Curators: Brett Abbott, Keough Family Curator of Photography and Head of Collections at the High Museum of Art, in collaboration with Peter W. Kunhardt, Jr., Executive Director from the Gordon Parks Foundation
Gordon Parks (American, 1912-2006) Airline Terminal, Atlanta, Georgia 1956 Courtesy of and copyright The Gordon Parks Foundation
The more I see of this man’s work, the more I admire it.
A sense of history, truth and injustice; a sense of beauty, colour and disenfranchisement; above all, a sense of composition and knowing the right time to take a photograph to tell the story. It’s all there, right in front of us, in almost every photograph. Photographs of institutionalised racism and the American apartheid, “the state of being apart”, laid bare for all to see.
From the languid curl and mass of the red sofa on which Mr. and Mrs. Albert Thornton, Mobile, Alabama (1956) sit, which makes them seem very small and which forms the horizontal plane, intersected by the three generations of family photos from top to bottom – youth, age, family … to the blank stare of the nanny holding the white child while the mother looks on in Airline Terminal, Atlanta, Georgia (1956). I love the amorphous mass of black at the right hand side of the this image. From the neon delightful, downward pointing arrow of ‘Colored Entrance’ in Department Store, Mobile, Alabama (1956) to the ‘WHITE ONLY’ obelisk in At Segregated Drinking Fountain, Mobile, Alabama (1956). And so the story flows on like some great river, unstoppable, unquenchable…
But then we have two of the most intimate moments of beauty that brings me to tears as I write this, the two photographs at the bottom of the posting Untitled, Shady Grove, Alabama (1956). Just look at the light that Parks uses, this drawing with light. And then the use of depth of field, colour, composition (horizontal, vertical and diagonal elements) that leads the eye into these images and the utter, what can you say, engagement – no – quiescent knowingness on the children’s faces (like an old soul in a young body). This is a wondrous thing.
Notice how the photographer has pre-exposed the sheet of film so that the highlights in both images do not blow out. Pre-exposing the film lessens the contrast range allowing shadow detail and highlight areas to be held in balance. Also notice how in both images the photographer lets the eye settle in the centre of the image – in the photograph of the boy, the out of focus stairs in the distance; in the photograph of the three girls, the bonnet of the red car – before he then pulls our gaze back and to the right of the image to let the viewer focus on the faces of his subjects. In both photographs we have vertical elements (a door jam and a telegraph post) coming out of the red colours in the images and this vertically is reinforced in the image of the three girls by the rising ladder of the back of the chair. Masterful image making, this push and pull, this bravura art of creation.
Surely, Gordon Parks ranks up there with the greatest photographers of the 20th century.
Dr Marcus Bunyan
Many thankx to the High 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. Many thanx also to Carlos Eguiguren for sending me his portrait of Gordon Parks taken in New York in 1985, which reveals a wonderful vulnerability within the artist.
Gordon Parks (American, 1912-2006) Mr. and Mrs. Albert Thornton, Mobile, Alabama 1956 Promised gift of The Gordon Parks Foundation Courtesy of and copyright The Gordon Parks Foundation
This portrait of Mr. and Mrs. Albert Thornton Sr., aged 82 and 70, served as the opening image of Parks’s photo essay. The well-dressed couple stares directly into the camera, asserting their status as patriarch and matriarch of their extensive Southern family. Photography is featured prominently within the image: a framed portrait, made shortly after the couple was married in 1906, hangs on the wall behind them, while family snapshots, including some of the Thorntons’ nine children and nineteen grandchildren, are proudly displayed on the coffee table in the foreground.
Gordon Parks (American, 1912-2006) Department Store, Mobile, Alabama 1956 Promised gift of The Gordon Parks Foundation Courtesy of and copyright The Gordon Parks Foundation
Joanne Wilson, one of the Thorntons’ daughters, is shown standing with her niece in front of a department store in downtown Mobile. The pair is impeccably dressed in light, summery frocks. The jarring neon of the “Colored Entrance” sign looming above them clashes with the two young women’s elegant appearance, transforming a casual afternoon outing into an example of overt discrimination. Notice the fallen strap of Wilson’s slip. Though this detail might appear discordant with the rest of the picture, its inclusion may have been strategic: it allowed Parks to emphasise the humanity of his subjects.
Gordon Parks (American, 1912-2006) Outside Looking In, Mobile, Alabama 1956 Promised gift of The Gordon Parks Foundation Courtesy of and copyright The Gordon Parks Foundation
A group of children peers across a chain-link fence into a whites-only playground with a Ferris wheel. Although they had access to a “separate but equal” recreational area in their own neighbourhood, this photograph captures the allure of this other, inaccessible space. The children, likely innocent to the cruel implications of their exclusion, longingly reach their hands out to the mysterious and forbidden arena beyond. The pristinely manicured lawn on the other side of the fence contrasts with the overgrowth of weeds in the foreground, suggesting the persistent reality of racial inequality.
Gordon Parks (American, 1912-2006) At Segregated Drinking Fountain, Mobile, Alabama 1956 Promised gift of The Gordon Parks Foundation Courtesy of and copyright The Gordon Parks Foundation
The Jim Crow laws established in the South ensured that public amenities remained racially segregated. These laws applied to schools, public transportation, restaurants, recreational facilities, and even drinking fountains, as shown here. The photograph documents the prevalence of such prejudice, while at the same time capturing a scene of compassion. Here, a gentleman helps one of the young girls reach the fountain to have a refreshing drink of water.
Gordon Parks (American, 1912-2006) Ondria Tanner and Her Grandmother Window-Shopping, Mobile, Alabama 1956 Promised gift of The Gordon Parks Foundation Courtesy of and copyright The Gordon Parks Foundation
RARE PHOTOS BY GORDON PARKS PREMIERE AT HIGH MUSEUM OF ART
Featuring works created for Parks’ powerful 1956 Life magazine photo essay that have never been publicly exhibited.
The High Museum of Art presents rarely seen photographs by trailblazing African American artist and filmmaker Gordon Parks in Gordon Parks: Segregation Story on view November 15, 2014 through June 21, 2015.
The exhibition, presented in collaboration with The Gordon Parks Foundation, features more than 40 of Parks’ colour prints – most on view for the first time – created for a powerful and influential 1950s Life magazine article documenting the lives of an extended African-American family in segregated Alabama. The series represents one of Parks’ earliest social documentary studies on colour film. The High will acquire 12 of the colour prints featured in the exhibition, supplementing the two Parks works – both gelatin silver prints – already owned by the High. These works augment the Museum’s extensive collection of Civil Rights era photography, one of the most significant in the nation.
Following the publication of the Life article, many of the photos Parks shot for the essay were stored away and presumed lost for more than 50 years until they were rediscovered in 2012 (six years after Parks’ death). Though a small selection of these images has been previously exhibited, the High’s presentation brings to light a significant number that have never before been displayed publicly. As the first African-American photographer for Life magazine, Parks published some of the 20th century’s most iconic social justice-themed photo essays and became widely celebrated for his black-and-white photography, the dominant medium of his era. The photographs that Parks created for Life’s 1956 photo essay The Restraints: Open and Hidden are remarkable for their vibrant colour and their intimate exploration of shared human experience.
The images provide a unique perspective on one of America’s most controversial periods. Rather than capturing momentous scenes of the struggle for civil rights, Parks portrayed a family going about daily life in unjust circumstances. Parks believed empathy to be vital to the undoing of racial prejudice. His corresponding approach to the Life project eschewed the journalistic norms of the day and represented an important chapter in Parks’ career-long endeavour to use the camera as his “weapon of choice” for social change. The Restraints: Open and Hidden gave Parks his first national platform to challenge segregation. The images he created offered a deeper look at life in the Jim Crow South, transcending stereotypes to reveal a common humanity.
“Parks’ images brought the segregated South to the public consciousness in a very poignant way – not only in colour, but also through the eyes of one of the century’s most influential documentarians,” said Brett Abbott, exhibition curator and Keough Family curator of photography and head of collections at the High. “To present these works in Atlanta, one of the centres of the Civil Rights Movement, is a rare and exciting opportunity for the High. It is also a privilege to add Parks’ images to our collection, which will allow the High to share his unique perspective with generations of visitors to come.
A Day in the Life
For The Restraints: Open and Hidden, Parks focused on the everyday activities of the related Thornton, Causey and Tanner families in and near Mobile, Ala. The images present scenes of Sunday church services, family gatherings, farm work, domestic duties, child’s play, window shopping and at-home haircuts – all in the context of the restraints of the Jim Crow South.
Key images in the exhibition include:
~ Mr. and Mrs. Albert Thornton, Mobile Alabama (1956) ~ Outside Looking In, Mobile, Alabama (1956) ~ Department Store, Mobile Alabama (1956) ~ Airline Terminal, Atlanta, Georgia (1956) ~ Willie Causey, Jr., with Gun During Violence in Alabama, Shady Grove, Alabama (1956)
About Gordon Parks
Gordon Parks was born in Fort Scott, Kansas. He grew up poor and faced racial discrimination. Parks was initially drawn to photography as a young man after seeing images of migrant workers published in a magazine, which made him realise photography’s potential to alter perspective. Parks became a self-taught photographer after purchasing his first camera at a pawnshop, and he honed his skills during a stint as a society and fashion photographer in Chicago. After earning a Julius Rosenwald Fellowship for his gritty photographs of that city’s South Side, the Farm Security Administration hired Parks in the early 1940s to document the current social conditions of the nation.
By 1944, Parks was the only black photographer working for Vogue, and he joined Life magazine in 1948 as the first African-American staff photographer. In 1970, Parks co-founded Essence magazine and served as the editorial director for the first three years of its publication. Parks later became Hollywood’s first major black director when he released the film adaptation of his autobiographical novel The Learning Tree, for which he also composed the musical score, however he is best known as the director of the 1971 hit movie Shaft. Parks received the National Medal of Arts in 1988 and received more than 50 honorary doctorates over the course of his career. He died in 2006
About The Gordon Parks Foundation
The Gordon Parks Foundation permanently preserves the work of Gordon Parks, makes it available to the public through exhibitions, books, and electronic media and supports artistic and educational activities that advance what Gordon described as “the common search for a better life and a better world.” The Foundation is a division of The Meserve-Kunhardt Foundation.
Press release from the High Museum of Art
Gordon Parks (American, 1912-2006) Untitled, Alabama 1956 Collection of The Gordon Parks Foundation Courtesy of and copyright The Gordon Parks Foundation
Gordon Parks (American, 1912-2006) Untitled, Shady Grove, Alabama 1956 Collection of The Gordon Parks Foundation Courtesy of and copyright The Gordon Parks Foundation
Gordon Parks (American, 1912-2006) Store Front, Mobile Alabama 1956 Collection of The Gordon Parks Foundation Courtesy of and copyright The Gordon Parks Foundation
Gordon Parks (American, 1912-2006) Untitled, Shady Grove, Alabama 1956 Collection of The Gordon Parks Foundation Courtesy of and copyright The Gordon Parks Foundation
Gordon Parks (American, 1912-2006) Willie Causey, Jr., with Gun During Violence in Alabama, Shady Grove, Alabama 1956 Collection of The Gordon Parks Foundation Courtesy of and copyright The Gordon Parks Foundation
Gordon Parks (American, 1912-2006) Untitled, Shady Grove, Alabama 1956 Collection of The Gordon Parks Foundation Courtesy of and copyright The Gordon Parks Foundation
Gordon Parks (American, 1912-2006) Untitled, Shady Grove, Alabama 1956 Collection of The Gordon Parks Foundation Courtesy of and copyright The Gordon Parks Foundation
Gordon Parks (American, 1912-2006) Black Classroom, Shady Grove, Alabama 1956 Promised gift of The Gordon Parks Foundation Courtesy of and copyright The Gordon Parks Foundation
Although this photograph was taken in the 1950s, the wood-panelled interior, with a wood-burning stove at its centre, is reminiscent of an earlier time. Parks’s photograph of the segregated schoolhouse, here emptied of its students, evokes both the poetic and prosaic: springtime sunlight streams through the missing slats on the doors, while scraps of paper, rope, and other detritus litter the uneven floorboards. One of the Thorntons’ daughters, Allie Lee Causey, taught elementary-grade students in this dilapidated, four-room structure. After Parks’s article was published in Life, Mrs. Causey, who was quoted speaking out against segregation, was suspended from her job. She never held a teaching position again.
High Museum of Art 1280 Peachtree Street, N.E. Atlanta, GA 30309
Original curator of the touring exhibition: Linda Benedict-Jones, Curator of Photography at the Carnegie Museum of Art (CMOA)
Duane Michals (American, 1932-2026) From the series I Remember Pittsburgh 1982 Nine gelatin silver prints Greenwald Photograph Fund and Fine Arts Discretionary Fund Courtesy of Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh
I couldn’t resist. Another posting on the work of this extraordinary artist. I particularly like The Bewitched Bee (1986) and Who is Sidney Sherman?, replete with blond wig and fag hanging out of the mouth accompanied by very funny and perceptive text.
There is also a very interesting piece of writing on life and photography included in the posting, Real Dreams, from 1976.
Dr Marcus Bunyan
Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.
“I’m not interested in what something looks like, I want to know what it feels like.”
Duane Michals
Duane Michals (American, 1932-2026) The Bewitched Bee 1986 Thirteen gelatin silver prints with hand-applied text 5 x 7 in. (12.7 x 17.8 cm)
Michals uses photography to spin what amount to Ovidian legends, as in The Bewitched Bee, a sequence of thirteen images in which a young man stung by a bee grows antlers, wanders through the woods, and finally drowns in a sea of leaves.
The Peabody Essex Museum (PEM) presents Storyteller: The Photographs of Duane Michals, the first major U.S. retrospective of the artist’s work in 20 years. Through image sequences, multiple exposures and the overlay of handwritten messages and pigment, Duane Michals (b. 1932) pioneered distinctly new ways of creating and considering photographs. The last half-century of this artist’s prolific, trailblazing career is explored in a carefully selected presentation of more than 65 works. Organised by the Carnegie Museum of Art, Storyteller: The Photographs of Duane Michals is on view at PEM from March 7 through June 21, 2015.
Michals’ career has been fuelled by his enduring curiosity about the human experience and has been defined by its continual creative exploration and reinvention. A self-taught practitioner, he emerged on the photographic scene in the 1960s, at a time when Ansel Adams’ austere mountain ranges and Henri Cartier-Bresson’s iconic street scenes ruled the day. Rather than journey outward to depict nature or patiently wait to capture a decisive moment, Michals sought a new method of expression for his psychological and imaginative vision. He worked with friends and acquaintances to stage sequences of photographs that sought to express things that cannot be seen directly, such as metaphysical reflections on the passage from life to death. Later, he added handwritten text to the images’ margins, further challenging the prevailing sanctity of the single pure photograph.
“For Michals, the need to authentically express himself trumped any interest in being accepted into the mainstream art world. His work charts fresh territory, creatively mixing philosophical rigour, surreal witticism and childlike playfulness with an unabashed sentimentality and nostalgic longing,” says Trevor Smith, PEM’s Curator of the Present Tense. “In Michals’ photographs we encounter an uncommon vulnerability as well as a resolute search for meaning and human connection.”
Raised in a steelworking family outside of Pittsburgh, Michals has explored familial and personal identity as a recurring theme. In a rarely exhibited 30-photograph sequence titled The House I Once Called Home (2003), the artist explores the abandoned three-story brick house where he spent his childhood. Each image is paired with poetic verse of remembrance and reflection to create an intimate photographic memoir and metaphysical scrapbook. Recent photographs are superimposed on historic images as the series toggles through time, space and memory. The home’s current dilapidated state contrasts with reveries of a formerly bustling family home and a rumination on the passage of time and the inevitable succession of generations.
Michals’ lifelong adventure with photography began on a trip to Russia in 1958. Borrowing a camera from a friend, he discovered a way to interact with people and tell stories. Shortly thereafter, Michals moved to New York City where he supported himself through work as a commercial photographer for Vogue, Esquire and Life magazines and took portraits of notable artists including Meryl Streep, Sting and Willem de Kooning. In the 1960s, Michals began his earliest experimental narrative sequences that were exhibited in 1970 at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). The curator of the show, William Burback, noted that “the mysterious situations Michals invents are posed and theatrical. Yet, they are so common to the urban condition that we have the illusion of remembering scenes and events experienced for the first time.” Later he began adding text to his photographs such as This Photograph Is My Proof (from 1974), which allowed him to tell stories and address feelings that could not be fully explored by photography alone.
One of the constants of Michals’ career – from his classic narrative sequences to his more recent series of hand-painted tintypes – has been his preference for intimately scaled images with tactile surface treatments. These works, with their universal themes of memory, dreams, desire and mortality, draw the viewer closer and insist on their full engagement at an emotional level. Commenting on why Michals includes handwritten text on his images, he has said: “I love the intimacy of the hand. It’s like listening to someone speaking.”
Duane Michals (American, 1932-2026) Sting 1982 Gelatin silver print Courtesy of DC Moore Gallery and the artist
Duane Michals (American, 1932-2026) The Great Photographers of My Time #2 1991 Gelatin silver print The Henry L. Hillman Fund Courtesy of Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh
Duane Michals (American, 1932-2026) The Unfortunate Man 1976 Gelatin silver print with hand-applied text The Henry L. Hillman Fund Courtesy of Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh
Duane Michals (American, 1932-2026) Magritte at His Easel 1965 Gelatin silver print with hand-applied text
Duane Michals (American, 1932-2026) Georgette and Rene Magritte 1965 Gelatin silver print with hand-applied text
Duane Michals (American, 1932-2026) From the series The House I Once Called Home 2002 Thirty gelatin silver prints with hand-applied text The Henry L. Hillman Fund Courtesy of Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh
Randy Duchaine Duane Michals, portrait with red nose 2015 Photo courtesy of Randy Duchaine
Real Dreams
by Duane Michals
Nothing is what I once thought it was. You are not what you think you are. You are nothing you can imagine. I am a short story writer. Most often photographers are reporters. I am an orange. They are apples. One of the biggest cliches in photography is to say that he is a personal photographer. We must touch each other to stay human. Touch is the only thing that can save us. I use photography to help me explain my experiences to myself. Some photographers literally shoot everything that moves, hoping somehow, in all that confusion to discover a photograph. The difference between the artist and the amateur is a sense of control. There is a great power in knowing exactly what you are doing, even when you don’t know. We are all stars. We just don’t know it. I practice being Duane Michals everyday – that’s all I know. Most portraits are lies. People are rarely what they appear to be, especially in front of a camera. You might know me your entire lifetime and never reveal yourself to me. To interpret wrinkles as character is insult not insight. Was there ever a 1956? What did I do in June 1971? What happened in 1956? I think that there was 1932. The history of photography has not been written. You will write it. No one has photographed a nude until you have. No one has photographed a sequence or green pepper till you have. Nothing has been done until you do it. There are no answers anymore. Get (Edward) Weston off your back, forget (Diane) Arbus, (Robert) Frank, (Ansel) Adams, (Clarence) White, don’t look at photographs. Kill the Buddha. I am my own hero. Photography books have titles like “The Photographer’s Eye” or “The Vision of So and So” or “Seeing Photographers” – as if photographers didn’t have minds, only eyes. Everything is going; yes, even you must go. Right now you are going. Right now! I find myself talking to photographs. I see a photograph of a women and I ask, “Is that all you’re going to tell me?” I can see the long hair and costume. Is she a witch, a mother, kind, consuming? Does she believe anything? I want more. As I write this, at this moment, thousands of people are dying, thousands are being born, the earth is totally alive with Spring lust, stars are exploding – my God! It is the great unknowing that we all live in, that we call life, that I find overwhelming. And I think that I will never know, never. I am the limits of my work. You are the limits of yours. This is a journey. We do not live here. When I say “I,” I mean We. As soon as I say “now,” it becomes “then.” It is very easy for photographers to fake. Just go out and photograph twenty Pizza Huts. That’s all there is, change. Some influences open doors and liberate, other influences close doors and suffocate. Photography, particularly, is suffocating. I believe in the imagination. What I cannot see is infinitely more important than what I can see.
Photographers tell me what I already know. The recognition of the beautiful, bizarre, or boring (the three photographic B’s) is not the problem. You would have to be a refrigerator not to be moved by the beauty of Yosemite. The problem is to deal with one’s total experience, emotionally as well as visually. Photographers should tell me what I don’t know. I find the limitations of still photography enormous. One must redefine photography, as it is necessary to redefine one’s life in terms of one’s own needs. Each generation should redefine the language and all its experiences in terms of itself. The key word is expression – not photography, not painting, not writing. You are the event, not your parents, friends, gurus. Only you can teach yourself. Everything we experience is in our mind. It is all mind. What you are reading now, hearing now, feeling now… We’re all afraid of dying. We’ve already died. Look at your high school graduation picture, she’s dead! Just now, you died. It is essential for me to be silly. If one is serious, one must also be foolish, to survive. Trying to communicate one true feeling on my own terms is a constant problem. I am compulsive in my preoccupation with death. In some way I am preparing myself for my own death. Yet if someone would put a gun to my stomach, I would pee my pants. All my metaphysical speculations would get wet. When you look at my photographs, you are looking at my thoughts. I am very attracted to the person of Stefan Mihal. He is the man I never became. We are complete opposites, although we were born at the same moment. If we should meet, we would explode. We are like matter and anti-matter. He is my shadow. I saved myself from him. I only photograph what I know about, my life, I do not presume to know who blacks are or what they feel or bored suburban families or transvestites. And I never believe photographs of them staring into a camera. I take nothing for granted. I can count on nothing. I am not sure where I once was certain. I don’t know what will be left by the time I’m fifty. That’s ok. The sight of these words on a page pleases me. It’s like some sort of trail I’ve left behind, clues, strange marks made, that prove I was once here. When I was about 9 ( the year my brother Tim was born), I would sit on the edge of my bed and be very still, long after the family had gone to sleep. I would try to find the “I” of “me.” I thought that if I would be very quiet, I might find that place inside that was “I.” I am still looking. We are all a mental construction. Change our chemistry, our point of reference and reality changes. I am a professional photographer and a spiritual dilettante: I would prefer to be a professional mystic and a dilettante photographer. I remember the first time I sensed being lonely. I was about five at the time, living with my grandmother, and my best friend Art went away with his family. The afternoon loomed long and empty. I missed someone, I was empty. There was a lacking. Only I am my enemy. My fear can stop me. Never try to be an artist. Just do your work and if the work is true, it will become art. “We must pay attention so as not to be deceived by the familiar.” Things are what we will them to become. It is important to stay vulnerable. To permit pain, to make mistakes, not to be intimidated by touching. Mistakes are very important, if we’re alert. None of my photographs would have existed without my inventing them. These are not accidental encounters, witnessed on the street. I am responsible whether (Henri Cartier-) Bresson was there or not, those people would have had their picnic along the Seine. They were historical events.
There is not one photography. There is no photography. The only value judgment is the work itself. Does it move, touch, fill me? Any one who defines photography frightens me. They are photo-fascists, the limiters. They know! We must struggle to free ourselves constantly, not only from ourselves but especially from those who know. It seems I am waiting for something to happen: and when it does, it will be difficult for me to imagine that I had ever been the person who is writing this. I will be someone else. I am not interested in the perfect print. I am interested in a perfect idea. Perfect ideas survive bad prints and cheap reproductions. They can change our lives. (If Duane wants to take pictures, he should do a study of laborers and farm workers and unwed mothers and make some social changes. Do something else – something noble. That’s what I’d do. – Stefan Mihal) We have a way of making the most extraordinary experiences ordinary. We actually work at destroying miracles. The best artists give themselves in their work. (Rene) Magritte was a gift, (Eugene) Atget, (Thomas) Eakins, (Odilon) Redon, (Bill) Brandt, (August) Sander(s), Balthus, (Giorgio) De Chirico, (Walt) Whitman, Cavafy. That’s all that there is to give. I am my gift to you, and you are your gift to me. Most photographers photograph other people’s lives, seldom their own. We must free ourselves to become what we are. Photography describes to well. Our parents protect us from death. But when they die, there is no one to stand between us and death. I once thought that time was horizontal, and if I looked straight ahead, I could see next Thursday. Now I think it is vertical and diagonal and perpendicular. It’s all very confusing. People believe in the reality of photographs, but not in the reality of paintings. That gives photographers an enormous advantage. Unfortunately, photographers also believe in the reality of photographs. The most important sentences usually contain two words: I want, I love, I’m sorry, please forgive, please touch, I need, I care, thank you. Everything is subject for photography, especially the difficult things of our lives: anxiety, childhood hurts, lust, nightmares. The things that cannot be seen are the most significant. They cannot be photographed, only suggested. I would like to talk to William Blake and Thomas Eakins.
Duane Michals (American, 1932-2026) Paradise Regained 1968 Courtesy of the artis The Henry L. Hillman Fund Carnegie Museum of Art
“Everything I did grew out of my frustration with the medium, the silence of the still picture,” he says, so he found the “wiggle room.” With sequences, he could add drama before and after the decisive moment. Having his subjects move created ethereal images and an awareness of time’s passage. Layering negatives challenged preconceptions.
Language, Michals says, has always been associated with photographs. A newspaper caption might tell you that 20 inches of snow fell on Boston or Vladimir Putin arrived by plane at the Olympics. “I write about what cannot be seen,” he says. “My text picks up where the photograph fails. This Photograph is my Proof, a “nice picture” of his cousin and new bride at Michals’ grandmother’s house, is metaphorically “out of focus” until Michals adds the text.
Michals uses a pen nib and ink to enhance his visual stories, writing in cursive or all capitals depending on his mood. “I like the handwriting, the texture.” He also collects original manuscripts. He describes himself as an intimist, a lover of diaries, books (he has three libraries at home in New York City), small pictures and intimacy. “My photographs whisper into the viewers’ eyes rather than shout. They say, ‘Come closer. I’ll tell you a secret.'”
Unlike Robert Mapplethorpe, whom he says is more hardcore, Michals tends toward sentimentality and the legitimacy of the love between people of the same gender. “I’m not a typical gay person any more than I’m a typical person or photographer.”
That disdain for following established paths might explain why Ansel Adams and Henri Cartier-Bresson are not among his heroes. “My sources for inspiration were anybody who contradicted my mind and opened my imagination,” Michals says, like Lewis Carroll, Magritte, Joseph Cornell and surrealists in general. “Ansel Adams did not open my imagination. He dealt with Yosemite and sunsets. I was interested in metaphysical ideas, what happens when you die.”
Extract from Lisa Kosan. “Meet Duane Michals,”on the PEM website 2nd March 2015 [Online] Cited 08/06/2015. No longer available online.
Curators: Carol Jacobi, Curator, British Art 1850-1915, Tate Britain, Simon Baker, Curator, Photography and International Art, Tate, and Hannah Lyons, Assistant Curator, 1850-1915, Tate
“Salt prints are the very first photographs on paper that still exist today. Made in the first twenty years of photography, they are the results of esoteric knowledge and skill. Individual, sometimes unpredictable, and ultimately magical, the chemical capacity to ‘fix a shadow’ on light sensitive paper, coated in silver salts, was believed to be a kind of alchemy, where nature drew its own picture.”
These salted paper prints, one of the earliest forms of photography, are astonishing. The delicacy and nuance of shade and feeling; possessing a soft, luxurious aesthetic that is astounding today… but just imagine looking at these images at the time they were taken. The shock, the recognition, the delight and the romance of seeing aspects of your life and the world around you, near and far, drawn in light – having a physical presence in the photographs before your eyes. The aura of the original, the photograph AS referent – unlike contemporary media saturated society where the image IS reality, endlessly repeated, divorced from the world in which we live.
The posting has taken a long time to put together, from researching the birth and death dates of the artists (not supplied), to finding illustrative texts and biographies of each artist (some translated from the French). But the real joy in assembling this posting is when I sequence the images. How much pleasure does it give to be able to sequence Auguste Salzmann’sTerra Cotta Statuettes from Camiros, Rhodes followed by three Newhaven fishermen rogues (you wouldn’t want to meet them on a dark night!), and then the totally different feel of Fenton’s Group of Croat Chiefs. Follow this up with one of the most stunning photographs of the posting, Roger Fenton’s portrait Captain Mottram Andrews, 28th Regiment (1st Staffordshire) Regiment of Foot of 1855 and you have a magnificent, almost revelatory, quaternity/eternity.
Dr Marcus Bunyan
Many thankx to Tate Britain for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.
Calvert Jones (Welsh, December 4, 1804 – November 7, 1877) The Fruit Sellers c. 1843 Photograph, salted paper print from a paper negative
David Hill (Scottish, 1802-1870)and Robert Adamson (Scottish, 1821-1848) Five Newhaven fisherwomen c. 1844 Photograph, salted paper print from a paper negative
David Hill (Scottish, 1802-1870) and Robert Adamson (Scottish, 1821-1848) The Gowan [Margaret and Mary Cavendish] c. 1843-1844 Photograph, salted paper print from a paper negative
Salt and Silver: Early Photography 1840-1860 is the first major exhibition in Britain devoted to salt prints, the earliest form of paper photography. The exhibition features some of the rarest and best early photographs in the world, depicting daily activities and historic moments of the mid 19th century. The ninety photographs on display are among the few fragile salt prints that survive and are seldom shown in public. Salt and Silver: Early Photography 1840-1860 opens at Tate Britain on 25 February 2015.
In the 1840s and 50s, the salt print technique introduced a revolutionary new way of creating photographs on paper. It was invented in Britain and spread across the globe through the work of British and international photographers – artists, scientists, adventurers and entrepreneurs of their day. They captured historic moments and places with an immediacy not previously seen, from William Henry Fox Talbot’s images of a modern Paris street and Nelson’s Column under construction, to Linnaeus Tripe’s dramatic views of Puthu Mundapum, India and Auguste Salzmann’s uncanny studies of statues in Greece.
In portraiture, the faces of beloved children, celebrities, rich and poor were recorded as photographers sought to catch the human presence. Highlights include Fox Talbot’s shy and haunting photograph of his daughter Ela in 1842 to Nadar’s images of sophisticated Parisians and Roger Fenton’s shell-shocked soldiers in the Crimean war.
William Henry Fox Talbot unveiled this ground-breaking new process in 1839. He made the world’s first photographic prints by soaking paper in silver iodide salts to register a negative image which, when photographed again, created permanent paper positives. These hand-made photographs ranged in colour from sepia to violet, mulberry, terracotta, silver-grey, and charcoal-black and often had details drawn on like the swishing tail of a horse. Still lifes, portraits, landscapes and scenes of modern life were transformed into luxurious, soft, chiaroscuro images. The bold contrasts between light and dark in the images turned sooty shadows into solid shapes. Bold contrasts between light and dark turned shadows into abstract shapes and movement was often captured as a misty blur. The camera drew attention to previously overlooked details, such as the personal outline of trees and expressive textures of fabric.
In the exciting Victorian age of modern invention and innovation, the phenomenon of salt prints was quickly replaced by new photographic processes. The exhibition shows how, for a short but significant time, the British invention of salt prints swept the world and created a new visual experience.
Salt and Silver: Early Photography 1840 – 1860 is organised in collaboration with the Wilson Centre for photography. It is curated by Carol Jacobi, Curator, British Art 1850-1915, Tate Britain, Simon Baker, Curator, Photography and International Art, Tate, and Hannah Lyons, Assistant Curator, 1850-1915, Tate. ‘Salt and Silver’ – Early Photography 1840-1860 is published by Mack to coincide with the exhibition and will be accompanied by a programme of talks and events in the gallery.
Press release from the Tate website
William Henry Fox Talbot (British, 11 February 1800 – 17 September 1877) Scene in a Paris Street 1843 Photograph, salted paper print from a paper negative
By 1841, Talbot had dramatically reduced, from many minutes to just seconds, the exposure time needed to produce a negative, and on a trip to Paris to publicise his new calotype process he took a picture from his hotel room window, an instinctive piece of photojournalism. The buildings opposite are rendered in precise and exquisite detail, the black and white stripes of the shutters neat alternations of light and shade. In contrast to the solidity of the buildings are the carriages waiting on the street below; the wheels, immobile, are seen in perfect clarity, while the skittish horses are no more than ghostly blurs.
William Henry Fox Talbot (British, 11 February 1800 – 17 September 1877) Nelson’s Column Under Construction, Trafalgar Square 1844 Salted paper print from a glass plate negative
William Henry Fox Talbot (British, 11 February 1800 – 17 September 1877) Nelson’s Column Under Construction, Trafalgar Square 1844 Salted paper print from a glass plate negative
This is the first exhibition in Britain devoted to salted paper prints, one of the earliest forms of photography. A uniquely British invention, unveiled by William Henry Fox Talbot in 1839, salt prints spread across the globe, creating a new visual language of the modern moment. This revolutionary technique transformed subjects from still lifes, portraits, landscapes and scenes of daily life into images with their own specific aesthetic: a soft, luxurious effect particular to this photographic process. The few salt prints that survive are seldom seen due to their fragility, and so this exhibition, a collaboration with the Wilson Centre for Photography, is a singular opportunity to see the rarest and best early photographs of this type in the world.
“The technique went as follows: coat paper with a silver nitrate solution and expose it to light, thus producing a faint silver image. He later realised if you apply salt to the paper first and then spread on the silver nitrate solution the resulting image is much sharper. His resulting photos, ranging in colour from sepia to violet, mulberry, terracotta, silver-grey, and charcoal-black, were shadowy and soft, yet able to pick up on details that previously went overlooked – details like the texture of a horse’s fur, or the delicate silhouette of a tree.”
Priscilla Frank. “The First Paper Photographs Were Made With Salt, And They Look Like This,” on the Huffington Post website 03/06/2015 [Online] Cited 03/06/2015. Used under fair use conditions for the purposes of education and research
William Henry Fox Talbot (British, 11 February 1800 – 17 September 1877) Cloisters, Lacock Abbey 1843
William Henry Fox Talbot (11 February 1800 – 17 September 1877)
William Henry Fox Talbot (11 February 1800 – 17 September 1877) was a British scientist, inventor and photography pioneer who invented the salted paper and calotype processes, precursors to photographic processes of the later 19th and 20th centuries. Talbot was also a noted photographer who made major contributions to the development of photography as an artistic medium. He published The Pencil of Nature (1844), which was illustrated with original prints from some of his calotype negatives. His work in the 1840s on photo-mechanical reproduction led to the creation of the photoglyphic engraving process, the precursor to photogravure. Talbot is also remembered as the holder of a patent which, some say, affected the early development of commercial photography in Britain. Additionally, he made some important early photographs of Oxford, Paris, Reading, and York.
James Robertson (British, 1813-1888) and Felice Beato (Italian-British, 1832 – 29 January 1909) Pyramids at Giza 1857 Photograph, salted paper print from a glass plate negative
James Robertson (British, 1813-1888)
James Robertson (1813-1888) was an English photographer and gem and coin engraver who worked in the Mediterranean region, the Crimea and possibly India. He was one of the first war photographers.
Robertson was born in Middlesex in 1813. He trained as an engraver under Wyon (probably William Wyon) and in 1843 he began work as an “engraver and die-stamper” at the Imperial Ottoman Mint in Constantinople. It is believed that Robertson became interested in photography while in the Ottoman Empire in the 1840s.
In 1853 he began photographing with British photographer Felice Beato and the two formed a partnership called Robertson & Beato either in that year or in 1854 when Robertson opened a photographic studio in Pera, Constantinople. Robertson and Beato were joined by Beato’s brother, Antonio on photographic expeditions to Malta in 1854 or 1856 and to Greece and Jerusalem in 1857. A number of the firm’s photographs produced in the 1850s are signed Robertson, Beato and Co. and it is believed that “and Co.” refers to Antonio.
In late 1854 or early 1855 Robertson married the Beato brothers’ sister, Leonilda Maria Matilda Beato. They had three daughters, Catherine Grace (born in 1856), Edith Marcon Vergence (born in 1859) and Helen Beatruc (born in 1861). In 1855 Robertson and Felice Beato travelled to Balaklava, Crimea where they took over reportage of the Crimean War from Roger Fenton. They photographed the fall of Sevastopol in September 1855. Some sources have suggested that in 1857 both Robertson and Felice Beato went to India to photograph the aftermath of the Indian Rebellion, but it is more probable that Beato travelled there alone. Around this time Robertson did photograph in Palestine, Syria, Malta, and Cairo with either or both of the Beato brothers.
In 1860, after Felice Beato left for China to photograph the Second Opium War and Antonio Beato went to Egypt, Robertson briefly teamed up with Charles Shepherd back in Constantinople. The firm of Robertson & Beato was dissolved in 1867, having produced images – including remarkable multiple-print panoramas – of Malta, Greece, Turkey, Damascus, Jerusalem, Egypt, the Crimea and India. Robertson possibly gave up photography in the 1860s; he returned to work as an engraver at the Imperial Ottoman Mint until his retirement in 1881. In that year he left for Yokohama, Japan, arriving in January 1882. He died there in April 1888.
James Robertson (British, 1813-1888) Base of the Obelisk of Theodosius, Constantinople 1855 Salted paper print from a glass plate negative
Exhibition of intriguing images that charts the birth of photography
Another week, another photography show about death. It’s not officially about death, mind you; it’s officially about the years 1840 to 1860, when photographers made their images on paper sensitised with silver salts. The process was quickly superseded, but the pictures created this way have a beautiful artistic softness and subtlety of tone, quite apart from the fact that every single new photograph that succeeded represented a huge leap forward in the development of the medium. You see these early practitioners start to grasp the scope of what might be possible. Their subjects change, from ivy-covered walls and carefully posed family groups to more exotic landscapes and subjects: Egypt, India, the poor, war.
By the time you get to Roger Fenton’s portrait Captain Lord Balgonie, Grenadier Guards of 1855 you have an inkling of how photography is changing how we understand life, for ever. Balgonie is 23. He looks 50. His face is harrowed by his service in the Crimean War, his eyes bagged with fatigue, fear and what the future may hold. He survived the conflict, but was broken by it, dying at home two years after this picture was taken. That is yet to come: for now, he is alive.
This sense of destiny bound within a picture created in a moment is what is new about photography, and you start to see it everywhere, not just in the images of war. It’s in William Henry Fox Talbot’s The Great Elm at Lacock: a huge tree against a mottled sky, battered by storms. It’s in John Beasly Greene’s near-abstract images of Egyptian statuary, chipped, cracked, alien. And it’s in the portraits of Newhaven fisherwomen by DO Hill and Robert Adamson (their cry was ‘It’s not fish, it’s men’s lives’). In a world where death is always imminent, photography arrives as the perfect way to preserve life, and the perfect way to leave your mark, however fleeting.
Chris Waywell. “Salt and Silver: Early Photography 1840-1860,” on the Time Out London website 22 July 2015 [Online] Cited 18/12/2022. Used under fair use conditions for the purposes of education and research
One of the most beautiful photographs in this exhibition is Paul Marès Ox Cart, Brittany, c. 1857. At first it seems a picturesque scene of bucolic tranquillity, the abandoned cart an exquisite study in light and tone. But on the cottage wall are painted two white crosses, a warning – apparently even as recently as the 19th century – to passers-by that the household was afflicted by some deadly disease. Photography’s ability to indiscriminately aestheticise is a dilemma that has continued to present itself ever since, especially in the fields of reportage and war photography.
In June 1856, in the midst of his work at the Louvre, Baldus set out on a brief assignment, equally without precedent in photography, that was in many ways its opposite: to photograph the destruction caused by torrential rains and overflowing rivers in Lyon, Avignon, and Tarascon. From a world of magnificent man-made construction, he set out for territory devastated by natural disaster; from the task of re-creating the whole of a building in a catalogue of its thousand parts, he turned to the challenge of evoking a thousand individual stories in a handful of transcendent images. Baldus created a moving record of the flood without explicitly depicting the human suffering left in its wake. The “poor people, tears in their eyes, scavenging to find the objects most indispensable to their daily needs,” described by the local Courier de Lyon, are all but absent from his photographs of the hard-hit Brotteaux quarter of Lyon, as if the destruction had been of biblical proportions, leaving behind only remnants of a destroyed civilization.
Malcolm Daniel. “Édouard Baldus (1813-1889),” in Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000 [Online] Cited 16/12/2022. Used under fair use conditions for the purposes of education and research
Auguste Salzmann (French, 1824-1872) painter, photographer and archaeologist who pioneered the use of photography in the recording of historic sites. He excavated archaeological material in Rhodes in collaboration with Alfred Biliotti.
Roger Fenton (British, 28 March 1819 – 8 August 1869) Cossack Bay, Balaclava 1855
It is likely that in autumn 1854, as the Crimean War grabbed the attention of the British public, that some powerful friends and patrons – among them Prince Albert and Duke of Newcastle, secretary of state for war – urged Fenton to go the Crimea to record the happenings. He set off aboard HMS Hecla in February, landed at Balaklava on 8 March and remained there until 22 June. The resulting photographs may have been intended to offset the general unpopularity of the war among the British people, and to counteract the occasionally critical reporting of correspondent William Howard Russell of The Times.The photographs were to be converted into woodblocks and published in the less critical Illustrated London News. Fenton took Marcus Sparling as his photographic assistant, a servant known as William and a large horse-drawn van of equipment…
Despite summer high temperatures, breaking several ribs in a fall, suffering from cholera and also becoming depressed at the carnage he witnessed at Sebastopol, in all Fenton managed to make over 350 usable large format negatives. An exhibition of 312 prints was soon on show in London and at various places across the nation in the months that followed. Fenton also showed them to Queen Victoria and Prince Albert and also to Emperor Napoleon III in Paris. Nevertheless, sales were not as good as expected.
A woman who carries a canteen for soldiers; a vivandière.
Roger Fenton (British, 28 March 1819 – 8 August 1869) Captain Lord Balgonie, Grenadier Guards 1855 Photograph, salted paper print from a paper negative
Roger Fenton (British, 28 March 1819 – 8 August 1869) Captain Lord Balgonie, Grenadier Guards 1855 Photograph, salted paper print from a paper negative
If I had to choose a figure it would be the Franco-American, archaeological photographer John Beasly Greene. His career was short and dangerous, he died at 24, but he challenged the trend towards clarity that dominated his field. Instead, he used the limits of the medium – burn-out, shadow, halation and the beautiful grainy texture of the print itself – to explore the poetic ambiguity of Egyptian sites.
This revolutionary photographic process transformed subjects, still lifes, portraits, landscapes and scenes of daily life into images. It brings it’s own luxurious aesthetic, soft textures, matt appearance and deep rich red tones, the variations seen throughout this exhibition is fascinating to observe. It’s also an incredible opportunity to view the original prints in an exhibition format, which has never been done before on a scale like this before.
The process starts with dipping writing paper in a solution of common salt, then partly drying it, coating it with silver nitrate, then drying it again, before applying further coats of silver nitrate, William Henry Fox Talbot pioneered what became known as the salt print and the world’s first photographic print! The specifically soft and luxurious aesthetic became an icon of modern visual language.
The few salt prints that survive are rarely seen due to their fragility. This exhibition is extremely important to recognise this historical process as well as a fantastic opportunity to see the rarest and best up close of early photographs of this type in the world.
Anon. “Salt and Silver: Early Photography 1840-1860,” on the Films not dead website [Online] Cited 03/06/2015. No longer available online. Used under fair use conditions for the purposes of education and research
Tournachon’s nickname, Nadar, derived from youthful slang, but became his professional signature and the name by which he is best known today. Poor but talented, Nadar began by scratching out a living as a freelance writer and caricaturist. His writings and illustrations made him famous before he began to photograph. His keenly honed camera eye came from his successful career as a satirical cartoonist, in which the identifying characteristic of a subject was reduced to a single distinct facet; that skill proved effective in capturing the personality of his photographic subjects.
Nadar opened his first photography studio in 1854, but he only practiced for six years. He focused on the psychological elements of photography, aiming to reveal the moral personalities of his sitters rather than make attractive portraits. Bust- or half-length poses, solid backdrops, dramatic lighting, fine sculpturing, and concentration on the face were trademarks of his studio. His use of eight-by-ten-inch glass-plate negatives, which were significantly larger than the popular sizes of daguerreotypes, accentuated those effects.
At one point, a commentator said, “[a]ll the outstanding figures of [the] era – literary, artistic, dramatic, political, intellectual – have filed through his studio.” In most instances these subjects were Nadar’s friends and acquaintances. His curiosity led him beyond the studio into such uncharted locales as the catacombs, which he was one of the first persons to photograph using artificial light.
Lodoisch Crette Romet (1823-1872) A Lesson of Gustave Le Gray in His Studio [Antoine-Emile Plassan] 1850-1853 24.2 x 17.7cm Photograph, salted paper print from a paper negative
John S. Johnston (American, c. 1839 – December 17, 1899) One of Dr Kane’s Men [possibly William Morton] c. 1857
John S. Johnston was a late 19th-century maritime and landscape photographer. He is known for his photographs of racing yachts and New York City landmarks and cityscapes. Very little is known about his life. He was evidently born in Britain in the late 1830s, and was active in the New York City area in the late 1880s and 1890s. He died in 1899.
William Morton
“Belief in the Open Polar Sea theory subsided until the mid-1800s, when Elisha Kent Kane set forth on a number of expeditions north with hopes of finding this theorised body of water. On an 1850s expedition organised by Kane, explorer William Morton, believing he discovered the Open Polar Sea, described a body of water containing…
“Not a speck of ice… As far as I could discern, the sea was open… The wind was due N(orth) – enough to make white caps, and the surf broke in on the rocks in regular breakers.”
Morton, however, did not find the Open Polar Sea – he found a small oasis of water. Morton’s quote is likely tinged with a desire to raise the spirits of his boss, Kane, who saw the Polar Sea as a possible utopia, an area brimming with life amidst a harsh arctic world.”
Keith Veronese. “The Open Polar Sea, a balmy aquatic Eden at the North Pole?” on the Gizmodo website 4/20/12 [Online] Cited 03/06/2015. Used under fair use conditions for the purposes of education and research
David Hill (Scottish, 1802-1870)and Robert Adamson (Scottish, 1821-1848) Thought to be Elizabeth Rigby c. 1844 Photograph, salted paper print from a paper negative
John Wheeley Gough Gutch (1809-1862) was a British surgeon and editor. He was also a keen amateur naturalist and geologist, and a pioneer photographer.
In 1851, Dr. Gutch gave up his medical practice to become a messenger for Queen Victoria, and he began photographing the many cities he visited on his diplomatic missions. During a trip to Constantinople, he became seriously ill, resulting in permanent partial paralysis that ended his public service career. While undergoing experimental treatments in Malvern, England, Dr. Gutch again turned to photography as a cure for his melancholy. His works were exhibited throughout London and Edinburgh from 1856-1861, and he became a frequent contributor to the Photographic Notes publication. Dr. Gutch’s camera of choice was Frederick Scott Archer’s wet-plate camera because he liked the convenience of developing glass negatives within the camera, which eliminated the need for a darkroom. However, the camera proved too cumbersome for him to handle, and had to be manipulated by one of his photographic assistants. His photographs were printed on salt-treated paper and were placed into albums he painstakingly decorated with photographic collages.
Dr. Gutch’s “picturesque” photographic style was influenced by artist William Gilpin. Unlike his mid-nineteenth century British contemporaries who recorded urban expansion, he preferred focusing on ancient buildings, rock formations, archaeological ruins, and tree-lined streams. In 1857, an assignment for Photographic Notes took him to Scotland, northern Wales, and the English Lake District, where he photographed the lush settings, but not always to his satisfaction. Two years’ later, he aspired to photograph and document the more than 500 churches in Gloucestershire, a daunting and quite expensive task. He fitted his camera with a Ross Petzval wide-angle lens and managed to photograph more than 200 churches before illness forced him to abandon the ambitious project. Fifty-three-year-old John Wheeley Gough Gutch died in London on April 30, 1862.
Anonymous text. “John Wheeley Gough Gutch,” on the Historic Camera website Nd [Online] Cited 03/06/2015. Used under fair use conditions for the purposes of education and research
Hal Fischer (American, b. 1950) Blue Handkerchief, Red Handkerchief 1977/2014 From Gay Semiotics 1977 Inkjet print
I remember coming out in 1975, six years after Stonewall, that seismic event that was the out and proud culmination of the resistance to oppression that had been building since the Second World War. Pre-disco, pre-Heaven night club (opened in December 1979) young gay men like me went to pubs in the Soho and Earl’s Court district of London and to places like Bang! nightclub on Tottenham Court Road (opened 1976). I used to wear an earring in my left ear, keys on the left, handkerchiefs to all the fetish nights at Heaven, and speak a queer language that secretive gay men had to speak in straight places… Polari (or alternatively Parlare, Parlary, Palare, Palarie, Palari; from Italian parlare, “to talk”).
“Polari is a form of cant slang used in Britain by actors, circus and fairground showmen, merchant navy sailors, criminals, prostitutes, and the gay subculture. There is some debate about its origins, but it can be traced back to at least the nineteenth century and possibly the sixteenth century… Polari is a mixture of Romance (Italian or Mediterranean Lingua Franca), London slang, backslang, rhyming slang, sailor slang, and thieves’ cant… It was a constantly developing form of language, with a small core lexicon of about 20 words (including bona, ajax, eek, cod, naff, lattie, nanti, omi, palone, riah, zhoosh (tjuz), TBH, trade, vada), and over 500 other lesser-known words.
Polari was used in London fishmarkets, the theatre, fairgrounds and circuses, hence the many borrowings from Romany. As many homosexual men worked in theatrical entertainment it was also used among the gay subculture, at a time when homosexual activity was illegal, to disguise homosexuals from hostile outsiders and undercover policemen. It was also used extensively in the British Merchant Navy, where many gay men joined ocean liners and cruise ships as waiters, stewards and entertainers. On one hand, it would be used as a means of cover to allow gay subjects to be discussed aloud without being understood; on the other hand, it was also used by some, particularly the most visibly camp and effeminate, as a further way of asserting their identity.” (Text from Wikipedia)
For example “vada the bona omi” was a “look at the good man”, “spark out on his palliass” was “flat out on his back”, and “he had huge lallies” which was “he had huge legs” (more terms can be found on the Polari – British gay slang web page). Another favourite was “trolling the Dilly” which means “to cruise or walk about Pica/dilly” where the rent boys (known as Dilly boys) used to line up against the railings looking for customers or “trade”. In this context “trolling” could be seen as a form of gay flâneur. Wikipedia states that Polari had begun to fall into disuse amongst the gay subculture by the late 1960s, but in my experience this is not true. Within my circle of friends it was still in constant use into the early 1980s. The language was very useful in pubs in London where sailors, ruff trade, and the theatre crowd mixed in Soho, were you could comment to a gay friend on a man that you thought attractive and anyone overhearing your conversation would not know what you were talking about.
All this must seem rather quaint now, but the archetypal images of gay men have not changed much over the intervening years. There is still the natural young gay man, the bear, the leatherman (or those that just wear leather for dance parties, just for show and not for attitude), the S/M scene, still the handkerchief code (still seen though rarely these days), the armband on the left or right for active or passive, still the gay jocks but now much more the gym preened bunnies. Everything old is new again… it’s just less heterogeneous.
Dr Marcus Bunyan
Many thankx to the Fotomuseum Winterthur for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.
In 1977, Hal Fischer produced his photo-text project Gay Semiotics, first as a series of silver gelatin prints and then as a book published by NFS Press. The project explored the growing visibility of the male gay community in the Castro district of San Francisco, particularly its street style and so-called ‘hanky codes’ indicating different sexual preferences. Fisher’s series was one of the earliest attempts to explore a queer semiotics, offering a playful engagement with male self-fashioning and archetypes. Gay Semiotics is both a marker of the self-confidence and creativity of the San Francisco gay community before the emergence of HIV/AIDS and an important contribution to West Coast conceptual photography.
Hal Fischer (American, b. 1950) Keys 1977/2014 From Gay Semiotics 1977 Inkjet print
Hal Fischer (American, b. 1950) Leather Apparel 1977/2014 From Gay Semiotics 1977 Inkjet print
Hal Fischer (American, b. 1950) Gag Mask 1977/2014 From Gay Semiotics 1977 Inkjet print
Hal Fischer (American, b. 1950) Amyl Nitrite 1977/2014 From Gay Semiotics 1977 Inkjet print
Hal Fischer (American, b. 1950) Earring 1977/2014 From Gay Semiotics 1977 Inkjet print
JBW:Gay Semiotics is an attempt to map some of the discourse of structuralism onto the visual codes of male queer life in the Castro. How did you come to structuralism?
JBW: You’re doing several things in Gay Semiotics. On the one hand, you’re parsing a signification system that arose out of a nonverbal, erotic exchange, and you’re also deconstructing gay male self-fashioning and photographing “archetypes.” It is thus a photo-project about the history of photography and its long legacy of ethnographic typing.
HF: I can’t say I was conscious of it at the time, but one of the first photographers who influenced me was August Sander. I mean, I LOVED Sander. I still do. I probably was a fascist in an earlier life, because I’m definitely into types, and I’m definitely into archetyping. I don’t really think it’s that awful a thing to do; it can be very informative. I was also interested in the Bechers and the notion of repetition.
JBW: So the work is also about genre.
HF: Yes. It’s also about personal desire; it’s a lexicon of attraction.”
Extract from Julia Bryan-Wilson speaking with Hal Fischer. Aperture magazine #218, Spring 2015
Hal Fischer (American, b. 1950) Signifiers for a Male Response 1977/2014 From Gay Semiotics 1977 Inkjet print
Hal Fischer (American, b. 1950) Street Fashion Basic Gay 1977/2014 From Gay Semiotics 1977 Inkjet print
Hal Fischer (American, b. 1950) Street Fashion Jock 1977/2014 From Gay Semiotics 1977 Inkjet print
Hal Fischer (American, b. 1950) Street Fashion Forties Trash 1977/2014 From Gay Semiotics 1977 Inkjet print
Hal Fischer (American, b. 1950) Street Fashion Hippie 1977/2014 From Gay Semiotics 1977 Inkjet print
Hal Fischer (American, b. 1950) Street Fashion Uniform 1977/2014 From Gay Semiotics 1977 Inkjet print
Hal Fischer (American, b. 1950) Street Fashion Leather 1977/2014 From Gay Semiotics 1977 Inkjet print
Hal Fischer (American, b. 1950) Archetypal Media Image Leather 1977/2014 From Gay Semiotics 1977 Inkjet print
Hal Fischer (American, b. 1950) Archetypal Media Image Urbane 1977/2014 From Gay Semiotics 1977 Inkjet print
Hal Fischer (American, b. 1950) Archetypal Media Image Western 1977/2014 From Gay Semiotics 1977 Inkjet print
Hal Fischer (American, b. 1950) Archetypal Media Image Classical 1977/2014 From Gay Semiotics 1977 Inkjet print
Hal Fischer (American, b. 1950) Archetypal Media Image Natural 1977/2014 From Gay Semiotics 1977 Inkjet print
Hal Fischer (American, b. 1950) Dominance 1977/2014 From Gay Semiotics 1977 Inkjet print
Hal Fischer (American, b. 1950) Sadism & Masochism 1977/2014 From Gay Semiotics 1977 Inkjet print
Hal Fischer (American, b. 1950) Submission 1977/2014 From Gay Semiotics 1977 Inkjet print
Hal Fischer (American, b. 1950) Bondage Device Cross 1977/2014 From Gay Semiotics 1977 Inkjet print
Hal Fischer (American, b. 1950) Bondage Device Open End Table Rack 1977/2014 From Gay Semiotics 1977 Inkjet print
Hal Fischer (American, b. 1950) Bondage Device Meat Hoist 1977/2014 From Gay Semiotics 1977 Inkjet print
Andy Warhol (American, 1928-1987) Air France Jun 21 1982 Unique gelatin silver print 8 x 10 in. (20.3 x 25.4cm)
Andy Warhol being, well … Andy Warhol.
Artist, tourist, celebrity, poofter, man about town and spontaneous, thoughtful snapper. The photograph of the Prado at night is superb as are the multiple, stitched together photographs. Warhol certainly loved his high key, 35mm images.
Marcus
Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.
Andy Warhol (American, 1928-1987) Cessna Plane c. 1977 Four stitched gelatin silver prints Each: 11 x 14 in. (27.9 x 35.6cm) Overall: 2 1 1/4 x 27 3/8 in. (54 x 69.5cm)
Andy Warhol (American, 1928-1987) City View
 May 07 1984 Unique gelatin silver print 8 x 10 in. (20.3 x 25.4cm)
Andy Warhol (American, 1928-1987) Houston Skyline c. 1979 Unique gelatin silver print 8 x 10 in. (20.3 x 25.4cm)
Andy Warhol (American, 1928-1987) German Trolley
 Jun 23 1980 Unique gelatin silver print 8 x 10 in. (20.3 x 25.4cm)
Andy Warhol (American, 1928-1987) Limousine Interior c. 1980 Unique gelatin silver print 8 x 10 in. (20.3 x 25.4cm)
Andy Warhol (American, 1928-1987) Luxor Temple c. 1977 Two unique gelatin silver prints Each: 8 x 5 in. (20.3 x 12.7cm)
Andy Warhol (American, 1928-1987) Luxor Temple (detail) c. 1977 Two unique gelatin silver prints Each: 8 x 5 in. (20.3 x 12.7cm)
Andy Warhol (American, 1928-1987) Ocean Landscape 1986 Four stitched gelatin silver prints Each: 11 x 14 in. (27.9 x 35.6cm) Overall: 2 1/4 x 27 1/2 in. (54 x 69.9cm)
Early Cindy Sherman, very good; Francesca Woodman, wow; but Ana Mendieta, you are a star!
Dr Marcus Bunyan
Many thankx to the Hamburger Kunsthalle for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.
Featuring 34 international women artists, this wide-ranging exhibition highlights the early days of the feminist art movement. With over 150 major works drawn from the SAMMLUNG VERBUND in Vienna, it documents how female artists in the 1970s began collectively reshaping the “image of woman” – something that had never happened before in the history of art. During this period, increasing numbers of women who had been born during or just after the Second World War had the opportunity to study at an art school or academy, enabling them to emancipate themselves from the traditional role of artist’s muse or model. Dr Gabriele Schor, director of the SAMMLUNG VERBUND, coined the term “feminist avant-garde” to highlight the pioneering role played by these artists.
The female artists have turned to new media such as photography, film or video, due to the fact that these are not laden with art-historical baggage; others employ performance or action-based art as their chosen means of expression. Along with artists such as VALIE EXPORT, Cindy Sherman and Martha Rosler whose work is familiar to a wide audience, the exhibition also provides a rare opportunity to discover some equally accomplished but less well-known members of the “feminist avant-garde”.
Featuring 34 international women artists, this wide-ranging exhibition highlights the early days of the feminist art movement. With over 150 major works drawn from the SAMMLUNG VERBUND in Vienna, it documents how female artists in the 1970s began collectively reshaping the “image of woman” – something that had never happened before in the history of art. During this period, increasing numbers of women who had been born during or just after the Second World War had the opportunity to study at an art school or academy, enabling them to emancipate themselves from the traditional role of artÂist’s muse or model. Dr Gabriele Schor, director of the SAMMLUNG VERBUND, coined the term “feminist avant-garde” to highlight the pioneering role played by these artists.
They went on to create works that challenged social norms and the mechanisms of the art business, developing radical new artistic practices and breaking with a male-dominated reality. Against the backÂground of the civil rights movement and the women’s movement, feminist issues emerged as a matter of public debate: the personal was now political. Within a very short period of time, women began raisÂing awareness and gaining public recognition by organising collective actions, demonstrations and inÂdependent exhibitions. The artists of the “feminist avant-garde” have examined how traditional images determine the perception of women and how they construct their own personal and social identity. Their work addresses a wide range of themes, such as the relegation of women to the one-dimensional role of housewife and mother, the use of one’s own body in art, female sexuality, notions of beauty and violence against women.
Numerous women artists have turned to new media such as photography, film or video, due to the fact that these are not laden with art-historical baggage; others employ performance or action-based art as their chosen means of expression. VALIE EXPORT, for example, invited passers-by on Munich’s Stachus square to visit her Tapp-und Tastkino – meaning that they could put their hands inside a box she was wearing over her naked chest. Female artists have often exploited their own bodies as art material, whereby some – such as Ana Mendieta or Gina Pane – have pushed themselves to the very limits of physical endurance. Using humour, irony, subtlety and provocation, the artists of the “feminist avantgarde” have deconstructed the traditional female iconography.
Along with artists such as VALIE EXPORT, Cindy Sherman and Martha Rosler whose work is familiar to a wide audience, the exhibition also provides a rare opportunity to discover some equally accomplished but less well-known members of the “feminist avant-garde”.
The SAMMLUNG VERBUND was founded in 2004 in Vienna by VERBUND, Austria’s leading producer of electricity from hydropower. The collection focuses on international contemporary art from 1970 to the present day, with a unique emphasis on the Feminist Avant-garde of the 1970s.
Exhibition dates: 23rd January – 4th September, 2015
*PLEASE NOTE THIS POSTING CONTAINS ART PHOTOGRAPHS OF HUMAN EROTIC ACTIVITY ANDÂ NUDITY – IF YOU DO NOT LIKE PLEASE DO NOT LOOK, FAIR WARNING HAS BEEN GIVEN*
Unknown photographer Female nude 1850s Daguerreotype in case
Part 2 of this special posting of photographs from the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction.
I especially like the allusion to Romanticism and class in Bijoux 118 (catalog card) (below) through the picture on the wall behind the copulating couple; and the allusion to the landscape and the sublime in Man performing analinctus on another man (1885-1900, below) through the painted studio backdrop. The sheer pleasure on the faces of some of the people in these photographs, such as in Clothed man kneeling behind a nude woman (1884-1886, below) is a joy to behold.
Many thankx for the Kinsey Institute for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.
The Kinsey Institute research collection contains thousands of examples of erotic imagery produced over centuries by artists around the world. When the new technology of photography was announced in France in 1839, it was not long before it became the most popular medium for depictions of the nude figure, as well as erotic imagery. The first photographic process to be widely used was the daguerreotype, which produced a unique image. With the invention of other processes that used negatives to make multiple prints, the mass production of erotic photographs became possible. Hold That Pose features daguerreotypes, tintypes, albumen and gelatin silver prints, stereocards, and other examples of photographic processes that were used by professional photographers in the 19th century to produce and distribute erotic material.
W.H. Gilbert Tate (London, England) Portrait of an actress c. 1870 Albumen print (carte de visite)
Cartes de visite and cabinet cards
Mass produced on cheap paper or cardstock, actress cards served as cartes de visite – photographic cards left as messages – and as collectible portraits of popular stars of the theatre in London and Paris. One could purchase larger photographs, known as cabinet cards, from the photography studio or the pocket-sized cartes de visite. In an era when women were expected to stay at home, living quiet lives as wives and mothers, actresses were seen as having turned their backs on their ‘God given duty’ to be devoted homemakers. Though looked down upon socially, some actresses achieved fame and notoriety, through their work on stage as well as their lives outside the theatre.
Wendt Studio (New Jersey, United States) Helen Mathews, Length of hair 6 feet 4 inches 19th century Albumen print mounted on cabinet card
Guglielmo Plüschow (Wilhelm von Plüschow, Germany 1852-1930) Female nude Italy, c. 1890 Albumen print
Exhibition dates: 23rd January – 4th September, 2015
*PLEASE NOTE THIS POSTING CONTAINS ART PHOTOGRAPHS OF HUMAN EROTIC ACTIVITY AND NUDITY – IF YOU DO NOT LIKE PLEASE DO NOT LOOK, FAIR WARNING HAS BEEN GIVEN*
Gallery wall of the exhibition Hold That Pose at the Kinsey Institute
A first for Art Blart – photographs from the world famous Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction!
After visiting the Kinsey Institute as part of my PhD in 2001 I was not allowed to publish any photographs from the collection for my research, which was a pity. Things have changed over the last decade and a half I am happy to say. As I observed in an email to Catherine Johnson-Roehr, Curator of Art, Artifacts, and Photographs recently, I understood that they had to be more sensitive than most institutions, especially with some of the material they hold in their collection. In reply, Catherine noted that while the Kinsey still had to be careful with the use of their materials especially when they are made public online, things had improved in the last 15 years. “Although we have collected artworks since the 1940s, we did not exhibit any of the materials until the 1990s and then on a very limited basis until 2002. When I arrived here in 2000, we had only a few tame images on our website, but now we have online galleries for some of our exhibitions (including all the juried art shows).”
Therefore, after some negotiation for online release, it is with great pleasure that I can feature 40 images in this two-part posting. Nobody should be offended by these glorious, historic photographs of the human body and a human action that everyone does, and it is fantastic to see the Kinsey opening up their collection to the world. We must oppose bigoted views such as that of Nazi Germany where they destroyed the library of the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft (Institute for Sexology) headed by Magnus Hirschfeld, in 1933… by making these images visible in the world, not hiding them away behind closed doors. These are joyous photographs of the male and female body, a body in which every one of us lives, desires, and enjoys pleasure.
Many thankx for the Kinsey Institute for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.
The Kinsey Institute research collection contains thousands of examples of erotic imagery produced over centuries by artists around the world. When the new technology of photography was announced in France in 1839, it was not long before it became the most popular medium for depictions of the nude figure, as well as erotic imagery. The first photographic process to be widely used was the daguerreotype, which produced a unique image. With the invention of other processes that used negatives to make multiple prints, the mass production of erotic photographs became possible. Hold That Pose features daguerreotypes, tintypes, albumen and gelatin silver prints, stereocards, and other examples of photographic processes that were used by professional photographers in the 19th century to produce and distribute erotic material.
Photo process display case from the exhibition Hold That Pose at the Kinsey Institute
Stanhopes on display from the exhibition Hold That Pose at the Kinsey Institute
Unknown photographers Stanhope lenses and holders 19th or early 20th century
Unknown photographer Stanhope lens and holder (detail) 19th or early 20th century
Stanhope lenses and holders 19th or early 20th century
Gallery wall from the exhibition Hold That Pose at the Kinsey Institute showing at second left, Bathing in a Baetingplace (Japan, 1880-1890, below) by an unknown photographer; and at second right bottom, Nude woman reclining on a fallen tree (c. 1880, below) by an unknown photographer
Stereoscope display case from the exhibition Hold That Pose at the Kinsey Institute
Stereoscope on display in the exhibition Hold That Pose at the Kinsey Institute
Stereo photography
The stereoscope, a device for viewing images in three dimensions, was invented in England in1838, just as the first photographic processes were being developed in France. The first stereo photographs were created using the daguerreotype process, which preserved an image on a highly polished silver plate. Initially a single camera was used to produce two nearly identical images that when viewed through a stereo device gave the illusion of seeing in 3-D, but soon a camera equipped with two lenses came into use for the production of stereo images. Stereoscopes became as popular as televisions are today, as a form of affordable home entertainment that could be enjoyed by children and adults.
Webster & Albee (Publishers, United States) Woman standing on the back of a kneeling man Late 19th century Hand-colored stereocard
See the installation photograph above and the card in the Stereoscope
Unknown photographer (France) Two nude women in a room with a mirror c. 1850-1855 Stereo daguerreotype under glass
Underwood & Underwood (United States) Oh ! you naughty man 1900 Stereocard
Unknown photographer The Entanglement Mid 19th century Hand-coloured stereocard
Unknown photographer (France) Nude woman in a room with a mirror c. 1850-1855 Copy photograph of stereo daguerreotype
Unknown photographer Photomontage of men and women engaged in sexual activity 1895-1900 Gelatin silver print
Unknown photographer Photomontage of men and women engaged in sexual activity (detail) 1895-1900 Gelatin silver print
Unknown photographer Woman penetrating a woman with a dildo 1880-1885 Gelatin silver copy print
Unknown photographer Bathing in a Baetingplace Japan, 1880-1890 Hand-coloured albumen print
___ and ___ – bathing, attended by their ____ (maid) who is putting charcoal into the fire under the tub
Unknown photographer (United States) Nude woman reclining on a fallen tree c. 1880 Modern platinum print from glass plate negative (printed in 2012 by Herbert Ascherman, Jr.)
Unknown photographer (Indiana, United States) Erect penis 19th century Modern gelatin silver print from glass plate negative
Baron Wilhelm von Gloeden (German, 1856-1931) Man seated beside a tree Taormina, Sicily, 1899 Albumen print
Baron Wilhelm von Gloeden (German, 1856-1931) Two nude men standing in a forest Taormina, Sicily, 1899 Albumen print
The Kinsey Institute Morrison Hall 313, Indiana University Bloomington, Indiana, USA
Larry Fink (American, 1941-2023) Peter Beard’s, East Hampton, from the portfolio 82 Photographs 1974 to 1982
 1982; printed 1983 Silver gelatin print
Hands / Class – Tree, Surface, Root
These are magnificent photographs. Fink’s mastery of the picture plane, ensemble, mise-en-scène, chiaroscuro is outstanding. But for me it is the attitude of the hands that make these photographs. Reaching, holding (usually the bodies of women), clasping, upturned, crotch grabbing, oversized, limp, clenched and gesticulating – in more of less every photograph it is the positioning of the hands that are the focus of my attention, and their relation to the social class of the proponent. The hedonism of Studio 54, the snobbishness of the benefits at MoMA and Corcoran Museum, and the Russian and Hungarian balls with their icy coolness and sidelong glances, all played off against the working class birthday parties of Pat Sabatine.
I spoke to my friend and mentor Ian Lobb about these photographs and we had a lively discussion:
MB: What do you think of the work of Larry Fink?
IL: The image of the child holding up his hand was on the cover of the second (?) Larry fink monograph. They are OK, but not great.
I have a rule: “The closer we get to the origin the more options we have.” But Larry is building on heaps of people – Winogrand, Mark Cohen etc, and earlier. And when that happens it really needs to be BUILT to be a success for the viewer. But he is just adding a bit. Its good, OK work. It’s mainly referencing stuff though. I can’t see anyone building on what he has done, a worker would have to go down the tree to a point before him to progress again.
Photography is pretty much fantastic before the fact, so things can look pretty good if it just happens. The process is so different from the reproduction of music that keeps trying to return to an original – photography has done that, but then runs tangential ideas where there can be flash and frozen time and no colour etc…
MB: I can understand what you are saying Ian … even though I don’t necessarily agree!
There is an essay I have just read as part of a Joan Fontcuberta book (“The Right Distance,” in Joan Fontcuberta. Pandora’s Camera: Photogr@phy after Photography. Mack, 2014, pp. 143-150). It’s interesting what he has to say about the “distance” of the photographer from the object… long distance landscape (in Victorian times… Muybridge, Carelton Watkins), long distance city (Marville) – the infinite sublime I call it – coming closer with Atget (parts of doors, stairs, closer engagement) and Blossfeldt – and then the avant-garde in the 1920s with the dissolution of far near into near far… followed by New Topographics and the griding of space, the regimentation and delineation of an even narrower point of view, both aesthetically and objectively.
I am paraphrasing but that is what he says anyway. It makes sense in one way. But in another we do not have to be either / or – near / far. Nor do we have to be “new” every time we take a photograph.
What I am arguing is that you do not always have to reinvent the wheel, in answer to your observation that you have to go back down the tree. Nothing is ever new and sometimes, as with the photography of Fink, it is the gesture that is enough for me – that human gesture that will never happen again exactly in that form. I am still in wonder of that moment, of the child’s raised hand (Pat Sabatine’s 8th Birthday Party). I don’t really care that people have done it before, they have never captured that moment, that precise gesture before… and it is still beautiful to me. The apple never falls far from the tree.
IL: A good term Marcus: the infinite sublime.
Fontcuberta understands it very well – mainly because it could be applied to the best of his pictures in terms of the continual involvement that some of them generate. As I said, the Larry Finks are OK. Have you seen the YouTube about Joel Sternfeld photographing in NY? He is literally right in peoples faces, and yet they don’t even seem to notice him. I’d like to see one of Larry Fink with his flash in these small rooms and intimate spaces.
What I can say is that some smart person will invent the term that distinguishes between the surface aesthetic of the digital and analogue print. There is such “value” in the display here [of Fink’s work], that would not mean the same in a digital print. Why? The analogue look could even be faked to fool everyone I suppose. Even with these, the surface would fall apart @ about 19″ sq and it would all be lost.
MB: It is the surface aesthetic Ian, but it goes deeper than that. I saw the Richard Avedon exhibition up at The Ian Potter Museum of Art were his negatives were blown up to enormous size and digitally printed… and they just didn’t work. There is a containment of energy within a classical analogue black and white photograph that the surface of a digital print cannot capture, yes, but in a good analogue photograph there is also an emotional depth that seems to transcend surface…. and as yet, digital photographs rarely approach this state of being. What would be a word that evinces surface and psychological depth at one and the same time?
Dr Marcus Bunyan
Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.
Larry Fink is a prominent American photographer who is best known for capturing images of high-profile social events. Fink’s images from the 1970s and 1980s capture individual vignettes within social gatherings, and nod to the development of documentary photography within the image-driven culture of the second half of the twentieth century. Some of the photographs below are from Fink’s series 82 Photographs 1974 to 1982 and Making Out 1957 – 1980 and depict scenes from clubs and parties in and around New York City. Fink’s subjects are caught off-guard by his camera, and their expressions provide windows into their weariness or giddy party euphoria. Capturing groups and individuals at surprisingly intimate and vulnerable moments, his photographs subtly reveal the disconnect often found between a subject’s public image and his or her inner self. For example, in Peter Beard’s, East Hampton, Fink captures a dynamic group of people in various levels of engagement with one another. While some are intertwined, others glance outward to the party beyond, having seemingly lost interest in the gathering at hand.
Larry Fink (American, 1941-2023) John Sabatine and Molly 1980 Silver gelatin print
Larry Fink (American, 1941-2023) Jean Sabatine and Molly 1983 Silver gelatin print
Larry Fink (American, 1941-2023) N.Y.C. Club Cornich, from the portfolio 82 Photographs 1974 to 1982 1977; printed 1983 Silver gelatin print
Larry Fink (American, 1941-2023) N.Y.C. Club Cornich, from the portfolio 82 Photographs 1974 to 1982 1977; printed 1983 Silver gelatin print
Larry Fink (American, 1941-2023) Benefit, Corcoran Museum, Washington DC 1975 Silver gelatin print
Larry Fink (American, 1941-2023) Benefit, Corcoran Museum, Washington DC 1975 Silver gelatin print
Larry Fink (American, 1941-2023) Benefit, MoMA, New York 1977 Silver gelatin print
Larry Fink (American, 1941-2023) ICP Peter Beard Opening 1977 Silver gelatin print
Larry Fink (American, 1941-2023) Oslin’s Graduation Party 1977 Silver gelatin print
Larry Fink (American, 1941-2023) Oslin’s Graduation Party June 1977 Silver gelatin print
Larry Fink (American, 1941-2023) Studio 54 1977 Silver gelatin print
Larry Fink (American, 1941-2023) Studio 54, New York City May 1977 Silver gelatin print
Shore writes that the four ways, “in which the world in front of the camera is transformed into the photograph” are flatness, frame, time, and focus. Fink was aware of these attributes of photography and used them to define the picture’s content and structure. (The depictive level)
Shore, Stephen. The Nature of Photographs. John Hopkins University Press, 1998 quoted by Tyler Brennan Reiss, October 16, 2013.
Larry Fink (American, 1941-2023) Studio 54, New York City May 1977 Silver gelatin print
Larry Fink (American, 1941-2023) Studio 54, New York City May 1977 Silver gelatin print
Larry Fink (American, 1941-2023) Washington DC 1975 Silver gelatin print
Larry Fink (American, 1941-2023) Russian Ball, New York 1976 Silver gelatin print
“Sometimes you’re invited to a big ball and for months you think about how glamorous and exciting it’s going to be. Then you fly to Europe and you go to the ball and when you think back on it a couple of months later what you remember is maybe the car ride to the ball, you can’t remember the ball at all. Sometimes the little times you don’t think are anything while they’re happening turn out to be what marks a whole period of your life. I should have been dreaming for months about the car ride to the ball and getting dressed for the car ride, and buying my ticket to Europe so I could take the car ride. Then, who knows, maybe I could have remembered the ball.”
~ Andy Warhol
Larry Fink (American, 1941-2023) Russian Ball, New York City 1976 Silver gelatin print
Larry Fink (American, 1941-2023) Pat Sabatine’s 8th Birthday Party 1977 Silver gelatin print
Larry Fink (American, 1941-2023) Pat Sabatine’s 11th Birthday Party 1980 Silver gelatin print
Larry Fink (American, 1941-2023) Skating Rink 1980 Silver gelatin print
My favourites: the weight of Weston’s Shipyard detail, Wilmington (1935, above); and the romanticism (Jean-François Millet-esque), sublime beauty of Boubat’s Lella, Bretagne, France (1947, below).
Dr Marcus Bunyan
Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.
Cecil Stoughton (American, 1920-2008) Pres. John F. Kennedy’s Lincoln Continental 1963 Silver gelatin print
Cecil Stoughton (American, 1920-2008) Pres. John F. Kennedy’s Lincoln Continental 1963 Silver gelatin print
Cecil Stoughton (American, 1920-2008) Pres. John F. Kennedy’s Lincoln Continental 1963 Silver gelatin print
Cecil Stoughton (American, 1920-2008)
Cecil William Stoughton (January 18, 1920 – November 3, 2008) was an American photographer. Born in Oskaloosa, Iowa, Stoughton is best known for being President John F. Kennedy’s photographer during his White House years.
Stoughton took the only photograph ever published showing John F. Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe together. Stoughton was present at the motorcade at which Kennedy was assassinated, and was subsequently the only photographer on board Air Force One when Lyndon B. Johnson was sworn in as the next President. Stoughton’s famous photograph of this event depicts Johnson raising his hand in oath as he stood between his wife Lady Bird Johnson and a still blood-spattered Jacqueline Kennedy.
Max Yavno (American, 1911-1985) Garage Doors, San Francisco 1947 Silver gelatin print
Max Yavno (American, 1911-1985)
Max Yavno (1911-1985) was a photographer who specialised in street scenes, especially in Los Angeles and San Francisco, California.
He did photography for the Works Progress Administration from 1936 to 1942. He was president of the Photo League in 1938 and 1939. Yavno was in the U.S. Army Air Corps from 1942 to 1945, after which he moved to San Francisco and began specialising in urban-landscape photography. Photographer Edward Steichen selected twenty of Yavno’s prints for the permanent collection at New York’s Museum of Modern Art in 1950, and the next year Yavno won a Guggenheim fellowship.
History professor Constance B. Schulz said of him:
For financial reasons he worked as a commercial advertising photographer for the next twenty years (1954-75), creating finely crafted still lifes that appeared in Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar. He returned to artistic landscape photography in the 1970s, when his introspective approach found a more appreciative audience.
Ralph Steiner (American, 1899-1986) American Rural Baroque 1929 Silver gelatin print
Ralph Steiner (American, 1899-1986)
Ralph Steiner (February 8, 1899 – July 13, 1986) was an American photographer, pioneer documentarian and a key figure among avant-garde filmmakers in the 1930s.
Born in Cleveland, Steiner studied chemistry at Dartmouth, but in 1921 entered the Clarence H. White School of Modern Photography. White helped Steiner in finding a job at the Manhattan Photogravure Company, and Steiner worked on making photogravure plates of scenes from Robert Flaherty’s Nanook of the North. Not long after, Steiner’s work as a freelance photographer in New York began, working mostly in advertising and for publications like Ladies’ Home Journal. Through the encouragement of fellow photographer Paul Strand, Steiner joined the left-of-centre Film and Photo League around 1927. He was also to influence the photography of Walker Evans, giving him guidance, technical assistance, and one of his view cameras.
In 1929, Steiner made his first film, H2O, a poetic evocation of water that captured the abstract patterns generated by waves. Although it was not the only film of its kind at the time – Joris Ivens made Regen (Rain) that same year, and Henwar Rodekiewicz worked on his similar film Portrait of a Young Man (1931) through this whole period – it made a significant impression in its day and since has become recognised as a classic: H2O was added to theNational Film Registry in December 2005. Among Steiner’s other early films, Surf and Seaweed (1931) expands on the concept of H2O as Steiner turns his camera to the shoreline; Mechanical Principles (1933) was an abstraction based on gears and machinery.
Wilson A. Bentley (American, 1865-1931) Snowflake c. 1920 Gold-chloride toned microphotographs from glass plate negatives
Andre de Dienes (Hungarian, 1913-1985) Erotic Nude 1950s Silver gelatin print
Andre de Dienes (Hungarian, 1913-1985)
Andre de Dienes (born Andor Gy̦rgy Ikafalvi-Dienes) (December 18, 1913 РApril 11, 1985) was a Hungarian-American photographer, noted for his work with Marilyn Monroe and his nude photography.
Dienes was born in Transylvania, Austria-Hungary, on December 18, 1913, and left home at 15 after the suicide of his mother. Dienes travelled across Europe mostly on foot, until his arrival in Tunisia. In Tunisia he purchased his first camera, a 35mm Retina. Returning to Europe he arrived in Paris in 1933 to study art, and bought a Rolleiflex shortly after.
When not working as a fashion photographer Dienes travelled the USA photographing Native American culture, including the Apache, Hopi, and Navajo reservations and their inhabitants. Dissatisfied with his life as a fashion photographer in New York, Dienes moved to California in 1944, where he began to specialise in nudes and landscapes.
George A. Tice (American, 1938-2025) Porch, Monhegan Island, Maine 1971 Selenium-toned silver print
George A. Tice (American, 1938-2025)
George Tice (b. 1938) is an American photographer best known for his large-format black-and-white photographs of New Jersey, New York, and the Amish. Tice was born in Newark, New Jersey, and self-trained as a photographer. His work is included in major museum collections around the world and he has published many books of photographs, including Fields of Peace: A Pennsylvania German Album (1970), Paterson, New Jersey (1972), Seacoast Maine: People and Places (1973), Urban Landscapes: A New Jersey Portrait (1975), “Lincoln” (1984), Hometowns: An American Pilgrimage (1988), Urban Landscapes (2002), Paterson II (2006), Urban Romantic (1982), and George Tice: Selected Photographs 1953-1999 (2001).
Auguste Salzmann (French, 1824-1872) Jerusalem, Sainte Sepulchre, Colonne du Parvis 1854 Blanquart-Evrard salted paper print from a paper negative
Weegee (Arthur Fellig) (American, 1899-1968) Billie Dauscha and Mabel Sidney, Bowery Entertainers December 4, 1944 Silver gelatin print
Winston O. Link (American, 1914-2001) Luray Crossing, Luray, Virginia 1956 Silver gelatin print
Paul J. Woolf (American, 1899-1985) Looking down on Grand Central Station 1935 Silver gelatin print
Paul J. Woolf began his photographic career in London, taking pictures as a child. He attended the University of California, Berkeley and the Clarence White School of Photography. By 1942 he was established as a professional photographer who specialised in design and night-time photography. Woolf also maintained a practice as a clinical social worker while continuing his work as a photographer.
Henri Cartier-Bresson (French, 1908-2004) Alicante 1933 Silver gelatin print
Joel-Peter Witkin (American, b. 1939) Leda 1986 Silver gelatin print
Roman Vishniac (Russian-American, 1897-1990) Father taking his son to the first day of cheder 1937-1938 Silver gelatin print
Julia Margaret Cameron (British, 1815-1879) James Rogers 1867 Albumen print
Julia Margaret Cameron (British, 1815-1879) The Dream 1869 Albumen print
Lewis W. Hine (American, 1874-1940) An Albanian Woman from Italy at Ellis Island 1905 Silver gelatin print
Lewis W. Hine (American, 1874-1940) Italian laborer, Ellis Island 1905-1912 Silver gelatin print
Laure Albin-Guillot (French, 1879-1962) Opale c. 1930 Silver gelatin print
Cecil Beaton (British, 1904-1980) Virginia Cherrill 1930s Silver gelatin print
![David Hill (Scottish, 1802-1870) and Robert Adamson (Scottish, 1821-1848) 'The Gowan [Margaret and Mary Cavendish]' c. 1843-1848](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/david-hill-and-robert-adamson-the-gowan-margaret-and-mary-cavendish-c-1843-1848-web.jpg "David Hill (Scottish, 1802-1870) and Robert Adamson (Scottish, 1821-1848) 'The Gowan [Margaret and Mary Cavendish]' c. 1843-1848")
![John S. Johnston (American, c. 1839 - December 17, 1899) 'One of Dr Kane’s Men [possibly William Morton]' c. 1857](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/john-s-johnston-one-of-dr-kanes-men-possibly-william-morton-c-1857-web.jpg "John S. Johnston (American, c. 1839 - December 17, 1899) 'One of Dr Kane’s Men [possibly William Morton]' c. 1857")
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