MICHAEL-TOWNE

WINES & SPIRITS

Est. 1934

BROOKLYN HEIGHTS

Did Cartier-Bresson Start This Way?

By JAKE MOONEY
Published: April 4, 2004
 
Under the red neon sign of the old St. George Hotel in Brooklyn Heights, the display window of Michael-Towne Wines and Spirits holds a California chardonnay, a Clarksburg syrah and a Long Island merlot. Most distinctive, though, is the Nepalese photography.

Tucked under a row of bottles on the store's Clark Street side, just steps from the entrance to the subway station downstairs, is one of the area's most oddly situated, and surprisingly successful, art exhibits. One picture among the bottles shows a long-haired mystic, another the rubble of a 1934 earthquake in Katmandu. A third is labeled, "Caretaker, Scalp and Pawbones of the Yeti."

They are the work of David Sassoon, who toured Nepal, Tibet, India and Egypt in the early 1980's, shooting his own pictures and gathering others that had been preserved for a half century on delicate glass-plate negatives, the work of long-dead native photographers. Mr. Sassoon brought the pictures home to New York in 1984, displayed them from time to time, and even put together a book proposal.

But after a while, he recalled, "I really had to pursue a career, and life took over." The pictures went into a trunk, and he shifted his focus to his work in journalism and, later, public relations. For almost 20 years, not much happened - until three weeks ago, when Mr. Sassoon, fresh from leaving a job with a large public relations firm, newly rededicated to his photography and still hoping for a book deal, put them on display at the liquor store up the street from his apartment.

In a way, it was a perfect fit. The store's owners had recently begun showing local artists' work in an effort to reach out to the community, and the business, Mr. Sassoon knew, has a prime location and an affluent clientele. There are $6 bottles but also $250 bottles, and literary figures who lived in the neighborhood include W. H. Auden and Norman Mailer.

It was an odd way to get his art seen, but he figured it was worth a try. "I thought, throw it in the window, and somebody who knows publishing might be able to give me a lead," Mr. Sassoon said. Since then, all 100 of the business cards that he left at the store's counter have been snapped up, and some people have asked about donating old pictures to his nonprofit Lost Light Preservation Project.

"People are seeing it, and I'm getting calls, and it's leading somewhere," he reported, a touch of wonder in his voice.

At the store, Chris London, an employee, said the exhibit's success didn't surprise him in the least. "I'm surprised that more artists haven't wanted to have their work on display," he said. "I mean, it's not a museum or an art gallery, but I would venture a guess that more people in the community would see it here."

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