Steve J. Sherman, American photographer. 17 Old Photographs of Actors and Musicians, Alix B. Williamson, agency, NY.

Steve J. Sherman, American photographer. 17 Old Photographs of Actors and Musicians, Alix B. Williamson, agency, NY.
Steve J. Sherman American photographer. 17 Old Photographs of Actors and Musicians, Alix B. Williamson, agency, NY.
12 Photographs with stamp of Steve J. Sherman photo studio.
2 Photographs from the agency of Alix B. Williamson - one stamped and the other one signed
One photo has stamp of photo studio of Robert Maass, NY
2 Photographs not signed and not stamped.
Size of photos: 20.5 x 25.5 cm. (8 x 10 inches) and 21.5 x 28 cm. (8.4 x 11 inches)
Steve J. Sherman is one of New York City’s premier performing arts photographers, widely recognized for his decades-long relationships with Carnegie Hall and the New York Times.
Starting in 1984, Sherman served as House Photographer for Carnegie Hall, and at various times was the principle music photographer for the NY Times, The NY Philharmonic, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, and numerous orchestras, halls, clubs, festivals, concert series, competitions, talent management companies and individual musicians.
Sherman’s work has been prominently featured in numerous national and international magazines and newspapers, blogs and websites, and on countless LP, CD, DVD and media covers for major recording companies worldwide. His images have appeared on many television broadcasts, specials and news shows, as well as in three feature films.
Sherman is the author of two highly acclaimed coffee table photo books, “Leonard Bernstein At Work; His Final Years” (Amadeus Press 2010) and “Leonard Bernstein 100; The Masters Photograph The Maestro” with Jamie Bernstein (powerHouse Books, 2018). His images regularly appear in major biographies, music appreciation books, textbooks, encyclopedias and educational journals. Additional book credits include covers and/or contributions to numerous publications about musicians from Benny Goodman to Pete Seeger, Vladimir Horowitz to Herbert von Karajan, Isaac Stern to Stephen Sondheim.
Sherman has been featured in solo exhibitions, as well as contributions to group exhibitions, in such prominent American locations as the International Center of Photography, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Metropolitan Opera, Avery Fisher Hall, the Lincoln Center Library of Performing Arts, Carnegie Hall, Harvard University, 92nd Street Y, Symphony Space and The Franklin Institute Science Museum.
Sherman has lectured on Photography and the Business of Music at the Juilliard School of Music, the Manhattan School of Music, Oberlin College and the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, and professional gatherings such as the Chamber Music America National Conference.
When not photographing, Sherman is the Vice President of The Nadia Reisenberg – Clara Rockmore Foundation, honoring the legacies of his grandmother and great-aunt (respectively), and he is a concert producer specializing in variety shows. In this capacity, he has presented such diverse artists as Emanuel Ax, Victor Borge, Judy Collins, the Emerson String Quartet, Fred Hersch, Holly Near, Odetta, Pete Seeger, Isaac Stern, Noel Paul Stookey and Peter Yarrow (both from Peter Paul and Mary). His concerts have been broadcast on commercial and public radio, and on national public television (PBS).
An avid outdoorsman and a life-long social and political activist, he serves as an active first responder (both a volunteer firefighter and ambulance driver) and the President of the North Highlands Fire Department.
Sherman was born in 1959 in New York City, and currently maintains a studio there while residing with his two amazing children in New York’s beautiful Hudson Valley.
Alix B. Williamson was born on April 6, 1916 in New York City, where she lived and worked until her death in August 2001. While attending Hunter College in the 1930s she wrote for the school's weekly newspaper The Bulletin, and received prizes for "best editorial" in 1934, and "best contribution to a student publication" in 1935. She was also the president of Hunter's Shakespeare Society and dramatic society, and earned extra money as a reporter for the New York Journal-American. After graduating in 1935, Williamson joined the leading public relations firm of Constance Hope Associates, where she handled the accounts of notable personalities, such as Lotte Lehmann, Lauritz Melchoir, and Lily Pons. Her early career included a large amount of ghostwriting, both under the names of her accounts (e.g., Pons) and fictional creations (e.g., Catharine Hoffman).
Williamson left the Hope office in 1938 after a dispute over her freelancing activities, specifically a column about New York theater in Promenade. She opened her own agency with one client, Moriz Rosenthal, with office space at 55 West 42nd Street. Her early clients included a number of Philadelphia music institutions, such as the Robin Hood Dell concert series, which she publicized with a stunt involving the so-called last descendant of Robin Hood riding down Broad Street on a black horse to sell the season's first tickets to the mayor of the city.
One of Williamson's techniques that she frequently used was to highlight the client's personal hobbies, or skills unrelated to the talent that she was charged with representing. A related approach was using the client's home and family as a setting for photographs, which aimed to make the celebrity more appealing to his or her potential audience.
Her client roster expanded in the 1940s. One significant achievement featured a picture of the Metropolitan Opera soprano Helen Traubel on the front page of the New York Times, donating an armored costume to the war effort. Williamson's relations with the press, however, reached deeper than occasional stunts. She became known for consistently informative press releases, written to a degree that allowed editors to use them word-for-word - as demonstrated by a letter she received from the editor of Musical America, which thanked her for being "unfailingly clear and to the point."
An important period in her career was her position as press representative for Stadium Concerts, Inc., the organization that staged symphony concerts during the summer at Lewisohn Stadium in Manhattan. She held this post from 1950-1964 while continuing to work with other clients, such as Ruth Slenczynska and the New York City Opera Company.
In 1964 Williamson began working with the conductor Stephen Simon and pianist Lili Kraus on a project to record and then perform the complete Mozart piano concerti. The performances were held at Town Hall during the 1966-1967 season. More telling than the success of the series, though, is the relationship Williamson developed with Kraus. She handled a wider range of affairs past publicity, such as Kraus's concerts outside the U.S., and their correspondence shows that Williamson was a source of advice and comfort to Kraus.
Williamson expanded her work into a pseudo-management role when she presented concerts, such as the Kraus-Simon project. These were major events in the New York music world, with full-page ads in the New York Times, and resulted in a brand name status both for her and the client involved. She was responsible for stimulating interest in renaissance music through programs by the Waverly Consort, or Rodrigo de Zayas and Anne Perret's "A Renaissance of Lute Song." In some cases she represented the artist over a course of years surrounding the event, but often the concert series was the extent of her work.
Beginning in the late 1960s and continuing through the 1980s, Williamson promoted chamber music and other ensembles. These client relationships often lasted for a significant number of years, such as her work with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, which she took on at its inception in 1968 and represented until 1990. Another considerable client tenure was the Juilliard String Quartet, with whom she worked with from 1971-1994.