The Modern Art Notes Podcast

When I returned home from a weekend away on Sunday night, I saw that trees and huge tree limbs were down all over my Washington neighborhood. The next day I was on the campus of American University, where I saw that one of my favorite trees, a giant scarlet oak had lost several huge limbs. The accumulated fallen tree material was about 15 feet high. This is the second huge wind storm to hit my neighborhood in three years. It’s hard to see.

Yesterday I found myself thinking about photographer Mitch Epstein’s most recent work: a kind of photographed love letter to New York City’s great old trees. Epstein is one of America’s most prominent and most honored photographers. His work is in the collection of virtually every major museum in the world. He was the winner of the 2011 Prix Pictet for his series “American Power.” He debuted his NYC tree pictures at Sikkema Jenkins & Co. in New York in March and joined me on Episode No. 22 of The Modern Art Notes Podcast to talk about the work.

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Image: Mitch Epstein, American Elm, Central Park, New York, 2011.