Capturing images of Island life and a grand old flag

Victor Friedman, outside his Strawberry Lane home.

Victor Friedman, much to his surprise and unbounded pleasure, has a book of his photographs coming out just about now. Although he’s exhibited in many prestigious venues including the Witkin Gallery in New York City and the Parrish in Southampton, and his work is part of the permanent collections of the Brooklyn Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, the Museum of the City of New York as well as the New York Public Library, he never imagined a book solely dedicated to his work. The name of the book is “Flag.” 


“I’ve been photographing for over 50 years. As a fine arts photographer, I did a lot of work in the neighborhood where I grew up, where we brought up the kids in Brooklyn and Coney Island, and then eventually out around Shelter Island.” 


Without any real awareness on his part, many of the shots he made had flags in them, not because he was aiming at flags, but because they were part of a larger, interesting picture. 


“When I went to Coney Island, there were some ladies who belonged to the Polar Bear club, it was midwinter and there was a flag there and they stood with the flag behind them.” That sort of coincidence occurred all through his years of photographing. When he would show work, at an open house or a gallery, people commented on the fact and he began to pay attention. And eventually came to think “You know, this would make a great book.”


So he self-published a group of 50 prints and “it looked great, so nice. So I started to show it around to see if I had anything worthwhile, if people liked it and immediately there was a very strong response and so I showed it more and more.” Eventually he found an agent, Penguin liked it a lot, and now it’s here.


“For me that was thrilling, overwhelming. At 79 years old, having this happen was very humbling. Given the attitude in America now, Obama getting in, the book even had more meaning for me.” 


The flag itself is so meaningful, he said, but “how we have lived with the flag and where it shows up” tells a story and “the book shows all of that.” 


Victor shared his own American story. “My grandparents came here, they ran from Russia and the pogroms and they settled in America. My grandfather came first, then sent for the family and they just worked and worked and they became Americans, they really did. 


“They learned to speak the language, they took part in everything and were thrilled that they were here, safe, and having and producing and working and living. They lived on the Lower East Side in the immigrant area. They didn’t think whether they were Democrats or Republicans, they were Americans and they were thrilled to be here.” It’s clear as Victor speaks that he is, too.


In line with those feelings, one of the events he’s been photographing for several decades is the Shelter Island Memorial Day parade. “It’s so moving, the way the people celebrate it, the sincerity and the love and the feeling about the whole thing, I had to react to that parade and everybody coming to do it. So I’ve been photographing that event plus other things around the Island and what goes on here for more than 50 years.”


He and his wife Leah initially vacationed in Montauk, where they loved the water and wanted to settle. But they stopped in Shelter Island on their way back to Brooklyn one Sunday in the early 60s, to visit some friends who had a home here. “And we just flipped over Shelter Island, we thought, ‘Wow, so great!’ The next summer we rented and just fell in love, and kept doing that for years, until we decided to buy, then went on to build.” They added on a darkroom over time, and “It’s been a really long wonderful involvement.”


The darkroom has been especially important to him; he does all his own printing. “I don’t do digital and I don’t do color — only black and white — and that to me is like creating a painting,” he said, from the dark room work to making a print of your photograph to seeing the final image. “It’s not just a picture, it’s much more than just a picture.”


He never considered his artistic work anything like a drudgery. “I photographed on weekends and nights, never thought I was working too hard, spending too many hours, never entered my mind to feel that way, I was always wanting to do it. There’s tremendous joy in what I do.”


Over the Thanksgiving weekend, Wish Rock Studio in the Heights will hang 14 of the prints, all involving Island scenes, and the show will run through December 14. An opening reception is set for Saturday, November 28 from 3 to 7 p.m. followed by a book signing on Sunday, November 29 from 3 to 7 p.m. A portion of the proceeds of all sales, prints and books, will be donated to the Senior Citizens Foundation of Shelter Island. 


Victor and Leah, who he describes as “a fabulous, wonderful wife, extremely supportive and a wonderful artist in her own right, both as a painter and a playwright,” have three grown children. Stewart is a professor at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, is married and has three children; Susan, also married, has two daughters; and Paul, just recently married, is an actor.


Victor’s talents are not limited to photography; he has worked as a hairdresser since he was 19 years old. “My mother wanted me to go to college,” he remembered, and when he refused because he and Leah wanted to marry, she charged him, “Well, if you’re not going to college, at least learn a trade!” She went on, “Charlie around the corner with the beauty parlor? He does very well, go check it out!” 


He did, was impressed, went to beauty school, his own salon followed and then a partnership with Kenneth. Yes, the Kenneth of Jackie Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe fame, and they’re still together after 46 years. His hairdressing “trade” paved the way for a marriage of 56 years and counting.


Commitments, to family, work and his art, in Victor’s case clearly run deep and long.