Charles Schwartz, member of AIPAD, and a founding member of the Daguerreian Society, has been a collector of 19th and 20th century photographs since 1970 and a photography dealer since 1990. His areas of specialization include Japanese photography before and between the wars; portraits of photographers; the African-American experience (from Civil War to the present); and 19th century cased images, including Japanese ambrotypes. Schwartz is a photographer, as well as a dealer and collector. In 1998 he built a large-scale camera obscura (overlooking Manhattan’s Central Park) with which he makes photographs in color and black and white.
Recent projects include publication of Camera Obscura, Visions in the Dark (2005), a catalogue of images created by Charles Schwartz and Bill Westheimer, and Japanese Ambrotypes: Images from the Charles Schwartz Collection (1867–1890), published in 2009. Future projects include the expansion of Schwartz’ ‘Double-Vintage Collection’ (objects displayed alongside vintage photographs in which they are depicted) with plans for a future publication and exhibition.
Schwartz has been, and remains, a private dealer; however, he has exhibited his artists and personal collections with a number of galleries including Steven Kasher, Alan Klotz, and Howard Greenberg. His institutional sales and loans include such prestigious institutions as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; International Center of Photography (ICP); The National Portrait Gallery; The Library of Congress; The San Francisco Museum of Art; the J. Paul Getty Museum; the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, and the Izu Photo Museum in Japan.