WEDDING NIGHT NEGLIGEE | 30in x 22.5in | Archival Pigment Print on Hahnemühle Photo Rag Pearl Paper |  Edition: 1/ 5

DIAMOND, Norm

(USA)

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Recent Editorial Photographs in THE NEW YORKER - The Opulent World of the Estate-Sale Queen of Dallas 4 November 2022

After a long career as an interventional radiologist, Norm Diamond is now a fine art photographer living in Dallas, Texas. His work explores themes of memory and loss.

In May of 2017, Daylight Books published his monograph What Is Left Behind - Stories from Estate Sales. Diamond had visited hundreds of Dallas estate sales photographing the sadness, humor, and historical artifacts he found in the possessions left by one generation to the next. Prints from this series have been shown in multiple museums and galleries, including the Ogden Museum of Southern Art, the Griffin Museum of Photography, and the Houston Center for Photography. The Afterimage Gallery in Dallas and the Cumberland Gallery in Nashville have hosted solo shows of this work. Based on this series, Diamond was a finalist in the Photolucida Critical Mass competitions of 2015 and 2016.

Diamond has studied with Debbie Fleming Caffery, Keith Carter, Arno Minkkinen, Aline Smithson, Sean Kernan, Susan Burnstine, and, from 2013 to the present, he has been mentored by Cig Harvey. In addition to his teachers, he attributes much of his success in photography to his experiences as a physician.

"For over a year I went to several hundred estate sales in Dallas, Texas, where I live. In many parts of the US, people use estate sales to dispose of their parents’ possessions after they die or move to assisted living facilities. In addition to photographing at the sales themselves, I also bought many inexpensive items that I studied later with better lighting and backgrounds in my home studio.

Several themes have emerged from this work. The stark reality of life’s brevity pervades every estate sale, where children’s toys sit next to wheelchairs. Unique personal possessions tell the often poignant stories of people I never knew and could only wonder about. I also discovered knickknacks that offer fascinating commentaries on the culture and politics of the mid-twentieth century. Every weekend at just about every sale, I saw sadness, irony, history, and humour.

The objects at these sales will find a rebirth of sorts in the homes of their new owners, but also hopefully in these photographs. On a personal note, visiting so many estate sales connected me to my past. I thought of the treasured belongings my parents left for my sister and me. My own mortality came into sharper focus. And I could not help but wonder what my estate sale will look like."  - Norm Diamond