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Salem, Oregon, USA
Barnett (503) 467-6602 Solomon (503) 880-1300
BiographY - Barnett
Frank Barnett
Frank Barnett was born in Chicago in 1939. He was influenced in childhood by art dealer Frank Perls, whom his parents had met during WWII. Perls was assigned to the Arts and Monuments Section of the Allied Military Government in Germany with the objective of recovering artworks looted by the Nazis. When Perls opened his gallery in Beverly Hills, young Frank Barnett made frequent visits in the early 1950s, pedaling his Schwinn bicycle from his home in West Los Angeles. Perl’s self-assigned mission was to introduce southern Californians to the best of modern art that included his close friends, Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse, as well as Georges Braque, Georgia O’Keeffe, Marc Chagall, Paul Klee, and Jean Dubuffet. Frank has always credited his passion for fine art, and in particular, gallery ownership – he has founded five – to his early association and friendship with Frank Perls.
Frank earned his undergraduate degree in Cultural Anthropology from the University of California at Berkeley and his Master’s Degree in Cultural Anthropology at UCLA where he also spent a year as an Anthropology Fellow at the Neuropsychiatric Institute, studying Psychological Anthropology. He began focusing on documentary photography as early as 1964 when he spent a year in Europe, the Middle East and North Africa. Today he describes himself as a Visual Anthropologist.
His experience in publishing includes serving as the Manager of Marketing and Public Relations for the University of California Press, one of the largest academic publishers in the nation during the 1970s. There he revolutionized the Press’s direct mail catalog operation, exhibits program and advertising. After leaving UC Press, he founded The Piedmont Book Company, The Piedmont Book Company Gallery, and Parsons Barnett Gallery in Oakland, California. Exhibits at the latter included the works of Imogen Cunningham, Mel Ramos, Lucien Clergue, Eliot Porter, Hundertwasser, the work of Hispanic artists of the Ernest de Soto Workshop, and Oakland’s best-attended exhibit at that time, the first West Coast show by African American artist Romare Bearden. For that exhibit, Frank designed and produced a limited edition silk screen poster with Bearden’s collage “The Family.”
His first book, Working Together: Entrepreneurial Couples, co-authored with his late wife, Sharan, who passed away in 2009, and with whom he ran a successful advertising agency for 25 years, was published in 1988 and led to many appearances on radio and television. The term "copreneurs" which describes entrepreneurial couples who work together in equal partnerships was coined by the couple, and has become part of the family business lexicon. The Wall Street Journal described Frank and Sharan as the “chief gurus” of spousal business. Their book was excerpted in dozens of national publications.
In 1993 two of Frank’s campaigns for the Museum of New Mexico Foundation were the recipients of Addy Awards from the Santa Fe Ad Club. He created a national direct mail membership advertising campaign, “Discover the Treasures Coronado Overlooked,” as well as a highly successful national direct mail catalog that included the original artworks of indigenous Native American and Hispanic artists curated by the Barnetts.
Toward the end of the last century, Frank began focusing on his fine art photography, earning national and international recognition.
As a commercial photographer, Frank found great success creating images of Oregon wine country, food and specialty beverages. The Oregon Wine Board featured his vineyard images which appeared in publications as far afield as the Washington Post and as close to home as Portland Monthly. Frank's photography and articles have appeared in numerous magazines, periodicals and books nationwide.
After being named “Business Member of the Year” by the Salem Convention and Visitors Association in 2002, Frank spent three years as a documentary photographer in rodeo arenas from the Pendleton Round-Up to the Angola Prison Rodeo at the Louisiana State Penitentiary. He wrote about these experiences in an article entitled “Bulls Ain’t Supposed to be Rode.”
In addition to three of his rodeo images, Pendleton® Woolen Mills wove Frank’s images of New York Harbor 1964, Bourbon Street, and Ranchos de Taos into fine art tapestries on antique Jacquard looms in Pendleton, Oregon. Frank suggested to Brot Bishop, Pendleton’s late CEO, that Pendleton establish “The Pendleton Studio.” The Studio’s charter was to translate iconic art into limited edition fine art tapestries that could be added to the company’s already existing Contemporary Artist Limited Edition Tapestry Collection.
In 2015, Frank relocated from Portland back to Salem, Oregon, with his wife and creative collaborator, Martha Solomon. Together they opened a gallery at the Willamette Heritage Center and began publishing books under the imprint, Barnett & Solomon.
Their first publication was a 230-page monograph of Frank's photography that accompanied a 2015 museum exhibit in Portland, Oregon. The couple's publishing operation has already garnered two Silver Medals from the Independent Publishers Awards. Photography In My Bones – Half a Century of Images by Frank Barnett won the 2017 award in Photography and All American Toy Co. – All American Toys for All American Boys won the 2020 award in Popular Culture. Conducted annually, the Independent Publisher Book Awards honor the year's best independently published titles from around the world. The awards are intended to bring increased recognition to the thousands of exemplary independent, university, and self-published books released each year. Previous university press winners have included Princeton, Yale, Stanford, and the University of California.
Frank was also the recipient of many international Monochrome Awards in Fine Art Photography, Photojournalism, Photo-manipulation, Documentary Photography, and Portraiture.
Frank's extensive background in publishing has prompted the couple to expand their offering of publishing services that now include titles ranging from corporate art collections to biographies. The couple's firm also offers curatorial services to museums and corporations. Following their successful exhibit, All American Toy Company: An Oregon Original, which ran from September 2019 until January 2020 at the Oregon Historical Society Museum, they will curate A Century of Thrills – Oregon Amusement Parks for the OHS Museum, scheduled to open in November, 2022.
The All American Toy Co. was also the cover story in the Fall 2019 issue of the Oregon Historical Quarterly, with Frank's photographs on the front and back covers, as well as throughout the 30-page feature article.
On the corporate side, Frank and Martha researched, procured and restored over 20 historical images of Salem, Oregon, and installed them in the corporate headquarters of Doneth & Sturdivant Wealth Advisors, in addition to writing and publishing a photo book of the installation.
When not concentrating on his work as a fine art photographer, Frank provides expert photo restoration and art copying for artists and estates.
BiographY - Solomon
Martha A. Solomon
Martha Solomon, before moving to Portland in 2006, was a former Big Four CPA and executive in the telecommunications industry. An accomplished stereo photographer for more than 25 years, she has sat on the board of several not-for-profit arts organizations including the National Stereoscopic Association and has written for the journal of the International Stereoscopic Union. She joined the board of Portland’s 3D Center of Art and Photography when she moved to the Pacific Northwest. Martha co-curated “1 Brain + 2 Eyes = 3D” at the Oregon Historical Society Museum, a successful exhibit that ran for six months in 2009. The 2,000 square foot exhibit included everything from a 19th century wooden stereo camera to a movie set from LAIKA’s Coraline, a stop-motion 3D film that had its release just a month prior to the exhibit opening.