Art galleries: Lyrical Cratsley; Abstract artists in two directions

A few years before he died at 53 of complications from AIDS, the New York photographer Bruce Cratsley (1944-98) had an urge to photograph Paris one last time. He was in poor health, suffering from a worse-than-usual bout of fatigue, and barely able to carry his luggage. So his friend Sherry Suris recalled in the monograph

Bruce Cratsley: White Light, Silent Shadows

. Still, he managed to fly home with more than 600 images, "some among the most lyrical of his career," Suris wrote.

Cratsley was already admired for his moody black-and-white portraits and still lifes shot with his battered, early 1950s twin-lens Rolleiflex. They had been shown in one-person exhibitions at several prominent New York photography galleries and in a retrospective at the Brooklyn Museum of Art in 1996. "This sampling of two dozen photographs is a small one," wrote New York Times art critic Holland Cotter, "but it confirms the thematic breadth and emotional depth of this artist's work over 20 years." Cratsley was also known for a more exuberant body of work: documentary photographs of New York's annual Gay Pride March; and Wigstock, the outdoor drag festival (the New York Public Library holds an archive of more than 1,200 prints of it, spanning the early 1980s to the early 1990s.)

Now, Swarthmore College is honoring Cratsley, a 1966 graduate who later attended New York's New School for Social Research, where he studied with photographer Lisette Model.

A survey of prints from each of Cratsley's various bodies of work has been organized for Swarthmore's List Gallery by gallery director Andrea Packard and photographer Ron Tarver, an instructor of art at Swarthmore.

"Bruce Cratsley: Shifting Identities" is tidy - with 35 prints, only slightly larger than Cratsley's Brooklyn Museum of Art show - but it quickly reveals the photographer's ability to use the play of shadow and light on people, places, and objects to evoke the ephemerality of life. His appreciation for the work of his mentor, Model, and for the photographs of Eugène Atget, Diane Arbus, and W. Eugene Smith is also readily apparent in this broad selection, which also includes a few of his Gay Pride March and Wigstock pictures.

Cratsley referred to his photographs as "snapshots, really, but carefully made." Here, that applies equally to such seemingly disparate images as fireworks bursting over the Brooklyn Bridge, a mannequin in a Barney's window, and Cratsley's AIDS-stricken partner, David Waine, lying in bed, smiling, and embracing a passel of stuffed animals.

In many ways, and certainly in this exhibition, Cratsley's work could be considered a time capsule of two decades as seen through the lens of a gay man watching his friends vanish and knowing he will likely succumb to the same scourge. In the face of AIDS, Cratsley looked for humanity everywhere he turned his camera and celebrated its poetry.

On Wednesday, Oct. 19, List Gallery associate Jasmin Rodriguez-Schroeder, of the Swarthmore Class of 2017, will give a talk about Cratsley's work. Copies of an exhibition brochure written and designed by List Gallery intern Blake Oetting will be distributed free of charge.

Through Oct. 30 at List Gallery, Swarthmore College, 500 College Ave., Swarthmore. Hours: Noon to 5 p.m. Tuesdays through Sundays. Information: 610-328-7811 or www.swarthmore.edu/list-gallery.

Pentimenti Gallery has paired two painters steeped in geometric abstraction - Philadelphia's Kevin Finklea, and Edgar Diehl, a German artist - but their intentions and resulting works are entirely different.

Finklea, having his fourth solo exhibition here, presents a body of work that marks a distinct departure from his last show, of painted wooden objects (although several of these painted bas-reliefs occupy the gallery's Project Room). His new paintings on canvas employ pigments Finklea has studied, many used in artists' paints that are no longer produced. Finklea's paint application is also more relaxed: thinner, drippier, and more revealing of previous layers than before. But his color combinations are the most riveting factor, as in the violet and blues of Persephone Never Lied #9.

Diehl takes up where Bridget Riley left off in his perfect op-art stripe paintings that double (or triple) as reliefs and wall sculptures. They're puzzling, catchy, and fun; short on depth.

Through Oct. 22 at Pentimenti Gallery, 145 N. 2nd St., 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesdays through Fridays; noon to 5 p.m. Saturdays. Information: 215-625-9990 or www.pentimenti.com.