Farewell My Friend

Untitled. 1970 By Stephen T. Rose

I found out a friend of mine passed away yesterday. Rare books and photography dealer Stephen T. Rose of Indianapolis, Indiana, had been selling artwork since 1974. When he started out, he ran a photography gallery in Boston Massachusetts, one of the earliest in the USA. Photographers like Aaron Siskind, Harry Callahan, and Duane Michaels would give talks in his gallery. Many of the top collectors and dealers in the World today, visited his gallery. Stephen was a founding member of AIPAD, The Association of International Photography Art Dealers. He also helped start the photography departments at the Museum of Fine Arts, in Boston, as well at The J. Paul Getty Museum. Later when he moved to Indiana, he sold privately and produced a sales catalog of fine books and photography.

I met him much later, in the late 1990's, at a photography symposium in Rochester NY. After looking thru his catalog, I quickly added him to my antiques picking trail route.

My visits with him, was a big part of my midwest tour, buying, selling and trading photography. We would spend a good portion of the day looking at and talking about images and the business, until it was time for him to return to being a family man.

Around a year and a half ago, Steve bought the major portion of Walt Burton's tree collection, a mutual friend and long time Ohio photography dealer. I in turn bought most of the collection, which I partially helped build, and now forms a large portion of my tree collection. Many of which will be posted here.

I was hoping to spend more time visiting Steve, when I moved back to Michigan. He will be very much missed. He was one of the reasons why I've stayed in this business this long.