Exhibition dates: 28th March – 28th June, 2009
Recently discovered color images of California and Mexico taken during the 1940s and 1950s by the late visionary photographer Paul Outerbridge, who was considered “a master of color photography,” will be exhibited at the Central Library’s First Floor Galleries, 630 W. Fifth St., downtown, from March 28 through June 28.
Paul Outerbridge
‘Laguna Beach, California’
c.1950
Paul Outerbridge
‘Balboa Beach, California’
c.1950
“Art is life seen through man’s inner craving for perfection and beauty–his escape from the sordid realities of life into a world of his imagining. Art accounts for at least a third of our civilization, and it is one of the artist’s principal duties to do more than merely record life or nature. To the artist is given the privilege of pointing the way and inspiring towards a better life.”
Paul Outerbridge
Paul Outerbridge
‘Reclining Nude’
c.1937
“So wrote Paul Outerbridge, rather exaltedly, about his chosen profession. He was a designer and illustrator in New York before turning to photography in the 1920s. In 1925, having established himself as an innovative advertising photographer and graphic designer, he moved to Paris and worked for the French edition of Vogue magazine. There he met Edward Steichen, with whom he developed a friendly rivalry. Around 1930, having returned to New York, Outerbridge began to experiment with color photography, in particular the carbro-color process. He focused primarily on female nudes – striking, full-color images that were ahead of their time. The growing popularity of the dye transfer process lead to cheaper color photographs and Outerbridge, who stuck fast to the carbro process as superior in its richness and permanence, saw his commercial work dry up, leaving him without a regular source of income. In 1943 Outerbridge moved to California, where he photographed only intermittently.”
Text from the Getty Museum website
Well if he only photographed intermittently what photographs they are. Perhaps some of the most important colour photographs of their generation were made after he moved to California influencing the next generation of colour photographers as noted below. His aesthetic sensibility is scintillating what else can one say – so far ahead of his time, so prescient of future colour spaces in photography. I know how no regular income feels as an artist but he still had the courage and vision to make the work. I am in awe of the man; the visual complexity but eloquent simplicity of his photographs is just that – simply amazing.
Perhaps the Getty needs to ammend their text especially the last sentence!!
Paul Outerbridge
‘Airport Cafe with Band, Mexico’
c.1950
Paul Outerbridge
‘Airport Lounge, Mexico’
c.1950
Paul Outerbridge
‘Gas Station, Mexico’
c.1950
Paul Outerbridge
‘Self-portrait on Lounge, Oceanside Resort, California’
c.1950
“Outerbridge, who died in 1958, built his reputation in the early 1920s in New York and Paris making elegant black and white photo abstractions primarily of nudes and still lifes that rivaled those of his peers, Alfred Stieglitz, Edward Steichen, and Edward Weston. In the 1930s, Outerbridge mastered the exquisite tri-carbro-color print process and went on to make some of the most important color photographs in art and advertising of that time.
Moving to California in 1943 and taking up residence in Laguna Beach, Outerbridge made his last important body of work throughout California and Mexico. Between 1948 and until his death in 1958 he codified a new language in color photographs that anticipated the work of William Eggleston, Stephen Shore, Joel Sternfeld and others known for their “New Color” work in the 1970s.
“The curious position of prosperous American tourists amid the daily poverty experienced by some Mexicans is one of the recurring themes in the work, but with Outerbridge there is no political polemic,” says co-curator Phillip Prodger. “Outerbridge was thinking of his photographs as jig-saw puzzles made up of many different highly colored pieces, each placed with meticulous care.”
Among Outerbridge’s subjects are carnival carriages with passengers dressed and headed for a grand party; a group of fashionable men relaxing in an outdoor hotel lobby drinking Coke and beer while a small orchestra plays; a girl in a lime-green dress and white sweater walking past a gas station whose painted-red details add a vibrant flourish to the scene.”
Text from the Downtown Central Library press release
Paul Outerbridge
‘Model with Satin Dress, Laguna Beach, California’
c.1950
Paul Outerbridge
‘Party, Laguna Beach’
c.1950
Los Angeles Central Library
630 W. 5th St., Los Angeles, CA 90071 – (213) 228-7000
Mon. 10-8, Tue. 10-8, Wed. 10-8, Thu. 10-8, Fri. 10-6, Sat. 10-6, Sun. 1-5
