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Fontaine - van Breems Photography Studio
Now celebrating Sixty Years of National and Local Portrait, Commercial and Fine Art Photography
......at very competitive prices
Alan Fontaine
Westport and New York
Photographer and Artist
1916 - 2008
Photographer, Artist and 40-year Westport resident Alan Fontaine passed away on Sunday, November ninth at Westport Health Care Center. He was 92.
Born in New York City, Mr. Fontaine, who became interested in photography at Brown University, also attended the Rhode Island School of Design. After graduating from Brown in 1938, Mr. Fontaine enrolled in the New York School of Modern Photography, and while there soon assembled a portfolio of experimental photos. In 1945, he showed this material to Town & Country's then fashion editor, Kay Sullivan, winning Fontaine his first commercial assignment, photographing the actor Yul Brynner. Other celebrities who would later pose for Fontaine included Myrna Loy, Joan Crawford, Arturo Toscanini, Jack Dempsey, and Jason Robards.
During the following year, Alan Fontaine opened his first Manhattan studio. Here, he would continue his experimental, as well as Fine Art work, in addition to commercial photography for accounts such as Pall Mall, Esquire Magazine, Harper's Bazaar, Applied Photography, Johnny Walker, Citibank and Drambuie.
Around 1960, Fontaine moved to his second New York studio, about a block from the United Nations. While at the new location ( and with the assistance of his wife Alen ), he would be responsible for the photography for a coffee table book about John F. Kennedy's Scrimshaw Collection. Commercial accounts at this time included Vogue, Parent's Magazine, Seagram's V.O., Gilbey's Gin and Vodka, and American Airlines. Mr. Fontaine would also supply one of the photos for the huge Kodak Grand Central Station Panoramas. In his experimental work, Fontaine would develop a method for creating circular, or anamorphic images. Five examples of these would later be displayed in the New York windows of Tiffany's.
In 1970, Alan Fontaine moved his business to Westport. From that time to the present, his commercial work would include such diverse clients as Golf Digest, Food & Wine, General Electric, Ed Mitchell's, Waldenbooks, Bigelow Tea and the New York Times Book Review. Also around the mid -seventies, Fontaine's son John began to both represent and work at his father's studio. Both would face a great loss when Alen Fontaine died from cancer in 1977.
In 1989, John left to be with his fiancee in Colorado. A disaster would strike the elder Fontaine in 1990, when a heavy rainstorm left sixteen inches of water in his basement and ruined hundreds of his color slides. However, in a perfect case of 'making lemonade from lemons', the photographer again experimented, printing the transmogrified slides and calling the new creation 'Moldage'.
Four years later, Fontaine would open another Westport studio, this time in partnership with fellow photographer Edie vanBreems. His son John returned to Westport and the business in 1998. In addition to his son, Alan Fontaine is also survived by John Colla-Negri, his cousin.
Fontaine's multi-genre body of photography, art and collages have been in a number of exhibitions in New York City, as well as Westport. Forums have included the BEL Gallery, both a New York Barns & Noble, as well as the Westport branch, Picture This, the O Gallery in New York, the Westport Arts Center and one man shows at the Bernhard Gallery in Southport, as well as the Westport Library. His work can also be viewed at www.alanfontaine.com
A service for Mr. Fontaine will be held on Friday, November 21st, at 3:00 PM at the Congregational Church of Greens Farms on 71 Hillandale Road, Westport. Please call 203 227 1352 for more information. The email address is now johnbryansfontaineNOSPAM@yahoo.com
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