Richard Stefani (1933–2022)
From Before the Water Rose: Celilo Falls, 1956
Two people stand against an enormous blue sky.
A boy at left.
An older man at right.
Richard photographs them from below, giving both figures a striking monumentality. There is almost nothing behind them except sky and a low horizontal structure.
Everything else falls away.
The result is among the most formally powerful portraits in the Celilo archive.
The boy holds an object in one hand. The older man stands beside him. Both wear elaborate clothing, beadwork and feathered headdresses. Their expressions are composed. Neither smiles for Richard's camera.
And here, perhaps more than anywhere else in this archive, we need to let the photograph outrun our desire to explain it.
We do not yet know who they are.
We do not know their relationship to one another.
We should not assume that they are grandfather and grandson, father and son, chief and successor, or participants in any particular ceremony.
Those stories would be tempting.
They would also be inventions.
What Richard actually preserved is already enough.
Two generations.
Two individual presences.
One extraordinary moment in the fall of 1956.
The title Generations at Celilo therefore describes what we can see without claiming what we cannot know.
Perhaps research will eventually give these two people their names.
Until then, we can honor them by resisting the urge to supply names or stories ourselves.
Estate Edition
Printed from Richard Stefani's original 1956 color negative.
Chromogenic photographic print on Fuji Crystal Archive DP II paper, produced in Germany and mounted under matte, reflection-reducing acrylic glass with aluminum Dibond backing. Presented in a handcrafted Basel black oak floater frame. Ready to hang.
Each work is accompanied by Richard Stefani Estate documentation recording the photograph, edition number, edition size, production specifications, and provenance.
10 × 10 in.
Edition of 25
$1,500
20 × 20 in.
Edition of 15
$3,200
30 × 30 in.
Edition of 10
$6,500
Edition sizes are fixed and will not be increased.
Richard Stefani (1933–2022)
From Before the Water Rose: Celilo Falls, 1956
Two people stand against an enormous blue sky.
A boy at left.
An older man at right.
Richard photographs them from below, giving both figures a striking monumentality. There is almost nothing behind them except sky and a low horizontal structure.
Everything else falls away.
The result is among the most formally powerful portraits in the Celilo archive.
The boy holds an object in one hand. The older man stands beside him. Both wear elaborate clothing, beadwork and feathered headdresses. Their expressions are composed. Neither smiles for Richard's camera.
And here, perhaps more than anywhere else in this archive, we need to let the photograph outrun our desire to explain it.
We do not yet know who they are.
We do not know their relationship to one another.
We should not assume that they are grandfather and grandson, father and son, chief and successor, or participants in any particular ceremony.
Those stories would be tempting.
They would also be inventions.
What Richard actually preserved is already enough.
Two generations.
Two individual presences.
One extraordinary moment in the fall of 1956.
The title Generations at Celilo therefore describes what we can see without claiming what we cannot know.
Perhaps research will eventually give these two people their names.
Until then, we can honor them by resisting the urge to supply names or stories ourselves.
Estate Edition
Printed from Richard Stefani's original 1956 color negative.
Chromogenic photographic print on Fuji Crystal Archive DP II paper, produced in Germany and mounted under matte, reflection-reducing acrylic glass with aluminum Dibond backing. Presented in a handcrafted Basel black oak floater frame. Ready to hang.
Each work is accompanied by Richard Stefani Estate documentation recording the photograph, edition number, edition size, production specifications, and provenance.
10 × 10 in.
Edition of 25
$1,500
20 × 20 in.
Edition of 15
$3,200
30 × 30 in.
Edition of 10
$6,500
Edition sizes are fixed and will not be increased.
