Julian Schnabel, Untitled (Self-Portrait), 2008 (frontispiece), taken on a 20 x 24 ins Polaroid Camera © Julian Schnabel / Courtesy Bernheimer Fine Art Photography

Bernheimer Fine Art Photography is proud to present an exhibition of large-scale Polaroids by the American artist and film director Julian Schnabel which will be on show at Colnaghi, celebrating its 250th anniversary this year, at 15 Old Bond Street, London W1, from 6 October to 12 November 2010. The exhibition will coincide with Frieze Art Fair, which will be held in London from 14 to 17 October.

Curated by Petra Giloy-Hirtz, the exhibition will present a selection of photographs, mostly previously unpublished, which offer an insight into the enigmatic character of the artist and a glimpse into his working environment. Works on view include images of Schnabel’s family and friends, such as Lou Reed, Placido Domingo and Mickey Rourke, alongside Polaroids of the artist's private spaces within the Palazzo Chupi on New York's Lower West Side and the interiors and surroundings of his studios in Brooklyn, Montauk and Manhattan. Schnabel took these extraordinary large-format Polaroids, both in brilliant colour and black-and-white, using a dolly-mounted 20 x 24 in. 1970s camera, and in some cases the artist has painted on the surfaces of the photographs. Together these Polaroids create a unique tableau, both intensely personal and poetic.

Julian Schnabel, Untitled (Takashi Murakami), 2008. Approx 26 x 22 in (image size), 33 x 22 in (total size), taken on a 20 x 24 ins Polaroid Camera © Julian Schnabel / Courtesy Bernheimer Fine Art Photography

Born in New York City (1951), Schnabel received acclaim for his Plate Paintings in the early 1980s and has created an influential body of work in the intervening years, including paintings, sculptures and photographs. He has also directed films since the mid 1990s: Basquiat (1996), Before Night Falls (2000) and The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2007, Oscar for Best Director). His fourth film Miral premiers in September 2010.

Exhibitions of Schnabel’s work have been held in some of the world’s leading museums and the artist is represented in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Whitney Museum of Art, New York; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; The Guggenheim Museums, New York and Bilbao; Centre Pompidou, Paris; and Tate, London.

Julian Schnabel, Untitled (Julian and Mickey), 2008. Approx 26 x 22 in (image size), 33 x 22 in (total size). Oil, ink, on polaroid photograph, taken on a 20 x 24 ins Polaroid Camera © Julian Schnabel / Courtesy Bernheimer Fine Art Photography

Bernheimer Fine Art Photography, which is the exclusive representative of Schnabel’s photographical work in Europe, is run by Blanca Bernheimer, daughter of the distinguished German Old Master paintings dealer, Konrad O. Bernheimer. In 2002, Bernheimer acquired Colnaghi and joined forces with the pre-eminent Old Master drawings dealer Katrin Bellinger. Colnaghi’s interests in photography began in the 1850s when they became the commercial distributors of Roger Fenton’s photographs of objects in the collection of the British Museum and when they published, jointly with Thomas Agnew, Fenton’s historic photographs of the war in the Crimea. Colnaghi continued to publish photographically illustrated books on the fine arts and to offer prints by well-known artists, the most distinguished being Julia Margaret Cameron. It is appropriate that this exhibition of Julian Schnabel’s Polaroids should make its UK debut at Colnaghi, the oldest commercial art gallery in the world.

JULIAN SCHNABEL POLAROIDS by Petra Giloy-Hirtz will be published in the UK by Prestel on 30 August 2010. Petra Giloy-Hirtz is a Munich-based author and editor whose most recent books include Lucas Reiner: Los Angeles Trees and Christopher Thomas: New York Sleeps (both by Prestel).

Bernheimer Fine Art Photography at Colnaghi, 15 Old Bond Street, London W1S 4AX, www.colnaghi.co.uk

Publication: JULIAN SCHNABEL POLAROIDS published by Prestel, (www.prestel.com). Petra Giloy-Hirtz, 192 pages, 100 illustrations, hardcover, 26 x 32 cm - ISBN 978-3-7913-5076-9, Price: £35

Julian Schnabel, Untitled (Montauk Studio), 2008. Approx 26 x 22 in (image size), 33 x 22 in (total size), taken on a 20 x 24 ins Polaroid Camera © Julian Schnabel / Courtesy Bernheimer Fine Art Photography