The End of The Brass Era In Cornwall Exhibit

Not far from the iron rich region of Northwest Connecticut is the steep valley of Connecticut’s Naugatuck River, called “Brass Valley.” From the beginning of the industrial revolution, the Naugatuck Valley was the seat of the world’s brass industry. Buttons, clips, weapons, clocks and bank safes were all made in factories from Bridgeport to Winsted. 

The Cornwall Library’s haunting photographic exhibition of the end of an industry and the factories that were left behind is both document and elegy. The work by two local photographers, Lazlo Gyorsok and Emery Roth II, is the result of a six-year collaboration. The two have photographed all aspects of the last brass mills in “Brass Valley.”  Powerful fiery images depict men using the ancient machinery as recently as 2011.  After the factories closed in 2013, the men documented the deteriorated and empty buildings bereft of workers. 

Though the subjects are similar, the men have different styles. Roth uses digital post production tools to dramatize his images, while Gyorsok’s has a simpler, less stylized approach. 

The story is perhaps best told by the artists themselves in their  statement: “For six years we’ve sought to know these mills and the men who ran them and those who demolished them. These photographs are the stories, their stories and part of the story of the valley where they worked.”

One cannot look at these photographs simply as pictures of factory workers or buildings — they are literally photographs of the end of an era. 

Gyorsok, an active photographer and the webmaster for the Housatonic Camera Club, has won numerous awards for his photography.  

Roth, a former high school teacher, is the author of “Brass Valley: The Fall of an American Industry”(Schiffer Books 2015.) The book is available online, in bookstores and at the exhibit. 

“Brazen Grit: Images of Brass Valley” can be seen through May 5 at The Cornwall Library. 30 Pine St., Cornwall, CT 860-672-6872 www.CornwallLibrary.org.