By Gene Thornton

PHOTOGRAPHY

New Orleans street people, neighborhood kids, dwarfs and athletes are the subjects of the handsome yet disturbing black-and-white portraits in George Dureau‘s first one-man show in New York at the Robert Samuel Gallery, 795 Broadway between 10th and 11th Streets, through Saturday. Like Irving Penn, Dureau knows how to organize figures, background and props into compositions that are formal, even classical, without ever seeming unnatural, and he uses natural light to achieve monumental sculptural effects.

But his greatest achievement is as a psychologist.

Many of Dureau’s sitters gaze out at the world with a bitter defiance that dares the viewer to try to get closer. Yet Dureau, with gentle tact, penetrates their defenses and reveals the true strength, as well as the weaknesses, that they can feel. Even the most disturbing sitter in the show, a young man who has no legs, comes across not as a freak but as a fully developed human being who has come to terms with his life. Dureau’s most risky pictures are portraits taken in the nude. This is perhaps the most difficult thing a photographer can attempt, and Dureau does not always succeed. But when he does, the results are impressive and memorable.