Exhibition: ‘Edward Weston. La matèria de les formes’ at Centro de Fotografía KBr Fundación MAPFRE, Barcelona

Exhibition dates: 12th June – 31st August, 2025

Curator: Sérgio Mah

Edward Weston (American, 1886-1958)
Surf, Bodega
1937
19 x 24cm
Gelatin silver print
Center for Creative Photography, The University of Arizona. Edward Weston Archive

Three week’s to the day since my hip replacement operation and I’m still in pain. I know, slowly slowly but it’s very frustrating…

Thus, I just have two words for you about this exhibition –

GREAT WESTERN!

Dr Marcus Bunyan

Many thankx to the Fundación MAPFRE for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

“Not I, nor anyone else can travel that road for you,
You must travel it for yourself.

It is not far, It is within reach,
Perhaps you have been on it since you were born, and did not know,
Perhaps it is every where on water and land.”

Walt Whitman. Part of Song of Myself from Leaves of Grass. 1855

“I never try to limit myself by theories, I do not question right or wrong approach when I am interested or amazed – impelled to work. I do not fear logic, I dare to be irrational, or really never consider whether I am or not. This keeps me fluid, open to fresh impulse, free from formulae; and precisely because I have no formulae – the public who know my work is often surprised, the critics, who all, or most of them, have their pet formulae are disturbed. And my friends distressed.

I would say to any artist – don’t be repressed in your work – dare to experiment – Consider any urge – if in a new direction all the better – as a gift from the Gods not to be lightly denied by convention or a priori concept. Our time is becoming more and more bound by logic, absolute rationalism; this is a straitjacket I – it is the boredom and narrowness which rises directly from mediocre mass thinking.

The great scientist dares to differ from accepted ‘facts’ -think irrationally – let the artist do likewise.”

Edward Weston 28 January, 1932 from The Daybooks of Edward Weston. Vol. ll Horizon Press, New York 1966

Edward Weston (American, 1886-1958)
Guadalupe Marín de Rivera
1924
20.8 x 17.9cm
Gelatin silver print
Center for Creative Photography, The University of Arizona. Gift of Ansel and Virginia Adams

Strongly linked to the landscape and to North American cultural history, Edward Weston’s work, in its extreme simplicity and originality, allows us to appreciate a unique perspective on the process of consolidation of photography as an artistic medium and its relevant role in the context of modernity in the visual arts. The exhibition Edward Weston. La matèria de les formes (Edward Weston. The Matter of Forms) is conceived as an anthology that covers the different phases of the artist’s photographic production.

A pioneer in the use of a modern photographic style, his use of the large-format camera gives rise to richly detailed black and white images of extraordinary clarity. His technical expertise and his affection for nature and form led to the development of a body of work in which iconic images of still lifes, nudes, landscapes and portraits stand out. His images are essential for understanding the new aesthetic and new American lifestyle that emerged in the United States between the wars.

The exhibition, curated by Sergio Mah, consists of around two hundred photographs grouped into seven sections. The exhibition tour is completed with numerous documentary material and is conceived from a European perspective on the legacy of modern American photography. An aesthetic and conceptual counterpoint to the photographic modernism in Europe that emerged with the first avant-garde of the 20th century.

The emancipation of photography

Edward Weston was one of the pioneers, along with Alfred Stieglitz and Paul Strand, in defending the emancipation of photography from other artistic disciplines. In this sense, his work contributed decisively to demonstrating, in this early period of photography, the aesthetic and perceptual dimension of the medium, the capacity to express aesthetic qualities in the same way as painting or sculpture.

Figuration and abstraction

The technical mastery of the photographic medium leads Weston to a formalism in which framing becomes one of the most relevant elements of his work. Weston eliminates any anecdotal aspect and focuses on the motif that interests him, and does so with such realism and exaltation of the two-dimensional nature of photography, which often results in an abstract image. In this way, the artist shows that figuration and abstraction do not exempt one from the other, but are perfectly compatible.

Exhibition organised with the support of the Center for Creative Photography at the University of Arizona, Tucson.

Text from the Fundación MAPFRE website translated from the Spanish by Google Translate

Edward Weston (American, 1886-1958)
Two Shells
1927, print about 1933
24.1 x 18.4cm
Gelatin silver print
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

Edward Weston (American, 1886-1958)
Pepper No. 30
1930
22.8 x 17.7cm
Gelatin silver print
Courtesy by Trockmorton Fine Art

Highlights

Fundación MAPFRE presents the exhibition Edward Weston. The Matter of Forms, dedicated to the five decades of the career of this North American artist, one of the most important figures in modern photography. In addition, through the work of the artist himself, the exhibition aims to offer a pedagogical reflection on the history of the medium and its relevance as an aesthetic and perceptive discipline, apart from the more traditional plastic arts; specifically, painting.

Key points

The emancipation of photography

Edward Weston was one of the pioneers, along with Alfred Stieglitz and Paul Strand, in defending the emancipation of photography from other artistic disciplines. In this sense, his work is essential to understanding the aesthetic and perceptive capacity of the medium in its beginnings. This capacity allows photography to express aesthetic qualities such as beauty, pain or ugliness at the same level as painting or sculpture.

Figuration and abstraction

The technical mastery of the photographic medium leads Weston to a formalism where framing becomes one of the most relevant elements of his work. In this sense, he eliminates any anecdotal aspect and focuses on the motif that interests him, and he does so with such realism and with such exaltation of the two-dimensional character of photography that he ends up obtaining an abstract image as a result. In this way, the artist shows that figuration and abstraction do not exclude each other, but are perfectly compatible.

Pepper No. 30

Edward Weston took this photograph, one of the most representative of his entire career, at the beginning of August 1930. It was not the first time he had photographed a vegetable, nor a pepper. The artist himself spoke about this image: “It is a fully satisfactory classic: a pepper, but more than a pepper. It is abstract, in the sense that it exists completely outside the subject. It has no psychological attributes, it does not awaken human emotions: this new pepper takes us beyond the world we know in the conscious mind.” In the light of this photograph and the artist’s words, the innovative character of his work can be distinguished, which transcended not only modern American photography, but also European photography.

The exhibition

Weston’s work, strongly linked to the landscape and to North American cultural history, in its extreme simplicity and originality, reveals a unique perspective on the process of consolidation of photography as an artistic medium and its relevant role in the context of modernity in the visual arts. The exhibition Edward Weston. The Matter of Forms is conceived as an anthology that covers the different phases of the artist’s photographic production. From his initial interest in Pictorialist approaches to his consolidation as one of the central figures in the affirmation of the poetic and speculative value of direct photography. A pioneer in the use of a modern photographic style, his work is characterised by the use of a large-format camera, which allows him to offer richly detailed black and white images of extraordinary clarity. His mastery of technique, together with his love of nature and form, led him to develop a photographic production in which iconic images of still lifes, nudes, landscapes and portraits stand out. As a co-founder of the photography collective Group f/64, his images are key to understanding the new North American aesthetic and lifestyle that emerged in the United States between the wars.

The exhibition, grouped into seven sections and curated by Sérgio Mah, consists of around 200 photographs and a large amount of documentary material. The exhibition is conceived as a European look at the legacy of modern North American photography. An aesthetic and conceptual counterpoint to the modern photography that emerged in Europe with the first avant-garde of the 20th century.

Edward Weston (American, 1886-1958)
Prologue to a Sad Spring
1920
23.8 x 18.7cm
Platinum print
Center for Creative Photography, The University of Arizona. Johan Hagemeyer Collection/Purchase

1 /

Edward Weston began photography very early, thanks to a Kodak Bulls-Eye No. 2 camera that his father gave him when he was just sixteen. Although he was practically self-taught, in 1911 he opened his first photographic establishment in a suburb of Los Angeles. His early works reveal the influence of the Pictorialist atmosphere of the time: impressionistic views and pastoral subjects with soft or slightly blurred focus, scenography and expressive poses.

Edward Weston (American, 1886-1958)
Janitzio, Mexico
1926
20.4 x 25.2cm
Gelatin silver print
Center for Creative Photography, The University of Arizona. Edward Weston Archive/Gift of the Heirs of Edward Weston

2 /

Weston’s dissatisfaction with this artistic approach to photography, which sought to assimilate itself to painting, coincided with the appearance of other photographers with similar ideas, such as Alfred Stieglitz and Paul Strand, whom he met in New York in 1922. In 1923 he set sail for Mexico accompanied by one of his sons and the photographer Tina Modotti. There he found a true renaissance of the arts and culture, and he came into contact with artists such as Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo and Rafael Sala. He expanded his visual horizon and tackled new themes, photographing objects, figures and motifs far from their original context, turning them into suggestive and extraordinary elements. It was then that he realised that true photographic art is intuitive and immediate, that the elimination of everything that is accessory constitutes the essence of his creative talent.

Edward Weston (American, 1886-1958)
Excusado, Mexico
October 1925
24.1 x 19.1cm
Gelatin silver print
Center for Creative Photography, The University of Arizona. Edward Weston Archive

3 /

From 1927, influenced by the humanism of Walt Whitman and his work Leaves of Grass, he felt attracted, in the words of Sérgio Mah, by “the extraordinariness of banality”. Fruits, shells and vegetables became the protagonists of his works, and he made one of his most famous photographs: a toilet, an unusual object as an artistic subject, with the title Excused. In these images, Weston accentuated the two-dimensionality of the motifs, since it was one of the characteristics of photography that interested him. He looked for details as a way of fragmenting, isolating and approximating the photographed object, eliminating the sense of depth, a technique particularly notable in still lifes with dark backgrounds, as is the case with his photographs of peppers.

Edward Weston (American, 1886-1958)
Floating Nude
1939
19.3 x 24.2cm
Gelatin silver print
Center for Creative Photography, The University of Arizona. Edward Weston Archive

4 /

From 1926, after leaving Mexico, Weston photographed several sets of nudes. In these nudes, the photographer’s gaze varies depending on the model. In some cases, the frame is wide and even shows the face, while in others the gaze is more segmented and focuses on parts of the body as a way of cutting out and accentuating the shapes within the frame. It must be recognized that eroticism is a quality present in some of these photographs. However, it is incorrect to conclude that this type of gaze prevails in most of the nudes he photographed. Above all, Weston observes the body as a formal reality. The beauty and sensuality that these bodies suggest is reflected in the play of lines, shadows and contours they offer.

Edward Weston (American, 1886-1958)
Clouds, Death Valley
1939
20.4 x 25.2cm
Gelatin silver print
Center for Creative Photography, The University of Arizona. Edward Weston Archive

5 /

From the late 1920s and into the following decades, landscape became a central element in Weston’s work. The artist photographed in the desert near Palm Springs, California, as well as in New Mexico, Arizona, and other Californian areas near his home in Carmel. In these works, the horizon and the depth of the background become a structural part of his works: the panoramic shots highlight the sublime character of the landscape. It was also during this period that Weston began to be interested in meteorological phenomena such as rain, the configuration of clouds, and the aridity of the territory.

Edward Weston (American, 1886-1958)
Crescent Beach, North Coast
1939
24.3 x 19.2cm
Silver print mounted on board
The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens

6 /

Over the years, Weston’s work increasingly acquired a “dense and melancholic” patina, an aspect that is accentuated by the tones that the images acquire. This characteristic is particularly evident in the photographs he took in 1941 to illustrate Leaves of Grass, a project for which he traveled throughout much of the United States for nearly two years. The images he captured in cemeteries in Louisiana and Georgia stand out, as well as those of abandoned, destroyed and burned buildings where the interest in formal aspects predominates and in which a critical and disillusioned commentary on reality and American society can already be seen.

Edward Weston (American, 1886-1958)
Drift Stump, Crescent Beach
1937
20.3 x 25.2cm
Gelatin silver print
Center for Creative Photography, The University of Arizona. Edward Weston Archive

7 /

In the vicinity of Point Lobos, California, was the log cabin built by his son Neil on Wildcat Hill, where Weston moved in 1938. In this area of California, the artist found the wild nature that he had sought in distant places. His images from this period denote less compositional and formal rigidity and show the cycles of nature in the territory, the wild beauty, the trees, stones and rocky landscapes that seem to arise and remain in a time that is stopped. These images express a certain melancholy and solitude, while allowing the viewer to rediscover nature in all its splendour.

Edward Weston (American, 1886-1958)
Dunes, Death Valley
1938
20.4 x 25.1cm
Gelatin silver print
Center for Creative Photography, The University of Arizona. Edward Weston Archive

Catalogue

The catalogue accompanying this exhibition reproduces all the photographs on display. In addition, it includes essays by Sérgio Mah, its curator, by Rebecca Senf, who discusses the artist’s relationship with Mexico, and by Jason Weems, who focuses on Weston’s landscapes and vegetable photographs. It also includes a series of reflections by the artist himself on photography taken from his diaries.

The publication of the catalogue, published in Spanish and Catalan by Fundación MAPFRE, also has a co-edition in Italian published by Dario Cimorelli Editore.

Text from Fundación MAPFRE translated from the Spanish by Google Translate

Edward Weston (American, 1886-1958)
Nude
1936
23.4 x 19.1cm
Gelatin silver print
Center for Creative Photography, The University of Arizona. Gift of the Estate of A.Richard Diebold, Jr.

Author of a vast and diverse body of work spanning five and a half decades, Edward Weston (1886-1958) is one of the great figures in the history of modern photography, partly because his work allows us to reflect on the distinctive qualities of photography as a technical, aesthetic and perceptual category.

His first creative experiments reveal a momentary adherence to the pictorialist tendencies of the time, but he would later stand out as one of the protagonists of a new generation of American photographers who sought to refocus the artistic axis of photography based on its exceptional capacity to represent the most diverse subjects in the world with rigor, clarity and sobriety.

With their extreme simplicity and originality, the exceptional quality of Weston’s images also lies in the way in which he was able to rethink and articulate the extraordinary realistic and objective capacity of photography with its aesthetic, poetic and phenomenological potential, contributing to expanding the horizon of the subjective experience of the image. In this way, Weston enunciated the unique role of photography in the panorama of the visual arts of his time.

Weston was an immensely prolific photographer and his work brings together a whole series of photographic themes, types and genres: portraits, nudes, still lifes, natural and urban landscapes, object photography, architecture… This anthological exhibition aims to cover the entirety of Weston’s photographic career, which began at the beginning of the 20th century and was uninterrupted until the end of the 1940s. The selection of works aims to go well beyond the period in which Weston took most of the images that gave him wide critical and institutional recognition. The truth is that a more complete and heterogeneous approach to his work allows us to summon other layers of aesthetic appreciation, broadening the understanding of the depth and articulations that Weston developed in the various fields he explored. Furthermore, it offers the opportunity to point out the aspects and affinities (in the gaze, in the construction of the image or in its peculiar relationship with certain themes) present throughout his career, emphasizing the coherence of his imagery, as well as the nuances and moments of transition that occurred in it.

Sérgio Mah
Curator

Text from Fundación MAPFRE translated from the Spanish by Google Translate

Edward Weston (American, 1886-1958)
Dunes, Oceano
1936
24.1 x 18.9cm
Silver print mounted on board
The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens

From an early age, Edward Weston showed an interest in developing a creative side of photography apart from his commercial work. His early experiments show the influence of painting and reveal his attention and attachment to the pictorialist atmosphere of the time. These photographs include impressionistic views, pastoral subjects with soft or slightly blurred focus, numerous staged portraits that explore expressive poses and combinations with shadows and graphic elements of the environment.

The two periods he spent in Mexico, between 1923 and 1924 and then between 1925 and 1926, were decisive in Edward Weston’s creative career. There he began to explore new themes and genres and his visual horizon expanded significantly. He covered a wide variety of subjects, types of places, figures and things, parts of things, appropriate objects, motifs taken from their original context and repositioned in another interpretative framework. At the same time, his visual style completely sheds any reminiscence of the Pictorialist phase. A photography of great technical, formal and compositional rigour was consolidated. Weston realised that he had the capacity to transform trivial things into suggestive and extraordinary. He was clear that the art of photography lies fundamentally in the moment of making the image, in the way in which the photographer contemplates the subject and makes decisions according to the variables inherent in the photographic device. For him, the process is instinctive. This way of seeing – intuitive, intense and immediate – which seeks to isolate the subject, eliminating the accessory, the unnecessary, anything that could divert or attenuate the intensity of the photographic vision, constitutes the essence of Weston’s creative talent.

From 1927, Weston began a series of still life photographs. In these images he fully reveals the principles and characteristics of his work: the desire to represent the timeless essence of a natural object and, correlatively, to emphasise the duplicative and perceptive capacities of the photographic medium.

The compositions are carefully conceived. In the space of the image, there is a calculated conformity between the dimension of the forms and the format of the image. Here it is important to reiterate the focus on detail as a defining aspect of Weston’s imagery, evident in these still lifes and also in other aspects of his work. Weston understands the vision of detail as a way of fragmenting, isolating and bringing our gaze closer to certain things, accentuating the two-dimensional character of the image, its closed and opaque nature, without depth or horizon, evident above all in still lifes with dark backgrounds, such as photographs of peppers, but also in the various images of plants, trees, rocks and stones that he has been making since the early 1930s.

Weston left Mexico in 1926. In the following years, he made several series of nudes. This is not a new subject. He had already made some important ones before, including one of Anita Brenner’s back and another of her son Neil, whose torso is cut out in an image that evokes ancient Greek statues. In the nudes, the photographer’s gaze varies depending on the model. In some cases, the framing is wide and even shows the face, while in others the gaze is more segmented and focuses on parts of the body as a way of cutting out and accentuating the shapes within the frame. We can recognise that eroticism is a quality present in some of these photographs. It is incorrect, however, to conclude that this gaze prevails in most of his nudes. Weston observes the body mainly as a formal reality. The beauty and sensuality that these bodies suggest are based above all on the play of lines, shadows and contours that they provide.

From the late 1920s, and with greater intensity in the following decades, the landscape genre occupies a central place in Weston’s photographic production. In 1927, the artist takes photos in the Californian desert near Palm Springs. In the following years, he travels through New Mexico, Arizona and other areas of California, such as Oceano, Death Valley, Yosemite, the Mojave Desert and Point Lobos, near his home in Carmel. In these various places, he captures wide views of inhospitable territories in which there are no signs of human presence or intervention. The horizon line and the breadth of the territory become structuring motifs in his work. The impetus for these images is a feeling of admiration for the epic and immeasurable nature of these natural landscapes. Beyond his choice of panoramic shots, the images reveal other aspects and elements of nature, such as meteorological phenomena, rain, cloud formations and variations in sunlight, often in conjunction with their visual effect on the arid land or the vegetation and unique morphology of these territories. It is a vision sensitive to the transformative nature of the landscape, subject to environmental and geological changes.

Gradually, and with greater intensity from the 1940s onwards, Edward Weston’s imagery became denser and more melancholic, not only in terms of the selection of subjects, but also in the tonalities of the images. This tendency is particularly evident in the photographs he takes for an edition of Leaves of Grass, the masterpiece of the poet Walt Whitman. He travels throughout the United States for two years. He revisits many of the recurring themes in his work, but the large number of images he takes of cemeteries in Louisiana and Georgia stand out. These are photographs in which his interest in formal aspects, texture and light predominates. All the subjects are seen as an integral part of a geography that is at once physical, social and mental. On the other hand, there are a lot of images of abandoned, destroyed and burnt buildings, of rubbish and things destined to disappear. We can identify that the themes of finitude and death contribute to an imagery increasingly characterised by loneliness, melancholy, and decadence. For the first time in his work, the images suggest a disillusioned and critical commentary on American reality, on the relationship between nature and culture, continuity and change, alienation and social tension.

In 1938, Weston moved with Charis Wilson to the wooden house built by his son Neil on Wildcat Hill, near Point Lobos, California. The artist spent long periods taking photos in this coastal region. He wandered through areas that he knew well. The images show a nature permeated with cycles, rhythms and forces, a macrocosm where Weston found the material to continue his work. At Point Lobos, Weston encountered a wild, dazzling and ineffable beauty that he had always sought in distant places. In the trees, forests, stones and rocky landscapes, the photographer found a vital energy that led perception towards a diffuse time, contrary to the linearity of history, alien to modernity. Nature then emerged as a theme and setting that allowed him to think and experience a renewed gaze (spontaneous, intuitive, aesthetic), a gaze that was both concrete and metaphysical that allowed him to rediscover nature.

Text from Fundación MAPFRE translated from the Spanish by Google Translate

Edward Weston (American, 1886-1958)
Charis, Lake Ediza
1937
19.1 x 24.1cm
Silver print mounted on board
The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens

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Exhibition: ‘The New Art: American Photography, 1839-1910’ at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Exhibition dates: 11th April – 20th July, 2025

Curators: Jeff L. Rosenheim, Joyce Frank Menschel Curator in Charge of the Department of Photographs. Virginia McBride, Research Associate in the Department of Photographs, provided assistance.

Unknown Maker
Woman Wearing a Tignon
c. 1850
Daguerreotype with applied colour
Case (open): 3 1/8 × 7 1/4 in. (8 × 18.4cm)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, William L. Schaeffer Collection
Promised Gift of Jennifer and Philip Maritz, in celebration of the Museum’s 150th Anniversary

It’s just nice to be able to post on this eclectic exhibition – to see the installation photographs with vitrines full of the wonders of the age, outdoors, indoors, objects, people, landscapes, daguerreotypes, ambrotypes, tintypes, salted paper prints, albumen silver prints, cyanotypes, platinum prints, and gelatin silver prints, cartes de visite, stereographs, and cabinet cards.

Can you imagine having your photograph taken for the first time?

Entering the photographers studio, com(posing) yourself in front of the camera and the process and performance of doing that, even as the photographer composed you on the glass plate in the camera. A double composition, the constituent parts making the whole, a dance between the sitter, the camera and the photographer.

And there you are, exposed in camera, the latent image revealed by vapour, a talismanic object radiating your spirit.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

Many thankx to The Metropolitan Museum of Art for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

Installation view of the exhibition 'The New Art: American Photography, 1839-1910' at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, April - July, 2025

Installation views of the exhibition The New Art: American Photography, 1839-1910 at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, April – July, 2025

This exhibition presents a bold new history of American photography from the medium’s birth in 1839 to the first decade of the 20th century. Drawn from The Met’s William L. Schaeffer Collection, major works by lauded artists such as Josiah Johnson Hawes, John Moran, Carleton Watkins, and Alice Austen are shown in dialogue with extraordinary photographs by obscure or unknown practitioners made in small towns and cities from coast to coast. Featuring a range of formats, from daguerreotypes and cartes de visite to stereographs and cyanotypes, the show explores the dramatic change in the nation’s sense of itself that was driven by the immediate success of photography as a cultural, commercial, artistic, and psychological preoccupation. In 1835, even before the nearly simultaneous announcement of the invention of the new art in Paris and London, the American philosopher essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson noted with remarkable vision: “Our Age is Ocular.”

Text from The Metropolitan Museum of Art website

Installation views of the exhibition The New Art: American Photography, 1839-1910 at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, April – July, 2025

The New Art: American Photography, 1839-1910 will feature more than 250 photographs drawn from the Museum’s William L. Schaeffer Collection

This spring, The Metropolitan Museum of Art will present an adventurous new history of American photography from the medium’s birth in 1839 to the first decade of the 20th century. Drawn from the Museum’s William L. Schaeffer Collection – a magnificent recent promised gift to The Met by trustee Philip Maritz and his wife Jennifer – major works by lauded artists such as Josiah Johnson Hawes, John Moran, Carleton E. Watkins, and Alice Austen, will be presented in dialogue with extraordinary photographs by obscure or unknown practitioners made in small towns and cities from coast to coast. The exhibition’s many photographs by little-studied makers, early practitioners, and intrepid amateurs have been selected to reveal the artists’ ingenuity, aesthetic ambition, and lasting achievement. In some 275 photographs – most never before seen – The New Art: American Photography, 1839-1910 explores the nation’s shifting sense of self, driven by the immediate success of photography as a cultural, commercial, artistic, and psychological preoccupation. The presentation will be on view from April 11 through July 20, 2025.

“Through an impressive array of 19th- and early 20th-century images that capture the complexities of a nation in the midst of profound transformation, this exhibition offers something new even for those well-versed in the history of photography,” said Max Hollein, The Met’s Marina Kellen French Director and Chief Executive Officer. “Thanks to the generosity of Jenny and Flip Maritz, we can study and celebrate these formerly hidden treasures by hundreds of both known and unknown makers finally ready for their close-ups. Our hope is to give these works their rightful place in the ever-expanding history of the medium.”

Jeff L. Rosenheim, Joyce Frank Menschel Curator in Charge of the Department of Photographs, added, “The camera and its myriad democratic products – rivals to the greatest literature of the era – are clearly the origin of modern communication and global image-sharing today. If we want to forge a deeper appreciation of contemporary art and the role of the camera in the lives of today’s picture makers, we must recognise and respect the stunning visual power and authenticity of early American photography.”

Carefully assembled over the last 50 years by the Connecticut collector and private dealer William L. Schaeffer, the collection includes splendid photographs in superb condition from every stage of the medium’s early technical development: daguerreotypes, ambrotypes, tintypes, salted paper prints, albumen silver prints, cyanotypes, platinum prints, and gelatin silver prints. The exhibition also features an extensive display of three types of card-mounted photographs – cartes de visite, stereographs, and cabinet cards – each wildly popular in the mid- to late 19th century. When seen through binocular viewers, all the stereographs in the show will be visible in three dimensions.

This is not the first exhibition at The Met to feature photographs drawn from the famous collection of 19th-century photographs amassed by Schaeffer. In 2013, the Museum included more than a dozen Civil War views in Photography and the American Civil War. These are now part of the Museum’s collection through the direct support of another Museum trustee, Joyce Frank Menschel. The gifts by the Maritzes to The Met, as well as those by Joyce Menschel, mark a pinnacle in the institution’s ongoing effort to build the finest holdings of 19th-century American photography in the nation.

Exhibition Overview

In 1839, the invention of photography transformed the world. In December of that year, when the first daguerreotypes were exhibited in New York, former mayor Philip Hone marvelled in his diary at what he described as “one of the wonders of modern times,” adding that “like other miracles, one may almost be excused for disbelieving it without seeing the very process by which it is created.”

The daguerreotype’s remarkable ability to hold permanently an unimaginably detailed likeness on its surface – an image heretofore only seen fleetingly in a mirror – seemed in equal measure unbelievable and perfectly real, darkly mysterious yet scientifically verifiable, a shadowy fiction and yet a beautiful truth. The supernatural quality of the new art was noted by many around the world. As one reviewer, writing for a Baltimore weekly in January 1840, admitted, “We can find no language to express the charm of these pictures painted by no mortal hand.”

Photography arrived almost simultaneously with the steam locomotive, the steam ship, and the electric telegraph – all inventions that dramatically shortened the distances between people and places and forever changed the way civilisations communicate. The medium developed during the age of the type-crazy broadside, the morning and the evening newspaper, and the illustrated weekly. It was also the time of the birth of mercantile libraries (previously only the wealthy had access to books and libraries), and, not surprisingly, of eye strain. The era saw the medical specialisation in the study of eye maladies and the development of optometry and ophthalmology. In 1835, just before the concurrent announcement of the invention of the new art in Paris and London, the American philosopher and essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson noted in his private journal: “Our age is ocular.”

Organised primarily by picture format across three galleries, The New Art illustrates what photography looked like for the average working citizen as well as those at the top of the economic scale. Exhibition visitors can see the clothes individuals wore at work and home, their attitudes to the camera singly and in groups, their ways of sitting or standing or touching, and how they honoured their children and respected their ailing and recently deceased family members. They can look at newly constructed storefronts, see how farmers worked their fields, and measure where new towns met the wilderness. They can observe the near total devastation of Native American communities, especially those living in the Plains, and confront the vicious cruelty of slavery and the influential role of the camera in the Civil War, still the crucible of American history.

In daguerreotypes, tintypes, and paper prints, viewers can also begin to see and comprehend how African Americans during the Civil War, throughout the Reconstruction era, and leading into the 20th century slowly began to replace negative stereotypes with positive self-images. This effort was explicitly nurtured by Frederick Douglass, who had long advocated visits to photography studios. In his nearly constant lecturing circuit across the country, he argued persuasively that no one could be truly free until each individual could sit for and possess their own photographic likeness. In The New Art, men and women of color definitively hold the camera’s attention and the viewer’s as well.

Seen together in The New Art, the subjects in these photographs are not just sitters molded by a camera operator, but the cocreators of their own portraits. One can see this clearly in their eyes and in their many small, seductive gestures. Confronting a photograph that left an artist’s studio more than 150 years ago can be a humbling experience. The magic of photography brings one face to face with the past, and the present is never more vital than it is in these early pictures. That is the medium’s essence, its beauty, and its pathos.

Cameras

The exhibition will also showcase a small selection of 19th-century American cameras to further immerse visitors in the photography process. These have been kindly lent to The Met by Eric Taubman and the Penumbra Foundation.

Press release from The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Unknown Maker (American)
Young Man with Rooster
1850s
Daguerreotype with applied color
Case (open): 3 5/8 × 6 1/4 in. (9.2 × 15.9cm)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, William L. Schaeffer Collection
Promised Gift of Jennifer and Philip Maritz, in celebration of the Museum’s 150th Anniversary

Josiah Johnson Hawes (American, 1808-1901)
Winter on the Common, Boston
early 1850s
Salted paper print from glass negative
7 5/16 × 9 5/16 in. (18.5 × 23.7cm)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art William L. Schaeffer Collection
Promised Gift of Jennifer and Philip Maritz, in celebration of the Museum’s 150th Anniversary

Unknown Maker
Studio Photographer at Work
c. 1855
Salted paper print from glass negative
5 1/8 × 3 13/16 in. (13 × 9.7cm)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, William L. Schaeffer Collection
Promised Gift of Jennifer and Philip Maritz, in celebration of the Museum’s 150th Anniversary

Unknown Maker (American)
Laundress with Washtub
1860s
Ambrotype with applied colour
Case: 4 1/8 x 3 1/4 in. (4.2 x 3.2cm)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, William L. Schaeffer Collection
Promised Gift of Jennifer and Philip Maritz, in celebration of the Museum’s 150th Anniversary

Unknown Maker (American)
Actor Playing Hamlet, Holding a Skull
1860s
Tintype with applied colour
Case: 6 1/4 × 4 15/16 in. (15.8 × 12.6cm)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, William L. Schaeffer Collection
Promised Gift of Jennifer and Philip Maritz, in celebration of the Museum’s 150th Anniversary

John Moran (American born England, 1821-1903)
Showing Weather Among the Alleghenies
1861-1862
Albumen silver print from glass negative
4 3/4 × 3 5/8 in. (12.1 × 9.2cm)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, William L. Schaeffer Collection
Promised Gift of Jennifer and Philip Maritz, in celebration of the Museum’s 150th Anniversary

Unknown Maker
Roller Skate and Boot
1860s
Albumen silver print from glass negative
Mount: 4 1/8 × 2 7/16 in. (10.5 × 6.2cm)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, William L. Schaeffer Collection
Promised Gift of Jennifer and Philip Maritz, in celebration of the Museum’s 150th Anniversary

Unknown Maker (American)
Published by E. & H. T. Anthony (American, 1862-1880s)
Specimens of New York Bill Posting, No. 897 from the series
“Anthony’s Stereoscopic Views”
1863
Albumen silver print from glass negative
Mount: 3 1/4 × 6 3/4 in. (8.3 × 17.1 cm)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, William L. Schaeffer Collection
Promised Gift of Jennifer and Philip Maritz, in celebration of the Museum’s 150th Anniversary

Carleton E. Watkins (American, 1829-1916)
View on the Columbia River, from the O.R.R., Cascades, No. 1286 from the series “Pacific Coast”
1867
Albumen silver prints from glass negatives
Mount: 3 1/4 × 6 3/4 in. (8.2 × 17.1cm)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, William L. Schaeffer Collection
Promised Gift of Jennifer and Philip Maritz, in celebration of the Museum’s 150th Anniversary

Albert Cone Townsend (American, 1827-1914)
A Politician
1865-1867
Albumen silver print from glass negative
Mount: 4 × 2 7/16 in. (10.1 × 6.2cm)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, William L. Schaeffer Collection
Promised Gift of Jennifer and Philip Maritz, in celebration of the Museum’s 150th Anniversary

The New Art: American Photography, 1839-1910

Introductory panel

The world changed dramatically in September 1839 when photography was introduced to the public and quickly emerged as one of the wonders of modern times. Its invention marks the dawn of our own media-obsessed age in ways that become clear when we explore in depth the special language of daguerreotypes, tintypes, cartes de visite, stereographs, and other early photographic processes and formats.

This exhibition presents an adventurous new history of American photography from the medium’s beginnings to the first decade of the twentieth century. Major works by established artists are shown in dialogue with superb, never-before-seen photographs by obscure or unknown practitioners working in large urban centres and small towns across the expanding country. Tracing technological advancements and the development of picture formats, The New Art charts the remarkable change in the nation’s sense of itself that was driven by the phenomenal success of photography as a cultural, commercial, and artistic preoccupation.

All the works of art on view are drawn from an extraordinary promised gift to The Met of more than seven hundred rare photographs offered by Jennifer and Philip Maritz in celebration of the Museum’s 150th anniversary in 2020. The donors acquired the collection from William L. Schaeffer, a renowned Connecticut private photography dealer who had quietly built it over the last half century.

Daguerreotypes

The daguerreotype is a photographic image formed on the surface of a silver-plated sheet of copper fumed with iodine. Exposed in a wood box camera and developed with hot mercury vapours, each daguerreotype is unique. Invented in France by Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre and announced to the world in August 1839, it was the dominant form of photography in the U.S. for twenty years, until around 1860. The daguerreotype’s ability to permanently hold a detailed image – before then seen only fleetingly in a mirror – was astonishing. The shimmering result seemed in equal measure unbelievable and perfectly real, darkly mysterious yet scientifically verifiable, a shadowy fiction and a beautiful truth. In the U.S. the daguerreotype provided an opportunity for self-representation to many strata of society that were previously excluded from the realm of portraiture.

Ambrotypes

The ambrotype is similar in its process to the daguerreotype, but it uses a sheet of glass rather than copper as the image support. Popular in the U.S. from 1854 to 1870, the technique – invented in England but named by an American – was the predictable next development of photography. Although less visually alluring, it had marked advantages over the daguerreotype: it was cheaper to produce, it was easier to see (without glare) in most lighting conditions, and it eliminated the lateral reversal of the image characteristic of the earlier process. This was especially helpful with certain patrons who were annoyed, for example, by a jacket buttoning backward or a wedding ring appearing on the incorrect hand.

Tintypes

The tintype is a distinctively American style of photograph. Patented in February 1856 by Hamilton Lamphere Smith, the technique was inexpensive and relatively easy to master. It appealed as much to enterprising itinerant picture makers, who traveled to rural communities and made outdoor portraits and views, as it did to artists operating brick-and-mortar galleries. Rather than a coating of silver emulsion on copper (the daguerreotype) or glass (the ambrotype), the tintype’s support is a common sheet of blackened iron. Despite its misleading name, which was not in use until 1863, there is no tin present in a tintype. The process was wildly popular in the U.S. until the end of the nineteenth century.

Paper-print Photographs

From 1839 until the start of the Civil War in 1861, most photographs were made on metal (daguerreotypes and tintypes) or glass (ambrotypes). Beginning in the late 1850s, however, paper was widely adopted as the physical support for photographs. This gallery primarily features paper-print photographs and albums that date from 1850 to 1910. They are known by a variety of names that reflect changes in materiality and date of production: salted paper prints, generally made from paper negatives; albumen silver prints, made from glass negatives; and gelatin silver and platinum prints, made from glass or flexible film negatives. In this era, two formats of card-mounted paper-print photographs enjoyed remarkable success: the small carte-de-visite portrait and the stereographic view.

Cartes de Visite

The carte de visite – commonly known as a “cdv” – is a small photograph, usually an albumen silver print made from a glass negative, affixed to a 4-by-2½-inch stiff paper card. Invented in France in the mid-1850s as a portrait medium, it was the world’s first mass-produced and mass-consumed type of photographic collectible. Most photographers marked the mounts with their gallery names as a means of self-promotion and what today we would call brand-building. Ubiquitous in the U.S. from just before 1860 to 1880, the democratic, Victorian-age novelty was wildly popular with the public. “Cartomania,” as the phenomenon was known, is worthy of attention today as a resonant precursor to our own obsession with sharing images of celebrities and ourselves via social media.

Cabinet Cards

A cabinet card is essentially an oversize carte de visite. In vogue for three decades in the U.S. beginning around 1870, the 6 1/2-by-4 1/2-inch card-mounted photograph offered picture makers significantly more space and freedom to compose their visual narratives. After the deadly seriousness of the Civil War, cabinet cards frequently fulfilled a growing appetite for light-hearted diversion. They often feature elaborate props and accessories, exotic backdrops, and, as the century progressed, increasingly playful indoor and outdoor scenes.

Stereographs

Introduced in the late 1850s and prevalent into the twentieth century, the stereograph was not only a culturally significant invention but also a commercial boon to American photographers. When viewed through a device known as a stereoscope (or stereopticon), a pair of photographs of the same subject – made from two slightly different points of view – are perceived in the brain as a single, seemingly three-dimensional image. The dazzling binocular effect created an immersive experience, offering inexpensive armchair travel and a window on the world to millions of Americans.

Cyanotypes

Invented in 1842 by the British scientist John Herschel, a cyanotype is a naturally blue photograph made with iron salts. Early on, most cyanotypes took the form of nature studies made without a camera by placing botanical specimens (or other objects) directly in contact with sensitised paper and then exposing the composition in the sun. In the 1870s architects and engineers began using the process to duplicate their drawings, resulting in what are generally known as “blueprints.” Both economical and easily developed, the cyanotype reemerged in the late 1880s as a favourite choice of professional photographers and amateurs alike. It was often selected for large municipal documentary projects such as those seen here.

Intro and Section Wall Texts from The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Unknown Maker (American)
Railroad Worker (?) with Wye Level
c. 1870
Tintype with applied color
Case (open): 6 5/16 × 10 3/8 in. (16 × 26.4cm)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, William L. Schaeffer Collection
Promised Gift of Jennifer and Philip Maritz, in celebration of the Museum’s 150th Anniversary

Unknown Maker (American)
Musician
1870s
Tintype, with lock of hair and cut paper
Case (open): 2 × 3 1/2 in. (5.1 × 8.9cm)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, William L. Schaeffer Collection
Promised Gift of Jennifer and Philip Maritz, in celebration of the Museum’s 150th Anniversary

Golder & Robinson (American, active 1870s)
Comic Novelty Portrait
1870s
Tintype with applied colour
4 × 2 7/16 in. (10.1 × 6.2cm)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, William L. Schaeffer Collection
Promised Gift of Jennifer and Philip Maritz, in celebration of the Museum’s 150th Anniversary

Wenderoth, Taylor & Brown (American, active 1864-1871)
The Gallery of Arts & Manufacturers of Philadelphia
1871
Albumen silver prints from glass negative
Open: 13 3/4 x 19 in. (34.9 x 48.3cm)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, William L. Schaeffer Collection
Promised Gift of Jennifer and Philip Maritz, in celebration of the Museum’s 150th Anniversary

Anna K. Weaver (American, 1847/48-1913)
Welcome
1874
Albumen silver print from glass negative
10 7/8 x 17 1/2 in. (27.8 x 44.5cm)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, William L. Schaeffer Collection
Promised Gift of Jennifer and Philip Maritz, in celebration of the Museum’s 150th Anniversary

Chauncey L. Moore (American, died 1895)
Young Man Laying on Roof
1880s-1890s
Albumen silver print
Mount: 4 1/4 × 6 1/2 in. (10.8 × 16.5cm)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, William L. Schaeffer Collection
Promised Gift of Jennifer and Philip Maritz, in celebration of the Museum’s 150th Anniversary

Alice Austen (American, 1866-1952)
Group on Petria, Lake Mahopac
August 9, 1888
Albumen silver print from glass negative
6 × 8 1/8 in. (15.2 × 20.7cm)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, William L. Schaeffer Collection
Promised Gift of Jennifer and Philip Maritz, in celebration of the Museum’s 150th Anniversary

Unknown Maker (American) '748. Schoolmaster Hill Tobogganing, Franklin Park, Roxbury, Massachusetts' 1905

Unknown Maker (American)
Schoolmaster Hill Tobogganing, Franklin Park, Roxbury, Massachusetts
1905
Cyanotype
7 × 9 1/4 in. (17.8 × 23.5cm)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, William L. Schaeffer Collection
Promised Gift of Jennifer and Philip Maritz, in celebration of the Museum’s 150th Anniversary

The Metropolitan Museum of Art
1000 Fifth Avenue at 82nd Street
New York, New York 10028-0198
Phone: 212-535-7710

Opening hours:
Thursday – Tuesday 10am – 5pm
Closed Wednesday

The Metropolitan Museum of Art website

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Exhibitions: ‘Ricordati di me. I post mortem della collezione M. G. Jacob’ and ‘Attraverso la luce. I primi 20 anni della fotografia nelle collezioni della Fototeca’ at Biblioteca Panizzi, Reggio Emilia, Italy

Exhibition dates: 24th April – 5th July, 2025

‘Remember Me. Postmortems from the M. G. Jacob Collection’ and ‘Through Light. The First 20 Years of Photography in the Photo Library Collections’

Postmortem curators: Monica Leoni, Elisabeth Sciarretta with Laura Gasparini and Michael G. Jacob

Attraverso la luce curators: Monica Leoni, Elisabeth Sciarretta with Laura Gasparini

'Ricordati di me. I post mortem della collezione M. G. Jacob'

Sleeping beauty

“When I am dead and in my grave

And all my bones are rotten.

When this you see remember me

Lest I should be forgotten.”

This is the first posting on Art Blart on the phenomenon of postmortem photography for exhibitions on this subject are few and far between.

Any photograph is a “little death” which “refers to the concept of “la petite mort” or “the little death,” a French idiom and euphemism for the momentary loss of consciousness or breath, often associated with orgasm, but also used to describe the act of freezing a moment in time through photography. This concept suggests that photography, by capturing a specific moment, essentially stops time and thus, in a way, creates a small, contained death of that moment.” (Google AI Overview)

All photographs (and especially postmortem photography where the deceased are memorialised through images) can be seen as “memento mori”, a Latin phrase meaning “remember you must die,” reminding us that of the impermanence of life – for photographs “capture a moment in time, forever preserving a fleeting instant and highlighting the passage of time and the inevitability of death.” (Google AI Overview)

As Susan Sontag observed, “All photographs are memento mori. To take a photograph is to participate in another person’s (or thing’s) mortality, vulnerability, mutability.” (On Photography)

Victorians were faced with the vicissitudes of fortune, and death at any age was a common occurrence due to illness with no antibiotics available to treat the many lethal diseases. They became stoic in the face of the impermanence of life, stoic in the face of death and through photography, sought to record into permanence the likenesses of the departed (the beloved), so that they could remember and honour them. Photographs thus became symbols of mortality which encouraged reflection on the meaning and fleetingness of life…

But unlike a photographic self-portrait, where a human looks at their image (in which they are dead) which reminds them about their physical death in the future, an anterior future of which death is the stake (and the prick of discovery of this equivalence)1 – in postmortem photography the little death and the actual death are as one for the anterior future can never be viewed by the subject of the photograph (they are dead), a separation only revived in the heart and mind of another.

Through postmortem photography the deceased live in an interstitial space, forever brought back to life in the eyes of the viewer as we reawaken and reactivate their spirit in the world. I was once here and I am again. Remember me.

Thus the euphemism “sleeping” is appropriate (sleeping beauty awakened once more with a kiss), as the viewer transcends time bringing past dead back into living world – where past, present and future coalesce into single point in time – their death and our death connected through the gaze and the knowledge of our discontinuity. Eons contracted into an eternal moment.2

In this expanded-specific moment in time, through an awareness of our own dis/continuity, what we are doing is talking about something that is remarkable. We are moving towards a language that defines the human condition…

Dr Marcus Bunyan

1/ Roland Barthes, Camera Lucida (La Chambre claire), Section 39, 1980

2/ Marcus Bunyan. “This is not my favourite photograph,” part of What makes a great photograph? at the Centre for Contemporary Photography (CCP), Fitzroy, Wednesday 5th December 2012 [Online] Cited 27/06/2025

Many thankx to the Biblioteca Panizzi and Michael G. Jacob for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

Unknown photographer (American)
A sleeping man
c. 1846
Daguerreotype
Title given by the collector

Unknown photographer (American) 'A sleeping man' c. 1846 (detail)

Unknown photographer (American)
A sleeping man (detail)
c. 1846
Daguerreotype
Title given by the collector

Ricordati di me

Una esposizione dedicata alla collezione di Michael G. Jacob, alla riscoperta della fotografia “post mortem”: la realizzazione di immagini commemorative di familiari defunti per genitori, amici e parenti era un aspetto significativo del lavoro quotidiano di molti studi fotografici vittoriani.

An exhibition dedicated to the collection of Michael G. Jacob, to the rediscovery of “post mortem” photography: the creation of commemorative images of deceased family members for parents, friends and relatives was a significant aspect of the daily work of many Victorian photographic studios.

Text translated by Google Translate from the Biblioteca Panizzi website

Unknown photographer (American)
A sleeping girl
c. 1846
Daguerreotype
Title given by the collector

Unknown photographer (American)
A woman with long fingernails, bured teeth & cut flowers
c. 1846
Daguerreotype
Title given by the collector

Unknown photographer (American) 'A woman with long fingernails, bured teeth & cut flowers' c. 1846 (detail)

Unknown photographer (American)
A woman with long fingernails, bured teeth & cut flowers (detail)
c. 1846
Daguerreotype
Title given by the collector

Unknown photographer (American)
Young girl holding a daguerrotype
c. 1846
Daguerreotype
Title given by the collector

L’esposizione dedicata alla collezione di Michael G. Jacob alla riscoperta della fotografia “post mortem” nell’epoca vittoriana, ha l’intento di illustrare il legame di affezione e rispetto di quella cultura che indusse i vivi a ricordare i propri defunti, analizzando come, dopo gli anni Quaranta del XIX secolo, la fotografia sia diventata centrale anche nel modo di sentire e vivere il lutto.

La pratica di raffigurare il volto del defunto è antichissima e la fotografia si innesta in questa tradizione, modificando il modo di vivere e comunicare il lutto. Come tutte le tradizioni più o meno radicate, anche nella colta ed evoluta Europa le esequie e il lutto seguono consuetudini e usanze che si sono perdute o modificate nel tempo. Il galateo del lutto, in epoca vittoriana, è uno degli aspetti per noi meno comprensibili ma più affascinanti, i cui codici, nel tempo, sono andati perduti o si sono radicalmente trasformati.

I rituali funebri, così come venivano concepiti dai vittoriani, si manifestavano in comportamenti, abbigliamento e usanze che spesso appaiono eccessivi per la sensibilità moderna e hanno oggi bisogno di essere decodificati per comprenderne la vasta iconografia. L’antropologia e la sociologia ci hanno spiegato quali reazioni emotive e formali l’essere umano ha avuto nel corso del tempo di fronte alla morte e al corpo dei defunti, indotte dalla cultura a cui apparteniamo, mentre la fotografia contribuisce sostanzialmente a documentare questa cultura del lutto.

The exhibition dedicated to the Michael G. Jacob collection and the rediscovery of “post mortem” photography in the Victorian era, aims to illustrate the bond of affection and respect of that culture that induced the living to remember their dead, analysing how, after the 1840s, photography also became central to the way of feeling and experiencing mourning.

The practice of depicting the face of the deceased is very ancient and photography is grafted onto this tradition, modifying the way of experiencing and communicating mourning. Like all more or less rooted traditions, even in cultured and evolved Europe, funerals and mourning follow customs and habits that have been lost or modified over time. The etiquette of mourning, in the Victorian era, is one of the aspects that is least comprehensible to us but most fascinating, whose codes, over time, have been lost or have radically transformed.

Funeral rituals, as conceived by the Victorians, manifested themselves in behaviors, clothing and customs that often seem excessive for modern sensibilities and today need to be decoded to understand their vast iconography. Anthropology and sociology have explained to us what emotional and formal reactions human beings have had over time in front of death and the body of the deceased, induced by the culture to which we belong, while photography contributes substantially to documenting this culture of mourning.

Text translated by Google Translate from the Biblioteca Panizzi website

Unknown photographer (American)
A mother, daughter and dead infant
c. 1848
Daguerreotype retouched in colour
Title given by the collector

Unknown photographer (American)
A family group
1853
Daguerreotype
Date in handwritten characters on the lower edge of the daguerreotype: “July 15 1853”
Title given by the collector

Unknown photographer (American) 'A family group' 1853 (detail)

Unknown photographer (American)
A family group (detail)
1853
Daguerreotype
Date in handwritten characters on the lower edge of the daguerreotype: “July 15 1853”
Title given by the collector

Unknown photographer (American)
Sleeping baby
c. 1860
Ambrotype
Title given by the collector

Unknown photographer (American) 'Sleeping baby' c. 1860 (detail)

Unknown photographer (American)
Sleeping baby (detail)
c. 1860
Ambrotype
Title given by the collector

Unknown photographer (American)
A Sleeping child
c. 1860
Ferrotype
Title given by the collector

Attraverso la luce

In occasione di Fotografia Europea, la Biblioteca Panizzi propone una mostra dedicata ai primi 20 anni della fotografia nelle collezioni della Fototeca attraverso l’esposizione di fotografie su carta salata, albumine, e dagherrotipi, tra cui la prestigiosa collezione di Michael G. Jacob.

On the occasion of Fotografia Europea, the Panizzi Library presents an exhibition dedicated to the first 20 years of photography in the collections of the Photo Library through the display of photographs on salted paper, albumen, and daguerreotypes, including the prestigious collection of Michael G. Jacob.

Text translated by Google Translate from the Biblioteca Panizzi website

John Brown
Portrait of a Young Man
c. 1848
3 Daguerreotypes

John Brown
Portrait of a Young Man
c. 1848
Daguerreotype

La mostra presenta un percorso attraverso rari esempi di fotografie su carta salata e numerosi dagherrotipi, ambrotipi, ferrotipi e album delle collezioni della Fototeca della Bibliotecca Panizzi. Una narrazione, quindi, che ci portera indietro nel tempo, agli anni pionieristici della sperimentazione sceintifica attraverso la luce, la chimica e la trasformazione di materiali quali l’argento, per arrivare ali’arte del ritratto e del paesaggio e giungere a quel’oggetto di culto che e stata la fotografia delle origini.

The exhibition presents a journey through rare examples of photographs on salted paper and numerous daguerreotypes, ambrotypes, ferrotypes and albums from the collections of the Photo Library of the Panizzi Library. A narrative, therefore, that will take us back in time, to the pioneering years of scientific experimentation through light, chemistry and the transformation of materials such as silver, to arrive at the art of portraiture and landscape and reach that cult object that was the photography of the origins.

Text translated by Google Translate from the Biblioteca Panizzi website

Unknown photographer (American)
Dead child in his mother’s arms
c. 1850
Daguerreotype

Unknown photographer (American)
Girl holding a flower
c. 1850
Daguerreotype

Unknown photographer (American)
Freckled girl with daguerreotype
c. 1850
Daguerreotype retouched in colour

Unknown photographer (American)
Tinted woman
c. 1850
Daguerreotype retouched in colour

Unknown photographer (American)
Portrait of mother with child
c. 1850
Daguerreotype

La magia della luce è stata per secoli oggetto di importanti studi scientifici, ma ha affascinato anche e soprattutto il mondo dell’arte, oltre che la cultura popolare. La fotografia, attraverso i vari procedimenti storici, si inserisce in questo capitolo della storia visuale, intrecciandosi con arte, scienza e tecnologia, unite alla passione comune per la nascita di un nuovo e accattivante linguaggio. La mostra presenta un percorso attraverso gli esemplari che appartengono alla collezione di Michael G. Jacob, ultima acquisita grazie alla generosa donazione di questo importante collezionista e studioso, insieme a rari esempi di fotografie su carta salata e numerosi dagherrotipi, ambrotipi, ferrotipi e album delle collezioni della Fototeca della Biblioteca Panizzi. Una narrazione, quindi, che ci porterà indietro nel tempo, agli anni pionieristici della sperimentazione scientifica attraverso la luce, la chimica e la trasformazione di materiali quali l’argento, per arrivare all’arte del ritratto e del paesaggio e giungere a quell’oggetto di culto che è stata la fotografia delle origini.

The magic of light has been the subject of important scientific studies for centuries, but it has also fascinated the world of art, as well as popular culture. Photography, through its various historical processes, fits into this chapter of visual history, intertwining with art, science and technology, combined with a shared passion for the birth of a new and captivating language. The exhibition presents a journey through the specimens that belong to the collection of Michael G. Jacob, the last acquired thanks to the generous donation of this important collector and scholar, together with rare examples of photographs on salted paper and numerous daguerreotypes, ambrotypes, ferrotypes and albums from the collections of the Photo Library of the Panizzi Library. A narrative, therefore, that will take us back in time, to the pioneering years of scientific experimentation through light, chemistry and the transformation of materials such as silver, to arrive at the art of portraiture and landscape and reach that cult object that was early photography.

Text translated by Google Translate from the Biblioteca Panizzi website

Unknown photographer (American)
Coach in park
c. 1860
Ambrotype

Unknown photographer (American)
Portrait of women
c. 1860
Ferrotype

Unknown photographer (American)
Double vignette friends
c. 1860
Ferrotype

Unknown photographer (American)
Well dressed lady
c. 1880
Ambrotype

Biblioteca Panizzi
Via Luigi Carlo Farini, 3,
42121 Reggio Emilia RE, Italy

Opening hours:
Monday – Saturday, 9am – 7pm

Biblioteca Panizzi website

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Exhibition: ‘Beyond Symmetry: George Dureau’s Celebrations of the Human Form’ at the Bob Mizer Foundation, San Francisco

Exhibition dates: 6th March – 28th June, 2025

Curators: Dennis Bell, founder of the Bob Mizer Foundation, and De Kwok, Head of Public Programming

*PLEASE NOTE: THIS POSTING CONTAINS ART PHOTOGRAPHS OF MALE NUDITY – IF YOU DO NOT LIKE PLEASE DO NOT LOOK, FAIR WARNING HAS BEEN GIVEN*

George Dureau (American, 1930-2014)
Untitled
Nd
Vintage silver gelatin print

Celebrations of the Human Spirit

~ Honesty

~ ~ Integrity

~ ~ ~ Dignity

~ ~ ~ ~ Vulnerability

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Respect

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Love

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Friendship

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Sexuality

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Strength

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Beauty

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Form

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Humanism

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Identity

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Personality

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Presence

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Intimacy

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Nude

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Empathy

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Revelation

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Spirit

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Truth

I’ve been wanting to do a posting on the magnificent New Orleans photographer George Dureau’s work for a long while but because there are so few exhibitions of his photographs I have never had the opportunity – until now.

It’s a great pity that his work is not as recognised as that of his contemporaries, Peter Hujar and Robert Mapplethorpe. Indeed, you can still pick up an original Dureau in the secondhand art market for around $500 whereas Mapplethorpe’s photographs run into the many thousands.

His photographs are not romantic, certainly not sentimental. He was fascinated by the people he photographed, their truth. These are the stories he conceptualised, posed, lit and photographed, stories that emerged from his imagination, that revealed surprising things about his subjects.

Unlike the clinical formalism of Mapplethorpe, Dureau worked with a poetry that was always present. Indeed, there is something so eloquent and sincere about his photographs for in them the artist draws (Dureau was also a painter) the mysteries of the soul of his subjects.

Dureau’s response to the world and the photographs that emanate from that engagement are humanist in the best sense of the word, revealing his subjects in a direct way that emphasises an individual’s dignity, worth and capacity for self-realisation.

Thus, I feel his photographs are a celebration not just of the human form but more importantly, of the human spirit.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

Many thankx to Dennis Bell, Corbin Crable and the Bob Mizer Foundation for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

“I live a warm, involved humanist sort of life. There are lots of people passing through it. I have exciting experiences and learn things about people. They always go into my art. I cannot have an experience and it not go into my art.”

George Dureau

John H. Lawrence, HNOC emeritus director of museum programs and himself a fine-art photographer, said Dureau’s portraits reveal a tangible intimacy between photographer and subject.

“George respected the people he asked to sit for him,” said Lawrence. “I don’t say that from a knowledge, just from what the photographs show. The direct stare into the camera, it may have been at George’s direction. Even with the gaze directed in that fashion, you don’t get the kind of quality you see in these portraits unless there is a mutual respect between the photographer and the subject. There is a vibe there that is based on these two people having respect for each other as the photograph is made.”

John H. Lawrence quoted in Dave Walker. “The Intimate Eye of George Dureau,” on The Historic New Orleans Collection website, December 31, 2021 [Online] Cited 20/06/2025

This exhibition presents 25 evocative black-and-white portraits by George Dureau, capturing the resilience and vulnerability of his subjects – from athletes to marginalised individuals – against the vibrant cultural backdrop of New Orleans, where beauty and humanity converge in transformative ways.

Installation view of the exhibition Beyond Symmetry: George Dureau’s Celebrations of the Human Form at the Bob Mizer Foundation, San Francisco showing Dureau’s photograph Craig Blanchette, 1992

Installation views of the exhibition Beyond Symmetry: George Dureau’s Celebrations of the Human Form at the Bob Mizer Foundation, San Francisco showing Dureau’s photograph John Slate, Nd

Installation view of the exhibition Beyond Symmetry: George Dureau’s Celebrations of the Human Form at the Bob Mizer Foundation, San Francisco

Installation views of the exhibition Beyond Symmetry: George Dureau’s Celebrations of the Human Form at the Bob Mizer Foundation, San Francisco

The Bob Mizer Foundation proudly presents Beyond Symmetry: George Dureau’s Celebrations of the Human Form, an exhibition showcasing 25 evocative black-and-white portraits by the acclaimed New Orleans artist George Dureau. This compelling collection captures the resilience, vulnerability, and individuality of Dureau’s subjects, spanning athletes, performers, and marginalised individuals.

Dureau’s photography transcends traditional portraiture, blending classical composition with the rich cultural spirit of New Orleans. His intimate works explore themes of identity and dignity, transforming vulnerabilities into powerful symbols of humanity’s resilience. The photographs invite viewers to reimagine beauty as inclusive, diverse, and multifaceted.

“George Dureau’s work is a testament to his unique ability to celebrate the human form while challenging societal norms,” says Den Bell, founder of the Bob Mizer Foundation. “His portraits honour the individuality of his subjects while weaving in the vibrancy of New Orleans, making his work timeless and deeply impactful.”

“Dureau photographed people with kindness and sympathy,” added Mizer Foundation’s Head of Programming, De Kwok, “It has been said that his subject matter became a member of his extended family and you can clearly see that in the way his camera lovingly captured them.”

The exhibition will be on view from March 6 to June 28, 2025, at the Bob Mizer Foundation’s Main Gallery. An opening reception will be held on March 6 from 6.00 pm – 8.30 pm, providing an opportunity to explore the works and celebrate Dureau’s extraordinary legacy.

About George Dureau

A celebrated figure in the art world, George Dureau (1930-2014) was renowned for his black-and-white photography and classical paintings. Rooted in the rich cultural heritage of New Orleans, Dureau’s art challenges conventions and highlights the resilience of the human spirit. His work has been exhibited internationally and continues to inspire audiences with its profound emotional depth and technical mastery.

Text from the Bob Mizer Foundation website

George Dureau (American, 1930-2014)
Wilbert with Hook
Nd
Vintage silver gelatin print
20 x 16 inches

George Dureau (American, 1930-2014)
B.J. Robinson
1995
Vintage silver gelatin print

George Dureau (American, 1930-2014)
Troy Brown “For Tennessee”
Nd
Vintage silver gelatin print

George Dureau (American, 1930-2014)
Untitled (Sonny Singleton)
Nd
Vintage silver gelatin print

This exhibition highlights the remarkable artistry of George Dureau through 25 compelling black-and-white portraits that showcase his unique vision. Created during the 1970s and 1980s, these photographs transcend traditional boundaries, blending classical composition with an unflinching exploration of the human experience. Dureau’s subjects – athletes, performers, friends, and individuals often marginalised by society – are elevated to iconic status through his lens.

The images reveal a profound empathy and an unshakable belief in the inherent dignity of every individual. With a studio rooted in the vibrant cultural milieu of New Orleans, Dureau captured not only the physical form but also the spirit of his subjects, transforming their vulnerabilities into striking symbols of resilience and humanity. His work redefines beauty as inclusive and multifaceted, challenging societal norms and inviting reflection on identity, strength, and community.

This exhibition Beyond Symmetry: George Dureau’s Celebrations of the Human Form presents 25 photographs by one of New Orleans’ most celebrated artists. Dureau’s black-and-white portraits, taken primarily during the 1970s and 1980s, capture the raw beauty, strength, and vulnerability of his subjects. Known for his classical approach and profound empathy, Dureau’s work invites us to confront traditional notions of beauty, body, and identity while celebrating the richness of the human experience.

George Dureau’s intimate portraits are both timeless and grounded in the rich cultural tapestry of New Orleans. His subjects include athletes, performers, friends, and marginalised individuals – including amputees and people with disabilities – rendered with dignity and compassion. Through his lens, Dureau elevates these figures to monumental status, echoing the grandeur of classical sculpture and Renaissance painting. His compositions emphasize the interplay of light and shadow, underscoring the sculptural quality of the human form.

One cannot discuss Dureau’s photography without acknowledging his connection to the city of New Orleans. His studio in the French Quarter became a space of artistic exploration, where he cultivated a dynamic and diverse community. This exhibition captures the spirit of that time and place, highlighting the distinct cultural influences that informed his work. The city’s unique blend of European, African, and Creole traditions provided a fertile ground for Dureau’s creativity, inspiring him to blend the classical and contemporary, the local and the universal.

Dureau’s photographs are celebrated not only for their technical mastery but also for their emotional depth. His subjects often meet the camera’s gaze directly, creating a sense of intimacy and trust. This rapport between artist and subject is palpable, revealing layers of vulnerability and strength. By choosing subjects who were often overlooked or marginalised, Dureau challenges societal norms and compels viewers to reconsider preconceived notions of worth and beauty.

This exhibition also explores the parallels between Dureau’s work and that of his contemporary, Robert Mapplethorpe. While the two artists shared a fascination with the human form and the dramatic use of black-and-white photography, their approaches diverged in significant ways. Dureau’s images are imbued with warmth and humanity that reflect his deep connection to his subjects. Unlike Mapplethorpe, who often sought a polished and idealised aesthetic, Dureau embraced imperfection and individuality, resulting in portraits that are as soulful as they are striking.

Among the works on display are several of Dureau’s most iconic images. Craig Blanchette, 1992 (above) captures a young man with a disarming gaze, his body framed in chiaroscuro that highlights his muscular form and absence of legs. The image challenges the viewer to see beyond the physical difference, emphasising Craig’s confidence and vitality. Similarly, Roosevelt Singleton features a subject with dwarfism, his ethereal presence heightened by the soft, diffused light. These works exemplify Dureau’s ability to transform the ordinary into the extraordinary, presenting his subjects as both individuals and archetypes.

Dureau’s artistry extends beyond the purely visual. His photographs resonate with themes of resilience, identity, and community. They ask us to confront the complexities of human existence and to celebrate the diversity of the human condition. By placing marginalised individuals at the forefront of his work, Dureau not only elevates their stories but also reflects the universal truths of vulnerability and strength that connect us all.

This exhibition offers viewers the opportunity to engage with Dureau’s legacy in a deeply personal way. Each photograph serves as a testament to the power of art to reveal the unseen, to challenge the status quo, and to inspire empathy. Through his lens, Dureau reminds us that every individual – regardless of their physical appearance or societal status – possesses inherent dignity and beauty.

The 31 photographs selected for this show represent the breadth and depth of Dureau’s oeuvre. From tender portraits of friends to bold explorations of the male nude, the images on display capture the full spectrum of his artistic vision. Each piece is a study in contrasts: light and shadow, strength and vulnerability, individuality and universality. Together, they form a cohesive narrative that celebrates the complexity of the human experience.

George Dureau’s work has left an indelible mark on the world of photography and beyond. His ability to see and celebrate the humanity in every subject has cemented his place as a true visionary. This exhibition, Beyond Symmetry: George Dureau’s Celebrations of the Human Form, invites you to step into his world – a world where beauty is redefined, where differences are celebrated, and where the human spirit shines through in every frame.

As you explore these images, consider the stories they tell and the questions they pose. How do we define beauty? What does it mean to see and be seen? And how can art challenge us to look beyond the surface and connect with the essence of another human being? In celebrating the life and work of George Dureau, we celebrate the power of art to transform, to inspire, and to unite us all.

Press release from the Bob Mizer Foundation

George Dureau (American, 1930-2014)
B.J. Robinson
Nd
Vintage silver gelatin print

George Dureau (American, 1930-2014)
Untitled
Nd
Vintage silver gelatin print

George Dureau (American, 1930-2014)
Untitled (Bob Lang)
Nd
Vintage silver gelatin print

Bob Mizer Foundation
920 Larkin St., San Francisco, CA

Opening hours:
Tues – Sat 12 – 6pm

Bob Mizer Foundation website

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Exhibition: ‘American Photography’ at Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Exhibition dates: 7th February – 9th June, 2025

Curators: Mattie Boom and Hans Rooseboom

Amanda López (American, b. 1982) 'Homegirls, San Francisco' 2008 from the exhibition 'American Photography' at Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, Feb - June, 2025

Amanda López (American, b. 1982)
Homegirls, San Francisco
2008
Inkjet print
320 x 435 mm
National Museum for American History, Washington (DC)
© Amanda López

Let’s get down to brass tacks.

While I haven’t physically seen this exhibition – according to Rijksmuseum “the Netherlands’ first major survey exhibition of American photography… the first comprehensive survey of American photography in Europe … reflect[ing] the rich and multifaceted history of photography in the United States. The exhibition presents the country as seen through the eyes of American photographers, and shows how the medium has permeated every aspect of our lives: in art, news, advertising and everyday life” – you can glean a lot about an exhibition from the installation photographs.

The feeling I get from the installation photographs is of a particularly meagre offering – gallery halls with minimal photographs, huge empty spaces (just look at the installation photograph Curio box made of cigarette packets with portraits of roommates, late 1960s below) – and to then consider this is supposed to be “the first comprehensive survey of American photography in Europe” and reflect the large photographic holdings of the Rijksmuseum. Really? You wouldn’t really know it from looking at “the show”.

Perhaps the problem stems from the rationale of the exhibition:

“There is no hierarchy to the selection. A sequence of rooms present numerous fields – portraiture, landscape, advertising work, art photography – like chapters in a novel. “We tried to find surprising images and things we’ve never seen before,” says Boom. The result is a broad mix, shaped with co-curator Hans Rooseboom, of anonymous photography, commercial work, news coverage, medical prints and propaganda, presented in tandem with masterpieces such as Robert Frank’s enigmatic picture of a woman watching a New Jersey parade in 1955, her face partially obscured by an unfurled Stars and Stripes.”1 (see below)

The phrase “a broad mix” says it all: a mishmash of anonymous photography, commercial work, fine art photography, the political power of photography, photographs on racism, war, etc., … taking on too much in one exhibition (the American landscape is largely absent from the walls), proclaiming to be a comprehensive survey of American photography. An impossible task.

“The exhibition has deliberately departed from a “top 100” approach, Rooseboom [one of the curators] adds, stating “that would have been too easy”.”2

Easy to say (and move away from) but not easy to do…

What I feel is lacking in this subjective selection (all exhibitions are subjective) is the focused “energy” present in American photography radiating from the wall – the energy that documents and imagines the growth of a nation and the passion of the artists that capture that energy.

Where is, for example, the passion of Sally Mann’s photographs of the American South, the New York buildings of Berenice Abbott, George Dureau’s portraits of friends and amputees in New Orleans, the narrative stories of Duane Michals or the darkness / otherness that has always been present from the very start in American photography (for example Ralph Eugene Meatyard). In the selection in the posting, the photographs of Robert Frank (a foreigner, whose photographs of America were reviled when they were first published) and Nan Goldin (photographs of counter culture America) come closest to this alternate perspective, both outsiders from the main stream point of view.

Thus, while there are some interesting photographs in the exhibition it’s all too ho hum for me, perhaps a “vapour” of something almost brought into consciousness.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

1/ Christian House. “American Photography: unforgettable images of the beauty and brutality of a nation,” on The Guardian website Thu 13 Feb 2025 [Online] Cited 06/06/2025

2/ Deborah Nicholls-Lee. “Eight images that tell the story of America,” on the BBC website 12 February 2025 [Online] Cited 06/06/2025

Many thankx to the Rijksmuseum for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

Installation view of the exhibition ‘American Photography’ at Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam showing at right photography by Robert Frank

Installation view of the exhibition American Photography at Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam showing at right photographs by Robert Frank (below)
Photo: Rijksmuseum/Olivier Middendorp

Robert Frank (Swiss, 1924-2019)
City fathers – Hoboken, New Jersey
1955
Gelatin silver print

Robert Frank (Swiss, 1924-2019)
Parade – Hoboken, New Jersey
1955
Gelatin silver print

Robert Frank (Swiss, 1924-2019)
U.S. 91, Leaving Blackfoot, Idaho
1956
Gelatin silver print

Robert Frank (Swiss, 1924-2019)
New York City
1955
Gelatin silver print

Rijksmuseum moves you to The American Dream. To the real American. To unexpected recognition. The Rijksmuseum is staging the Netherlands’ first major survey exhibition of American photography.

The more than 200 works on display in American Photography reflect the rich and multifaceted history of photography in the United States. The exhibition presents the country as seen through the eyes of American photographers, and shows how the medium has permeated every aspect of our lives: in art, news, advertising and everyday life.

Over the past decades the Rijksmuseum has been assembling a collection of American photographic work. This is the first time we are exhibiting photographs from the collection, alongside loaned works from American, Dutch and other European collections. This show includes iconic photographs by the likes of Sally Mann, Robert Frank, Lisette Model, Nan Goldin, Richard Avedon, Andy Warhol, Paul Strand, Diane Arbus and James Van Der Zee, as well as surprising images by unknown and anonymous photographers.

Text from the Rijksmuseum website

Installation view of the exhibition ‘American Photography’ at Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Installation view of the exhibition American Photography at Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam showing in the bottom image at left, Sally Mann’s Jessie #34
(2004, below); at second left, Chuck Close’s Phil [Photo Maquette of Philip Glass] (1969, below); and at third right, László Moholy-Nagy’s Parking lot in Chicago, 1938 (1938, below)
Photo: Rijksmuseum/Olivier Middendorp

Sally Mann (American, b. 1951)
Jessie #34
2004
Gelatin Silver enlargement print from 8 x 10 in. collodion wet-plate negative, with Soluvar matte varnish mixed with diatomaceous earth

Chuck Close (American, 1940-2021)
Phil [Photo Maquette of Philip Glass]
1969
16 x 12 inches (40.64 x 30.48cm)
Gelatin silver print mounted on mat board
© Chuck Close

László Moholy-Nagy (Hungarian, 1895-1946)
Parking lot in Chicago, 1938
1938
Gelatin silver photograph
23.8 × 33.8cm

Installation view of the exhibition American Photography at Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam showing the work of Nan Goldin from The Ballad of Sexual Dependency (below)
Photo: Rijksmuseum/Olivier Middendorp

Nan Goldin (American, b. 1953)
Cookie with Me After Being Hit at the SPE Conference, Baltimore, MD, 1986
1986

Nan Goldin (American, b. 1953)
Cookie and Vittorio’s Wedding: The Ring, NYC, 1986
1986

Nan Goldin (American, b. 1953)
Cookie in the Bathroom at Hawaii 5.0, NYC, 1986
1986

The Rijksmuseum presents the first comprehensive survey of American photography in Europe. With more than 200 works spanning three centuries, American Photography will be an exploration of the rich and multifaceted history of photography in the United States, showing how the medium has permeated every aspect of our lives: in art, news, advertising and everyday life.

Over the past decade, the Rijksmuseum has built an extensive collection of American Photography. This exhibition is the first ever presentation of Rijksmuseum’s collection, which will be shown together with loans from over 30 collections in the United States, the Netherlands and other European countries. Works by icons including Sally Mann, Robert Frank, Lisette Model, Nan Goldin, Richard Avedon, Andy Warhol, Paul Strand, Diane Arbus and James Van Der Zee will be on view alongside eye-opening photographs by unknown and anonymous photographers.

The exhibition is possible by Rijksmuseum’s major partnership with Baker McKenzie. American Photography runs from 7 February to 9 June 2025. Concurrently with American Photography, Carrie Mae Weems’s 2021 series Painting the Town will be on show in the Rijksmuseum’s photography gallery.

American Photography will give picture of the country through the eyes of American photographers, showing the country in all its complexity. The exhibition takes themes such as the American dream, landscapes and portraiture to trace how photographers increasingly reflected on changes and events in their country. A major topic of the show is photography’s evolution as an art form, from 19th-century daguerreotypes of frost flowers on a window to the work of Paul Strand, Charles Sheeler, Sally Mann, Irving Penn, Dawoud Bey and Sarah Sense. Another important theme is how photography has grown to be a part of everyday life, which is demonstrated by family portraits, advertisements, postcards, gramophone record covers and more.

Press release from Rijksmuseum

Installation view of the exhibition ‘American Photography’ at Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam showing at right, Jocelyn Lee's 'Julia in Greenery' (2005)

Installation view of the exhibition American Photography at Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam showing in the bottom photograph at right, Jocelyn Lee’s Julia in Greenery (2005, below)
Photo: Rijksmuseum/Olivier Middendorp

Jocelyn Lee (American, b. 1962)
Julia in Greenery
2005
Archival Pigment Print
20 × 24 in | 50.8 × 61cm

Installation view of the exhibition American Photography at Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam showing in the display case, Curio box made of cigarette packets with portraits of roommates, late 1960s (below)
Photo: Rijksmuseum/Olivier Middendorp

Curio box made of cigarette packets with portraits of roommates, late 1960s from the exhibition 'American Photography' at Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, Feb - June, 2025

Curio box made of cigarette packets with portraits of roommates, late 1960s
Wood, handwoven cigarette packets, gelatin silver prints
140 x 110 x 195 mm
Collection of Daile Kaplan, Pop Photographica, New York
Photo: Andy Romer Photography, New York

Installation view of the exhibition American Photography at Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam showing at left, Diane Arbus’ A young man in curlers at home on West 20th St., N.Y.C. 1966 (1966, below); and at second left, Ming Smith’s America Seen Through Stars and Stripes, New York City (1976, below)
Photo: Rijksmuseum/Olivier Middendorp

Diane Arbus (American, 1923-1971)
A young man in curlers at home on West 20th St., N.Y.C. 1966
1966
Gelatin silver print

Ming Smith (American, b. 1951) 'America Seen Through Stars and Stripes, New York City' 1976 from the exhibition 'American Photography' at Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, Feb - June, 2025

Ming Smith (American, b. 1951)
America Seen Through Stars and Stripes, New York City
1976
Gelatin silver print
318 x 470 mm
Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond (VA)
Adolph D. and Wiliams C. Williams Fund

In the post-war years, mass immigration to the US brought new ways of thinking. the US took over from Europe as a cultural trendsetter, and photography was eventually accepted as an art form. Playful approaches to photography emerged, moving beyond documenting people and places to provoking emotion and inviting deep questions. Ming Smith’s America Seen Through Stars and Stripes (1976), created on the bicentenary of the Declaration of Independence, turns again to the flag inviting America to reflect on its history. By placing a figure in mirrored sunglasses in front of a shop window, she creates a disorientating mesh of reflective surfaces. The grid structure suggests incarceration but – in combination with the round glasses and the stars on the flag – also creates an abstract composition reminiscent of modern art. “She’s a careful observer, playing with all these layers in the image,” says Boom.

Smith explores the artistic potential of photography, experimenting with double-exposure, shutter speed and collage. In one version of this image, she paints on bold red stripes, altering this snapshot of the US with marks that resemble blood or flames. Smith’s work builds on the civil rights movement that preceded it and features activists such as James Baldwin and Alvin Ailey. She was the first woman to join the African-American photography collective the Kamoinge Workshop and the first black woman to have her work acquired by the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). Yet her demographic was largely overlooked by the art world. “I worked to capture black culture, the richness, the love. That was my incentive,” she told the Financial Times in 2019. “It wasn’t like I was going to make money from it, or fame – not even love, because there were no shows.”

Deborah Nicholls-Lee. “Eight images that tell the story of America,” on the BBC website 12 February 2025 [Online] Cited 06/06/2025

Henry Fitz Jnr (American, 1808-1863)
Self-portrait
1840
Daguerreotype
Smithsonian National Museum of American History, Washington (DC)

In 1840, using a self-made copper plate, Henry Fitz Jnr produced one of the world’s first selfies, his eyes gently closed to prevent any blinking from spoiling the result. In creating this striking blue image, he was doing more than record his appearance; he was also documenting America’s first essays into an art form that would tell its story in radical new ways.

Deborah Nicholls-Lee. “Eight images that tell the story of America,” on the BBC website 12 February 2025 [Online] Cited 06/06/2025

Thomas Martin Easterly (American, 1809-1882)
Chief Keokuk (Watchful Fox)
1847
Daguerreotype
Missouri History Museum

Anonymous photographer
View of a wooden house or barn with a man and a woman in front
c. 1870-1875
Tintype
164 x 215 mm
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

A 19th-Century tintype (an image made on a sheet of metal) featuring a man and woman in front of a rustic barn is a case in point. The image was probably sold on the spot by a travelling tin typist “for a modest price”, explains Rooseboom. “Many people had just arrived and were living in the countryside, no big city nearby, so this was the only possibility of having your portrait taken.” The man stands proud, looking at the camera, but the woman’s head is bowed and she is looking away. “Sometimes you can sense that people were simply not used to being photographed,” says Rooseboom. “Nowadays, we’ve seen in magazines and movies how to pose elegantly.” This may be the only time in their whole life that they would be photographed, and the result, adds Boom, “would hang on the wall of the house where they lived forever”.

Deborah Nicholls-Lee. “Eight images that tell the story of America,” on the BBC website 12 February 2025 [Online] Cited 06/06/2025

Detroit Photographic Company
Home of Rip Van
Nd
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Bertha E. Jaques (American, 1863-1941)
Tree – in Governor Gleghorn’s Place Honolulu
1908
Cyanotype
248 x 152 mm
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, purchased with the support of Baker McKenzie

Walker Evans (American, 1903-1975) (photographer) (mentioned on object)
A free country? This is America … Keep it Free!
Nd
Sheldon-Claire Company

United News Company (publisher)
12,000 Employees of the Ford Motor Company, Detroit, Mich.
1913
Postcard, relief halftone and colour lithography
88 × 137 mm
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

… a 1913 postcard featuring 12,000 employees of the Ford Motor Company in Detroit may have been the “most expensive picture that was ever taken”, quipped a newspaper at the time, as the factory had to shut down for two hours to assemble the staff. The image, the company boasted, was “the largest specially posed group picture ever made” and illustrates a turning point where industry saw the value in investing large sums in promotional photography. Taken in the year when Ford introduced America’s first moving assembly line and the US had become the world’s largest economy, the photograph also depicts the mass production that would shape the country.

The image’s reappearance in Ford marketing also made it an early example of photoshopping. While the same tinted faces swarmed in the foreground, the number of employees cited in the caption increased exponentially, and a building to the left was cropped out in one version and acquired extra floors in another. “Apparently, many photographers and their publishers had no qualms about abandoning their medium’s potential for realism,” write Boom and Rooseboom in the exhibition catalogue.

Deborah Nicholls-Lee. “Eight images that tell the story of America,” on the BBC website 12 February 2025 [Online] Cited 06/06/2025

Schadde Brothers Studio
Display, sample or trade catalogue photograph for sweet manufacturer Brandle & Smith Co.,
c. 1915
Gelatin silver print with applied colour
288 x 240 mm
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Charles Sheeler (American, 1883-1965)
Nude #3
1918-1919
Gelatin silver print
127 × 171 mm
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

James Van Der Zee (American, 1886-1983)
Portrait of an Unknown Man, Harlem, New York City
1938
Gelatin silver print
244 x 203 mm
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
Purchased with the support of Baker McKenzie
© The James Van Der Zee Archive/The Metropolitan Museum of Art

… the New York portrait photographer James Van Der Zee was also embellishing his work, drawing jewellery on to his subjects and retouching their faces to erase dark lines and wrinkles. “I put my heart and soul into them and tried to see that every picture was better looking than the person,” he said. As a black photographer working from his Harlem studio at the height of the Harlem Renaissance, his work records a period when black migrants fleeing the segregationist South were forging a new life for themselves in the urban North. For the first time, African Americans and other minority groups could be photographed by someone inside their community, and represented in a way that uplifted them. Van Der Zee’s Portrait of an Unknown Man (1938), for example, is carefully posed to suggest confidence. The outfit is elegant and the buttonhole daisy adds a dandyish flourish. It’s an image that reflects the aspirations and upward mobility of African-American people and the pride Van Der Zee had in his culture.

Deborah Nicholls-Lee. “Eight images that tell the story of America,” on the BBC website 12 February 2025 [Online] Cited 06/06/2025

Hy Hirsh (American, 1911-1961)
Untitled (abstraction)
c. 1950
Chromogenic print, 251 x 200 mm
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
Purchased with the support of Baker McKenzie

Anonymous photographer
Family Standing beside their Car
c. 1957-1960
Chromogenic print (Kodak Instamatic)
76 x 76 mm
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Irene Poon (American, b. 1941)
Virginia
1965
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
Gift of Charles Wong
© Irene Poon Photography Archive, Department of Special Collections, Stanford University Libraries

It is the Chinese-American community that is the focus of the work of Irene Poon, who grew up in San Francisco’s Chinatown, where her parents, first-generation immigrants from Guanghzou, ran a herbalist store. A 1965 image features Poon’s sister Virginia in a local sweet shop, crowded out by Hershey’s and Nestlé bars. The letters “Nest” peep out from the densely packed shelves, reinforcing a sense that she is enclosed by this mass of graphic lettering. Beside her head a “Look” bar competes for attention, hinting at that other ever-expanding role for American photography: advertising − a sector in which the US was a forerunner. “Many of the 20th-Century artists started in advertising. It’s part of art history,” Boom says. “This whole field already existed, and the arts, and photography as an art form, draws from it.”

Deborah Nicholls-Lee. “Eight images that tell the story of America,” on the BBC website 12 February 2025 [Online] Cited 06/06/2025

Bruce Wrighton (American, 1950-1988)
Portrait of a woman, Binghampton, NY (‘Woolworth Shopper’)
1987
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
Purchased with the support of Baker McKenzie
© Estate of Bruce Wrighton, Courtesy Laurence Miller Gallery

Hulleah Tsinhnahjinnie (American, b. 1954)
This is not a commercial, this is my homeland
1998
Platinum lambda print
476 x 609 mm
Courtesy of the artist

The political power of photography is also seen in the work of Native American (Seminole-Muscogee-Navajo) photographer Hulleah Tsinhnahjinnie who uses the camera to correct misconceptions about Indigenous populations and to offer an alternative viewpoint on US history. “No longer is the camera held by an outsider looking in, the camera is held with brown hands opening familiar worlds,” she writes in a 1993 essay. “We document ourselves with a humanising eye, we create new visions with ease, and we can turn the camera and show how we see you.”

Tsinhnahjinnie’s captioning of a touristic image of Monument Valley, Arizona with This is not a commercial, this is my homeland highlights the commodification of American land, and uses what she calls “photographic sovereignty” to take us back to the very beginning and reclaim and retell the story of America. In combination with works such as Bryan Schutmaat’s Tonopah, Nevada (2012), which documents mining’s effect on the landscape of the American West, images like Tsinhnahjinnie’s tell a story of a beautiful land that means different things to different people: financial gain, security or a sacred space.

Deborah Nicholls-Lee. “Eight images that tell the story of America,” on the BBC website 12 February 2025 [Online] Cited 06/06/2025

Bryan Schutmaat (American, b. 1983)
Tonopah, Nevada
2012
Inkjet print
1017 x 1277 mm (printed 2021)
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
Purchased with the support of Baker McKenzie

Rijksmuseum
Museumstraat 1
1071 XX Amsterdam

Opening hours:
Open daily 9 – 17h

Rijksmuseum website

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Exhibition: ‘Dawoud Bey: Street Portraits’ at the Denver Art Museum

Exhibition dates: 17th November, 2024 – 11th May, 2025

Curator: Eric Paddock, Curator of Photography at Denver Art Museum

Dawoud Bey (American, b. 1953)
Two Girls from a Marching Band, Harlem, NY
1990
Pigment print
Courtesy the artist and Stephen Daiter Gallery, Chicago
© Dawoud Bey

Street cred

I have posted twice before on Art Blart on Dawoud Bey’s An American Project exhibition – once when it was at the High Museum of Art (November 2020 – March 2021) and then the Whitney Museum of American Art (April – October, 2021)

I waxed lyrical about his photographs which I greatly admire.

“From formal to informal portraiture, through conceptual “bodies”, Bey’s work visualises Black American history in the present moment, not by using the trope of reusing colonial photographs or memorabilia, but by presenting afresh the history of injustice enacted on a people and a culture, picturing their ongoing pain and disenfranchisement – in the here and now – through powerful and deeply political photographs…

From his early street photographs through the later large format Polaroid work and on to the conceptual series, Bey’s photographs have an engaging directness and candour to them. There are no photographic or subjective histrionics here, just immensely rich social documentary photographs that speak truth to subject. The subjects stare directly at the camera and reveal themselves with a poignant honesty.”

If you look at the installation photographs of both postings you will notice the small-scale prints of his notable black and white large-format (4 × 5-inch) camera and Polaroid Type 55 film photographs. But in this exhibition, Dawoud Bey: Street Portraits at the Denver Art Museum, Bey has used the large format negatives “to make large-scale, highly detailed prints that could be enlarged to create monumental portraits.”

To my eye and mind, these monumental portraits simply don’t work … on many levels.

Firstly, the size seems totally inappropriate as a form of theatre (for that is what Bey is making them at this size) and as a photographic document to the honest representation of these people – to me, completely at odds with the spirit of the subject being captured.

Secondly – and remembering that I have not seen the exhibition or walked through it but I am using the numerous installation photographs as my guide – there seems to be little flow to the images, installed as they are cheek by jowl, on the line, with no groupings or spacing, facing off against each other, face after face – with seemingly no understanding by curator or artist of Minor White’s idea of ice/fire, or the space between, the frisson that is generated between two or more images, in conversation, in sequence. Even the lines of sight between exhibition spaces leave little to be discovered afresh.

I have never understood this need for “monumentalism” in contemporary photography especially when the work does not need it and the energy of the work does not support it.

The advent of digital printing and large scale printers have enabled the production of gigantic contemporary photographs. “Large-scale photography challenges traditional notions of what constitutes a photograph and can be seen as a way to engage with the history of painting and cinema… Large-scale photography allows artists to explore the relationship between the overall composition and the individual details within the image. This can create a sense of both macro and micro, where the viewer can zoom in and out to appreciate different aspects of the image… Large-scale photography is used by many artists to explore themes related to identity, technology, consumerism, and environmental issues. The size of the prints can be a way to amplify these themes and create a more impactful visual statement. Large-scale photographs are well-suited for exhibition spaces where they can be displayed in a way that maximizes their impact. The large size of the prints can also create a sense of awe and wonder for the viewer.” (Generative AI on Google)

“In the 1990s, the group most commonly associated with large-scale photography, and in many ways responsible for the worldwide popularity of the technique, were the students of Bernd and Hilla Becher at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, including Thomas Struth, Andreas Gursky, Candida Höfer, and Thomas Ruff.” (Artsy website) With the work of artist’s such as Jeff Wall or Gregory Crewdson we become immersed in their cinematically constructed, staged fantasy worlds through the sheer scale of the photographs. With the gigantic portraits of Thomas Ruff it is not so much about the individual persona in the photograph as their every pore, a scientific examination of the surface micro death contained within every image.

Of course, I understand the desire for large photographs in creating a sense of immersion and exploring themes related to scale, power, identity and the human experience … but I don’t necessarily agree with the conditions of their becoming, nor do I think scale necessarily works for every photographic image. A photograph can be printed so that it has many sizes where it “speaks” to you and the viewer, but not every size works. I vividly remember seeing the exhibition Richard Avedon People at The Ian Potter Museum of Art, Melbourne in 2015 and observing that Avedon’s reaction to the ever expanding size of postmodern “gigantic” photography were floor to ceiling photographs, vertiginous overblown edifices which fell as flat as a tack.

I get the same feeling here.

Impact not intimacy, (visually) overwhelming not (visually) engaging.

Fundamentally, these “monumental” photographs by Dawoud Bey are no longer “street portraits” for they lack the intimacy and intensity of that style, becoming something rather less … beguiling, in the process.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

Many thankx to the Denver Art Museum for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

Installation view of the exhibition 'Dawoud Bey: Street Portraits' at the Denver Art Museum

Installation views of the exhibition Dawoud Bey: Street Portraits at the Denver Art Museum

From 1988 to 1991, Dawoud Bey (American, born 1953) photographed African Americans in the streets of various American cities. He asked a cross section of these communities to pose for him, creating a space of self-presentation and performance in their urban environments. Bey used a large format tripod-mounted camera and a unique positive/negative Polaroid film that created both an instant print and a reusable negative. As part of every encounter, Bey gave each person the small black-and-white print as a way of reciprocating and returning something to the people who allowed him to make their portraits. The resulting photographs reveal the Black subjects in their psychological complexity, presenting themselves openly and intimately to the camera, the viewer, and the world.

Installation views of the exhibition Dawoud Bey: Street Portraits at the Denver Art Museum

Dawoud Bey: Street Portraits is the first standalone museum show to explore a transformational phase of the celebrated photographer and 2017 MacArthur Fellow Dawoud Bey’s work. The show features 37 portraits he made between 1988 and 1991, when he collaborated with Black Americans of all ages whom he met on the streets of various American cities. He asked a cross section of people in these communities to pose for him, creating a space of self-presentation and performance in their urban environments.

Bey used a large format tripod-mounted camera and a unique positive/negative Polaroid film that created both an instant print and a reusable negative. Bey considers photography an ethical practice that requires collaboration with his subjects. As part of every encounter, he gave each person a small black-and-white Polaroid print as a way of reciprocating and returning something to the people who allowed him to make their portrait.

Street Portraits is organised by the community the photographs were made in: Brooklyn; Washington, D.C.; Rochester; Amityville; and Harlem. Bey defies racial stereotypes by encouraging Black people to present themselves openly and intimately to the camera, the viewer, and the world.

Text from the Denver Art Museum website

Dawoud Bey (American, b. 1953)
A Young Man Resting on an Exercise Bike, Amityville, NY
1988
Pigment print
Courtesy the artist and Stephen Daiter Gallery, Chicago
© Dawoud Bey

Dawoud Bey (American, b. 1953)
Sunshine Bracey and Friend, Brooklyn, NY
1990
Pigment print
Courtesy the artist and Stephen Daiter Gallery, Chicago
© Dawoud Bey

Dawoud Bey (American, b. 1953)
A Girl with School Medals, Brooklyn, NY
1988
Pigment print
Courtesy the artist and Stephen Daiter Gallery, Chicago
© Dawoud Bey

Dawoud Bey (American, b. 1953)
A Couple at a Main Street Bus Stop, Rochester, NY
1989
Pigment print
Courtesy the artist and Stephen Daiter Gallery, Chicago
© Dawoud Bey

Dawoud Bey (American, b. 1953)
A Young Woman and a Girl, Amityville, NY
1988
Pigment print
Courtesy the artist and Stephen Daiter Gallery, Chicago
© Dawoud Bey

Dawoud Bey (American, b. 1953)
Peg’s Grandson, Brooklyn, NY
1988
Pigment print
Courtesy the artist and Stephen Daiter Gallery, Chicago
© Dawoud Bey

Dawoud Bey (American, b. 1953)
Peg, Brooklyn, NY
1988
Pigment print
Courtesy the artist and Stephen Daiter Gallery, Chicago
© Dawoud Bey

The Denver Art Museum (DAM) is proud to present Dawoud Bey: Street Portraits, featuring 37 portraits by celebrated photographer and 2017 MacArthur Fellow Dawoud Bey (American, born 1953).

From 1988 to 1991, Bey collaborated with Black Americans of all ages whom he met on the streets of various American cities. He asked a cross section of people in these communities to pose for him, creating a space of self-presentation and performance in their urban environments.

“We’re pleased to present the first standalone museum show of this important work,” said Eric Paddock, Curator of Photography for DAM. “Dawoud Bey’s Street Portraits mark a turning point where the deliberate, closely observed portraits he had been making with a handheld camera began to contain what he has called ‘the kind of lush physical description’ he wanted his pictures to convey – and that is a consistent part of all the work he has made since. The slower process of working with a camera on a tripod invited collaboration between the artist and his subjects, making each picture both an experiment and a discovery.”

Bey used a large format tripod-mounted camera and a unique positive/negative Polaroid film that created both an instant print and a reusable negative. Bey considers photography an ethical practice that requires collaboration between the artist and his subjects. As part of every encounter, he gave each person a small black-and-white Polaroid print as a way of reciprocating and returning something to the people who allowed him to make their portrait.

The exhibition is organised by the community the photographs were taken in: Brooklyn; Washington, D.C.; Rochester; Amityville; and Harlem. Defying racial stereotypes, the resulting photographs reveal the Black subjects in all of their psychologically rich complexity, presenting themselves openly and intimately to the camera, the viewer, and the world.

Press release from the Denver Art Museum

Dawoud Bey (American, b. 1953)
Mrs. Bracey, Brooklyn, NY
1988
Pigment print
Courtesy the artist and Stephen Daiter Gallery, Chicago
© Dawoud Bey

Dawoud Bey (American, b. 1953)
A Young Man Leaning on a Striped Wall
1989
Pigment print
Courtesy the artist and Stephen Daiter Gallery, Chicago
© Dawoud Bey

Dawoud Bey (American, b. 1953)
A Young Man in a Bandana and Swimming Trunks, Rochester, NY
1989
Pigment print
Courtesy the artist and Stephen Daiter Gallery, Chicago
© Dawoud Bey

Dawoud Bey (American, b. 1953)
A Young Man with His Hotdog Cart, Rochester, NY
1989
Pigment print
Courtesy the artist and Stephen Daiter Gallery, Chicago
© Dawoud Bey

Dawoud Bey (American, b. 1953)
Two Boys on Carrollsburg Place, Washington, DC
1989
Pigment print
Courtesy the artist and Stephen Daiter Gallery, Chicago
© Dawoud Bey

Dawoud Bey (American, b. 1953) 'Young Man at a Tent Revival, Brooklyn, NY' 1989, printed 2019

Dawoud Bey (American, b. 1953)
A Young Man at a Tent Revival Meeting, Brooklyn, NY
1989
Pigment print
Courtesy the artist and Stephen Daiter Gallery, Chicago
© Dawoud Bey

Dawoud Bey (American, b. 1953) 'A Boy Eating a Foxy Pop, Brooklyn, NY' 1988, printed 2019

Dawoud Bey (American, b. 1953)
A Boy Eating a Foxy Pop, Brooklyn, NY
1988
Pigment print
Courtesy the artist and Stephen Daiter Gallery, Chicago
© Dawoud Bey

Dawoud Bey (American, b. 1953)
A Cute Couple in Prospect Park, Brooklyn, NY
1990
Pigment print
Courtesy the artist and Stephen Daiter Gallery, Chicago
© Dawoud Bey

Dawoud Bey (American, b. 1953)
A Young Man with His Hair Brush, Rochester, NY
1989
Pigment print
Courtesy the artist and Stephen Daiter Gallery, Chicago
© Dawoud Bey

Dawoud Bey (American, b. 1953)
A Woman Wearing Denim, Rochester, NY
1989
Pigment print
Courtesy the artist and Stephen Daiter Gallery, Chicago
© Dawoud Bey

Dawoud Bey (American, b. 1953)
A Woman at Fulton Street and Washington Avenue, Brooklyn, NY, 1988
1988
Pigment print
Courtesy the artist and Stephen Daiter Gallery, Chicago
© Dawoud Bey

Denver Art Museum
100 W 14th Ave Pkwy,
Denver, CO 80204, United States
Phone: (720) 865-5000

Opening hours:
Open daily from 10am – 5pm, 10am – 8pm on Tuesdays

Denver Art Museum website

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Exhibition: ‘Weegee: Society of the Spectacle’ at the International Center of Photography, New York

Exhibition dates: 23rd January – 5th May, 2025

Curator: Clément Chéroux, Director of the Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson (FHCB), Paris, in collaboration with the Weegee Archive at the International Center of Photography (ICP), New York

Installation view of the exhibition Weegee: Society of the Spectacle at the International Center of Photography, New York

I have so many current photography exhibitions that there will be mid-week postings for the next two weeks.

I have posted on this exhibition before when it was presented at the Foundation Henri Cartier-Bresson, Paris, January – May 2024 (“To see ourselves as others see us”) and Fundación MAPFRE, Madrid, September 2024 – January 2025 (“Self Seen”) – with a slightly different title but the same exhibition – but it is always interesting to imbibe the creativity and culture photography of Weegee’s work.

While there are the famous photographs as seen in previous postings, there are also new photographs to examine, one’s that you hardly ever see: for example [Clothing salesman, Easter Sunday, Harlem, New York] (c. 1940, below); [Mrs. Bernice Lythcott and son looking through window shattered by rock-throwing hoodlums, Harlem, New York] (October 18, 1943, below); the infrared photograph [Lovers at the movies, New York] (c. 1943, below); Ladies keep their money in their stockings… (1944, below); and Night… a black velvet curtain has dropped over the white sky… (March 2, 1944, below) – all taken during the Second World War.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

Many thankx to the ICP for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

Weegee (Arthur Fellig) (American born Ukraine, 1899-1968) 'On the Spot' December 9, 1939 from the exhibition 'Weegee: Society of the Spectacle' at the International Center of Photography, New York, Jan - May 2025

Weegee (Arthur Fellig) (American born Ukraine, 1899-1968)
On the Spot
December 9, 1939
International Center of Photography
Purchase, with funds provided by Lois and Bruce Zenkel Purchase Fund, 1982
© International Center of Photography/Getty Images

Weegee (Arthur Fellig) (American born Ukraine, 1899-1968) '[Clothing salesman, Easter Sunday, Harlem, New York]' c. 1940 from the exhibition 'Weegee: Society of the Spectacle' at the International Center of Photography, New York, Jan - May 2025

Weegee (Arthur Fellig) (American born Ukraine, 1899-1968)
[Clothing salesman, Easter Sunday, Harlem, New York]
c. 1940
International Center of Photography
Purchase, with funds provided by the Lois and Bruce Zenkel Purchase Fund, 1982
© International Center of Photography/Getty Images

Weegee (Arthur Fellig) (American born Ukraine, 1899-1968) [Afternoon crowd at Coney Island, Brooklyn] July 21st, 1940 from the exhibition 'Weegee: Society of the Spectacle' at the International Center of Photography, New York, Jan - May 2025

Weegee (Arthur Fellig) (American born Ukraine, 1899-1968)
[Afternoon crowd at Coney Island, Brooklyn]
July 21, 1940
International Center of Photography
Bequest of Wilma Wilcox, 1993
© International Center of Photography/Getty Images

Weegee (Arthur Fellig) (American born Ukraine, 1899-1968)
'[Anthony Esposito, booked on suspicion of killing a policeman, New York]' January 16, 1941 from the exhibition 'Weegee: Society of the Spectacle' at the International Center of Photography, New York, Jan - May 2025

Weegee (Arthur Fellig) (American born Ukraine, 1899-1968)
[Anthony Esposito, booked on suspicion of killing a policeman, New York]
January 16, 1941
International Center of Photography
Purchase, with funds provided by the Lois and Bruce Zenkel
Purchase Fund, 1982
© International Center of Photography/Getty Images

The career of photographer Weegee (born Arthur Fellig, 1899-1968) is often divided into two distinct phases, one gritty, the other glamorous. Celebrated for his sensationalist images of crime scenes, fires, car crashes, and the onlookers who witnessed these harrowing events across New York City in the 1930s and ’40s, Weegee also spent time in his career documenting the joyful crowds, premieres, and celebrities of Hollywood. His documentary images on both coasts gave way to experimental portraits late in his life, which were distorted using a kaleidoscope and other tricks from his technical toolbox. Weegee: Society of the Spectacle aims to reconcile these two sides of Weegee through an investigation of his focus, throughout his career, on a critique of 20th century popular culture and its insatiable appetite for spectacle.

Weegee: Society of the Spectacle is curated by Clément Chéroux, Director of the Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson (FHCB), Paris, in collaboration with the Weegee Archive at the International Center of Photography (ICP), New York. The exhibition opens at ICP after a run at the FHCB and the Fundación MAPFRE, Madrid. The exhibition will be accompanied by the publication Weegee: Society of the Spectacle (Thames & Hudson).

Text from the ICP website

Installation views of the exhibition Weegee: Society of the Spectacle at the International Center of Photography, New York

Weegee (Arthur Fellig) (American born Ukraine, 1899-1968)
[Circus performer Miss Victory (Eglie Zacchini) shot out of a cannon at the speed of 360 feet a second, New York]
June 28, 1943
Gelatin silver print
13 1/2 x 10 3/4 in. (34.3 x 27.3cm)
Gift of Lee C. Sievan, 1984
© International Center of Photography

Weegee (Arthur Fellig) (American born Ukraine, 1899-1968)
[Mrs. Bernice Lythcott and son looking through window shattered by rock-throwing hoodlums, Harlem, New York]
October 18, 1943
International Center of Photography. Bequest of Wilma Wilcox, 1993
© International Center of Photography/Getty Images

Weegee (Arthur Fellig) (American born Ukraine, 1899-1968) 'Simply adding boiling water' 1943

Weegee (Arthur Fellig) (American born Ukraine, 1899-1968)
Simply Add Boiling Water
December 18, 1943
International Center of Photography
Purchase, with funds provided by Lois and Bruce Zenkel Purchase Fund, 1982
© International Center of Photography/Getty Images

Weegee (Arthur Fellig) (American born Ukraine, 1899-1968)
[Lovers at the movies, New York]
c. 1943
International Center of Photography
Bequest of Wilma Wilcox, 1993
© International Center of Photography/Getty Images

Weegee (American, 1899-1968) 'Ladies keep their money in their stockings...' 1944

Weegee (Arthur Fellig) (American born Ukraine, 1899-1968)
Ladies keep their money in their stockings…
1944
International Center of Photography
© International Center of Photography/Getty Images

Weegee (Arthur Fellig) (American born Ukraine, 1899-1968)
Night… a black velvet curtain has dropped over the white sky… a few mothers went looking for their kids… found them here… dragged them home for supper… but they are back again… but that’s the same Empire State Building in the Background….
March 2, 1944
International Center of Photography
Bequest of Wilma Wilcox, 1993
© International Center of Photography/Getty Images

The International Center of Photography (ICP) is pleased to announce Weegee:
Society of the Spectacle, an exhibition presented in partnership with Fondation
Henri Cartier-Bresson, Paris and curated by Clément Chéroux, Director of the
Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson.

This exhibition revisits Weegee’s bold, boundary-pushing perspective and
celebrates his pioneering role in documenting spectacle, from crime and tragedy on New York City’s streets to distorted portraits of iconic Hollywood celebrities. The exhibition will be accompanied by a new publication created by the Fondation and Thames & Hudson that explores the impact of Weegee’s art and his critical view of urban spectacle. ICP is excited to present the new English-language edition of this important study of Weegee’s work.

Weegee: Society of the Spectacle marks the sixth major presentation of Weegee’s work at ICP and the first since it relocated to Manhattan’s Lower East Side neighbourhood, the very same one that Weegee transformed into an urban stage in his photographs. The exhibition arrives at a time when his commentary on the blurred lines between reality and performance and news and entertainment feel newly relevant and urgent in the age of smartphones and viral media where every individual has become both a voyeur and a consumer of spectacle.

Drawn largely from ICP’s Weegee collection, itself comprised of his entire studio archive and also the most comprehensive holdings of the photographer’s work in the world, Weegee: Society of the Spectacle is a re-examination of the photographer’s visual commentary on the society of his time, connecting his early career documenting New York City streets to his later work in Hollywood’s
glamorised world of celebrity and working with experimental image distortions. Long regarded as two distinct periods in his career, the works in Weegee: Society of the Spectacle challenge this division by underscoring how Weegee’s exploration of spectacle persisted across different contexts – from crime scenes and fires to red carpet premieres. Weegee’s masterful depiction of the ‘society of spectators’ captures both the unfiltered, everyday urban experience and the glossy allure of fame.

“While he may never have imagined the centrality of images to contemporary life, Weegee’s provocative and prescient perspective on urban life forces us to reflect on how we now exist simultaneously as both consumers and the consumed,” Elisabeth Sherman, Senior Curator and Director of Exhibitions and Collections at ICP, said. “In an age where technology and constant image sharing shape our reality, Weegee’s work challenges us to reconsider the camera’s role not only as a witness but as an active participant in the creation of spectacle.”

Clément Chéroux, Director at Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson, stated,
“Weegee’s works highlight his ability to capture life’s extremes, from high society to the underworld. Often working at night, Weegee’s images of crime, fire and urban unrest reveal the harsh realities of 1930s and 1940s New York. His later shift to Hollywood did not distance him from this focus on spectacle but rather amplified his satirical approach, as he created playful distortions of celebrities that critiqued the American obsession with fame.”

The exhibition will highlight three recurring themes in Weegee’s work. The
Spectacle of the News focuses on his nighttime photos of crime scenes, car
accidents and fires, where the onlookers are as important as the events
themselves. The Society of Spectators shows Weegee’s lens turned towards the
people on the fringes of the main action – from high-society parties to street
scenes – emphasising that spectatorship is part of the spectacle. Hollywood
Distortions highlights Weegee’s later years, which saw him experiment with
techniques that satirised Hollywood stars and the world of celebrity through
exaggerated photo-caricatures, offering a pointed critique of the culture of fame.

The publication accompanying the exhibition, Weegee: Society of the Spectacle,
further explores these themes, presenting essays by leading photography scholars including Clément Chéroux, Isabelle Bonnet, David Campany and Cynthia Young alongside rare archival material that deepens the viewer’s understanding of Weegee’s complex legacy. The book, published by Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson and Thames & Hudson, will be available for purchase at ICP’s bookstore and through select retailers.

Press release from ICP

Weegee (Arthur Fellig) (American born Ukraine, 1899-1968)
[St. Louis Gag Shot]
c. 1950
International Center of Photography
Bequest of Wilma
Wilcox, 1993
© International Center of Photography/Getty Images

Weegee (Arthur Fellig) (American born Ukraine, 1899-1968)
Photographers at Premiere
c. 1951
International Center of Photography
Bequest of Wilma Wilcox, 1993
© International Center of Photography/Getty Images

Weegee (Arthur Fellig) (American born Ukraine, 1899-1968)
Weegee
c. 1958
International Center of Photography
Bequest of Wilma Wilcox, 1993
© International Center of Photography/Getty Images

Weegee (Arthur Fellig) (American born Ukraine, 1899-1968)
[Mona Lisa distortion]
c. 1958
International Center of Photography
Bequest of Wilma Wilcox, 1993
© International Center of Photography/Getty Images

Weegee (Arthur Fellig) (American born Ukraine, 1899-1968)
President John F. Kennedy (distortion)
December 2, 1962
International Center of Photography
Bequest of Wilma Wilcox, 1993
© International Center of Photography/Getty Images

Weegee: Society of the Spectacle book cover

International Center of Photography
84 Ludlow Street, New York, NY 10002
between Delancey Street and Broome Street

Opening hours:
Monday 10.30am – 6.30pm
Tuesday CLOSED
Wednesday 10.30am – 6.30pm
Thursday 10.30am – 8pm
Friday 10.30am – 6.30pm
Saturday 10.30am – 6.30pm
Sunday 10.30am – 6.30pm

International Center of Photography website

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Review: ‘Grant Mudford: Attention to Detail’ at Joseph Bellows Gallery, La Jolla, California

March 2025

Online exhibition

Grant Mudford (Australian, b. 1944)
El Paso, Texas
1976
Vintage gelatin silver print
16 x 20 inches
Joseph Bellows Gallery

Let There Be Light

For so long I have wanted to do a posting on the Australian photographer Grant Mudford (b. 1944) and finally the time is here. Mudford has lived in the United States of America since his final move to the Los Angeles area in mid-1977 but I still think of him as Australian.

Between 1974-1977 he undertook an intensive program of travel and work in the United States before his final move. In 1977 he had major exhibitions at the Australian Centre for Photography, Sydney; The Photographers’ Gallery, London; and Light Gallery, New York and is represented in major collections such as The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles; International Museum of Photography, George Eastman House; and the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra which holds sixty six of his photographs in their collection.

Mudford’s mature style – capturing in beautiful, minimalist black and white photographs the essence and reality of the built landscape envisioned without people, usually working with common, generally uncelebrated subject-matter – emerged at a time that was parallel to that of the groundbreaking exhibition of contemporary landscape photography New Topographics: Photographs of a Man-Altered Landscape held at the George Eastman House’s International Museum of Photography, October 1975 – February 1976.

This important exhibition proposed a new way of looking at the American landscape, a concept that was historically grounded in the Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivity) – new order – movement of Germany in the 1920s, developed further and most importantly by the German artists Bernd and Hiller Becher in the late 1960s – early 1970s.

The New Topographics photographers (including the Bechers) “documented built and natural landscapes in America, often capturing the tension between natural scenery and the mundane structures of post-war America: parking lots, suburban homes, crumbling coal mines. The photographs, stark and documentary, are often devoid of human presence. William Jenkins [curator of the New Topographics exhibition] described the images as “neutral” in style, “reduced to an essentially topographic state, conveying substantial amounts of visual information but eschewing entirely the aspects of beauty, emotion, and opinion”.1

As I have argued elsewhere I believe that the photographs of the Bechers and alike are just as much about the beauty of the subject as they are their topographic state.

“Despite protestations to the contrary (appeals to the objectivity of the image, eschewing entirely the aspects of beauty, emotion and opinion; the rigorous frontality of the individual images giving them the simplicity of diagrams, while their density of detail offers encyclopaedic richness) these are subjective images for all their objective desire. The paradox is the more a photographer strives for objectivity, the more ego drops away, the more the work becomes their own: subjective, beautiful, emotive.”2

At least Mudford is honest enough to own up to desiring beauty. “I am deeply interested in the relationship between man-made structures and the landscape,” says Mudford. “Photography allows me to capture that intersection, where design meets nature, light, and texture. I strive to create images that reflect both beauty and complexity.” (Text from the Joseph Bellows website)

Evidence of the development of his later mature style can be seen in photographs taken in Australia such as Jenolan (1972, below) and Woolloomooloo (Stop sign) (1973, below) which already contain a minimalist, paired back, topographic yet beautiful aesthetic. But it was his move to Los Angeles, and above all the LIGHT and TEXTURE of the new world, that seem to have brought forth the best within this artist.

While, as Foucault observes, texts “are caught up in a system of references to … other texts, other sentences: it is a node within a network … Its unity is variable and relative”3 – in other words there is a close relationship between the work of Mudford and the New Topographics movement – his work is very much his own.

There is a crispiness, frontality and seeming simplicity to Mudford’s photographs and yet also almost a painterly aspect, that belies the complexity of these well resolved and beautiful images. He captures “the emotional resonance of a moment, whether it be the play of light on a building’s surface or the dynamic contrasts found in nature.” (Text from the Joseph Bellows website) And unlike the huge photographs of Dawoud Bey in an upcoming posting – which seem to me completely at odds with the spirit of the subject being captured – Mudford’s 16 x 20 inches photographs allow the viewer to focus on the images inherent qualities of beauty, nature, light and texture.

Finally, it is beyond me why Grant Mudford has not received greater recognition in the country of his birth. Forget that he has lived for years in the United States of America, Mudford is a magnificent photographer par excellence and his worldwide achievement should be celebrated at a national level. Perhaps it is time that a gallery such as the National Gallery of Australia or the Museum of Australian Photography should put on a major retrospective of this artist’s work… before it is too late!

We are loosing too many great photographers from this era already.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

1/ New Topographics: Photographs of a Man-Altered Landscape was a groundbreaking exhibition of contemporary landscape photography held at the George Eastman House’s International Museum of Photography (Rochester, New York) from October 1975 to February 1976. The show, curated by William Jenkins, had a lasting impact on aesthetic and conceptual approaches to American landscape photography. The New Topographics photographers, including Robert Adams, Lewis Baltz, Bernd and Hilla Becher, Frank Gohlke, Nicholas Nixon, and Stephen Shore, documented built and natural landscapes in America, often capturing the tension between natural scenery and the mundane structures of post-war America: parking lots, suburban homes, crumbling coal mines. The photographs, stark and documentary, are often devoid of human presence. Jenkins described the images as “neutral” in style, “reduced to an essentially topographic state, conveying substantial amounts of visual information but eschewing entirely the aspects of beauty, emotion, and opinion”.

Text from the Wikipedia website

2/ Marcus Bunyan commenting on the exhibition Bernd and Hilla Becher: Mines and Mills – Industrial Landscapes at Fotomuseum Winterthur, Zurich, November 2011 – February 2012

3/ Foucault, Michel. The Order of Things: An Archeology of the Human Sciences.New York: Vintage, 1973 quoted in Thumlert, Kurt. Intervisuality, Visual Culture, and Education. [Online] Cited 10/08/2006. www.forkbeds.com/visual-pedagogy.htm (link no longer active)

Many thankx to Joseph Bellows Gallery for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

“Photographs reveal unexpected mysteries within the familiarities of our existence. We over familiarise ourselves with our surroundings and after become unaware and insensitive to the forces of the essence or reality before us. It is that essence or reality which I strive to photograph.”

Grant Mudford quoted in Graham Howe (ed.,). New Photography Australia. Paddington, N.S.W.: Australian Centre for Photography, 1974, p. 8

“I think it is incredibly difficult to define a building with photographs. Space and spatial relationships within and around a building are not fully experienced from photographs. The photograph imposes its own sense of these relationships, which to me are abstract representations having little to do with architecture or reality. So what I am interested in are the photographic manifestations of what buildings and structures can present when specifically scrutinised as a photograph. To extend this transformation, I prefer to work with common, generally uncelebrated subject-matter”

Grant Mudford in Archetype Magazine Spring 1981 quoted in Reimund Zunde. Photography: An Approach For Secondary Schools. Education Department of Victoria, Curriculum Services Unite, in association with the Secondary Art/Craft Standing Committee, 1982

Grant Mudford (Australian, b. 1944)
Jenolan
1972
Gelatin silver print
34.5 h x 38.8 w cm
National Gallery of Australia
Gift of the artist, 1985

Grant Mudford (Australian, b. 1944)
Woolloomooloo (Stop sign)
1973
Gelatin silver print
34.5 h x 38.4 w cm
National Gallery of Australia
Gift of the artist, 1985

Grant Mudford (Australian, b. 1944)
Houston, Texas
1975
Gelatin silver print
33.8 h x 49.8 w cm
National Gallery of Australia
Gift of the Phillip Morris Arts Grant 1982

Graham Howe (ed.,). New Photography Australia. Paddington, N.S.W.: Australian Centre for Photography, 1974, p. 8.

Grant Mudford in 'Archetype Magazine' Spring 1981 quoted in Reimund Zunde. 'Photography: An Approach For Secondary Schools'. Education Department of Victoria, Curriculum Services Unite, in association with the Secondary Art/Craft Standing Committee, 1982

Reimund Zunde. Photography: An Approach For Secondary Schools. Education Department of Victoria, Curriculum Services Unite, in association with the Secondary Art/Craft Standing Committee, 1982

Renowned photographer Grant Mudford had made his mark in the art world with a distinctive vision, capturing anonymous structures with a profound sense of space, light, texture and form. With a career spanning several decades, Mudford’s work remains a testament to his unique ability to meld the art of photography with the subtle intricacies of design, nature, and human influence.

Mudford’s photographic style is known for its dramatic compositions and meticulous attention to detail. Whether focusing on the clean lines of modern architecture or the rugged textures of natural landscapes, his work consistently transcends traditional photographic boundaries. His images invite viewers to engage with the built environment and the natural world in new and thought-provoking ways.

His work has been described by Keith Davis in An American Century of Photography as “an appreciation for both the alienations and incongruities of the urban landscape.”

“I am deeply interested in the relationship between man-made structures and the landscape,” says Mudford. “Photography allows me to capture that intersection, where design meets nature, light, and texture. I strive to create images that reflect both beauty and complexity.”

Mudford’s approach to photography is marked by his commitment to capturing the emotional resonance of a moment, whether it be the play of light on a building’s surface or the dynamic contrasts found in nature. His work not only documents his subjects but also engages viewers in a deeper conversation about the spaces they inhabit.

Mudford’s photographs have been exhibited internationally in solo and group exhibitions since the mid 1970’s; beginning this history with a solo show at the notable Light Gallery. His photographs are in numerous private and public collections, including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the J. Paul Getty Museum, the Museum of Modern Art, the George Eastman House, the Nelson-Atkins Museum, and the National Museum of American Art. In 2014, Mudford received the Julius Shulman Institute Excellence in Photography Award. His photographs have been featured in publications such as Architectural Digest, The New York Times, and Artforum, solidifying his place as one of the most respected photographers of his generation.

Grant Mudford’s photography is more than just an aesthetic experience; it is an invitation to reconsider how we perceive the world around us. His lens captures what is often overlooked – the powerful simplicity of everyday structures and the quiet majesty of the natural world. Through his work, Mudford encourages viewers to find beauty in both the grand and the subtle, offering a fresh perspective on the environments we encounter.

Text from the Joseph Bellows Gallery website

Grant Mudford (Australian, b. 1944)
Los Angeles, CA
1977
Vintage gelatin silver print
16 x 20 inches

Grant Mudford (Australian, b. 1944)
Los Angeles, CA
1976
Vintage gelatin silver print
16 x 20 inches

Grant Mudford (Australian, b. 1944)
Irvine, CA
1976
Vintage gelatin silver print
16 x 20 inches

Grant Mudford (Australian, b. 1944)
Los Angeles, CA
1976
Vintage gelatin silver print
16 x 20 inches

Grant Mudford (Australian, b. 1944)
Los Angeles, CA
1977
Vintage gelatin silver print
16 x 20 inches

Grant Mudford

b. 1944

Grant Mudford (b. 1944) is a Sydney-born, Los Angeles-based photographer renowned for his large-format, abstract depictions of the urban landscape and built environment. Mudford developed an interest in photography as a child, and turned the laundry into a darkroom at the age of ten. For several years in his teens he photographed children on Santa Claus’ lap at Christmas. After studying architecture at the University of NSW for two years from 1964-1964, he chose to focus on photography, opening his own studio. In the 1960s and early 1970s he photographed for a range of advertising, fashion and theatre clients, as well as working as a cinematographer on short films. Mudford held his first solo show at Bonython Gallery in Sydney in 1972 and shortly after received funding from the Australia Council for the Arts, enabling him to travel throughout the USA and Mexico between 1975 and 1977. He then settled in Los Angeles, where he worked for various American and international publications including Harper’s Bazaar, Esquire, Architectural Digest, Vanity Fair, the LA Times and the New York Times. The Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles commissioned him as photographer for the exhibition and book, Louis I. Kahn: In the Realm of Architecture (1991). Mudford’s work is in many American and international collections including the Museum of Modern Art, the J. Paul Getty Museum and Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Art Gallery of NSW and National Gallery of Australia.

Text from the National Portrait Gallery of Australia website

Grant Mudford (Australian, b. 1944)
Los Angeles, CA
1977
Vintage gelatin silver print
16 x 20 inches

Grant Mudford (Australian, b. 1944)
El Paso, Texas
1976
Vintage gelatin silver print
16 x 20 inches

Grant Mudford (Australian, b. 1944)
Mexico
1976
Vintage gelatin silver print
16 x 20 inches

Grant Mudford (Australian, b. 1944)
New York
1978
Vintage gelatin silver print
16 x 20 inches

Grant Mudford (Australian, b. 1944)
Los Angeles, CA
1975
Vintage gelatin silver print
16 x 20 inches

Grant Mudford (Australian, b. 1944)
Oklahoma
1975
vintage gelatin silver print
16 x 20 inches

Grant Mudford (Australian, b. 1944)
Saltillo, Texas
1976
Vintage gelatin silver print
20 x 16 inches

Grant Mudford (Australian, b. 1944)
New York
1976
Vintage gelatin silver print
20 x 16 inches

Grant Mudford (Australian, b. 1944)
Los Angeles, CA
1978
Vintage gelatin silver print
20 x 16 inches

Grant Mudford (Australian, b. 1944)
From Oean Blvd., Long Beach, CA
1979
Vintage gelatin silver print
24 x 20 inches

Joseph Bellows Gallery
7661 Girrard Avenue
La Jolla, California
Phone: 858 456 5620

Opening hours:
Tuesday – Saturday 11am – 5pm and by appointment

Joseph Bellows Gallery website

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Exhibition: ‘Saul Leiter – An Unfinished World’ at Foam, Amsterdam

Exhibition dates: 24th January – 23rd April, 2025

Curator: Anne Morin of diChroma Photography in collaboration with Les Rencontres d’Arles and diChroma Photography

Saul Leiter (American, 1923-2013) 'Jean Pearson' c. 1948 from the exhibition 'Saul Leiter - An Unfinished World' at Foam, Amsterdam, Jan - April 2025

Saul Leiter (American, 1923-2013)
Jean Pearson
c. 1948
From the series In My Room
Gelatin silver print
© Saul Leiter Foundation

Words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words, words.

So many words, so much verbiage about the work of American artist Saul Leiter (1923-2013).

I’d rather not add to that noise.

It is well to reinforce the meaning of an image with text but it is not necessary.

Just be aware …. of the beauty of the image and your feelings towards it.

Lucidly, appreciate the integrity of the image.

Nothing more but certainly nothing less.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

PS. It’s wonderful to see the earlier black and white work, breadcrumb trail of the colour work to come.

Many thankx to Foam for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

“Photographs are often treated as important moments, but really they are fragments and souvenirs of an unfinished world.”

Saul Leiter

“I may be old-fashioned. But I believe there is such a thing as a search for beauty – a delight in the nice things in the world. And I don’t think one should have to apologise for it.”

Saul Leiter, In No Great Hurry, 2013

“His photos feel – as Akiko Atake puts it – like “quiet stolen glimpses”; moments plucked from the everyday and preserved in the eye of Leiter’s camera.”

Sophie Mulgrew. “Feb 9 Book Review: Forever Saul Leiter,” on the Musee Magazine website Nd [Online] Cited 18/03/2025

“I’ve always felt a closeness to Japan in Leiter’s work; the photographs in the snow; the women under their umbrellas; the improbable perspectives and revolutionary compositions reminiscent of Japanese woodblocks, ukiyo-e; the presence of the seasons and the verticality of the compositions evoking Japanese scroll paintings, kakajiku; the beauty he found in cracks and broken surfaces, in the unfinished, the worn out, the imperfect – the endurance of the elements and the effects of time. There is a “mono no aware”* beauty to his photographs, in the color work especially – an acute awareness of the beauty of the transient, of the ephemeral, which might explain, in part, their magical and poetic essence.”

Paul Vermare. “Saul Leiter, the New York Nabi,” on the Blind Magazine website, July 3, 2023 [Online] Cited 08/04/2025

“Leiter was destined to become a rabbi like his father, but moved to New York to be a painter, then choosing photography – which appalled his father. Beginning in 1948, Leiter using an Argus C3 camera, then a Leica and a Rolleiflex

In the 2012 documentary, In No Great Hurry, Saul Leiter said: “There are the things that are out in the open, and there are the things that are hidden, and life has more to do, the real world has more to do with what is hidden.” These tender and graceful depictions of “the things that are hidden” – images that Leiter rarely showed – retain their essential mystery, defying interpretation.”

Anonymous. “Saul Leiter’s nude friends and lovers – in pictures,” on The Guardian website 15th August 2018 [Online] Cited 18/03/2025

* mono no aware = a Japanese concept that describes a poignant awareness of the transient nature of existence, a sensitivity to the beauty of things that are fleeting, and a gentle sadness at their passing

Leiter’s love of beauty, Bonnard, Japan, Buddhism, Ukiyo-e prints, Japanese scroll paintings, “ma” (space), kyūdō, haiku.

“The unorthodox and seemingly disproportionate compositions… the emphasis on shapes; the presence of calligraphy; unusual viewpoints and perspectives, everyday subject matter; the ubiquity of women; and a fondness for the ordinary and the ephemeral”

Paul Vermare. “Saul Leiter, the New York Nabi,” on the Blind Magazine website, July 3, 2023 [Online] Cited 08/04/2025

~ Leiter’s complex and impressionistic photographs are as much about evoking an atmosphere as nailing the decisive moment.

~ Leiter was a keen observer as life unfolded before him, somehow finding a way to reliably pluck a sublime split-second out of a mundane moment. ‘I like to take things that are very common and to find something in them,’ he once said.

~ Photographs are often considered important moments, but according to Leiter they are tiny fragments of an unfinished world. Such is his own world: little fragments of images juxtaposed and conjoined, amassing and forming vast, ever-expanding fields.

~ He photographed that which obstructs, hides, encloses, and thus reveals new depths of reality.

~ Everything is a matter of balance, exactitude and humility in the works of this man, who nonetheless accorded great importance to imperfection.

Anonymous. “‘There’s nothing quite like them’: Saul Leiter’s photos and paintings – in pictures,” on The Guardian website Wed 9 Aug 2023 [Online] Cited 08/04/2025

Saul Leiter (American, 1923-2013) 'Exacta' 1948

He photographed that which obstructs, hides, encloses, and thus reveals new depths of reality.

Saul Leiter (American, 1923-2013) 'Selfportrait' 1950s from the exhibition 'Saul Leiter - An Unfinished World' at Foam, Amsterdam, Jan - April 2025

Saul Leiter (American, 1923-2013) 'Ana' 1950s

Saul Leiter (American, 1923-2013) 'Sidewalk' 1954

Saul Leiter (American, 1923-2013) 'Hats' c. 1948 from the exhibition 'Saul Leiter - An Unfinished World' at Foam, Amsterdam, Jan - April 2025

Installation view of the exhibition Saul Leiter – An Unfinished World at Foam, Amsterdam

Saul Leiter (American, 1923-2013) 'Untitled' Nd

About the artist

Saul Leiter (1923-2013) began painting and photographing in his teenage years, gaining an early recognition for his paintings. After moving to New York in 1946, he turned to photography as a profession while continuing to paint. His abstract forms and groundbreaking compositions possess a painterly quality that distinguishes them from the works of other photographers of that era. His work significantly contributed to the emergence of what is now known as the New York School of photography.

In 1957, he began working for major publications like Esquire and Harper’s Bazaar, balancing his commercial success with his personal passion for street photography in his Manhattan neighbourhood. Leiter’s groundbreaking work in colour photography gained widespread acclaim with the release of his first book, Early Colour (2006). By the time of his death in 2013, Leiter had achieved international recognition, with his work featured in numerous museum exhibitions and publications worldwide.

Text from the Foam website

Installation views of the exhibition Saul Leiter – An Unfinished World at Foam, Amsterdam

Saul Leiter remained dedicated to painting throughout his career, producing many gouaches (opaque watercolours), which were essential to his artistic expression. While most of his works are abstract, with large areas of colour, some feature playful lines that suggest landscapes or figures. His expressive use of colour is distinctive, often favouring muted tones like soft violets, mauves, and faded ochres or yellows. Although Leiter is best known for his photography, his paintings reflect a similarly poetic and intimate vision of the world.⁠

Text from the Foam Facebook page

Installation view of the exhibition Saul Leiter – An Unfinished World at Foam, Amsterdam showing Leiter’s photograph The Pull (c. 1960, below)

Saul Leiter (American, 1923-2013) 'Pull' c. 1960

Leiter was a keen observer as life unfolded before him, somehow finding a way to reliably pluck a sublime split-second out of a mundane moment. ‘I like to take things that are very common and to find something in them,’ he once said.

Installation view of the exhibition Saul Leiter – An Unfinished World at Foam, Amsterdam showing Leiter’s photograph

Saul Leiter (American, 1923-2013) 'Harlem' 1960 from the exhibition 'Saul Leiter - An Unfinished World' at Foam, Amsterdam, Jan - April 2025

Foam is proud to present a major retrospective exhibition of the celebrated American artist Saul Leiter (1923-2013). Leiter is seen as one of the most important photographers of the 1950’s in the United States, and a pioneer of colour photography. This exhibition brings together over 200 works, consisting of photography, both black-and-white and colour, as well as his abstract paintings. His eclectic oeuvre reveals a practice using shadow, light, and reflections to craft layered compositions.
‍
For nearly sixty years, Leiter photographed daily, capturing everyday moments of New York City life. With various techniques and mediums, and the use of telephoto lenses, Leiter would enhance the painterly quality of his images and transform seemingly mundane street scenes into visual poetry. New York, a symbol of modernity in the 1950s, became the backdrop for Leiter’s aesthetic discoveries.

By shooting in the rain and snow, and using windows and other reflective surfaces, he created abstract images. A red umbrella, a green traffic light, or the yellow flash of a passing taxi add an unexpected play of colour to his photographs. In the 1940s and 1950s, Leiter was virtually the only non-commercial photographer to work in colour. The use of aged or damaged film allowed him to include surprising compositions with shifts in light and colour. Once lost to obscurity, his work was rediscovered in the mid 2010s for its ground-breaking role in the emergence of colour photography.

Leiter was a self-taught photographer whose strong sense of curiosity made him a lifelong student. He maintained his experimental and spontaneous approach throughout his career, which is evident in both his street photography and fashion work.

Upon his death in 2013, Leiter left behind a remarkable collection of approximately 15,000 black-and-white prints, at least 40,000 colour slides, a similar number of black-and-white negatives and over 4000 paintings, only a handful of which have been seen publicly. The exhibition An Unfinished World offers visitors the chance to admire the endless poetry of Saul Leiter’s artistic practice through his paintings, photography and unique view on the world around him.

Press release from Foam

Saul Leiter (American, 1923-2013) 'Footprints' c. 1950 from the exhibition 'Saul Leiter - An Unfinished World' at Foam, Amsterdam, Jan - April 2025

Saul Leiter (American, 1923-2013) 'Untitled' Nd from the exhibition 'Saul Leiter - An Unfinished World' at Foam, Amsterdam, Jan - April 2025

Everything is a matter of balance, exactitude and humility in the works of this man, who nonetheless accorded great importance to imperfection.

“This ambidextrous painter and photographer recognised no limits. If, in the silence of his studio, his movement inscribed on paper imperceptible little rhythmic abbreviations, like an everyday exercise, his gaze penetrated the tumult of the city, challenging what draws the eye and scrutinising what is not seen.”

“If only we give them just a little more attention, these voices also tell us that the images are fragments containing enigmas, and that they journey through time and endure, intact, despite the darkness that may prevail in the world.”

Anne Morin

Saul Leiter (American, 1923-2013) 'Taxi' 1957

Leiter’s complex and impressionistic photographs are as much about evoking an atmosphere as nailing the decisive moment.

Saul Leiter (American, 1923-2013) 'Red Curtain' 1956

“For nearly sixty years, Leiter photographed daily, capturing everyday moments of New York City life. With various techniques and mediums, and the use of telephoto lenses, Leiter would enhance the painterly quality of his images and transform seemingly mundane street scenes into visual poetry. New York, a symbol of modernity in the 1950s, became the backdrop for Leiter’s aesthetic discoveries. By shooting in the rain and snow, and using windows and other reflective surfaces, he created abstract images. A red umbrella, a green traffic light, or the yellow flash of a passing taxi add an unexpected play of color to his photographs. In the 1940s and 1950s, Leiter was virtually the only non-commercial photographer to work in color. The use of aged or damaged film allowed him to include surprising compositions with shifts in light and color.”

Dimitris Lempesis. “PHOTO: Saul Leiter – An Unfinished World,” on the Dream Idea Machine website Nd [Online] Cited 15/03/2025

Saul Leiter (American, 1923-2013) 'Lanesville' 1958

Saul Leiter (American, 1923-2013) 'Cap' c. 1960

Foam
Keizersgracht 609
1017 DS Amsterdam
The Netherlands
Phone: + 31 20 5516500

Opening hours:
Monday – Wednesday 10am – 6pm
Thursday – Friday 10am – 9pm
Sat – Sun 10am – 6pm

Foam website

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Vale George Tice (1938-2025)

April 2025

George Tice (American, b. 1938) 'Hudson's Fish Market, Atlantic City, New Jersey' 1973

George Tice (American, 1938-2025)
Hudson’s Fish Market, Atlantic City, New Jersey
1973
Gelatin silver print
Joseph Bellows Gallery

Seeing beyond the moment

In the last posting on the work of Peter Hujar I was speaking of photographers that I have a particular affinity for. Another such artist is the now departed American photographer George Tice (1938-2025) with his large format black and white photographs of the urban landscape, mainly taken around the city of New Jersey where he lived for most of his life.

I have written twice before on the work of this magnificent photographer when he was alive: “An American iconography” on the exhibition George Tice: Urban Landscapes at the Joseph Bellows Gallery, September – October 2016; and text on the exhibition George Tice Lifework: A Tribute, Photographs 1953-2013 at Joseph Bellows Gallery, June – July 2022.

Précising these texts, I would say that Tice’s ongoing epic visual poem is at its strongest in his early period, from 1973-1974.

Tice, like Atget, had an innate ability to place the camera in such as position a to reveal subject matter in a new light. More intuitive, more sensitive to other ways of seeing, these great photographers look at the world from a different point of view. Tice’s recognition of subject matter that mere mortals pass by is translated into beautiful, serene, tonal and dare I say, sensual images, that belie the complexity of their previsualisation. As Sanford Schwartz in The New York Times, on December 3, 1972 noted: “Tice’s pictures… show a remarkable blend of intimacy, affection and clear-sightedness.”

Tice’s consumate control of the construction of the image plane never gets in the way of the elemental, eternal, and magical aspects of the photograph. As he observed, “The great difficulty of what I attempt is seeing beyond the moment; the everydayness of life gets in the way of the eternal.”

It is to his great credit that Tice saw beyond the moment. He felt that magical something when you have a connection to your subject and take a special photograph, revealed in the negative and then the print. He embedded that feeling in photographs that radiate his own signature.

For his are not only photographs of the phenomenal but also the noumenal, that feeling of something ineffable that we cannot put our finger on, something in this world that is close to the ineffable mysteries of the soul – a feeling, an emotional energy of connection to earth, body, spirit and soul – for the photograph has the ability to go beyond the symbolic, to approach the impossible, the real.

Through his photographs Tice reached beyond the everyday. What more does one need to say?

Travel well on your great journey my friend.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

Many thankx to the Joseph Bellows Gallery for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image

George Tice (American, b. 1938) 'Rooftops, 21st and King Street, Paterson, New Jersey' 1969

George Tice (American, 1938-2025)
Rooftops, 21st and King Street, Paterson, New Jersey
1969
Gelatin silver print
Joseph Bellows Gallery

George Tice (American, 1938-2025)
Route #440 Overpass, Perth Amboy, 1973
1973
Gelatin silver print
Joseph Bellows Gallery

George Tice (American, b. 1938) 'Tenement Rooftops, Hoboken, New Jersey' 1974

George Tice (American, 1938-2025)
Tenement Rooftops, Hoboken, New Jersey
1974
Gelatin silver print
Joseph Bellows Gallery

George Tice (American, b. 1938) 'Railroad Bridge, High Bridge, New Jersey' 1974

George Tice (American, 1938-2025)
Railroad Bridge, High Bridge, New Jersey, 1974
1974
Gelatin silver print
Joseph Bellows Gallery

George Tice (American, b. 1938) 'Pulaski Skyway, Jersey City, New Jersey' 1974

George Tice (American, 1938-2025)
Pulaski Skyway, Jersey City, New Jersey, 1974
1974
Gelatin silver print
Joseph Bellows Gallery

George Tice (American, b. 1938) 'Petit's Mobil Station, Cherry Hill, New Jersey' 1974

George Tice (American, 1938-2025)
Petit’s Mobil Station, Cherry Hill, New Jersey
1974
Gelatin silver print
Joseph Bellows Gallery

George Tice (American, b. 1938) 'Industrial Landscape, Kearny, New Jersey' 1973

George Tice (American, 1938-2025)
Industrial Landscape, Kearny, New Jersey
1973
Gelatin silver print
Joseph Bellows Gallery

Alfred Stieglitz (American, 1864-1946)
The Hand of Man
1902
Photogravure

George Tice (American, b. 1938) 'Drawbridge, Morgan, New Jersey' 1973

George Tice (American, 1938-2025)
Drawbridge, Morgan, New Jersey, 1973
1973
Gelatin silver print
Joseph Bellows Gallery

George Tice (American, b. 1938) 'Houses and Water Towers, Moorestown, New Jersey' 1973

George Tice (American, 1938-2025)
Houses and Water Towers, Moorestown, New Jersey, 1973
1973
Gelatin silver print
Joseph Bellows Gallery

George Tice (American, b. 1938) 'Goldy Pharmacy, Mount Holly, New Jersey' 1974

George Tice (American, 1938-2025)
Goldy Pharmacy, Mount Holly, New Jersey, 1974
1974
Gelatin silver print
Joseph Bellows Gallery

George Tice (American, 1938-2025)
Steve’s Diner, Route 130, North Brunswick, 1974
1974
Gelatin silver print
Joseph Bellows Gallery

George Tice (American, b. 1938) 'Lexington Avenue, Passaic, New Jersey' 1973

George Tice (American, 1938-2025)
Lexington Avenue, Passaic, New Jersey, 1973
1973
Gelatin silver print
Joseph Bellows Gallery

George Tice (American, b. 1938) 'Dari O' Lite, Wood Avenue, Linden, New Jersey' 1973

George Tice (American, 1938-2025)
Dari O’ Lite, Wood Avenue, Linden, New Jersey, 1973
1973
Gelatin silver print
Joseph Bellows Gallery

George Tice (American, b. 1938) 'Palace Funhouse, Ashbury Park, New Jersey' 1995

George Tice (American, 1938-2025)
Palace Funhouse, Ashbury Park, New Jersey, 1995
1995
Gelatin silver print
Joseph Bellows Gallery

George Tice (American, 1938-2025)
Car For Sale, Paterson, New Jersey, 1969
1969
Gelatin silver print
Joseph Bellows Gallery

George Tice (American, 1938-2025)
Jahos Brothers Clothing Store, Trenton, NJ, 1973
1973
Gelatin silver print
Joseph Bellows Gallery

George Tice (American, 1938-2025)
Esso Station and Tenement House, Hoboken, NJ, 1972
1972
Gelatin silver print
Joseph Bellows Gallery

George Tice. 'Minnie's Go-Go, Route 130, Merchantville, 1975' 1975

George Tice (American, 1938-2025)
Minnie’s Go-Go, Route 130, Merchantville, 1975
1975
Gelatin silver print
Joseph Bellows Gallery

George Tice (American, 1938-2025)
Telephone Booth, 3 am, Railway, NJ, 1974
1974
Gelatin silver print
Joseph Bellows Gallery

Joseph Bellows Gallery
7661 Girrard Avenue
La Jolla, California
Phone: 858 456 5620

Opening hours:
Tuesday – Saturday 11am – 5pm and by appointment

Joseph Bellows Gallery website

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