Tuesday’s DART Board introduced the next rush of art and photography fairs—with an unfortunate omission on my part. L.A. gallerist, long time subscriber and daily reader of DART, Paul Kopeikin, came to the rescue. Here is what he wrote:

Dear Peggy,

Since you didn't mentioned it [in this week’s DART Board] I assume you haven’t heard of Classic Photographs LA but one can’t mention Photo la without talking about this far more important photography fair happening in LA at the same time. I quote from my own Facebook post:

Classic Photographs LA was started a few years ago at the beginning of the recession by a handful of the most significant vintage, classic and modern photography dealers in the world and yes, they were the heart of Photo la. Their reasons for the split were primarily economic: 1. It cost too much to do Photo la and 2, they had remembered an earlier smaller model for photography fairs that had worked well for many years.

Classic Photographs LA was successful enough that they moved to Bonham's on Sunset Blvd, and that's when I joined them. Starting last year and even more so this year, there is a good mix of contemporary dealers as well as vintage/classic/modern dealers. Those dealers and I participated in Photo la for 20 years. But art fairs, like everything else in life, come and go.

In truth I have no idea what Photo la will be like this year. But I do know what it is not. It is not "Classic Photographs LA." If you want to see the best available classic, vintage and contemporary photography for sale in Los Angeles this week there is only one place to go.

As I am sure you know, AIPAD is the one and only International organization of Photography Dealers, and there is not even one AIPAD Dealer doing Photo la. Compare this to the 26 dealers doing Classic Photographs LA, all of whom are AIPAD members.

Warm regards,

Paul

Classic Photographs LA, January 18-19, 2014. Bonhams, 7601 W. Sunset Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA. Information. Directions. Photos courtesy Michael Dawson, Classic Photographs L.A. See the video from Classic Photographs LA 2013.