Image: Scott Nichols Gallery, San Rafael
Scott Nichols Gallery has announced a photographic opening exhibition that brings together works by Joel Bernstein, Monica Denevan, Ilse Bing, Richard Misrach, Max Yavno, Dorothea Lange and Ansel Adams. Titled ‘Opening Exhibition at New Gallery Space’, the show marks the gallery’s move to 1310 4th Street in San Rafael, California; it opened with a reception on Saturday 1 August, 1–4pm, and remains on view through 11 September 2026. The gallery’s email announcement describes the presentation as ‘More Photographs from our Opening Exhibition’ and lists individual works with sizes, signatures, editions and prices, while inviting interested viewers to contact the gallery for further information.
The San Rafael gallery’s selection spans figures associated with music portraiture, travel photography, street scenes, landscape and documentary work. Among the works identified in the announcement are Joel Bernstein’s ‘Joni Mitchell, Portrait with Beret, 1976’; Monica Denevan’s ‘Eclipse, Burma, 2014’; Ilse Bing’s ‘Champ de Mars, Seen from the Eiffel Tower, 1931’; Richard Misrach’s ‘Montana #2, Fort Peck Reservoir c. 1988’; Max Yavno’s ‘Cable Car, San Francisco, 1947’; Dorothea Lange’s ‘Mid-Continent Small Cotton Farm on US 62, Oklahoma, 1938’; and Ansel Adams’s ‘El Capitan, Sunrise, Winter, Yosemite National Park, California, 1968’.
The gallery’s own artist pages provide additional context for several of the photographers represented in the email. Bernstein’s page notes that Joni Mitchell invited him to be her photographer when he was 16 and still in high school, and that he remained her photographer into later years. The page also situates his work alongside images of Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, Jackson Browne, Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty and Prince. Denevan’s page points to work in Burma and China, while Yavno’s page highlights a San Francisco-centered body of images and Lange’s page lists photographs ranging from the United States to Ireland and Burma.
The announcement also underscores the breadth of vintage and later prints on view. Several works are identified as printed later or printed in the 1950s and 1960s, while others are described with edition numbers. The gallery lists prices from $1,000 for Denevan’s ‘Eclipse, Burma, 2014’, or $1,250 framed, to $54,000 for Adams’s ‘El Capitan, Sunrise, Winter, Yosemite National Park, California, 1968,’ which is identified as a gelatin silver print from Portfolio VII in an edition of 115.
Scott Nichols Gallery, located at 1310 4th Street in San Rafael, is open Wednesday through Saturday from 11 to about 4, and asks anyone arriving close to closing time to call ahead on 415-788-4641. Scott Nichols began dealing privately in 1980 and is regarded as an expert on Group f.64 photography; the gallery is a senior member of the Association of International Photography Art Dealers (AIPAD).
The opening selection is anchored by historically significant photographic names and a range of works that move between portraiture, landscape, documentary seeing and urban observation. The mix of vintage, later and editioned prints indicates that the gallery is presenting both collectible modern prints and more recent editions within the same opening offering.
