenstown’s Starkwhite gallery, is headlined by the release of 100 limited edition prints of this celebrated photograph, Eglinton Valley, taken in 1970.
"Even people who may not know her name often know that image," local Starkwhite director Kelly Carmichael says.
"It’s a quintessentially NZ image, andEglinton Valley is just on the approach to Milford, so it’s a very regional imagefor us."
In a documentary, Friedlander said she saw the mob of sheep on an early morning trip to Milford.
"I knew I had to get it; it was the light, it was the dust."
She noted everyone takes photos of sheep, but this time it was "as though they have posed for me".
Carmichael adds: "A lot of NZ areas are still pretty sparsely populated, but imagine what it was like back then.
"Travelling around rural South Island, that’s probably the biggest crowd she’d seen in a long time."
She notes at $1500 a print these are quite reasonable given many of Friedlander’s prints fetch up to $10,000 on the auction market.
"It’s a great way to start a collecting journey or bring a really special artwork into your home at an affordable price."
The exhibition, running for about a month, also includes seven silver gelatin prints that mostly also depict rural South Island scenes.
At tonight’s launch, starting 5.30pm, three poems about station life by retired high country farm and poet, Jim Morris, will be read, along with a commissioned work by local poet Bethany Rogers.
