Not by the book: Palo Alto bookstore highlights author portraits by noted photographer Margo Davis

Peninsula-based photographer Margo Davis collaborated with Faith Bell of independent bookstore Bell’s Books for a show featuring her portraits of authors such as Toni Morrison, Ursula K. LeGuin, Lawrence Ferlinghetti and the Dalai Lama in the windows of the downtown Palo Alto bookstore.

The show was timed to launch with the Code:ART festival, which took place Oct. 12-14, but the photographs will be up for several weeks, according to Bell.

“We both wanted to have a time when they would really be seen by a lot of people and have a lot of exposure because they’re so beautiful,” Bell said.

Davis’ photographs are showing in both of the store’s large display windows.

“These (portraits) are so lovely and they’re so in keeping with what we do that we just wanted to fill the windows with these fantastic authors that we love and to put their books in with them so that people will recognize the literature,” Bell said.

Davis is a longtime Peninsula resident who has worked as a photographer and also taught photography extensively. Books of her work include “Antigua Black: Portrait of an Island People” and “Under One Sky” and her work is featured in the collections of institutions such as Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris, Brooklyn Museum and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

“Margo is dynamite — so dynamic. exciting to be with. She’s brimming over with ideas. She knows so many people who’ve been such movers and shakers. It’s just fun to be around her,” Bell said.

Davis’ show at Bell’s features black-and-white gelatin silver prints of portraits taken in various settings, including numerous respected authors whom Davis photographed during their visits to Stanford University through a collaboration with the creative writing program, while she was teaching photography at the university. The Stanford photos were taken over roughly two decades, between the early to mid-1970s and 1990.

One of her particularly well-known portraits was taken at Stanford, but not part of that collaboration. She captured the portrait of the Dalai Lama when he visited Stanford’s Dr. Martin Luther King Institute. In her photo, the spiritual leader is seen with a portrait of King in the background, Davis said.

“The Dalai Lama is one of my signature images. So we are featuring the Dalai Lama, even though he’s not best known as a writer. He’s best known as a spiritual leader, but he has many writings as well,” Davis said.

Not all of the portraits were taken at Stanford, either. She photographed novelist Lawrence Durrell in the south of France in the 1980s, while his brother, conservationist and writer Gerald Durrell, just happened to be visiting.

There are also some photographs taken in more off-the-cuff settings, notably beat poet Ferlinghetti.

“I lived for years on Potrero Hill in the bottom apartment of his house. That’s when I was able to photograph him in a Dumpster. The Dumpster was in front of his house and he was renovating something upstairs so this Dumpster was filled with an old sofa they threw in there and a bunch of leaves and trees and everything. So when I was going to do his portrait I said, ‘Lawrence, why don’t you get up on that sofa with your dog, Homer?’ His dog Homer is with him in the portrait. He’s reading a book about dogs to Homer with a huge sombrero on his head,” Davis recalled.

Visitors may be familiar with these authors’ names and know their works, but Davis’ photography offers a different perspective on these famous figures, Bell said.

“I really felt like I somehow knew these authors better from seeing these portraits. … Especially the way that Margo captures them, I think she’s able to sort of see them in a contemplative mood,” Bell said.

Photographs by Margo Davis are on display at Bell’s Books, 536 Emerson St., Palo Alto. bellsbooks.com. Prints of Davis’ portraits and her books are available for purchase. For more information about her work, visit margodavisphoto.com.