About Neil Rappaport
Well-known photographer Neil Rappaport (1942-1998), a long time resident of West Pawlet, VT, and photography professor at Bennington College, Bennington, Vt., was determined to document the lives of local people, including quarry workers. He once described his portraits as “biographies rather than essays.” When the Slate Valley Museum first opened in 1995, he provided the following artist’s statement for the exhibition of this collection:
“I began photographing the slate industry, its methods, and its working people during the late sixties and early seventies by accident. On a Saturday afternoon, my car broke down next to the Evans pit, from which the sounds of Italian opera could be clearly heard. Looking over the edge, I could see a lone rock man shoveling rubbish, the radio in his lunch bucket playing the Saturday afternoon opera from the Metropolitan. I knew I should photograph there.”
“My series of photographs of the old Evans Brothers’ quarry, owned by Rising & Nelson and run by foreman James Covino, was completed over two years, detailing what I learned was one of the few remaining operations still using ‘traditional’ methods of extracting rock. I also had formed a lifelong friendship with that lone rock man, Vince Covino, who taught me what it was to be a worker who cared passionately about his work.”
“When the Slate Valley Museum committee asked me to exhibit these photographs for the new museum, I offered to update my view of the slate industry by making a series of ‘company portraits’ in a manner inspired by the images made by anonymous, itinerant photographers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. During the summer of 1993, with the kind cooperation of quarry operators, I visited every working operation to make the portraits. Each was crafted according to the direction of the operator to represent the unique aspects of his/her operation . . .”
Reproduction of images appearing on this website without express permission is prohibited.
Well-known photographer Neil Rappaport (1942-1998), a long time resident of West Pawlet, VT, and photography professor at Bennington College, Bennington, Vt., was determined to document the lives of local people, including quarry workers. He once described his portraits as “biographies rather than essays.” When the Slate Valley Museum first opened in 1995, he provided the following artist’s statement for the exhibition of this collection:
“I began photographing the slate industry, its methods, and its working people during the late sixties and early seventies by accident. On a Saturday afternoon, my car broke down next to the Evans pit, from which the sounds of Italian opera could be clearly heard. Looking over the edge, I could see a lone rock man shoveling rubbish, the radio in his lunch bucket playing the Saturday afternoon opera from the Metropolitan. I knew I should photograph there.”
“My series of photographs of the old Evans Brothers’ quarry, owned by Rising & Nelson and run by foreman James Covino, was completed over two years, detailing what I learned was one of the few remaining operations still using ‘traditional’ methods of extracting rock. I also had formed a lifelong friendship with that lone rock man, Vince Covino, who taught me what it was to be a worker who cared passionately about his work.”
“When the Slate Valley Museum committee asked me to exhibit these photographs for the new museum, I offered to update my view of the slate industry by making a series of ‘company portraits’ in a manner inspired by the images made by anonymous, itinerant photographers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. During the summer of 1993, with the kind cooperation of quarry operators, I visited every working operation to make the portraits. Each was crafted according to the direction of the operator to represent the unique aspects of his/her operation . . .”
Reproduction of images appearing on this website without express permission is prohibited.
The Covino Collection
Slate Company Photographs from the 1990s
Quarry Photographs
Slate Company Photographs from the 1970s
Slate Company Photographs from the 1980s
For more information:
Slate Valley Museum
17 Water Street
Granville, NY 12832
(518) 642-1417
mail@slatevalleymuseum.org
Slate Valley Museum
17 Water Street
Granville, NY 12832
(518) 642-1417
mail@slatevalleymuseum.org