Chai Style Home: A Friendship Forged by Art
When Judy Lampert met Lucinda Bunnen, photography and magic filled the air.
After 37 years with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and now with the AJT, , Jaffe’s focus is lifestyle, art, dining, fashion, and community events with emphasis on Jewish movers and shakers.
Nationally acclaimed photographer Lucinda Bunnen died in 2022, leaving behind a body of work that is intimately connected to the High Museum of Art, and in part to fellow photographer and friend, Judy Morris Lampert. From 1999, they often worked together on projects, sometimes collaboratively and sometimes in parallel to produce separate bodies of work about the same subject.
Born and raised in Westchester County, N.Y. Lucinda Weil was all about horses and working the land. She often said that she grew up on a farm, but her siblings would say they grew up on “an estate.” Lampert has many Bunnen works in her own Sandy Springs home, alongside her own work.
As a philanthropist, Bunnen helped establish the High Museum’s photography exhibit (The Bunnen Collection). Between 1970 and 1980, she donated approximately 1,000 photos to start the collection which now numbers around 6,000 and contains works by Clarence John Laughlin, Nan Goldin, Chuck Close, William Eggleston, along with her own pieces like, “Mannequin Wall Windows, New York City 1970.”
In 1973, she co-founded the Nexus Gallery which now functions as The Atlanta Center for Contemporary Art. Having authored eight books, Bunnen’s work has been characterized as “an oscillation between experimental and documentary impulses.”
Judy Lampert is a vessel and living witness to Bunnen’s legacy.
Marcia: How did you meet?
Judy: At an art opening at Kiang Gallery. I got to know her better when she attended my opening at Wing and a Prayer Studios (1999). After she purchased a piece of art, we started talking and never stopped. I was her “new” best friend. She had many over the years, but it was always our joke.
Marcia: Did you travel together?
Judy: We traveled with Susan Anderson, founder of ArtReach, a program that uses art therapy to help those traumatized by war. In 2001, she invited us to Bosnia. We documented the experience of the therapists teaching teachers and students how to deal with the trauma of the Bosnian War. I learned about Lucinda’s intensity and determination to create a good image. She borrowed Ansel Adams’s quote, “You take a picture, but you make a photograph.” She was always in search of an image that would make a photograph.
Mary Stanley, Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation, asked us to photograph for the Places in Peril project. Lucinda’s task was to photograph a Rosenwald School in Warm Springs, and mine was Aluminum Hill, a mill town in Eatonton. We began driving “road trips” throughout Georgia. We did a triangular drive: Atlanta to Warm Springs, then cross the state on Highway 16 to Aluminum Hill. All the while taking photographs, talking, walking, and seeing art.
We participated in several exhibits together and separately. We frequently worked in parallel, traveling, and photographing the same venue like The Mother Project, an organization working with grandmothers in small villages in Senegal to educate families to stop genital mutilation.
Marcia: So, the friendship grew?
Judy: We became close, as photographers and friends, relying on each other with our own strengths. She was more knowledgeable about art, the Atlanta art scene, and philanthropy. My forte was technology and research. Often things unfold, and we have to be ready to see them. She helped me “see” better. I helped her be ready quicker. We were always ready to take a shot.
We were both curious, loved nature and dogs. Lucinda rescued dingos! I treasured our daily walks on her 23-acre trail with native wildflowers and flora. We would photograph what we saw and look things up to learn more.
Marcia: How would you describe Lucinda’s talent?
Judy: She had a great eye, whether collecting art or seeing something unique she wanted to photograph. She was also great at developing themes into bodies of works that would then become award-winning books. She embraced life at full throttle. One winter, when it was too icy to venture outside her home, she began photographing items in her own collection. She would shoot groups of objects or a single object in front of a backdrop in her garage. Maybe hundreds of images.
Marcia: What are your favorite works of hers?
Judy: Shakerag Hunt series, where she took multiple images in-camera. She was a talented horseman, from hunter-jumper to barrel racing.
Marcia: How have you dealt with grief?
Judy: During COVID, I would visit and walk daily. Since we weren’t traveling, I began photographing her house interior. In the beginning, it was a way to stay close and find something to do together. After a while, it became a project, and I have continued to do it after she has gone. It has helped with my grief and loss.
Marcia: There’s was a recent announcement about her estate property off West Paces Ferry.
Judy: In October 2024, the 30-plus acres sold for $13.5 million (the highest residential land sale in Atlanta’s history) destined to become a conservation park and arts center. The Frank Lloyd Wright-inspired home remains intact. Lucinda would be pleased about her property becoming a nature preserve for the community.
Marcia: Your own home is fabulously designed and curated, natural yet soulful.
Judy: We love art, especially Benjamin Jones, Radcliffe Bailey, Beverly Buchanan, and Susan Harbage Page. A focal point in our family room are 25 framed photographs titled, “Place.” They are photographs or photographic representations of the many houses I have lived in.
Marcia: Last word …
Judy: Lucinda had a great sense of humor and an indefatigable zest for life. She loved to dance and never ever wanted to miss anything. She was not your typical debutante or philanthropist. She was down to earth and loved people. And age never mattered.
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