[CPProt.net] USA: Photo treasure survives fire

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Photo treasure survives fire
LaSalle Bank's sizable collection includes many rare pictures, including
some taken after the Great Chicago Fire. Amazingly, all but about 50
survived the Dec. 6 fire in the building

By Mark Skertic
Tribune staff reporter
Published January 26, 2005

Six days after a fire ripped through the LaSalle Bank Building, the bank's
curator got her first up-close look at the devastation and prepared herself
for the worst.

Carol Ehlers was only allowed up to the 28th floor, the highest level safe
to visit. The floor was a mess. Broken glass and bits of sodden furniture
and collapsed ceiling were everywhere. It was cold and dark. The smell of
smoke and mold was overwhelming.

"And then we saw these pictures, just smiling at us on the walls," Ehlers
said.

When Ehlers and Heather Becker, chief executive of the Chicago Conservation
Center, were allowed onto the 28th floor, they found photos hanging on the
blackened walls, despite the blaze that had roared on the floor above and
the tons of water that had been poured on the area.

The moment took an ironic twist when they realized they were looking at the
earliest photographs taken after the Great Chicago Fire in 1871.

"We were both just stunned, wiping the muck off these pictures and there's
the Chicago Fire," Ehlers said.

The bank's photography collection encompasses 4,500 works and includes some
of the rarest photos in existence. Remarkably, all but about 50 survived the
Dec. 6 fire, Ehlers said.

The bank declined to release an estimate for the collection's value or that
of the destroyed works. But none of the rarest pieces, part of one of the
oldest and largest photography collections in the corporate world, were
among those lost in the fire, Ehlers said.

What was lost was mostly contained to the 29th floor, where the fire roared,
and the 30th floor, which also suffered extensive damage. But most of the
4,500 pieces had been hanging on walls throughout the building and survived.

It helped that the concrete-encased steel design of the building prevented
the fire from spreading. "We were standing on the floor right below where
the worst of the fire was, with a couple security guards, sitting there
holding these photographs and realizing it was the structure itself that
helped save these photographs," said Becker, whose organization works to
preserve fine art.

The bank is still cleaning up from fire that ravaged the 29th floor and
severely damaged several others. No one was killed in the blaze, which has
been blamed on an electrical problem.

The collection has been described as "broad and deep," by Rod Slemmons,
director of the Museum of Contemporary Photography at Columbia College. And
unlike some photography collections, visitors to the bank's corporate home
are seeing the real thing--the actual photographs, not reproductions.

The bank has two temperature-controlled vaults, one for black-and-white
pieces and one for color. But most of the collection hangs in offices and
other areas inside the bank headquarters at 135 S. LaSalle.

Original works have more impact, even if the person looking at them doesn't
immediately realize it, Ehlers said.

Unlike paintings, numerous prints can be made from a photo negative. What
gives the photo value is its quality, the number of prints in existence and
how early the print was made.

Works lost in the fire include several abstractions, including one of a
Steinway piano by Margaret Bourke-White and another taken in 1968 by Brett
Weston. Also destroyed were three works by Eva Besnyo, a Dutch photographer
who was born in Hungary, including a portrait she did of Dadaist Paul
Citroen and his daughter.

"She's a Dutch photographer and they're from before the [Nazi] occupation,"
Ehlers said. "They're probably irreplaceable, because they're from '31 and
artists at that time didn't make more than one or two prints."

In contrast, another print of the Weston might be available because it's
from an era where artists began making more prints of their work, she said.

But in many cases, the works survived despite the intense conditions. Becker
recalled some works were subjected to heat so intense that the safety glass
covering them formed a bubble.

"Even when we got the first group of the ones that were in the worst shape
and we started unframing them, we realized the cases were completely burned,
the Plexiglas is half-melted," she said. "And then we opened it, and saw
them in such great shape. It's a pretty good feeling."

In the immediate aftermath of the fire there was so much preparation
necessary, marshalling help for when they were allowed back into the
building, that Ehlers said she operated on adrenaline. Other emotions came
once she was allowed inside.

"I did break out crying," she said while holding one of the rescued Chicago
Fire prints. "When I went up there and saw these pictures were OK ... it's
still too emotional for me."

- - -

LaSalle Bank's photo collection

Founded: In 1967 by the Exchange National Bank of Chicago. LaSalle acquired
the bank and its collection in 1989.

Number of works: 4,500

Specialties: The collection is known for its large number of works featuring
Chicago. It also has the largest collection of Dutch photography outside the
Netherlands (the bank is owned by Dutch banking giant ABN Amro). It also has
an extensive collection of works by Thomas Struth.

Earliest works: Circa 1839 photos by William Henry Fox Talbott.

Photographers: The collection has works from more than 300 photographers,
including Ansel Adams, William Eggleston and Edward Weston.

Honors: Named one of the nation's 60 finest art collections by the editors
of the International Director of Corporate Art Collections. 


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