Fred Comegys exhibit to open at RAL with March 29 reception

The Rehoboth Art League recently announced its new exhibition, Fred Comegys: Through the Lens, A Photographic Journey: Selections from the Delaware Art Museum. The exhibit will be on view Thursday, March 29, through Sunday, April 22, with an opening reception from 5 to 7 p.m., March 29. The public is invited to attend.

For more than 50 years, photographer Fred Comegys has captured international celebrities and local characters for the pages of The News Journal. His distinctive images present national news and local-interest stories, and perhaps most memorably, the intersection of the two.

Born and raised in Delaware, he comes by these engaging images naturally. Also instinctive is his eye for composition; Comegys' photographs are both visually striking and effective as journalism. Covering events from the 1960s through recent years, the photographs on display remind one what it has meant to live in Delaware for the past half century. His images of military training in Bethany Beach and the Wilmington riots reveal recent history, and his pictures of the Port Deposit Flood of 1972 convey devastation in human terms.

On the lighter side, the exhibition features photographic images of sporting events at Connie Mack Stadium and the Spectrum, and an amazing shot of the Great Wallenda walking on a high wire across Veterans Stadium. The show also includes unexpected behind-the-scenes glimpses of Steve Carlton and Rod Stewart.

Comegys is an extraordinary portrait photographer, as witnessed in pictures of famous
figures such as Joe Biden, Gloria Swanson and Jamie Wyeth, and ordinary individuals like Wilbur Easter, who proudly holds a scythe in the fields near his home in Townsend. The photographer seems particularly sympathetic to those engaged in dangerous labor. Throughout his career, Comegys has accompanied workers to their perches on bridges and construction sites, chronicling their work in heroic images.

Comegys' photographs have also appeared in Life, Time, Sports Illustrated, The Sporting News and Forbes. In 1985, he was named National Newspaper Photographer of the Year by The National Press Photographers Association. That same year, he was one of five finalists for a Pulitzer Prize.

Although he is hardly a formalist, an eye for patterns - natural and manmade - characterizes some of Comegys' most astonishing photographs. The photographer also delights with his humorous juxtapositions and surprising shifts in scale.

For more information on all Rehoboth Art League events, go to www.rehobothartleague.org.