Bruce Cratsley (1944 - 1998)

Born David Bruce Cratsley in Canton, Pa., he graduated from Swarthmore College and studied with the photographer Lisette Model at the New School for Social Research in the early 1970′s. His subjects ranged from light-soaked still lifes and portraits of friends to celebratory documents of gay and lesbian life in New York City. Working under the name Bruce Cratsley, he had shows at numerous New York galleries, Howard Greenberg, Laurence Miller Gallery and Witkin among them, and was represented at the time of his death by Yancey Richardson Gallery in SoHo.

A retrospective of Mr. Cratsley’s photographs (which he referred to as ”snapshots, really, though carefully made”) was mounted by the Brooklyn Museum of Art in 1996 to critical acclaim. A monograph on the artist, titled ”White Light, Silent Shadows,” was published by Arena Editions.