Exhibition: ‘Danny Lyon: Message to the Future’ at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

Exhibition dates: 17th June – 25th September, 2016

Curator: Julian Cox

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942) 'Self-portrait, Chicago' 1965/1995  from the exhibition 'Danny Lyon: Message to the Future' at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, June - Sept, 2016

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942)
Self-portrait, Chicago
1965/1995
Gelatin silver print montage
Image: 31.2 x 27.8cm (12 1/4 x 10 15/16 in.)
Mount: 50.8 x 40.6cm (20 x 16 in.)
Collection of the artist

 

 

This man is a living legend. What a strong body of socially conscious work he has produced over a long period of time. Each series proposes further insight into the human condition – and adds ‘value’ to series that have gone before. It is a though the artist possesses the intuition for a good story and the imagination to photograph it to best advantage, building the story over multiple encounters and contexts to form a thematic whole.

In a press release for a currently showing parallel exhibition titled Journey at Edwynn Houk Gallery the text states, “Continuing in the tradition of Walker Evans and Robert Frank, Lyon forged a new style of realistic photography, described as “New Journalism,” where the photographer immerses himself in his subject’s world.” This reference to immersion is reinforced by the second quotation below, where “the power of Lyon’s work has often derived from his willingness of immerse himself entirely in the cultures and communities he documents.”

While the observation is correct that the artist immerses himself in the cultures and communities he documents, this is different to the tradition of Robert Frank and to a lesser extent, Walker Evans. Frank was a Swiss man who imaged his impressions of America on a road trip across the country. His “photographs were notable for their distanced view of both high and low strata of American society” which pictured the culture as both alienating and strange, “skeptical of contemporary values and evocative of ubiquitous loneliness”. This is why The Americans had so much power and caused so much consternation when it was first released in 1959 in America, for it held up a mirror to an insular society, one not used to looking at itself especially from the position of an “outsider” – where the tone of the book was perceived as derogatory to national ideals – and it didn’t like what it saw. The American Walker Evans was also an outsider photographing outsiders, journeying through disparate towns and communities documenting his impressions how I can I say, subjectively with an objective focus, at one and the same time. He never immersed himself in the culture but was an active observer and documenter, never an insider.

Lyon was one of the first “embedded” social documentary photographers of the American street photography movement of the 1960s who had the free will and the social conscience to tell it like it is. His self-proclaimed “advocacy journalism” is much more than just advocacy / journalism. It is a vitality of being, of spirit, an inquiry of the mind that allows the artist to get close, both physically and emotionally, to the problems of others through becoming one with them – and then to picture that so that others can see their story, so that he can “change history and preserve humanity.” But, we must acknowledge, that humanity is mainly (good looking) males: outlaw motorcycle clubs, mainly male prisons, mainly male civil rights, tattoo shops, and male Uptown, Chicago. Women are seemingly reduced to bit-players at best, singular portraits or standing in the background at funerals. This is a man’s world and you better not forget it…

Having said that, can you imagine living the life, spending four years as a member of the Chicago Outlaw Motorcycle Club. How exhilarating, how enmeshed with the culture you would become – the people, the travel, the ups and downs, the life, the danger – and then when you get photographs like Funny Sonny Packing with Zipco, Milwaukee (1966, below) with the manic look in Funny Sonny’s eyes, how your heart would sing. If I had to nominate one image that is for me the epitome of America in the 1960s it would be this: Crossing the Ohio River, Louisville (1966, below): all Easy Rider (an 1969 American road movie) encapsulated in one image. The structure and modernism / of the two bridges frames / the speeding / wicked bike / helmet lodged over the headlight; the man / wearing a skull and crossbones emblazoned jacket / helmet-less / head turned / behind / hair flying in the wind / not looking where / he is going / as though his destiny: unknown.

Danny Lyon IS one of the great artists working in photography today. He is a rebel with his own cause. Through his vital and engaging images his message to the future is this: everyone has their own story, their own trials and tribulations, each deserving of empathy, compassion, and non-judgemental acceptance. Prejudice has no voice here, a lesson never more pertinent than for America today as it decides who to elect – a woman who has fought every inch of the way or a narcissistic megalomaniac who preaches hate to minorities.

Dr Marcus Bunyan


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

 

 

“Closeness, both physical and emotional, is a recurring theme throughout the 175 works in “Message to the Future,” Lyon’s Whitney Museum retrospective, a quietly brilliant affair curated with panache by Julian Cox. (Later this year, the show will travel to the Fine Arts Museums in San Francisco, which organized it; Elisabeth Sussman oversaw the Whitney installation.) We see here a photographer who was witness to a changing America and, occasionally, other places in the world. Since the early ’60s, Lyon has been infiltrating outsider groups – talking to and photographing bikers, Texas prison inmates, and hippies, and learning from them by becoming close with them. It’s as if Lyon has no sense of personal space. That, as this revelatory show proves, is his greatest attribute…

Lyon is a deft stylist who cares deeply about his subjects, to the point of exchanging letters with them for years after taking their pictures. What results is something more intimate, more political, and, in some ways, better than traditional photojournalism – a fuller portrait of America since the ’60s.”


Alex Greenberger. “Close Encounters: The Danny Lyon Retrospective at the Whitney Museum Is Quietly Brilliant,” on the ARTnews website August 17, 2016 [Online] Cited 16/02/2023

 

“Self-taught, and driven by his twin passions for social change and the medium of photography, the power of Lyon’s work has often derived from his willingness of immerse himself entirely in the cultures and communities he documents. This was evident early on in his series ‘Bikeriders’ (1968; reissued in 2003 by Chronicle Books), which evolved from four years spent as a member of the Chicago Outlaw Motorcycle Club. And ‘Conversations with the Dead’ derived from his close study of the Texas prison system; it also revealed Lyon’s novel and distinctive approach to the photobook, which often sees him splicing images with texts drawn from various sources, including interviews, letters, and even fiction.”


Text from the Edwynn Houk Gallery website [Online] Cited 21/09/2016. No longer available online

 

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942) 'Self-Portrait, New Orleans 1964' 1964 'Danny Lyon: Message to the Future' at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942)
Self-Portrait, New Orleans, 1964
1964
Gelatin silver print
18.2 x 12.2cm (7 3/16 x 4 13/16 in.)
Collection of the artist

 

 

In his 1981 book, “Danny Lyon: Pictures From the New World,” he wrote of starting out in the early ’60s. “Photography then seemed new and exciting, and all America, which I regarded with mystery and reverence, lay before me.”

That sense of newness and excitement fills the show. What we’re discovering now, Lyon was discovering then – not just seeing or observing, but discovering, with the sense of revelation that brings. Mystery and reverence are here, too, but complicatedly. Framing them – debating with them? – are the clarity of precision the camera affords and a skepticism born of a forthrightly ’60s sensibility. Several photographs of the Occupy movement attest to how vigorous that sensibility remains…

He was working as a documentarian but not a photojournalist. That’s an important distinction. These images are implicitly polemical – inevitably polemical, too. Rarely in our nation’s history has the distinction between what’s right and what’s wrong been as clear cut. Yet then as now, people matter more to Lyon than any ideological stance. Outsiders attract Lyon and populate the show: civil rights demonstrators, transgender people (in Galveston, Texas, of all places), lower Manhattan demolition crews, inmates, undocumented workers, Indians, Appalachian whites transplanted to Chicago, motorcycle gangs…

Enclosure and entrapment are not for Lyon – nor, for that matter, is the absence of people (a very rare condition in his work). A larger restlessness in Lyon’s career reflects the energy so often evident within the frame – within the frame being another form of enclosure and entrapment. The South, Chicago, lower Manhattan, Texas, New Mexico, China, Haiti, Latin America share space in the show. Even so, sense of place doesn’t signify as much for Lyon as a sense of a place’s inhabitants. More likely he’d say that the two are indistinguishable. Looking at his pictures, you can see why he’d think so.”

Mark Feeney. “Outsiders fill compelling Danny Lyon photography show,” on the Boston Globe website 8th July 2016 [Online] Cited 10/09/2016

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942) 'Arrest of Eddie Brown, Albany, Georgia' 1962

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942)
Arrest of Eddie Brown, Albany, Georgia
1962
Gelatin silver print
Image: 22 x 31.7cm (8 5/8 x 12 1/2 in.)
Sheet: 27.9 x 35.6cm (11 x 14 in.)
Collection of the artist

 

Eddie Brown former gang leader and movement activist is arrested.

“The first sit-in arrests I see and photograph are those of Eddie Brown, a former Albany gang leader, and a visitor from the North. Both have volunteered to be arrested for the photographs. The picture of Eddie Brown, calmly being carried off by the Albany police, is widely distributed as the image of the classic non-violent arrest, Georgia.”

~ Danny Lyon

 

“Eddie Charles Brown, Jr., a great-souled human being committed to fighting the oppression of all people from Mississippi to South Africa, died at his home on November 23, 2011. In political circles, Ed was respected for his enduring commitment to our people. As a consequence of his tireless devotion to, and success in advancing the culture and economic progress of poor black folk, Ed Brown was widely recognised as among the most, incorruptible, responsible, resourceful and effective of the activist leaders of the Movement. As his SNCC colleagues said of him, “More than most, Ed’s life embodies and exemplifies to a remarkable degree, the principle of undying love for our people both here and in the Motherland.” …

A native of Louisiana, Ed was born on August 19, 1941, in New Orleans and raised in Baton Rouge to Thelma Warren and Eddie Charles Brown, Sr. Ed’s historical efforts to fight segregation and all forms of oppression as well as to empower Black people started in 1960 as a young student at Louisiana’s Southern University. He and 16 other classmates confronted the University and staged a sit-in protesting the racial segregation prevalent in Louisiana at the time. After he and the others were arrested, expelled and banned from enrolling in any university in Louisiana Ed began the ongoing struggle for justice, which would define his entire life. This expulsion led Ed to Howard University in Washington, D.C. in 1961, where he landed on the front line of the Civil Rights Movement. Ed was an active member of the Nonviolent Action Group, the SNCC affiliate at Howard.

As a leader and field secretary for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) he fought to win constitutional rights for Blacks and all disenfranchised people. Ed always proclaimed that he was “fighting fire with a feather,” but he knew he would prevail because he often said, ironically, he was protected by “asbestos gloves.””

Anonymous. “In Memoriam: Eddie Charles Brown, Jr.,” on the SNCC Legacy Project website Nd [ONline] Cited 04/04/2024

 

 

The most comprehensive retrospective of the work of American photographer, filmmaker, and writer Danny Lyon in twenty-five years debuts at the Whitney on June 17, 2016. The first major photography exhibition to be presented in the Museum’s downtown home, Danny Lyon: Message to the Future is organised by the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, where it will make its West Coast debut at the de Young Museum on November 5, 2016. The exhibition assembles approximately 175 photographs and is the first to assess the artist’s achievements as a filmmaker. The presentation also includes a rare look at works from Lyon’s archives, including vintage prints, unseen 16mm film footage made inside Texas prisons, and his personal photo albums. A leading figure in the American street photography movement of the 1960s, Lyon has distinguished himself by the personal intimacy he establishes with his subjects and the inventiveness of his practice.

Photographer, filmmaker, and writer Danny Lyon (b. 1942) has over the past five decades presented a charged alternative to the sanitised vision of American life presented in the mass media. Throughout, he has rejected the standard detached humanism of the traditional documentary approach in favour of a more immersive, complicated involvement with his subjects. “You put a camera in my hand,” he has explained, “I want to get close to people. Not just physically close, emotionally close, all of it.” In the process he has made several iconic bodies of work, which have not only pictured recent history but helped to shape it.

Lyon committed intensively to photography from the beginning. In 1962, while still a student at the University of Chicago, he hitchhiked to the segregated South to make a photographic record of the civil rights movement. He went on to photograph biker subcultures, explore the lives of the incarcerated, and document the architectural transformation of Lower Manhattan. He has travelled to Latin America and China, and has lived for years in New Mexico; the work he has made throughout these journeys demonstrates his respect for the people he photographs on the social and cultural margins.

Message to the Future, shaped in collaboration with the artist, incorporates seldom-exhibited materials from Lyon’s archive, including rare vintage prints, previously unseen 16mm film footage made inside the Texas prisons, his personal photo albums, and related documents and ephemera. In his roles as a photographer, filmmaker, and writer, Lyon has reinvented the expectations for how the still photographic image can be woven together with journalism, books, films, and collage to present a diverse record of social customs and human behaviour. His work, which he continues to make today, reveals a restless idealist, digging deep into his own life and those of his subjects to uncover the political in the personal and the personal in the political.

Text from the Whitney Museum of American Art

 

Civil rights

In the summer of 1962, Lyon hitchhiked to Cairo, Illinois, to witness demonstrations and a speech by John Lewis, chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), one of the most important organisations driving the civil rights movement of the early 1960s. Inspired to see the making of history firsthand, Lyon then headed to the South to participate in and photograph the civil rights movement. There, SNCC executive director James Forman recruited Lyon to be the organisation’s first official photographer, based out of its Atlanta headquarters. Traveling throughout the South with SNCC, Lyon documented sit-ins, marches, funerals, and violent clashes with the police, often developing his negatives quickly in makeshift darkrooms.

Lyon’s photographs were used in political posters, brochures, and leaflets produced by SNCC to raise money and recruit workers to the movement. Julian Bond, the communications director of SNCC, wrote of Lyon’s pictures, “They put faces on the movement, put courage in the fearful, shone light on darkness, and helped make the movement move.”

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942) 'Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) Sit-In, Atlanta' 1963

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942)
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) Sit-In, Atlanta
1963
Gelatin silver print
Image: 16.1 x 24cm (6 3/8 x 9 1/2 in.)
Sheet: 20.3 x 25.4cm (8 x 10 in.)
Collection of the artist

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942) 'The Leesburg Stockade, Leesburg, Georgia' 1963

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942)
The Leesburg Stockade, Leesburg, Georgia
1963
Gelatin silver print
Image: 17.5 x 26cm (6 7/8 x 10 3/16 in.)
Sheet: 27.9 x 35.6cm (11 x 14 in.)
Collection of the artist

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942) 'Abernathy, Shuttlesworth (SCLC), King and Wilkinson (NAACP)' 1963

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942)
Abernathy, Shuttlesworth (SCLC), King and Wilkinson (NAACP)
1963
Gelatin silver print

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942) 'Voting Rights Demonstration, Organized by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), Selma, Alabama' October 7, 1963

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942)
Voting Rights Demonstration, Organized by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), Selma, Alabama
October 7, 1963
Gelatin silver print
Image: 18.3 x 26.8cm (7 3/16 x 10 9/16 in.)
Sheet: 27.8 x 35.4cm (10 15/16 x 13 15/16 in.)
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; purchase with funds from the Photography Committee

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942) 'Sheriff Jim Clark Arresting Demonstrators, Selma, Alabama' October 7, 1963

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942)
Sheriff Jim Clark Arresting Demonstrators, Selma, Alabama
October 7, 1963
Gelatin silver print
Image: 18.4 x 27cm (7 1/4 x 10 5/8 in.)
Sheet: 27.8 x 35.4cm (10 15/16 x 13 15/16 in.)
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; purchased with funds from the Photography Committee

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942) 'Stokely Carmichael, Confrontation with National Guard, Cambridge, Maryland' 1964

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942)
Stokely Carmichael, Confrontation with National Guard, Cambridge, Maryland
1964
Gelatin silver print
Image: 16.5 x 22.2cm (6 1/2 x 8 3/4 in.)
Sheet: 20.3 x 25.4cm (8 x 10 in.)
Collection of the High Museum of Art, Atlanta; purchase with funds from Joan N. Whitcomb

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942) 'Woman Holds Off a Mob, Atlanta' 1963

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942)
Woman Holds Off a Mob, Atlanta
1963
Gelatin silver print

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942) 'Bob Dylan behind the SNCC office, Greenwood, Mississippi' 1963

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942)
Bob Dylan behind the SNCC office, Greenwood, Mississippi
1963
Gelatin silver print

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942) 'Arrest of Taylor Washington, Atlanta' 1963

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942)
Arrest of Taylor Washington, Atlanta
1963
Gelatin silver print
24 x 16cm (9 7/16 x 6 1/4 in.)
Collection of the artist

 

Atlanta, Georgia. High school student Taylor Washington is arrested at Lebs Delicatessen. His eighth arrest.

“One of Taylor Washington’s numerous arrests is immortalised as he yells while passing before me. The photograph became the cover of SNCC’s photo book, The Movement, and was reproduced in the former Soviet Union in Pravda, captioned “Police Brutality USA.””

~ Danny Lyon

 

The Civil Rights movement of the 1960’s was a widespread effort to end racial segregation and discrimination against African Americans. News coverage of sit-ins and freedom rides dominated the cultural and political landscape of the United States. At this time Danny Lyon was in his early 20s and an undergraduate student at the University of Chicago. After meeting John Lewis, the chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee’s (SNCC’s) in Cairo, Illinois, Lyon then traveled to Mississippi, to cover voter registrations, and soon he was present at almost all of the major SNCC events during the movement. Lyon served as SNCC’s photographer from 1962 to 1964 and later documented his experiences in his book Memories of the Southern Civil Rights Movement.

Text from the Minneapolis Institute of Art Collection website

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942) 'The March on Washington' August 28, 1963

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942)
The March on Washington
August 28, 1963
Gelatin silver print
29.8 x 20.8cm (11 3/4 x 8 3/16 in.)
Museum of Modern Art, New York; Gift of Anne Ehrenkranz

 

Galveston

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942) 'Pumpkin and Roberta, Galveston, Texas' 1967

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942)
Pumpkin and Roberta, Galveston, Texas
1967
Gelatin silver print
Image: 23.8 x 16.1cm (6 3/8 x 9 3/8 in.)
Sheet: 20.3 x 25.4cm (8 x 10 in.)
Collection of the artist

 

Prisons

In 1967, Lyon applied to the Texas Department of Corrections for access to the state prisons. Dr. George Beto, then director of the prisons, granted Lyon the right to move freely among the various prison units, which he photographed and filmed extensively over a fourteen-month period. The result is a searing record of the Texas penal system and, symbolically, of incarceration everywhere.

Lyon’s aim was to “make a picture of imprisonment as distressing as I knew it to be in reality.” This meant riding out to the fields to follow prisoners toiling in the sun, as well as visiting the Wynne Treatment Centre, which housed primarily convicts with mental disabilities. He befriended many of the prisoners, listening to their stories and finding the humanity in their experiences, and still maintains contact with some of them.

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942) 'Weight Lifters, Ramsey Unit, Texas' 1968

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942)
Weight Lifters, Ramsey Unit, Texas
1968
Gelatin silver print
Image: 22.4 x 33.2cm (8 7/8 x 13 1/16 in.)
Sheet: 27.7 x 35.6cm (11 x 14 in.)
Collection of the artist

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942) 'New Arrivals from Corpus Christi, The Walls, Texas' 1968

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942)
New Arrivals from Corpus Christi, The Walls, Texas
1968
Gelatin silver print
Image: 21.4 x 32cm (8 7/16 x 12 5/8 in.)
Sheet: 27.9 x 35.6cm (11 x 14 in.)
Collection of the artist

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942) 'Contents of Arriving Prisoner’s Wallet, Diagnostic Unit, The Walls, Huntsville, Texas' 1968

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942)
Contents of Arriving Prisoner’s Wallet, Diagnostic Unit, The Walls, Huntsville, Texas
1968
Gelatin silver print
Image: 24.3 x 17.5cm (9 9/16 x 6 3/4 in.)
Sheet: 25.4 x 20.3cm (10 x 8 in.)
Collection of the artist

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942) 'Six-Wing Cell Block, Ramsey Unit, Texas' 1968

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942)
Six-Wing Cell Block, Ramsey Unit, Texas
1968
Gelatin silver print
Image: 16 x 24cm (6 5/16 x 9 7/16 in.)
Sheet: 20.3 x 25.4cm (8 x 10 in.)
Collection of the artist

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942) 'Charlie Lowe, Ellis Unit, Texas' 1968

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942)
Charlie Lowe, Ellis Unit, Texas
1968
Gelatin silver print
Image: 16.2 x 23.8cm (6 3/8 x 9 3/8 in.)
Sheet: 20.3 x 25.4cm (8 x 10 in.)
Collection of the artist

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942) 'Shakedown, Ellis Unit, Texas' 1968

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942)
Shakedown, Ellis Unit, Texas
1968
Gelatin silver print
21.6 x 31.3cm (8 1/2 x 12 1/4 in.)
Museum of Modern Art, New York; purchase

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942) 'Shakedown, Ramsey Unit, Texas' 1968

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942)
Shakedown, Ramsey Unit, Texas
1968
Gelatin silver print
Image: 17 x 24.2cm (6 5/8 x 9 9/16 in.)
Sheet: 20.3 x 25.4cm (8 x 10 in.)
Collection of the artist

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942) 'Convict With a Bag of Cotton, Texas' 1968

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942)
Convict With a Bag of Cotton, Texas
1968
Gelatin silver print

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942) 'Two Inmates, Goree Unit, Texas' 1968

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942)
Two Inmates, Goree Unit, Texas
1968
Gelatin silver print
Image: 16.8 x 24cm (6 5/8 x 9 91/6 in.)
Sheet: 20.3 x 25.4cm (8 x 10 in.)
Collection of the artist

 

The destruction of Lower Manhattan

In late 1966 and into the summer of 1967, starting from his loft at the corner of Beekman and William Streets near City Hall Park, Lyon documented the demolition of some sixty acres of predominantly nineteenth-century buildings below Canal Street in lower Manhattan. With funding from the New York State Council on the Arts, he photographed most of the buildings that would be torn down to make way for the World Trade Center. Lyon recalled later: “I wanted to inhabit [the buildings] with feelings and give them and their demise a meaning.”

Moving from the outside of the buildings to their deserted interiors, Lyon also took pictures of the workers involved in the demolition. The photographs, together with Lyon’s journal entries, became a book, published by Macmillan in 1969 and dedicated to his close friend, sculptor Mark di Suvero. The volume’s significance lies in part in its depiction of a city – and, more broadly, a culture – cannibalising its own architectural history for the sake of development.

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942) 'View South from 100 Gold Street, New York' 1967

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942)
View South from 100 Gold Street, New York
1967
Gelatin silver print
18.3 x 18.2cm (7 1/4 x 7 3/16 in.)
Collection of Melissa Schiff Soros and Robert Soros

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942) 'Self-Portrait in Susquehanna Hotel, Third-Floor Room with Grass, New York' 1967

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942)
Self-Portrait in Susquehanna Hotel, Third-Floor Room with Grass, New York
1967
Gelatin silver print
18.2 x 18.2cm (7 3/16 x 7 3/16 in.)
Collection of Melissa Schiff Soros and Robert Soros

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942) 'Ruins of 100 Gold Street, New York' 1967

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942)
Ruins of 100 Gold Street, New York
1967
Gelatin silver print
23.6 x 23.4cm (9 5/16 x 10 7/16 in.)
Collection of Melissa Schiff Soros and Robert Soros

 

The Bikeriders

Lyon purchased his first motorcycle – a 1953 Triumph TR6 – in 1962, after spending weekends watching college friend and motorcycle racer Frank Jenner compete at informal dirt track races across the Midwest. When he returned to Chicago in 1965 after leaving SNCC, Lyon joined the hard-riding, hard-drinking Chicago Outlaws Motorcycle Club and began making photographs with a goal to “record and glorify the life of the American bike rider.” With clubs like the Hells Angels making headlines for their criminal and vigilante activities at the time, bike riders were simultaneously feared for their anarchism and romanticised for their independence.

Riding with the Outlaws, Lyon attempted to capture their way of life from the inside out. Their unapologetic pursuit of freedom and libertine pleasures compelled him to get close to them as people. Lyon’s images are intimate and familiar, whether taken during rides or at clubhouse meetings. He also used a tape recorder to document the bikers speaking for themselves, unobtrusively capturing their collective voice. The resulting photographs were gathered into the now classic book of the same name, published in 1968, combining his pictures with an edited transcription of the interviews.

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942) 'Racer, Schererville, Indiana' 1965

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942)
Racer, Schererville, Indiana
1965
Gelatin silver print
13.9 x 20.3cm (5 1/2 x 8 in.)
Silverman Museum Collection

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942) 'Crossing the Ohio River, Louisville' 1966

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942)
Crossing the Ohio River, Louisville
1966
Gelatin silver print
20.3 x 31.8cm (8 x 12 1/2 in.)
Silverman Museum Collection

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942) 'Route 12, Wisconsin' 1963

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942)
Route 12, Wisconsin
1963
Gelatin silver print
15.6 x 23.8cm (6 1/8 x 9 1/8 in.)
Silverman Museum Collection

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942) 'Sparky and Cowboy, Schererville, Indiana' 1965

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942)
Sparky and Cowboy, Schererville, Indiana
1965
Gelatin silver print
Image: 16.1 x 23.9cm (6 3/8 x 9 3/8 in.)
Sheet: 20.3 x 25.4cm (8 x 10 in.)
Collection of the artist

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942) 'Untitled (Close Up of Cal on the Road)' 1966

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942)
Untitled (Close Up of Cal on the Road)
1966
Gelatin silver print

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942) 'Renegade's funeral, Detroit' 1966

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942)
Renegade’s funeral, Detroit
1966
Gelatin silver print

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942) 'Funny Sonny Packing with Zipco, Milwaukee' 1966

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942)
Funny Sonny Packing with Zipco, Milwaukee
1966
Gelatin silver print

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942) 'Kathy, Chicago' 1965 (printed 1966)

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942)
Kathy, Chicago
1965 (printed 1966)
Gelatin silver print
25.8 x 25.5cm (10 1/8 x 10 1/16 in.)
Collection of the artist

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942) 'Cal on the Springfield Run, Illinois' 1966 (printed 2003)

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942)
Cal on the Springfield Run, Illinois
1966 (printed 2003)
Cibachrome print
Image: 22.8 x 32.5cm (9 x 13 1/4 in.)
Sheet: 27.9 x 35.6cm (11 x 14 in.)
Collection of the artist

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942) 'Cowboy, Rogue's Picnic, Chicago' 1966

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942)
Cowboy, Rogue’s Picnic, Chicago
1966
Gelatin silver print
Image: 23.5 x 15.9cm (9 1/4 x 6 1/4 in.)
Mount: 50.8 x 40.6cm (20 x 16 in.)
Collection of the artist

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942) 'Benny, Grand and Division, Chicago' 1965

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942)
Benny, Grand and Division, Chicago
1965
Gelatin silver print
24.5 x 17.2cm (9 5/8 x 6 3/4 in.)
Collection of the artist

 

New Mexico and the West

Lyon headed west from New York in 1969. Tired of the hectic pace of the big city and in search of new surroundings, he settled in Sandoval County, New Mexico. He developed a great admiration for the region’s close knit communities of Native Americans and Chicanos. Lyon’s photographs and, increasingly, his films reflected his growing understanding of the cross-cultural flow between these disparate groups and how they interacted with the geography of the Southwest.

With the help of his good friend, a migrant labourer named Eduardo Rivera Marquez, Lyon built a traditional adobe home for his family in Bernalillo, in the Rio Grande Valley just north of Albuquerque. As Lyon’s family grew, his children also became a frequent subject, often depicted against the dramatic Western landscape. Though Lyon moved back to New York in 1980, New Mexico would remain a centre of gravity for the artist, who returned every summer with his family to photograph and make films.

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942) 'Eddie, New Mexico' 1972

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942)
Eddie, New Mexico
1972
Gelatin silver print
Image: 23 x 34.5cm (9 x 13 5/8 in.)
Sheet: 27.9 x 35.6cm (11 x 14 in.)
Collection of the artist

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942) 'Navajo Boy, Gallup, New Mexico' 1971

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942)
Navajo Boy, Gallup, New Mexico
1971
Gelatin silver print
Image: 23.3 x 33.8cm (9 1/8 x 13 5/16 in.)
Sheet: 27.9 x 35.6cm (11 x 14 in.)
Collection of the artist

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942) 'Maricopa County, Arizona' 1977

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942)
Maricopa County, Arizona
1977
Gelatin silver print
Image: 22.8 x 33.5cm (9 x 13 3/16 in.)
Sheet: 27.9 x 35.6cm (11 x 14 in.)
Collection of the artist

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942) 'Stephanie, Sandoval County, New Mexico' 1969/1975

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942)
Stephanie, Sandoval County, New Mexico
1969/1975
Gelatin silver print (decorated)
Image: 16.7 x 25cm (6 9/16 x 9 3/4 in.)
Sheet: 27.9 x 35.6cm (11 x 14 in.)
Collection of the artist

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942) 'El Paso, Texas' 1975 (printed 2015)

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942)
El Paso, Texas
1975 (printed 2015)
Pigmented inkjet print
Image: 27.9 x 40.6cm (11 x 16 in.)
Sheet: 33 x 45.7cm (13 x 18 in.)
Collection of the artist

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942) 'El Paso, Texas' 1975

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942)
El Paso, Texas
1975

 

Films and montages

Lyon started making 16mm films in earnest in the 1970s, focusing on marginalised communities and injustice as he had in his photographs. His subjects included Colombian street kids in Los Niños Abandonados (1975) and undocumented workers from Mexico in El Mojado (1974) and El Otro Lado (1978). Lyon has explained that after leaving the Texas prisons he struggled to move forward, feeling that there were “no more worlds to conquer” in creating photography books. Filmmaking became the means by which he could continue to make sense of the beauty and inequality he saw in the world around him.

Lyon did not give up photography completely, however. He turned to assembling family albums and creating collaged works that he describes as montages, referencing the filmmaking practice of juxtaposing disparate images to form a continuous whole. Lyon’s montages combine multiple images and materials sourced from his archives. Initially meant as vehicles for reflection and, in the case of the albums, as family heirlooms, these deeply personal works bridge past generations of his family with his present.

 

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942)
Los Niños Abandonados
1975

 

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942)
El Mojado
1974
New Mexico, colour, 14 minutes [The Wetback]
English and Spanish with subtitles
A portrait of a hard-working undocumented labourer from Mexico produced by J.J. Meeker

 

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942)
El Otro Lado
1978
Mexico and Arizona, colour, 60 minutes [The Other Side]
Spanish with English subtitles
An honest film infused with poignant beauty, without political rhetoric

 

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942)
Dear Mark
1981, New York and France, colour and b&w, 15 minutes
A comedy in which the artist’s voice has been replaced by Gene Autry’s
Lyon’s homage to his friend, sculptor Mark di Suvero, from footage shot in 1965 and 1975.

 

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942)
Soc Sci 127
1969
Houston, color and b&w, 21 minutes
A comedy – Danny Lyon’s first film with the late great Bill Sanders and his “painless” tattoo shop.

 

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942)
Willie
1985
New Mexico, color, b&w, 82 minutes
Willie is a realistic film made in Bernalillo, home of Willie Jaramillo and filmmakers Danny and Nancy Weiss Lyon
Defiantly individual and implacable in the face of authority, Willie is repeatedly thrown into jail for relatively minor offences. The filmmakers gain access to jail cells, day rooms, lunatic wards, and the worst cellblock in the penitentiary where Willie is locked up next to his childhood friend and convicted murderer, Michael Guzman.

 

Knoxville

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942) 'Knoxville' 1967

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942)
Knoxville
1967
Gelatin silver print

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942) 'Knoxville, Tennessee' 1967

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942)
Knoxville, Tennessee
1967
Gelatin silver print

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942) 'Leslie, Downtown Knoxville' 1967

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942)
Leslie, Downtown Knoxville
1967
Gelatin silver print
Image: 28.7 x 19.1cm (11 1/4 x 7 1/2 in.)
Mount: 56.2 x 45.7cm (22 1/8 x 18 in.)
Art Institute of Chicago; gift of Mr. Danny Lyon

 

Tattoo

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942) 'Bill Sanders, Tattoo Artist, Houston, Texas' 1968

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942)
Bill Sanders, Tattoo Artist, Houston, Texas
1968
Gelatin silver print
Image: 20.7 x 20.7cm (8 3/16 x 8 3/16 in.)
Sheet: 35.6 x 27.9cm (14 x 11 in.)
Collection of the artist

 

Chicago

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942) 'Two youths in Uptown, Chicago, Illinois, a neighborhood of poor white southerners' 1974

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942)
Two youths in Uptown, Chicago, Illinois, a neighborhood of poor white southerners
1974

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942) 'Children at an apartment entrance' 1965

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942)
Children at an apartment entrance
1965
From series Uptown, Chicago
Gelatin silver print

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942) 'Kathy, Uptown, Chicago' 1965

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942)
Kathy, Uptown, Chicago
1965
Gelatin silver print
Image: 24.1 x 23.9cm (9 1/2 x 9 3/8 in.)
Sheet: 35.6 x 27.9cm (14 x 11 in.)
Collection of the artist

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942) 'Uptown, Chicago' 1965

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942)
Uptown, Chicago
1965
Gelatin silver print
Image: 16.4 x 16.4cm (6 1/2 x 6 1/2 in.)
Mount: 50.8 x 40.6cm (20 x 16 in.)
Collection of the artist

 

New York

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942) 'Subway, New York' 1966 (printed 2015)

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942)
Subway, New York
1966 (printed 2015)
Pigmented inkjet print
Image: 23.7 x 24.1cm (9 5/16 x 9 1/2 in.)
Sheet: 28.8 x 29.2cm (11 5/16 x 11 1/2 in.)
Collection of the artist

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942) 'Self-Portrait in Mary Frank’s Bathroom, New York' 1969

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942)
Self-Portrait in Mary Frank’s Bathroom, New York
1969
Gelatin silver print
Image: 15.6 x 23.5cm (6 1/8 x 9 1/4 in.)
Sheet: 20.3 x 25.2cm (8 x 9 15/16 in.)
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; purchase with funds from Joanna Leonhardt Casullo, Niko Elmaleh, Lauren DePalo, Julia Macklowe, and Fern Kaye Tessler

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942) 'John Lennon and Danny Seymour, The Bowery, New York' 1969 (printed c. 2005)

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942)
John Lennon and Danny Seymour, The Bowery, New York
1969 (printed c. 2005)
Gelatin silver print, printed later
Image: 22.3 x 33.3cm (8 13/16 x 13 1/8 in.)
Sheet: 27.6 x 35.4cm (11 x 14 in.)
Collection of the artist

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942) 'Mark di Suvero and Danny Lyon, Hyde Park, Chicago' 1965

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942)
Mark di Suvero and Danny Lyon, Hyde Park, Chicago
1965
Gelatin silver print
Image: 23.9 x 16.2cm (9 3/8 x 6 3/8 in.)
Sheet: 25.4 x 20.3cm (10 x 8 in.)
Collection of the artist

 

Colombia

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942) 'Mary, Santa Marta, Colombia' 1972

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942)
Mary, Santa Marta, Colombia
1972
Gelatin silver print
Image: 17.1 x 25.3cm (6 3/4 x 10 in.)
Sheet: 27.9 x 35.6cm (11 x 14 in.)
Collection of the artist

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942) 'Tesca, Cartagena, Colombia' 1966 (printed 2008)

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942)
Tesca, Cartagena, Colombia
1966 (printed 2008)
Cibachrome print
Image: 25.7 x 25.7cm (10 1/8 x 10 1/8 in.)
Sheet: 35.6 x 27.9cm (14 x 11 in.)
Collection of the artist

 

 

The most comprehensive retrospective of the work of American photographer, filmmaker, and writer Danny Lyon in twenty-five years debuted at the Whitney on June 17, 2016. The first major photography exhibition to be presented in the Museum’s downtown home, Danny Lyon: Message to the Future is organised by the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, where it will make its West Coast debut at the de Young Museum on November 5, 2016.

The exhibition assembles approximately 175 photographs and is the first to assess the artist’s achievements as a filmmaker as well as a photographer. The presentation also includes many objects that have seldom or never been exhibited before and offers a rare look at works from Lyon’s archives, including vintage prints, unseen 16mm film footage made inside Texas prisons, and his personal photo albums.

A leading figure in the American street photography movement of the 1960s, Lyon has distinguished himself by the personal intimacy he establishes with his subjects and the inventiveness of his practice. With his ability to find beauty in the starkest reality, Lyon has presented a charged alternative to the vision of American life presented in the mass media. Throughout, he has rejected the traditional documentary approach in favour of a more immersive, complicated involvement with his subjects. “You put a camera in my hand,” he has explained, “I want to get close to people. Not just physically close, emotionally close, all of it.” In the process he has made several iconic bodies of work, which have not only pictured recent history, but helped to shape it.

“We are delighted to partner with the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco on Danny Lyon: Message to the Future,” stated Adam D. Weinberg, the Alice Pratt Brown Director of the Whitney Museum of American Art. “Since the early 1960s, Lyon’s photographs and films have upturned conventional notions of American life. The Whitney has long championed Lyon’s work and we are thrilled to present this retrospective, which encompasses more than half a century of important work.”

In 1962, while still a student at the University of Chicago, Lyon hitchhiked to the segregated South to make a photographic record of the Civil Rights movement. His other projects have included photographing biker subcultures, exploring the lives of individuals in prison, and documenting the architectural transformation of Lower Manhattan. Lyon has lived for years in New Mexico, and his commitment to personal adventure has taken him to Mexico and other countries in Latin America, China, and the less-traveled parts of the American West.

“Danny Lyon is one of the great artists working in photography today,” said Julian Cox, Founding Curator of Photography for the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco and Chief Curator at the de Young Museum. “Lyon’s dedication to his art and his conviction to produce work underpinned by strong ethical and ideological motivations sets him apart from many of his peers.

Press release from the Whitney Museum of American Art

 

Ongoing activism

Lyon’s first encounter with Latin America was through a trip to Colombia in February 1966, during which he photographed extensively in and around Cartagena. In the 1970s and 1980s, Lyon’s self-described “advocacy journalism” took him to Bolivia, where he captured the hard lives of rural miners; Mexico, where he photographed undocumented workers moving back and forth across the U.S. – Mexico border; back to Colombia, where he made the film Los Niños Abandonados, chronicling the lives of street children; and to Haiti, where he witnessed firsthand the violent revolution overthrowing Jean-Claude Duvalier’s dictatorship.

More recently, Lyon made six trips between 2005 and 2009 to Shanxi province in northeast China. Aided by a guide, he photographed the people living in this highly polluted coal-producing region. As in his work in the civil rights movement and the Texas prisons, Lyon’s photographs from his travels are examples of his advocacy journalism, part of his effort to “change history and preserve humanity.”

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942) 'Boulevard Jean-Jacques Dessalines, Port-au-Prince, Haiti' February 7, 1986

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942)
Boulevard Jean-Jacques Dessalines, Port-au-Prince, Haiti
February 7, 1986
Gelatin silver print
Image: 21.3 x 32.1cm (8 3/8 x 12 5/8 in.)
Sheet: 27.9 x 35.6cm (11 x 14 in.)
Collection of the artist

 

Occupy

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942) 'Occupy Demonstration on Broadway, Los Angeles' 2011

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942)
Occupy Demonstration on Broadway, Los Angeles
2011
Inkjet print
Image: 24.5 x 32.9cm (9 5/8 x 12 15/16 in.)
Sheet: 32.7 x 40cm (13 x 15 3/4 in.)
Collection of the artist

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942) 'Occupy Oakland, City Hall, Oakland' 2011

 

Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942)
Occupy Oakland, City Hall, Oakland
2011
Pigmented inkjet print
Image: 24.6 x 33cm (9 3/4 x 13 in.)
Sheet: 27.3 x 38cm (10 3/4 x 15 in.)
Collection of the artist

 

 

Whitney Museum of American Art
99 Gansevoort Street
New York, NY 10014
Phone: (212) 570-3600

Opening hours:
Wednesday – Monday: 10.30am – 6pm
Tuesdays: Closed

Whitney Museum of American Art website

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Exhibition: ‘The Intimate World of Josef Sudek’ at Jeu de Paume, Paris

Exhibition dates: 7th June – 25th September, 2016

 

 

Josef Sudek (Czech, 1896-1976) 'St. Vitus cathedral, Prague, Czech Republic' c. 1926 from the exhibition 'The Intimate World of Josef Sudek' at Jeu de Paume, Paris, June - Sept, 2016

 

Josef Sudek (Czech, 1896-1976)
St. Vitus cathedral, Prague, Czech Republic
c. 1926
Silver gelatin print

 

 

A poetry of the everyday

Josef Sudek, a one-armed man lugging around a large format camera, is one of my top ten photographers of all time.

His photographs, sometimes surreal, always sensitive, have a profound sensibility that affect the soul. Melancholy and mysterious by turns, they investigate the inner life of objects which stand as metaphors for the inner life of the artist. A form of healing after his horrific injuries and the loss of his arm during the First World War, the photographs purportedly look outwards upon the world but are actually interior meditations on life, death and the nature of being. Light emerges from the darkness; understanding from tribulation; and Sudek, in Jungian terms, integrates his ego into his soul through the process of (photographic) individuation – whereby the personal and collective unconscious (his hurt and damage) are brought into consciousness (eg. by means of dreams, active imagination, or free association) to be assimilated into the whole personality. It is a completely natural process necessary for the integration of the psyche and, in Sudek’s life, was integral to his healing from the vicissitudes of war.

Using Pictorialism as the starting point for his exploration of the world, Sudek never abandons the creation of “atmosphere” in his photographs, even as the images become modernist, surrealist and offer a new way of seeing the world. Having myself photographed extensively at night, and from the interior of my flat, I can understand Sudek’s fascination with both locations: the quiet of night, the stillness, the clarity of vision and thought; the interior as exterior, the projection of interior thoughts onto an external surface reflected back into the camera lens. “Nature, architecture, streets and objects are magnified by his sensitivity and mastery of the effects of light, contrasting with the impenetrable cloak of darkness.” Except the cloak of darkness is not impenetrable, as light cannot exist without darkness.

Pace, his photographs are breath / taking. They are exhalations of the spirit.

Sudek’s ability to transcend the literal, his ability to transform the objectal quality of photography ranks him as one of the top photographers of all time. He synthesises  a poetry of objects, a poetry of the everyday, and projects the folds of his mind onto the visual field (through “tears” of condensation on the window, through labyrinths of paper and glass, such as in Labyrinth on my table, 1967, below). As a form of self-actualisation – the desire to become everything that one is capable of becoming – Sudek’s photographs interrogate that chthonic darkness that lurks in the heart of everyone of us, our dark night of the soul.

In that process of discovery (who am I, what kind of human being am I, how can I heal myself), he finds redemption.

Dr Marcus Bunyan


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

 

 

“I like to tell stories about the life of inanimate objects, to relate something mysterious: the seventh side of a dice. Everything around us, dead or alive, in the eyes of a crazy photographer mysteriously takes on many variations, so that a seemingly dead object comes to life through light or by its surroundings.”


Josef Sudek

 

 

 

Josef Sudek at Jeu de Paume

“The Intimate World of Josef Sudek”, exhibition at Jeu de Paume Paris, from 07 June 2016 until 25 September 2016

Entitled “The Intimate World of Josef Sudek”, this exhibition is the first of this scale to revisit the life and work of Josef Sudek (Kolin, 1896 – Prague, 1976) within its socio-geographical and historical context: Prague during the first half of the twentieth century, at a time when the Czech capital was a veritable hub of artistic activity.

The exhibition features a selection of 130 works spanning the totality of Sudek’s career, from 1920 to 1976, and allows the public to examine the extent to which his photography was a reflection of his personal relationship to the surrounding world. On display are works that are the result of Sudek’s photographic experiments carried out within the privacy of his own studio, images of the garden seen from his window, and photographs of adventures further afield. The artist enjoyed meandering through the streets of Prague and its surrounding suburbs, and made frequent excursions to the nearby countryside.

Sudek’s enduring fascination with light, and its absence, is at the root of some of the most haunting photographs of the twentieth century. Nature, architecture, streets and objects are magnified by his sensitivity and mastery of the effects of light, contrasting with the impenetrable cloak of darkness.

Text from the Jeu de Paume Vimeo website

 

 

On display are works that are the result of Sudek’s photographic experiments carried out within the privacy of his own studio, images of the garden seen from his window, and photographs of adventures further afield. The artist enjoyed meandering through the streets of Prague and its surrounding suburbs, and made frequent excursions to the nearby countryside. Sudek’s enduring fascination with light, and its absence, is at the root of some of the most haunting photographs of the twentieth century. Nature, architecture, streets and objects are magnified by his sensitivity and mastery of the effects of light, contrasting with the impenetrable cloak of darkness.

As a photographer, Sudek was particularly concerned with the quality of the photographic print, an essential component in terms of the expressive potential of an image. His mastery of the pigment printing process enabled him to produce highly atmospheric and evocative images, thereby reaping all of the reflective and descriptive power of the gelatin silver print. The exhibition presents work from Sudek’s early career, but also features photographs from a pivotal period of experimentation and innovation, beginning in the 1940s. Focusing on the technical and formal aspects of the medium of photography, Sudek created pigment prints, halftone prints, puridlos (photographs between two windows) and veteše (photographs inserted into old frames), techniques which allowed him to transform the objectal quality of photography.

The loss of his right arm during the First World War and the difficulties he now encountered in transporting his view camera did not dampen his passion for photography. Sudek’s studio window became an object of abiding fascination – rather like the surface of a canvas – reflecting moments of exquisite tenderness and hope when a flowering branch brushed against its pane, or of poignant melancholy when he observed the world beyond his window transformed by the playful infinity of mist. His room with a view allowed him to capture, on film, his love of Prague. His photographs demonstrate both a precision and a depth of feeling, fitting odes to the rich history and architectural complexity of the Czech capital.

Like many artists of his generation marked by their experience of war, Sudek expresses a particularly acute awareness of the dark and tormented aspects of human existence – feelings that would inspire some of his most melancholy and most moving pictures. A photograph taken at night, through the glass pane of his window, shows a city plunged into darkness during the Occupation of the Second World War, and communicates a sentiment of unspeakable despair – a dramatic illustration of Sudek’s technical ability to transcend the literal.

The first part of the exhibition features images that herald the photographer’s later work, showing his early landscapes, portraits of fellow patients at Invalidovna, the Prague hospice for war invalids like Sudek, his hesitant foray into modernism, and his interior shots of St. Vitus Cathedral. Through images that recount the narrative of his life, the viewer gains access to Sudek’s inner world, and an insight into his immediate environment, the views and objects he loved, his studio and garden. His endless walks in Prague found expression in the views of the city and its surroundings, as well as in photographs of its more sordid “suburbs”, a subject explored by other Prague artists. The eastern and northern areas of Bohemia, the Beskid Mountains and the Mionší forest were other destinations close to the photographer’s heart. The exhibition “The Intimate World of Josef Sudek” provides a fascinating panorama of the work of this unique artist.

Text from the Jeu de Paume website

 

Beginnings

Sudek’s first photographic prints – small and largely assembled in albums – were mainly views of the countryside taken along the Elbe River when he travelled from Prague to Kolín to visit his mother between 1916 and 1922.

Using processes such as gelatin silver and bromoil he showed a talent for printing his pictures in a style that favoured soft edges and broad swathes of tone. Here Sudek was not so much studying the effects of light as he was observing the conventions of Pictorialism, a photography movement that straddled the last decade of the nineteenth century and the first decades of the twentieth century, and was based on a strong Romantic ethos. Pictorialist photographers enhanced atmospheric effects with such processes as carbon and gum bichromate. Sudek began using the carbon process regularly and in a personally expressive manner in the late 1940s.

His Invalidovna and St. Vitus Cathedral series in Prague, begun in the first half of the 1920s, show him exploring interior spaces where light emphasises both the profane and the sacred. The play of bands of sunlight and darkness is a central feature of the composition and, indeed, of the life of the photograph.

 

Josef Sudek (Czech, 1896-1976) 'Dimanche après-midi à l'île Kolín' [Sunday afternoon at Kolín island] c. 1922–1926

 

Josef Sudek (Czech, 1896-1976)
Dimanche après-midi à l’île Kolín [Sunday afternoon at Kolín island]
c. 1922-1926
Gelatin silver print
28.4 × 28.7cm
Musée des beaux-arts du Canada, Ottawa. Achat, 2000
© Succession de Josef Sudek

 

“… [Sudek] referred to photography as meteorology to describe the significance of the atmosphere, and how a photographer must predict the right conditions for photographing and enlarging prints. His work became sharper with richer tones, and his compositions became more illusive. The foregrounds and backgrounds of his photographs, particularly in his “Window” series began to oscillate. These achievements were perhaps made more attainable by his focus on inanimate objects over which he had more control than living things. Most of his cityscapes became deserted, as he directed his camera at statues or replaced what would have been a living subject with such emulative sculptures.

In effect, Sudek’s substitution of the inanimate for the animate brought the objects he photographed to life in his mind. He called the enormous decaying trees in the woods of Bohemia “sleeping giants” and would take portraits of masks and statuary heads, transforming them into frozen, worn grotesqueries. His personification of objects is even more vivid in his studio photography, particularly after 1939, the oncoming of World War II and the Nazi occupation of Prague. As the city was oppressed by German troops, the artist retreated into his studio and insulated himself sentimentally with still lifes. To an interviewer, he explained, “I love the life of objects. When the children go to bed, the objects come to life. I like to tell stories about the life of inanimate objects.” He devoted endless hours to arranging and photographing the everyday – apples, eggs, bread, and shells – and special objects given to him by friends, such as feathers, spectacles, and watches, which he called “remembrances” of that person. A photograph from his series “Remembrances of Architect Rothmayer, Mr. Magician,” for example, portrays objects respectfully placed in a row on a desk, as if artifacts from an archeological site, from which the history of a life or character of a man could be divined.

“Everything around us, dead or alive, in the eyes of a crazy photographer mysteriously takes on many variations,” Sudek said, “so that a seemingly dead object comes to life through light or by its surroundings.” This statement is perhaps telling of Sudek’s relationship to death and life, as a result of the loss of his arm and the manner in which he suffered the loss. In the 1963 film, “Zit Svuj Zivot” (Living Your Life), a documentary portrait of Sudek by Evald Strom, we see a sensitive man describing his efforts to photograph the reality of the objects around him, not as if he were bringing the objects to life, but as if it was his purpose to represent the lives of objects as they truly are. Of the image of a vase of wildflowers, he says “This is a photograph of wildflowers, my attempt to photograph wildflowers,” and of an old lamp, “This is a celebrated lamp; it holds a lot of memories.””

Ashley Booth Klein, “Josef Sudek and The Life of Objects,” in Obelisk Vol. 2 Issue 1, Winter 2015 [Online] Cited 18/09/2016. No longer available online

 

Josef Sudek (Czech, 1896-1976) 'Rue de Prague' 1924

 

Josef Sudek (Czech, 1896-1976)
Rue de Prague
1924
Gelatin silver print
8.3 × 8.2cm
Musée des beaux-arts du Canada, Ottawa. Don anonyme, 2010
© Succession de Josef Sudek

 

Josef Sudek (Czech, 1896-1976) 'Portrait de mon ami Funke' [Portrait of my friend Funke] 1924

 

Josef Sudek (Czech, 1896-1976)
Portrait de mon ami Funke [Portrait of my friend Funke]
1924
Gelatin silver print
28.5 × 22.6cm
Musée des beaux-arts du Canada, Ottawa. Achat, 1985
© Succession de Josef Sudek

 

 

“Josef Sudek: The World at My Window” is the first exhibition in France since 1988 to cover Sudek’s entire career and spotlight the different phases of his work. Coming in the wake of several exhibitions at the Jeu de Paume devoted to Eastern European photographers of the early twentieth century, among them André Kertész and Francois Kollar, this one comprises some 130 vintage prints by the Czech artist. Bringing to bear a vision at once subjective and timeless, Sudek captures the ongoing changes in Prague’s natural world and landscapes.

His early profession as a bookbinder came to an abrupt halt when he was conscripted into the Austro-Hungarian army in Bohemia and sent to the Italian front. After the First World War he came back to Prague wounded; the loss of his right arm meant abandoning bookbinding, and he turned to photography. After revisiting the battlefield in Italy once more he returned, in despair, to Prague: “I found the place,” he recounted, “but my arm wasn’t there. Since then I’ve never gone anywhere. I didn’t find what I was looking for.”

A study grant enabled him to train at the state-run school of graphic arts in Prague, where he mixed with practitioners of Pictorialism, a photographic movement aiming at achieving colour and texture effects similar to those of painting. He started concentrating on architectural details, always waiting until the light was absolutely perfect. Little by little he gave up the Pictorialist ambiences of his views of St Vitus’s cathedral, opting for a pure, straightforward approach which the American photographer Alfred Stieglitz summed up as “maximum detail for maximum simplification”.

During the Second World War Sudek began photographing the window giving onto his garden, the result being the celebrated Window of My Studio series. He then shifted his focus to the accumulated jumble of objects in the studio, producing a further series titled Labyrinths. Light was an inexhaustible theme in his work, orchestrating the seasons, making the invisible visible and transporting us into another world. As if to escape the leaden context of the War and then of Communism, Sudek took refuge in music, especially that of his compatriot Leoš Janáček. A true music lover, he gradually built up a substantial collection of recordings which he played to his friends during improvised concerts in his studio.

The second half of his career saw Sudek abandon photography’s traditional subjects as he explored the outskirts of Prague with his black view camera on his shoulder. Known as “the poet of Prague”, he became an emblematic figure in the Czech capital. Discreet and solitary, he gradually withdrew from the city’s art scene, leaving his studio only to prowl the streets at night with his imagination as his guide.

Sudek’s photographs rarely include people; his focus was more on empty urban and rural spaces. Fascinated by the streets of Prague, the city’s deserted parks and public gardens, and the wooded Bohemian landscapes his mastery of light rendered sublime, he preferred the un-enlarged contact print as a means of preserving all the detail and authenticity of the places he roamed through.  His work moved towards experiments with light. In photographs shot through with simplicity and sensitivity, Sudek foregrounds a kind of poetry of the everyday, using the interplay of light and shade to achieve a kind of fluctuation between interior and exterior.

Text from Jeu de Paume

 

Josef Sudek (Czech, 1896-1976) 'La Fenêtre de mon atelier' [The window of my studio] c. 1940-1948

 

Josef Sudek (Czech, 1896-1976)
La Fenêtre de mon atelier [The window of my studio]
c. 1940-1948
Gelatin silver print
17 × 11.2cm
Musée des beaux-arts du Canada, Ottawa. Don anonyme, 2010
© Succession de Josef Sudek

 

Josef Sudek (Czech, 1896-1976) 'La Fenêtre de mon atelier' [The window of my studio] c. 1940–1954

 

Josef Sudek (Czech, 1896-1976)
La Fenêtre de mon atelier [The window of my studio]
c. 1940-1954
Gelatin silver print
22.9 × 16.8cm
Musée des beaux-arts du Canada, Ottawa. Don anonyme, 2010
© Succession de Josef Sudek

 

Josef Sudek (Czech, 1896-1976) 'La Fenêtre de mon atelier' [The window of my studio] c. 1940-1950

 

Josef Sudek (Czech, 1896-1976)
La Fenêtre de mon atelier [The window of my studio]
c. 1940-1950
Gelatin silver print
28.1 × 22.9cm
Musée des beaux-arts du Canada, Ottawa. Don anonyme, 2010
© Succession de Josef Sudek

 

The world from my window

Sudek was not content with making single, unrelated images. He generally worked in projects or series, creating extended visual explorations of the phenomena and scenes he viewed – often from the closed window of his studio, which separated his private studio-home from the exterior world. In the series From My Window it was the endlessly varying states of transformation of droplets of water that he watched streaming down his windowpane. His images invite us to contemplate, with great fascination, the physical cycles of water and the phenomenon of rivulets coursing down a surface – like human tears. Reminding us even of [Paul] Verlaine’s “There is weeping in my heart like the rain upon the city…” Sometimes the melancholy mood of these images is leavened by a rose in a vase on the windowsill or tendrils of leaves announcing the arrival of spring.

 

There is weeping in my heart
like the rain falling on the town.
What is this languor
that pervades my heart?

Oh the patter of the rain
on the ground and the roofs!
For a heart growing weary
oh the song of the rain!

There is weeping without cause
in this disheartened heart.
What! No betrayal?
There’s no reason for this grief.

Truly the worst pain
is not knowing why,
without love or hatred,
my heart feels so much pain.

Paul Verlaine. “Il pleure dans mon coeur”

 

Josef Sudek (Czech, 1896-1976) 'Quatre saisons: l'été' [Four seasons: summer] c. 1940-1954

 

Josef Sudek (Czech, 1896-1976)
Quatre saisons: l’été [Four seasons: summer]
c. 1940-1954
From the series “La Fenêtre de mon atelier” [The window of my studio]
Gelatin silver print
22.6 × 17.1cm
Musée des beaux-arts du Canada, Ottawa. Don anonyme, 2010
© Succession de Josef Sudek

 

Josef Sudek (Czech, 1896-1976) 'La Dernière Rose' [The Last Rose] 1956

 

Josef Sudek (Czech, 1896-1976)
La Dernière Rose [The Last Rose]
1956
Gelatin silver print
28.2 x 23.2cm
Musée des beaux-arts du Canada, Ottawa. Don anonyme, 2010
© Succession Josef Sudek

 

Night walks

Sudek’s preoccupation with darkness dates to the Nazi Occupation of Prague from March 1939 until the end of the war. Experiencing his city plunged into nights of enforced darkness Sudek explored the absence of light in his pictures. We know that this was more than a technical exercise, for he wrote “Memories” and “Restless Night” on the verso of one nocturnal photograph dated 1943.

The curfews imposed on citizens at the time made it unlikely that Sudek ventured out into the city after dark during wartime. Neither agile nor inconspicuous with his large-format camera slung over his increasingly hunched back, Sudek would have risked his life had he done so. The small courtyard of his studio on Ujezd street was hidden from the road, however, and one or two lights in neighbouring apartments served as beacons. Well after sundown he would photograph the syncopated play of blurs of light against the wall of impenetrable blackness.

The spirit of place

Sudek visited and photographed places that held either personal or spiritual significance for him: the landscape along the Elbe River, Invalidovna, St. Vitus Cathedral, his studio, Prague’s complex streets and open squares, the majestic Prague Castle, the city’s surrounds, and Frenštát pod Radhoštĕm where he spent summers with friends. Hukvaldy, home of Leoš Janaček, the composer whose music he loved, was a particularly favoured haunt. This was true also of the ancient Mionší Forest where he navigated his way through dense brush and forests by way of shortcuts that he created and playfully named. The Beskid Mountains also served as spiritual retreat. Although he was an urbanite in many respects, Sudek’s love of nature and sense of despair for its desecration is strongly expressed in Sad Landscapes, his series of images made in the Most region where industrialisation ravaged the countryside in the 1950s.

The life of objects

Sudek collected everything. Today he would be known as a hoarder. But his obsession served him well, for out of the chaos of his small studio and living spaces he carefully selected a variety of these objects to photograph. From delicate feathers to crumpled paper and tinfoil, multi-faceted drinking glasses, flowers, fruit, seashells, envelopes, flasks, frames, prisms, candelabras, string and shoe moulds, the subjects ranged from the mundane to the exotic. Once chosen, the set-up was lovingly composed – often in subtly changed configurations with other objects – and carefully lit before being memorialised in either pigment or gelatin silver prints.

 

Josef Sudek (Czech, 1896-1976) 'Le Jardin Royal' [The Royal Garden] c. 1940-1946

 

Josef Sudek (Czech, 1896-1976)
Le Jardin Royal [The Royal Garden]
c. 1940-1946
Procédé pigmentaire au papier charbon [Carbon pigment on paper]
16.1 × 11.7cm
Musée des beaux-arts du Canada, Ottawa. Don anonyme, 2010
© Succession de Josef Sudek

 

Josef Sudek (Czech, 1896-1976) 'Prague pendant la nuit' [Prague at night] 1950

 

Josef Sudek (Czech, 1896-1976)
Prague pendant la nuit [Prague at night]
1950
Gelatin silver print
22.8 × 29cm
Musée des beaux-arts du Canada, Ottawa. Don anonyme, 2010
© Succession de Josef Sudek

 

Josef Sudek (Czech, 1896-1976) 'Prague pendant la nuit' [Prague at night] c. 1950-1959

 

Josef Sudek (Czech, 1896-1976)
Prague pendant la nuit [Prague at night]
c. 1950-1959
Gelatin silver print
12 × 16.7cm
Musée des beaux-arts du Canada, Ottawa. Don anonyme, 2010
© Succession de Josef Sudek

 

Josef Sudek (Czech, 1896-1976) 'Prague pendant la nuit' [Prague at night] c. 1950-1959

 

Josef Sudek (Czech, 1896-1976)
Prague pendant la nuit [Prague at night]
c. 1950-1959
Gelatin silver print
12.2 × 17.3cm
Musée des beaux-arts du Canada, Ottawa. Don anonyme, 2010
© Succession de Josef Sudek

 

Josef Sudek (Czech, 1896-1976) 'Le Jardin de Rothmayer' [The Rothmayer Garden] 1954-1959

 

Josef Sudek (Czech, 1896-1976)
Le Jardin de Rothmayer [The Rothmayer Garden]
1954-1959
Gelatin silver print
16.9 × 22.9cm
Musée des beaux-arts du Canada, Ottawa. Don anonyme, 2010
© Succession de Josef Sudek

 

 

Entitled “The Intimate World of Josef Sudek”, this exhibition is the first of this scale to revisit the life and work of Josef Sudek (Kolín, 1896 – Prague, 1976) within its socio-geographical and historical context: Prague during the first half of the twentieth century, at a time when the Czech capital was a veritable hub of artistic activity. The exhibition features a selection of 130 works spanning the totality of Sudek’s career, from 1920 to 1976, and allows the public to examine the extent to which his photography was a reflection of his personal relationship to the surrounding world. On display are works that are the result of Sudek’s photographic experiments carried out within the privacy of his own studio, images of the garden seen from his window, and photographs of adventures further afield. The artist enjoyed meandering through the streets of Prague and its surrounding suburbs, and made frequent excursions to the nearby countryside. Sudek’s enduring fascination with light, and its absence, is at the root of some of the most haunting photographs of the twentieth century. Nature, architecture, streets and objects are magnified by his sensitivity and mastery of the effects of light, contrasting with the impenetrable cloak of darkness.

As a photographer, Sudek was particularly concerned with the quality of the photographic print, an essential component in terms of the expressive potential of an image. His mastery of the pigment printing process enabled him to produce highly atmospheric and evocative images, thereby reaping all of the reflective and descriptive power of the gelatin silver print.

The exhibition presents work from Sudek’s early career, but also features photographs from a pivotal period of experimentation and innovation, beginning in the 1940s. Focusing on the technical and formal aspects of the medium of photography, Sudek created pigment prints, halftone prints, puridlos (photographs between two windows) and veteše (photographs inserted into old frames), techniques which allowed him to transform the objectal quality of photography. The loss of his right arm during the First World War and the difficulties he now encountered in transporting his view camera did not dampen his passion for photography.

Sudek’s studio window became an object of abiding fascination – rather like the surface of a canvas – reflecting moments of exquisite tenderness and hope when a flowering branch brushed against its pane, or of poignant melancholy when he observed the world beyond his window transformed by the playful infinity of mist. His room with a view allowed him to capture, on film, his love of Prague. His photographs demonstrate both a precision and a depth of feeling, fitting odes to the rich history and architectural complexity of the Czech capital.

Like many artists of his generation marked by their experience of war, Sudek expresses a particularly acute awareness of the dark and tormented aspects of human existence – feelings that would inspire some of his most melancholy and most moving pictures. A photograph taken at night, through the glass pane of his window, shows a city plunged into darkness during the Occupation of the Second World War, and communicates a sentiment of unspeakable despair – a dramatic illustration of Sudek’s technical ability to transcend the literal.

Through images that recount the narrative of his life, the viewer gains access to Sudek’s inner world, and an insight into his immediate environment, the views and objects he loved, his studio and garden. His endless walks in Prague found expression in the views of the city and its surroundings, as well as in photographs of its more sordid “suburbs”, a subject explored by other Prague artists. The eastern and northern areas of Bohemia, the Beskid Mountains and the Mionší forest were other destinations close to the photographer’s heart.

Text from Jeu de Paume

 

New ways of seeing

Although more influenced by prevailing photographic conventions in the beginning, Sudek came to show an openness to experimenting with new ways of composing and printing his images. In the late 1920s, Sudek photographed objects designed by modernist Ladislav Sutnar, thus creating angled views of furniture with reflective surfaces and ceramics of pure form.

Sudek’s most successful foray into modernism is his experimentation with grotesque (surreal) subjects such as mannequins, decaying sculptures and the accoutrements of the architect Otto Rothmayer’s garden. There is little doubt that in the fragmented figurative sculptures Sudek was recalling some of the human devastation that he witnessed on the battlefields of the First World War.

 

Josef Sudek (Czech, 1896-1976) 'Statue' c. 1948-1964

 

Josef Sudek (Czech, 1896-1976)
Statue
c. 1948-1964
Gelatin silver print
9 × 14cm
Musée des beaux-arts du Canada, Ottawa. Don anonyme, 2010
© Succession de Josef Sudek

 

Josef Sudek (Czech, 1896-1976) 'Dans le jardin' [In the garden] 1954-1959

 

Josef Sudek (Czech, 1896-1976)
Dans le jardin [In the garden]
1954-1959
Gelatin silver print
17 × 23.3cm
Musée des beaux-arts du Canada, Ottawa. Don anonyme, 2010
© Succession de Josef Sudek

 

Josef Sudek (Czech, 1896-1976) 'Labyrinthe sur ma table' [Labyrinth on my table] 1967

 

Josef Sudek (Czech, 1896-1976)
Labyrinthe sur ma table [Labyrinth on my table]
1967
Gelatin silver print
39 × 22.9cm
Musée des beaux-arts du Canada, Ottawa. Don anonyme, 2010
© Succession de Josef Sudek

 

Josef Sudek (Czech, 1896-1976) 'Labyrinthe de verre' [Glass Maze] around 1968-1972

 

Josef Sudek (Czech, 1896-1976)
Labyrinthe de verre [Glass Maze]
around 1968-1972
Gelatin silver print
39 × 22.9cm
Musée des beaux-arts du Canada, Ottawa. Don anonyme, 2010
© Succession de Josef Sudek

 

Josef Sudek (Czech, 1896-1976) 'Sans titre (Nature morte sur le rebord de la fenêtre)' [Untitled (Still life on the windowsill)] 1951

 

Josef Sudek (Czech, 1896-1976)
Sans titre (Nature morte sur le rebord de la fenêtre) [Untitled (Still life on the windowsill)]
1951
Montage par le photographe c. 1960.
Two silver gelatin prints, glass plate, lead
48.2 × 39.2cm
Musée des arts décoratifs, Prague.
© Succession de Josef Sudek

 

 

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Exhibition: ‘Ken Domon: Master of Japanese Realism’ at the Museo dell’Ara Pacis, Rome

Exhibition dates: 27th May – 18th September, 2016

Curators: Rossella Menegazzo, Professor of East Asian Art History at the University of Milan and Takeshi Fujimori, Japanese photographer and Artistic Director of the Ken Domon Museum of Photography

 

Ken Domon (Japanese, 1909-1990) 'Allenamento degli allievi del corpo della Marina [Students of the Navy training]' 1936 from the exhibition 'Ken Domon: Master of Japanese Realism' at the Museo dell'Ara Pacis, Rome, May - Sept, 2016

 

Ken Domon (Japanese, 1909-1990)
Allenamento degli allievi del corpo della Marina [Students of the Navy training]
1936
Yokosuka
535 x 748mm
Ken Domon Museum of Photography

 

 

Social Realism

I love most Japanese photography of the post-war period (1950s-1970s) and this artist’s work is no exception. What an absolute master of photography, not just of Japanese photography, he was.

Direct, focused, gritty, unflinching, the work of this initiator of social realist photography lays bare “the direct connection between the camera and the subject” in the most forthright way. While professing that the photographs are “an absolutely non-dramatic snapshot” (just like the Bechers professed that their gridded, ordered photographs were just about form and nothing else), this artist produced quality work that narrates a transcendent story of life in Japan. His images are music, and visions, from the heart of a nation. You only have to look at the photograph Gemella non vedente (1957, below) from the series Hiroshima to understand what I mean. There is just this feeling in your synapses about his pictures, as though you yourself were holding the camera …

In his portrait photographs there is quietness and contemplation; in his other work anger, sadness, joy, humour. A direct connection to reality is at the forefront of his understanding. This connection is miraculously (as in, something that apparently contravenes known laws governing the universe) transformed into other spaces and feelings – the twirling of umbrellas, the lizard on the head, the raised arms and white gloves of the traffic policeman (shot from a crouching position).

While he is not an artist who creates change he certainly documents the results of change in a magnificent way. I love them all.

Dr Marcus Bunyan


Many thankx to the Museo dell’Ara Pacis for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

 

 

Ken Domon (Japanese, 1909-1990) 'Esercitazioni delle crocerossine' [Red Cross exercises] 1938 from the exhibition 'Ken Domon: Master of Japanese Realism' at the Museo dell'Ara Pacis, Rome, May - Sept, 2016

 

Ken Domon (Japanese, 1909-1990)
Esercitazioni delle crocerossine [Red Cross exercises]
1938
Azabu, Tokyo
535 x 748mm
Ken Domon Museum of Photography

 

 

For the first time ever outside Japan, an exhibition of work by Ken Domon (1909-1990), recognised as a master of realism and one of the most important figures in the history of modern Japanese photography, is being held in Rome at the Museo dell’Ara Pacis. It features about 150 photographs taken in black and white as well as colour between the 1920s and the 1970s, which illustrate the author’s path towards social realism. From the first shots of the period before and during World War II, which display a vision linked to photojournalism and propaganda, through photography of the social sphere, the exhibit follows Ken Domon’s production up to the crucial work documenting the tragedy of Hiroshima, which the photographer undertook as though in response to a call and a humanitarian duty.

Regarded as an absolute master of Japanese photography and initiator of the realistic movement, Ken Domon marked a pivotal chapter in the history of post-war Japanese photography, laying the foundations for contemporary photographic production and remaining a constant point of reference for Japanese enthusiasts. According to Domon, “The fundamental gift of quality work lies in the direct connection between the camera and the subject.” The master’s aim was indeed always to capture a wholly realistic image devoid of drama. Against the background of the renewed spirit of the post-war period, he focused on society in general and everyday life: “I am immersed in the social reality of today but at the same time in the classical culture and traditions of Nara and Kyoto. This twofold involvement has the common denominator of a search for the point at which the two realities are linked to the destinies of people, the anger, sorrow and joy of the Japanese people.”

The realistic photograph, described as “an absolutely non-dramatic snapshot”, therefore plays the leading part in an exhibition thematically laid out to illustrate the master’s vast production, transversally encompassing the whole of Japanese culture. From the early work of a photojournalistic nature and at the service of pre-war propaganda and the cultural promotion of Japan overseas (Photojournalism and Pre-War Propaganda; The Post-War Period: Towards Social Realism) to a focus on recording everyday life and the city’s transformation and westernisation with ever-greater attention to social themes. His social realism is expressed in particular through two series emblematic of this period, namely Hiroshima (1958), regarded by the Nobel laureate Kenzaburō Ōe as the first great modern work of Japan, and The Children of Chikuhō, a series on poverty in the mining villages of southern Japan with a broad range of lively portraits of children encountered in the streets.

This is followed by Portraits, comprising photographs of famous figures in the worlds of art, literature, culture and science such as Yukio Mishima, Jun’ichirō Tanizaki, Tarō Okamoto and Yusaku Kamekura. The final section is devoted to his most important series, Pilgrimage to Ancient Temples, photographs of Buddhist sculptures, buildings and treasures as well as views of landscapes taken on journeys throughout Japan in search of the beauty of the sacred places of the past. Landscapes that conjure up the fascination of cultural diversity and the exotic.

Ken Domon’s work can be described as autobiographical, documentation that is private rather social, always selected on personal criteria that transform the shot into a moment of dialogue with the subject. His vision of the subject, be it a landscape, a sculpture, a person or an object, is a vehicle of the universal beauty seen through the lens, which does not omit the physical characteristics of the form captured. A multifaceted figure whose photography embraces the whole of Japanese culture before and after the war, Ken Domon is also the first photographer to have a personal museum devoted entirely to his vast work in his hometown of Sakata, inaugurated in 2003. Together with friends and other leading figures in the Japanese world of art, he initiated the cultural renewal that enabled Japan to emerge definitively from the defeat in war and led to the contemporary aesthetic that is still a point of reference for the entire world.

The show is part of a vast programme of events that will represent the cultural and technological world of Japan in Italy all through 2016: major exhibitions of art, productions from the great tradition of Noh and puppet theatre (bunraku), concerts, performances of modern and traditional dance, film festivals, exhibits of architecture, design, comics, literature, sport and so much else. The occasion is the celebration of the 150th anniversary of the first treaty of friendship and trade between Italy and Japan, signed on 25 August 1866, which initiated diplomatic relations between the two countries.

Press release from the Museo dell’Ara Pacis

 

Ken Domon (Japanese, 1909-1990) 'Pesca all'ayu' 1936

 

Ken Domon (Japanese, 1909-1990)
Pesca all’ayu
1936
Izu, Prefettura di Shizuoka
457 x 560mm
Ken Domon Museum of Photography

 

Ken Domon. 'Bambini che fanno roteare gli ombrelli [Kids twirling umbrellas]' c. 1937

 

Ken Domon (Japanese, 1909-1990)
Bambini che fanno roteare gli ombrelli [Kids twirling umbrellas]
c. 1937
Dalla serie Bambini (Kodomotachi)
From the series Children (Kodomotachi)
Ogōchimura
535 x 748mm
Ken Domon Museum of Photography

 

The pre-war period

From photojournalism to propaganda photography

Domon began to work in photography in 1933 at the age of 24, carrying out the humble duties of an apprentice at Miyauchi Kōtarō’s studio in Ueno. Right from the start he won prizes and began to write for photography magazines and journals, publishing his first photo in Asahi Camera in August 1935. The 10th of October of the same year marked an important turning point in his career. He replied to an advertisement published by the Nippon Kōbō studio in Ginza, which was looking for a photo technician. Founded by Natori Yōnosuke (1910-1962) when he returned from his experience in Berlin at the Berliner Illustrierte Zeitung, the studio spread in Japan for the first time concepts such as editing and reporting and a new system of production based on the collaboration between photographer and graphic designer under the supervision of an art director, which led to the large-scale diffusion of photojournalism.

Domon began his first reportage for the magazine Nippon, published in English in order to promote Japanese culture abroad with a mix of information and propaganda. The first photographic reportage was on the traditional Shichigosan Festival on the occasion of the presentation of children in the Meiji Jingu shrine, realised with his model C Leica. This was followed by services that presented handicrafts, traditions, industrial and military progress and the progressive aspects of Japan, which in the 1930s had become increasingly nationalistic.

The war years and the bunraku puppet theatre

During the years of maximum Japanese expansion in the Pacific, immediately prior to the Second World War, even photography had to comply with the strict rules of military policy. Only few selected professional photographers could obtain photographic materials for assignments deemed to be “essential”, and naturally the “essential” photographic services were subject to the requirements of government propaganda, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the International Tourism Agency and the International Cultural Relations Company.

Thus many photographic publications were discontinued, with economic repercussions for photographers. In fact, Domon had difficulty maintaining a family of seven. He also had the added anxiety of the probable arrival of a “red card” that would have called him to arms and probably to the front in a group of photo-reporters. In response to this critical situation, Domon decided to retire from the public scene, dedicating himself to culture, in particular to Buddhist temples and the bunraku puppet theatre.

On the 8th of December, 1941 he was in the backstage of the Yotsubashi Bunraku Theatre in Osaka when he read the special edition of a newspaper announcing the declaration of war to the United States. It was not easy to gain the respect and collaboration of the master puppeteers – national living treasures such as Yoshida Bungorō, Yoshida Eiza and Kiritake Monjūrō – in the key moment of taking the shot with a camera that did not go unnoticed due to its size and long exposure times. However, by 1943 he had shot about 7,000 negatives, which were collected in the book entitled Bunraku published in 1972.

 

Ken Domon (Japanese, 1909-1990) 'Esercitazioni delle crocerossine [Red Cross exercises]' 1938

 

Ken Domon (Japanese, 1909-1990)
Esercitazioni delle crocerossine [Red Cross exercises]
1938
Azabu, Tokyo
535 x 748mm
Ken Domon Museum of Photography

 

Ken Domon (Japanese, 1909-199 'Foto commemorativa della cerimonia di diploma del corpo della Marina' [Commemorative photo of the Marine Corp graduation ceremony] 1944

 

Ken Domon (Japanese, 1909-1990)
Foto commemorativa della cerimonia di diploma del corpo della Marina [Commemorative photo of the Marine Corp graduation ceremony]
1944
Tsuchiura, Ibaragi
1047 x 747mm
Ken Domon Museum of Photography

 

Ken Domon (Japanese, 1909-1990) 'Vigile urbano a Ginza 4-chōme' [Traffic policeman in Ginza 4-chōme] 1946

 

Ken Domon (Japanese, 1909-1990)
Vigile urbano a Ginza 4-chōme [Traffic policeman in Ginza 4-chōme]
1946
Tokyo
457 x 560mm
Ken Domon Museum of Photography

 

The postwar period

The affirmation of realism in photography

The tragic events related to the Second World War and to the defeat of Japan, marked by the atrocities of the atomic bomb, revealed the great deception of the war propaganda. Defeat led to the collapse of the imperial myth and state Shintoism, which had been the basis of military ideology.

If on the one hand, by the end of the 1940s there had been considerable intellectual rebirth leading to a rapid resumption of the diffusion of magazines, publications, exhibitions and artistic circles, on the other hand there was no language that seemed suitable for expressing such a tragic reality. There was a need to document a society undergoing profound change and in this sense Domon became the promoter of realistic photography, becoming a landmark for amateur photographers. He embraced the western trends that had taken over the city, but also the alleys and the poorest sectors of the population.

The high point of the realist tendency was reached around 1953, thanks to the exhibition, Photography Today: Japan and France, held in 1951 at the National Museum of Modern Art in Tokyo, provided the opportunity to make comparisons with names such as Cartier Bresson, Brassai, Doisneau. Domon’s last word on realism appeared in the magazine Photo Art in 1957 with an article that debated the two fundamental concepts of photography: jijitsu, reality, and shinjitsu, truth.

 

Ken Domon (Japanese, 1909-1990) 'Pescatrici di perle (ama san)' [Pearl fisherwomen] 1948

 

Ken Domon (Japanese, 1909-1990)
Pescatrici di perle (ama san) [Pearl fisherwomen]
1948
457 x 559mm
Ken Domon Museum of Photography

 

Ken Domon (Japanese, 1909-1990) 'Donne a passeggio' [Women walking] 1950

 

Ken Domon (Japanese, 1909-1990)
Donne a passeggio [Women walking]
1950
Sendai
457 x 560mm
Ken Domon Museum of Photography

 

Ken Domon (Japanese, 1909-1990) 'L'attrice Yamaguchi Yoshiko' [The actress Yoshiko Yamaguchi] 1952

 

Ken Domon (Japanese, 1909-1990)
L’attrice Yamaguchi Yoshiko [The actress Yoshiko Yamaguchi]
1952
535 x 748mm
Ken Domon Museum of Photography

 

Yoshiko Yamaguchi (Japanese, 1920-2014)

Yoshiko Yamaguchi (山口 淑子, Yamaguchi Yoshiko, February 12, 1920 – September 7, 2014) was a Japanese singer, actress, journalist, and politician. Born in China, she made an international career in film in China, Hong Kong, Japan and the United States.

Early in her career, the Manchukuo Film Association concealed her Japanese origin and she went by the Chinese name Li Hsiang-lan (李香蘭), rendered in Japanese as Ri Kōran. This allowed her to represent China in Japanese propaganda movies. After the war, she appeared in Japanese movies under her real name, as well as in several English language movies under the stage name, Shirley Yamaguchi.

After becoming a journalist in the 1950s under the name Yoshiko Ōtaka (大鷹 淑子, Ōtaka Yoshiko), she was elected as a member of the Japanese parliament in 1974, and served for 18 years. After retiring from politics, she served as vice president of the Asian Women’s Fund.

Text from the Wikipedia website

 

Ken Domon (Japanese, 1909-1990) 'Sit-in studentesco a Tachikawa contro l'ampliamento della base americana' [Student sit-in in Tachikawa against the expansion of US base] 1955

 

Ken Domon (Japanese, 1909-1990)
Sit-in studentesco a Tachikawa contro l’ampliamento della base americana [Student sit-in in Tachikawa against the expansion of US base]
1955
Tokyo
457 x 560mm
Ken Domon Museum of Photography

 

Ken Domon (Japanese, 1909-1990) 'Sorelline orfane, Rumie e Sayuri' [Orphan sisters, Rumie and Sayuri] 1959

 

Ken Domon (Japanese, 1909-1990)
Sorelline orfane, Rumie e Sayuri [Orphan sisters, Rumie and Sayuri]
1959
Dalla serie I bambini di Chikuhō (Chikuhō no kodomotachi)
From the series Children of  Chikuhō
457 x 560mm
Ken Domon Museum of Photography

 

Children and miners’ villages

Domon adored children. His first services for Nippon were focused on the Shichigosan Festival and then on children fishing in Izu. But in 1952 he began to photographing children all over Japan, capturing the vitality of the streets and of the poorer neighbourhoods in Tokyo, Ginza, Shinbashi, Nagoya and Osaka and in particular in the Kōtō area where he lived. Probably due to the loss of his second child in 1946 in an accident, Domon moved increasingly toward a realist if not a socialist approach, which allowed him to deal with current themes in an indirect way through the innocent eyes of children.

Several books were dedicated to this theme: The Children of Kōtō (Kōtō no kodomotachi), whose publication was stopped by Domon himself, dissatisfied with his work in 1956; The Children of Chikuhō (Chikuhō no kodomotachi), published in January 1960, and its continuation which followed in November, The Father of Little Rumie is Dead (Rumie chan has otōsan ga shinda), which showed the miserable conditions of children in the villages of the mining area on the island of Kyūshū, and in particular the story of two orphan sisters, whose story moved Japan becoming a best seller. Lastly, the collection Children (Kodomotachi), published in 1976 by master of graphics and friend, Yūsaku Kamekura, and published by Nikkor Club, the amateur photographers’ association linked to Nikon and Domon.

 

Ken Domon (Japanese, 1909-1990) 'Rumie' 1959

 

Ken Domon (Japanese, 1909-1990)
Rumie
1959
Dalla serie I bambini di Chikuhō (Chikuhō no kodomotachi)
From the series Children of  Chikuhō
457 x 560mm
Ken Domon Museum of Photography

 

Ken Domon (Japanese, 1909-1990) 'Lucertola [Lizard]' 1955

 

Ken Domon (Japanese, 1909-1990)
Lucertola [Lizard]
1955
Dalla serie I bambini di Kōtō (Kōtō no kodomotachi)
From the series Children of  Chikuhō
Tokyo
457 x 560mm
Ken Domon Museum of Photography

 

Ken Domon (Japanese, 1909-1990) 'Pioggerella' [Drizzle] 1952-1954

 

Ken Domon (Japanese, 1909-1990)
Pioggerella [Drizzle]
1952-1954
Dalla serie Bambini (Kodomotachi)
From the series Children (Kodomotachi)
Atami
457 x 560mm
Ken Domon Museum of Photography

 

Ken Domon (Japanese, 1909-1990) 'Bagno presso il fiume davanti allo Hiroshima Dome' [Bath at the river in front of the Hiroshima Dome] 1957

 

Ken Domon (Japanese, 1909-1990)
Bagno presso il fiume davanti allo Hiroshima Dome [Bath at the river in front of the Hiroshima Dome]
1957
From the series Hiroshima
535 x 748mm
Ken Domon Museum of Photography

 

Hiroshima

Published in March 1958, the year prior to the first brain haemorrhage to strike Domon Ken, the Hiroshima collection presents 180 photographs introduced by a short explanatory essay. The work, completed thirteen years after the dropping of an atomic bomb on Hiroshima and then on Nagasaki, focused the attention of the world once again on the still open but almost forgotten wounds of Hiroshima, with a strong social impact.

The importance of this event in the life of the photographer is also evidenced by Domon’s recording in his notebook in the day and time of his arrival: July 23rd, 1957, 2.40 pm. From then until November he went there six times, for thirty-six days, producing more than 7,800 negatives, of which Hiroshima is only the synthesis. Domon realised that until then he had ignored and been afraid of what Hiroshima had actually meant. With his 35mm camera he revealed the places and people directly and indirectly affected by the atomic bomb, coldly recording with tears in his eyes the material damage, physical injuries, scars, deformations, and the plastic surgery and transplants undergone by the victims of the bomb, dedicating 14 pages at the beginning of the book to the progress made in the field of plastic surgery, which became a real photographic dossier.

The public shock that followed the publication of the dossier made him the object of harsh criticism that, however, failed to undermine his determination to represent reality. In an article published in the magazine Shinchō in 1977 the Nobel Prize winner Ōe Kenzaburō defined Hiroshima as the first work of modern art that dealt with the theme of the atomic bomb, talking about the living instead of the dead.

 

Ken Domon (Japanese, 1909-1990) 'La morte di Keiji' [The death of Keiji] 1957

 

Ken Domon (Japanese, 1909-1990)
La morte di Keiji [The death of Keiji]
1957
From the series Hiroshima
457 x 560mm
Ken Domon Museum of Photography

 

Ken Domon (Japanese, 1909-1990) 'Paziente in ospedale' [Hospital patient] 1957

 

Ken Domon (Japanese, 1909-1990)
Paziente in ospedale [Hospital patient]
1957
From the series Hiroshima
457 x 560mm
Ken Domon Museum of Photography

 

Ken Domon (Japanese, 1909-1990) 'Donna in cura per le lesioni da bomba atomica' [Women being treated for injuries from atomic bomb] 1957

 

Ken Domon (Japanese, 1909-1990)
Donna in cura per le lesioni da bomba atomica [Women being treated for injuries from atomic bomb]
1957
From the series Hiroshima
457 x 560 mm
Ken Domon Museum of Photography

 

Ken Domon (Japanese, 1909-1990) 'Gemella non vedente' [Blind twin (female)] 1957

 

Ken Domon (Japanese, 1909-1990)
Gemella non vedente [Blind twin (female)]
1957
From the series Hiroshima
457 x 560mm
Ken Domon Museum of Photography

 

Ken Domon (Japanese, 1909-1990) 'Autoritratto' [Self-portrait] 1958

 

Ken Domon (Japanese, 1909-1990)
Autoritratto [Self-portrait]
Published in the November issue of the magazine Sankei Camera
457 x 560mm
Ken Domon Museum of Photography

 

Portraits (Fūbō)

In 1953 the publication of the Portraits (Fūbō) collection of photographs, which came out in paperback the following year, concluded fifteen years of work dedicated to the portrait that had begun with the first photograph in May 1936 portraying the writer Takeda Rintarō, continuing during the war and until the year in which the collection was published. Domon gathered in a single volume 83 portraits of friends and acquaintances, personalities from the world of entertainment, literature, theatre and politics, stressing in the introduction that they were ” […] people I respect and like and am close to […] The choice of people was surprisingly subjective and random and no claim to any strictly historical or cultural meaning can be made.”

It seems that the initial choice of the faces to be included in the collection was made by Domon with a list written in ink on a sliding door on the second floor of his house in 1948. This list was subjected to the comments and opinions of friends and publishers who went to his house and subsequently underwent substitutions and changes. Through familiar faces and less well-known personalities, Domon bears witness to a crucial era in Japan, one of great writers such as Mishima, Kawabata and Tanizaki, of actors and directors of the caliber of Mifune and Ozu, of great artists who were often his friends and gave rise to a new important artistic trends in the country, such as the sculptor Noguchi, the graph artist Kamekura, the founder of the Ikebana School, Sōgetsu Teshigahara, or painters like Fujita, Umehara, Okamoto. Each picture is accompanied by the name of the subject, their occupation and the date it was taken. There are also short texts describing the relationship between Domon and the person depicted, in addition to the atmosphere created during the shooting.

Sometimes subjects were exasperated by the professional stubbornness of Domon, as is clear in the portrait of Umehara that reveals an air of irritation close to intolerance. Outrightness and instantaneousness, which were always Domon’s objectives, became easier to achieve thanks to technological developments. He passed from a camera assembled for cabinet card portraits – with a dry plate and flash that worked with magnesium powder, used before the war – to a small Leica in the post-war period.

 

Ken Domon (Japanese, 1909-1990) 'Shiga Naoya' (scrittore/writer) 1951

 

Ken Domon (Japanese, 1909-1990)
Shiga Naoya (scrittore/writer)
1951
457 x 560mm
Ken Domon Museum of Photography

 

Naoya Shiga (志賀直哉, Shiga Naoya, February 20, 1883 – October 21, 1971) was a Japanese writer active during the Taishō and Shōwa periods of Japan, whose work was distinguished by its lucid, straightforward style and strong autobiographical overtones.

 

Ken Domon (Japanese, 1909-1990) 'Shiga Kiyoshi (medico ricercatore/medical researcher)' 1949

 

Ken Domon (Japanese, 1909-1990)
Shiga Kiyoshi (medico ricercatore/medical researcher)
1949
457 x 560mm
Ken Domon Museum of Photography

 

Kiyoshi Shiga (志賀 潔, Shiga Kiyoshi, February 7, 1871 – January 25, 1957) was a Japanese physician and bacteriologist. He had a well-rounded education and career that led to many scientific discoveries. In 1897, Shiga was credited with the discovery and identification of the Shigella dysenteriae microorganism which causes dysentery, and the Shiga toxin which is produced by the bacteria. He conducted research on other diseases such as tuberculosis and trypanosomiasis, and made many advancements in bacteriology and immunology.

Text from the Wikipedia website

 

Ken Domon (Japanese, 1909-1990) 'Takami Jun (scrittore/writer)' 1948

 

Ken Domon (Japanese, 1909-1990)
Takami Jun (scrittore/writer)
1948
457 x 560mm
Ken Domon Museum of Photography

 

Jun Takami (Japanese, 1907-1965)

Jun Takami (高見 順, Takami Jun, 30 January 1907 – 17 August 1965) was the pen-name of a Japanese novelist and poet active in Shōwa period Japan. His real name was Takami Yoshio.

Takami was interested in literature from youth, and was particularly attracted to the humanism expressed by the Shirakaba writers. On entering Tokyo Imperial University he joined a leftist student arts group, and contributed to their literary journal (Sayoku Geijutsu). After graduation, he went to work for Columbia Records, and continued his activities as a Marxist writer, as part of the proletarian literature movement.

In 1932, he was arrested with other communists and suspected members of the Japan Communist Party under the Peace Preservation Laws, and was released six months later after being coerced into recanting his leftist ideology. An auto-biographical account of his experience appeared in Kokyu Wasureubeki (“Should Auld Acquaintance Be Forgot”, 1935), which, although considered wordy, was nominated for the first Akutagawa Prize. The theme of ironic self-pity over the weakness that led to his “conversion” and his subsequent intellectual confusion were recurring themes in his future works.

He gained a popular following in the pre-war years with Ikanaru Hoshi no Moto ni (“Under Whatever Star”, 1939-1940)., a story set in the Asakusa entertainment district of Tokyo.

During and immediately after World War II, Takami served as Director of the Investigation Bureau of the Japanese Literature Patriotic Association. After the war, he suffered from poor health, but continued to write poetry from his sickbed.

In 1962, Takami helped establish the Museum of Modern Japanese Literature. In 1964, his poetry collection Shi no Fuchi yori (“From the Abyss of Death”, 1964) won the Noma Prize. The same year, he also published, Takami Jun Nikki, (“The Diaries of Takami Jun”), an extremely detailed account of over 3000 pages, in which he described his experiences during the war and immediately afterwards.

Takami Jun lived in Kamakura, Kanagawa prefecture from 1943 until his death of esophageal cancer. His grave is at the temple of Tōkei-ji in Kamakura.

Text from the Wikipedia website

 

Ken Domon (Japanese, 1909-1990) 'Kuga Yoshiko (attrice/actress) and Ozu Yasujirō (regista/director)' 1958

 

Ken Domon (Japanese, 1909-1990)
Kuga Yoshiko (attrice/actress) and Ozu Yasujirō (regista/director)
1958
457 x 560mm
Ken Domon Museum of Photography

 

Yoshiko Kuga (Japanese, 1931-2024)

Yoshiko Kuga (久我 美子, Kuga Yoshiko, 1931-2024) is a Japanese actress. Kuga was born in Tokyo, Japan. Her father, Michiaki Koga (久我通顕), was a marquis and a member of the House of Peers.

In 1946, while still attending Gakushuin Junior High School, she became an actress for Toho studios. In June 1946, Toho had sponsored a search for “new faces”, choosing Kuga as one of 48 new actresses and actors from 4,000 applicants. In 1947, she made her debut as one of the lead actresses in the omnibus movie Four Love Stories (四つの恋の物語, Yottsu no Koi no Monogatari). She was one of the actors active in the 1948 union strike at Toho studios. In the 1950s, she started working independently and starred in many productions of the Shochiku studios under the direction of Keisuke Kinoshita. Other important directors include Kenji Mizoguchi (The Woman in the Rumor), Yasujirō Ozu (Equinox Flower), and Tadashi Imai (An Inlet of Muddy Water). In 1954, she co-founded the film production company Ninjin Club (Bungei purodakushon ninjin kurabu) with actresses Keiko Kishi and Ineko Arima to enable better working conditions for actors within the studio system. Since the 1970s, she appeared mainly on television and on stage.

Kuga was married to actor Akihiko Hirata from 1961 until his death in 1984.

Text from the Wikipedia website

 

Yasujirō Ozu (Japanese, 1903-1963)

Yasujirō Ozu (小津 安二郎, Ozu Yasujirō, 12 December 1903 – 12 December 1963) was a Japanese film director and screenwriter. He began his career during the era of silent films, and his last films were made in colour in the early 1960s. Ozu first made a number of short comedies, before turning to more serious themes in the 1930s. The most prominent themes of Ozu’s work are family and marriage, and especially the relationships between generations. His most widely beloved films include Late Spring (1949), Tokyo Story (1953), and An Autumn Afternoon (1962).

Widely regarded as one of the world’s greatest and most influential filmmakers, Ozu’s work has continued to receive acclaim since his death. In the 2012 Sight & Sound poll, Ozu’s Tokyo Story was voted the third-greatest film of all time by critics world-wide. In the same poll, Tokyo Story was voted the greatest film of all time by 358 directors and film-makers world-wide.

Text from the Wikipedia website

 

Ken Domon (Japanese, 1909-1990) 'Ushi (Bue), dai dodici guardiani (jūnishinshō) del Murōji' [Ushi (Ox), one of the twelve guardians (jūnishinshō) of Muroji] 1941-1943

 

Ken Domon (Japanese, 1909-1990)
Ushi (Bue), dai dodici guardiani (jūnishinshō) del Murōji [Ushi (Ox), one of the twelve guardians (jūnishinshō) of Muroji]
1941-1943
Murōji, Nara
535 x 748mm
Ken Domon Museum of Photography

 

Pilgrimage to the ancient temples (Kojijunrei)

Murōji

The Murōji temple, small and immersed in the greenery of the Nara mountains, was for Domon the first stage of a “pilgrimage to the ancient temples”, a sort of journey of the soul that accompanied him throughout his life and from which came the encyclopaedic work Kojijunrei (Pilgrimage to the Ancient Temples). It all began in 1939 with a simple excursion, suggested by friend and art historian Mizusawa Sumio (1905-1975): an experience that changed his life. In the first year alone he returned more than forty times and on many more occasions over the course of the following years.

At first Domon focused his photographic work on buildings, from the five-story pagoda – the smallest in Japan – to the architectural details, focusing on the sculptures inside, but also on the imposing profile of the Miroku Buddha of Ōnodera, excavated on the rocky wall facing the river along the road that leads to Murōji. Later he concentrated on wooden statues (kōninbutsu) of the Heian era (794-1185) inside the temple and starting with wide, overall shots he then moved on to capture the most minute details of the wood, so as to emphasize the folds and hems of the vestments and the gestures of the hands and eyes. His favourite statue was of Buddha Shaka, enthroned Mirokudō, who with his “beautiful and compassionate face” was, he claimed, the “most beautiful man on earth.”

For this particular job he used a basic Konishiroku (now Konika) camera made of wood, especially suitable for cabinet card portraits that he had purchased in 1941, but also an Eyemo with a tripod, often carried by his assistants. Evidence of Domon’s numerous pilgrimages and countless photographs can be found in the 1954 Murōji collection. The expanded, definitive edition of this work, Nyonin Takano Murōji, was published in 1978 and includes photographs taken subsequently with the new post-war techniques.

Around the temples

The thousands of shots that Domon took in 39 temples from 1939 to the seventies made up the Pilgrimage to the Ancient Temples (Kojijunrei), the masterpiece of his career for which, even today, he is known worldwide. It consists of five volumes published over a number of years (the first in 1963, the second in 1965, the third in 1968, the fourth in 1971 and the fifth in 1975) which put together 462 colour pictures and 325 photogravures of temples and statues built between the seventh and the sixteenth century, following a subjective criterion and not expecting such large proportions. It is first and foremost a work that documents the beauty of architecture, sculpture, gardens and landscapes around the temples and shrines selected by Domon. And yet it is also a testimony of the progression of photographic technique in those years, such as the transition to colour film of 1958, and of Domon’s health problems that influenced his choices.

In December 1959 he suffered a brain haemorrhage that paralysed the right part of his body, thus making it impossible to hold the camera, even after a long period of rehabilitation. Therefore, he resolved to use a tripod. He suffered a second haemorrhage on the June 22nd, 1968, which this time confined him to a wheelchair. And even with this umpteenth misfortune he did not stop taking photographs. With the help of assistants and by moving his point of view further down, he continued to work. He had a third haemorrhage in 1979, followed by a long stay in hospital and his death on the September 15th, 1990.

 

Ken Domon (Japanese, 1909-1990) 'Hitsuji (Pecora), dai dodici guardiani (jūnishinshō) del Murōji' [Hitsuji (Sheep), one of the twelve guardians (jūnishinshō) of Muroji] 1941-1943

 

Ken Domon (Japanese, 1909-1990)
Hitsuji (Pecora), dai dodici guardiani (jūnishinshō) del Murōji [Hitsuji (Sheep), one of the twelve guardians (jūnishinshō) of Muroji]
1941-1943
Murōji, Nara
535 x 748mm
Ken Domon Museum of Photography

 

Ken Domon (Japanese, 1909-1990) 'Buddha Shaka ligneo a figura intera presso il Mirokudō del Murōji [Buddha Shaka wooden full-length at the Mirokudō Muroji]' c. 1943

 

Ken Domon (Japanese, 1909-1990)
Buddha Shaka ligneo a figura intera presso il Mirokudō del Murōji [Buddha Shaka wooden full-length at the Mirokudō Muroji]
c. 1943
Nara
457 x 560mm
Ken Domon Museum of Photography

 

Ken Domon (Japanese, 1909-1990) 'Ōnodera, campana e ciliegi [Onodera, bell and cherry trees]' 1977

 

Ken Domon (Japanese, 1909-1990)
Ōnodera, campana e ciliegi [Onodera, bell and cherry trees]
1977
Nara
535 x 748mm
Ken Domon Museum of Photography

 

Ken Domon (Japanese, 1909-1990) 'Pagoda del Murōji con la neve [Pagoda Muroji with snow]' 1978

 

Ken Domon (Japanese, 1909-1990)
Pagoda del Murōji con la neve [Pagoda Muroji with snow]
1978
Nara
535 x 748mm
Ken Domon Museum of Photography

 

 

Museo dell’Ara Pacis
Lungotevere in Augusta, Rome

Opening hours:
Daily 9.30am – 19.30pm

Museo dell’Ara Pacis website

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Exhibition: ‘Degas: A New Vision’ at the National Gallery of Victoria International, Melbourne Part 1

Exhibition dates: 24th June – 18th September, 2016

Curator: Dr Ted Gott, Senior Curator of International Art at the National Gallery of Victoria

 

Installation view of the exhibition 'Degas: A New Vision' at the National Gallery of Victoria International, Melbourne

 

Installation view of the exhibition Degas: A New Vision at the National Gallery of Victoria International, Melbourne with at right, Female nude
Photo: © Marcus Bunyan and the National Gallery of Victoria

 

 

A magnificent exhibition of the work of Edgar Degas at NGV International. So nice to see a blockbuster without papered walls or patterned floors, an exhibition that just allows the work to speak for itself.

See the review in part 2 of the posting.

“Il y a quelque chose plus terrible encore que le bourgeois – c’est l’homme qui nous singe [There’s something even more awful than the bourgeois – it’s the man who apes us]”

Edgar Degas as noted down by Oscar Wilde when he met him in 1883.

Dr Marcus Bunyan


Many thankx to the National Gallery of Victoria for allowing me to publish the artwork and photographs in the posting. All installation photographs © Marcus Bunyan and the National Gallery of Victoria. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

 

 

Edgar Degas (French, 1834-1917) 'Female nude' 1905 (installation view)

 

Edgar Degas (French, 1834-1917)
Female nude (installation view)
1905
Charcoal and brown pastel
Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto
Gift of Mr Noah Torno, 2003
Photo: © Marcus Bunyan and the National Gallery of Victoria

 

Installation view of the exhibition 'Degas: A New Vision' at the National Gallery of Victoria International, Melbourne showing Degas' work 'Thérèse De Gas' (c. 1863, below)

 

Installation view of the exhibition Degas: A New Vision at the National Gallery of Victoria International, Melbourne showing Degas’ work Thérèse De Gas (c. 1863, below)
Photo: © Marcus Bunyan and the National Gallery of Victoria

 

Edgar Degas (French, 1834-1917) 'Thérèse De Gas' c. 1863 from the exhibition 'Degas: A New Vision' at the National Gallery of Victoria International, Melbourne, June - Sept, 2016

 

Edgar Degas (French, 1834-1917)
Thérèse De Gas
c. 1863
Oil on canvas
89.5 x 66.7cm
Musée d’Orsay, Paris (RF 2650)
Photo © RMN-Grand Palais (Musée d’Orsay)

 

At the start of the 1860s Degas’s family still acted as his primary models for portraiture. In early 1863 he painted this engagement portrait of his sister Thérèse. He shows her as a young woman all dressed up to go out; in fact, to go abroad. Timidly she show off her engagement ring before a view of Naples, her face serene, the sky blue with future happiness. She was to move to Naples after her marriage in Paris on 11 April 1863 to her first cousin Edmondo Morbilli, the son of Rose Morbilli, the sister of Degas’s father.

Wall text from the exhibition

 

Installation view of the exhibition 'Degas: A New Vision' at the National Gallery of Victoria International, Melbourne showing in the centre, 'Degas's father listening to Lorenzo Pagans playing the guitar' (after 1874)

 

Installation view of the exhibition Degas: A New Vision at the National Gallery of Victoria International, Melbourne showing in the centre, Degas’s father listening to Lorenzo Pagans playing the guitar (after 1874)
Photo: © Marcus Bunyan and the National Gallery of Victoria

 

Edgar Degas (French, 1834-1917) 'Degas's father listening to Lorenzo Pagans playing the guitar' after 1874 from the exhibition 'Degas: A New Vision' at the National Gallery of Victoria International, Melbourne, June - Sept, 2016

 

Edgar Degas (French, 1834-1917)
Degas’s father listening to Lorenzo Pagans playing the guitar
after 1874
Oil on canvas
81.6 x 65.1cm
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Bequest of John T. Spaulding
© 2016 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

 

Edgar Degas (French, 1834-1917) 'Edgar Degas: Self-portrait (two of four states)' 1857 (installation view)

 

Edgar Degas (French, 1834-1917)
Edgar Degas: Self-portrait (two of four states) (installation view)
1857
Etching and drypoint
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, H.O.
Havemeyer Collection, Bequest of Mrs. H.O. Havemeyer, 1929
© The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Photo: © Marcus Bunyan and the National Gallery of Victoria

 

Edgar Degas (French, 1834-1917) 'Edgar Degas: Self-portrait' (third of four states) 1857

 

Edgar Degas (French, 1834-1917) 'Edgar Degas: Self-portrait' (third of four states) 1857

 

Edgar Degas (French, 1834-1917)
Edgar Degas: Self-portrait (third of four states) (detail)
1857
Etching and drypoint
23.0 x 14.4cm (plate)
34.9 x 25.7cm (sheet)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, H.O.
Havemeyer Collection, Bequest of Mrs. H.O. Havemeyer, 1929
© The Metropolitan Museum of Art

 

While studying in Rome as a young man degas became increasingly interested in printmaking and also in the portraits of Rembrandt, which he first saw in publication by the French art writer Charles Blanc. The effects of light and shadow in Rembrandt’s portraits inspired Degas to undertake a series of self-portraits including this, his only self-portrait etching, which he produced in four separate states. He experimented with altering the appearance of these etchings through leaving varying amounts of ink on the plate before printing. Degas was very pleased with this exercise, and gave away examples of these trials to his friends.

Wall text from the exhibition

 

Installation view of the exhibition 'Degas: A New Vision' at the National Gallery of Victoria International, Melbourne showing at left, 'Thérèse De Gas' (c. 1855-1856)

 

Installation view of the exhibition Degas: A New Vision at the National Gallery of Victoria International, Melbourne showing at left, Thérèse De Gas (c. 1855-1856)
Photo: © Marcus Bunyan and the National Gallery of Victoria

 

Traces of Ingres’s influence on the young Degas are clearly visible here in the clean, firm contours delineating the face of his hen fifteen-year-old sister Thérèse De Gas. Offsetting the crisp edge drawn along her cheek is a subtle modelling of the chin and cheeks produced with smudged pencil, recalling the sfumato (soft or blurred) effects of Leonardo da Vinci.

Wall text from the exhibition

 

Edgar Degas (French, 1834-1917) 'Thérèse De Gas' c. 1855-1856

 

Edgar Degas (French, 1834-1917)
Thérèse De Gas
c. 1855-1856
Black crayon and graphite on brown paper
32.0 x 28.4cm (sheet)
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Julia Knight Fox Fund
© 2016 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

 

Edgar Degas (French, 1834-1917) 'René De Gas' 1855 (installation view)

 

Edgar Degas (French, 1834-1917)
René De Gas (installation view)
1855
Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton, Massachusetts
Purchased 1935
Photo: © Marcus Bunyan and the National Gallery of Victoria

 

Degas’s family members were his principal models in the early years of his career. His first art lessons were undertaken with Louis Lamothe, a loyal follower of the Neoclassical master Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres. This portrait of his younger brother René, the family darling, betrays Degas’s resolve to follow in the footsteps of his mentor Ingres, whose work was exhibited at the Exposition Universelle in September 1854. Degas visited the elderly master of Neoclassical portraiture in 1855, the year the he undertook this portrait. Preparatory drawings show that degas radically simplified his composition, eliminating a complex interior setting in favour of a dramatic dark background reminiscent of the Mannerist Old Master, Angolo Bronzino.

Wall text from the exhibition

 

Installation view of the exhibition 'Degas: A New Vision' at the National Gallery of Victoria International, Melbourne

Installation view of the exhibition 'Degas: A New Vision' at the National Gallery of Victoria International, Melbourne showing at left, 'Mendiante romaine' [Roman beggar women] (1857)

 

Installation views of the exhibition Degas: A New Vision at the National Gallery of Victoria International, Melbourne showing at left in the bottom image, Mendiante romaine [Roman beggar women] (1857, below)
Photo: © Marcus Bunyan and the National Gallery of Victoria

 

Edgar Degas (French, 1834-1917) 'Mendiante romaine' [Roman beggar women] 1857 (installation view)

 

Edgar Degas (French, 1834-1917)
Mendiante romaine [Roman beggar women] (installation view)
1857
Oil on canvas
Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery
Purchased 1960
Lent by Birmingham Museums Trust on behalf of Birmingham City Council
Photo: © Marcus Bunyan and the National Gallery of Victoria

 

This work is both a portrait and a genre scene, but it leans towards the former in that there is little trace of narrative, local colour or exotic reference. Degas details the marks of old age, fatigue and poverty – wrinkled skin, gnarled hands, the motley garments of a pauper – along with the faded colours that he recorded in a contemporary notebook: ‘figure of an old woman / very tanned skin, white veil / cloak thrown over / shoulder faded brown / faded free dress / a little like the back wall / of my room / yellow apron’

Wall text from the exhibition

 

Installation view of the exhibition 'Degas: A New Vision' at the National Gallery of Victoria International, Melbourne with at centre, 'Family portrait also called The Bellelli family' 1867

 

Installation views of the exhibition Degas: A New Vision at the National Gallery of Victoria International, Melbourne with at centre, Family portrait also called The Bellelli family 1867
Photo: © Marcus Bunyan and the National Gallery of Victoria

 

Edgar Degas (French, 1834-1917) 'Family portrait also called The Bellelli family' 1867 (installation view)

 

Edgar Degas (French, 1834-1917)
Family portrait also called The Bellelli family (installation view)
1867
Oil on canvas
201 x 249.5cm
Musée d’Orsay, Paris (RF 2210)
© Musée d’Orsay, Dist. RMN-Grand Palais / Patrice Schmidt
Photo: © Marcus Bunyan and the National Gallery of Victoria

 

Edgar Degas (French, 1834-1917) 'Family portrait' also called 'The Bellelli family' 1867

 

Edgar Degas (French, 1834-1917)
Family portrait also called The Bellelli family
1867
Oil on canvas
201 x 249.5cm
Musée d’Orsay, Paris (RF 2210)
© Musée d’Orsay, Dist. RMN-Grand Palais / Patrice Schmidt

 

 

In 1858-1859, during an Italian sojourn, Degas stayed in Florence for nine months with his aunt Laure and her husband, Baron Gennaro Bellelli. There he embarked on the largest painting he would ever create – a monumental portrait of Laure, Gennaro and their daughters, Giovanna and Giulia. A study of marital discontent presented on the scale of a history painting, Family portrait, also called The Bellelli family, reflected Degas’ recent study of the dignified sitters in the Flemish master Anthony van Dyck’s early seventeenth-century portraits, which he had seen in Genoa. He worked on this painting continuously after his return to Paris, completing a final version of it for the Paris Salon of 1867. Alive to the unhappy marital dynamics between Laure and her husband, a political exile from Naples, Degas showed his morose relatives in their rented apartment, physically separated from one another by items of furniture and Giovanna (on the left) and Giulia. Although expecting her third child, Laure Bellelli (la Baronne) stands proud and aloof, in full mourning for her recently deceased father (Degas’ grandfather) Hilaire Degas, whose portrait hangs on the wall behind her. Meanwhile, her husband, conspicuously not in mourning, sits in comfort by the fire. Adults and children are compressed into a shallow plane, an airless, static vacuum. The uneasy ambience is accentuated by Giulia’s absent leg and the family dog, shown without its head, in the right foreground.

Wall text from the exhibition

 

Installation view of the exhibition 'Degas: A New Vision' at the National Gallery of Victoria International, Melbourne showing at left, 'Monsieur Reulle' (1861); and at right, 'Portrait de jeune femme' [Portrait of a young woman] (1867)

 

Installation views of the exhibition Degas: A New Vision at the National Gallery of Victoria International, Melbourne showing at left, Monsieur Reulle (1861); and at right, Portrait de jeune femme [Portrait of a young woman] (1867)
Photo: © Marcus Bunyan and the National Gallery of Victoria

 

In this portrait of Monsieur Ruelle, Degas shows his father’s former bank cashier as a man of seriousness and restrained sophistication, dressed in a dinner suit and black bow tie as if preparing to go the opera. In its combination of informality and masculine severity the portrait conforms to a convention among nineteenth-century Realist artists of portraying each other and their friends as modern men of leisure and the metropolis.

Wall text from the exhibition

 

Edgar Degas (French, 1834-1917) 'Étude pour Jeunes Spartiates s'exerçant à la lutte' [Study for The young Spartans exercising] c. 1860-1861 (installation view)

 

Edgar Degas (French, 1834-1917)
Étude pour Jeunes Spartiates s’exerçant à la lutte [Study for The young Spartans exercising] (installation view)
c. 1860-1861
Oil on paper on paper on cardboard
Harvard Art Museum/Fogg Museum, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Friends of the Fogg Museum
Photo: © Marcus Bunyan and the National Gallery of Victoria

 

On returning to Paris from Italy in 1860 Degas began work on scenes from the Bible and ancient history, including this preparatory oil sketch for a vignette from an ancient greek subject. In the foreground two groups of adolescents are seen confronting each other on the plains of Sparta, watched over by the white-haired law-giver Lycurgus and the teenagers’ mothers. The subject has conventionally been read as the exercises traditionally undertaken by Spartans in preparation for war, but it has also been suggested that it represents Spartan courtship rites. In the Life of Lycurgus it was noted that display of physical prowess by girls assisted young men in choosing strong mothers, who would produce strong children.

Wall text from the exhibition

 

Edgar Degas (French, 1834-1917) 'Petites filles spartiates provoquant des garçons' [Young Spartan girls challenging boys] c. 1860 (installation view)

Edgar Degas (French, 1834-1917) 'Petites filles spartiates provoquant des garçons' [Young Spartan girls challenging boys] c. 1860 (installation view)

 

Edgar Degas (French, 1834-1917)
Petites filles spartiates provoquant des garçons [Young Spartan girls challenging boys] (installation views)
c. 1860
Oil on canvas
The Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois
Photo: © Marcus Bunyan and the National Gallery of Victoria

 

Edgar Degas (French, 1834-1917) 'Edmondo and Thérèse Morbilli' c. 1865

 

Edgar Degas (French, 1834-1917)
Edmondo and Thérèse Morbilli
c. 1865
Oil on canvas
116.5 x 88.3cm
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Gift of Robert Treat Paine, 2nd
© 2016 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

 

 

An exhibition of one of the world’s most beloved artists, Edgar Degas, opens to the public from tomorrow at NGV International showcasing significant works never-before-seen in Australia.

In its world premiere, Degas: A New Vision presents the largest display of Degas’ works to ever come to Australia, and forms the most comprehensive retrospective of the artist’s oeuvre in decades. Featuring more than 200 works, Degas: A New Vision reveals Degas’ talent in a new light; not only as a great master of painting, but also as a master of drawing, printmaking, sculpture and photography. The works travel to Melbourne from 65 lenders in more than 40 cities across the globe.

The Premier of Victoria, the Hon. Daniel Andrews MP, said, “Degas: A New Vision is a coup for the NGV and for Victoria. Local audiences will be the first in the world to experience this incredible exhibition – another example of how we are leading the way as the creative state. Part of the Melbourne Winter Masterpieces series, this exhibition continues the tradition of creating drawcard cultural events for locals and visitors and bringing must-see art to our city each year.”

Some of Degas’ most famous masterworks are presented including the bronze sculpture The little fourteen-year-old dancer, 1879-1881, and In a café (The Absinthe drinker), c. 1875-1876. World-renowned paintings, never-before-seen in Australia, are also exhibited such as the celebrated ballet paintings The rehearsal, c. 1874, and Finishing the arabesque, 1877, and Degas’ monumental portrait The Bellelli family, 1867.

Tony Ellwood, Director, NGV, said, “Presenting Edgar Degas’ magnificent oeuvre in a fresh and reinvigorated light showcases him as one of the defining artists of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Considered one of the world’s most celebrated and significant artists, his influence upon modern and contemporary art is undeniable. Degas: A New Vision provides audiences with a rare experience to truly be immersed in the creativity and originality of his art, giving visitors a deeper and richer understanding of his brilliance.”

Degas: A New Vision is presented thematically, grouping together the subjects which Degas continually returned to throughout his career, including not only his famous ballet scenes but also arresting portraits, the nude, horse-racing, the social world of Parisian nightlife, and women at work and leisure. The exhibition also explores the great technical, conceptual and expressive freedoms that Degas achieved in his later years, and reveals his experiments with a range of mediums including sculpture and photography. This approach emphasises Degas’ obsessive and highly creative working methods, and allows visitors to enjoy the development of Degas’ art from its beginnings.

Degas was fascinated by aspects of modern life – voraciously painting Paris’ dance halls and cabarets, cafés, racetracks, opera and ballet stages. He also studied the simple, everyday gestures of working women: milliners, dressmakers and laundresses. He was drawn to explore movement that was precise and disciplined, such as that of racehorses and ballet dancers, and absorbed a diverse range of influences from Japanese prints to Italian Mannerism.

The National Gallery of Victoria is pleased to be working with the world’s pre-eminent expert on Edgar Degas, Henri Loyrette, former Director of the Musée du Louvre (2001-2013) and Musée d’Orsay (1994-2001), who is principal curator of the exhibition. The National Gallery of Victoria and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, are both staging this major retrospective, which has been developed by both institutions in association with Art Exhibitions Australia. Degas: A New Vision travels to the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, in October 2016.

Press release from the National Gallery of Victoria

 

Installation view of the exhibition 'Degas: A New Vision' at the National Gallery of Victoria International, Melbourne showing at centre left, 'Portrait of Mademoiselle Eugénie Fiocre in the ballet The Spring' (1867-1868) and, a centre right, 'Etude de nus: Mlle Fiocre dans le ballet La Source' [Nude study: Mademoiselle Fiocre in the ballet The Spring) (1867-1868)

 

Installation view of the exhibition Degas: A New Vision at the National Gallery of Victoria International, Melbourne showing at centre left, Portrait of Mademoiselle Eugénie Fiocre in the ballet The Spring (1867-1868) and, a centre right, Etude de nus: Mlle Fiocre dans le ballet La Source [Nude study: Mademoiselle Fiocre in the ballet The Spring) (1867-1868)
Photo: © Marcus Bunyan and the National Gallery of Victoria

 

Edgar Degas (French, 1834-1917) 'Portrait of Mademoiselle Eugénie Fiocre in the ballet The Spring' 1867-1868

 

Edgar Degas (French, 1834-1917)
Portrait of Mademoiselle Eugénie Fiocre in the ballet The Spring
1867-1868
Oil on canvas
130.8 x 145.1cm
Brooklyn Museum, New York
Gift of James H. Post, A. Augustus Healy, and John T. Underwood, 1921

 

Edgar Degas (French, 1834-1917) 'Etude de nus: Mlle Fiocre dans le ballet La Source' [Nude study: Mademoiselle Fiocre in the ballet 'The Spring'] 1867-1868 (installation view)

 

Edgar Degas (French, 1834-1917)
Etude de nus: Mlle Fiocre dans le ballet La Source [Nude study: Mademoiselle Fiocre in the ballet ‘The Spring’] 
(installation view)
1867-1868
Oil on canvas
Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo
Photo: © Marcus Bunyan and the National Gallery of Victoria

 

Installation view of the exhibition 'Degas: A New Vision' at the National Gallery of Victoria International, Melbourne showing at left, 'Portrait d'homme' [Portrait of a man] (c. 1866) and at right, 'Victoria Dubourg' (1868-1869)

Installation view of the exhibition 'Degas: A New Vision' at the National Gallery of Victoria International, Melbourne Installation view of the exhibition 'Degas: A New Vision' at the National Gallery of Victoria International, Melbourne showing at left, 'Portrait d'homme' [Portrait of a man] (c. 1866) and at right, 'Victoria Dubourg' (1868-1869)

 

Installation views of the exhibition Degas: A New Vision at the National Gallery of Victoria International, Melbourne showing at left, Portrait d’homme [Portrait of a man] (c. 1866); and at right, Victoria Dubourg (1868-1869)
Photo: © Marcus Bunyan and the National Gallery of Victoria

 

Among Degas’s circle of Realist painters were some outstanding practitioners of still life, a genre that enjoyed a resurgence of popularity following the revival of interest in the French eighteenth-century painter Jean-Baptiste Siméon Chardin. The identity of the man in this portrait is unknown, although he seems to be a still-life artist. He is depicted by Degas in his studio, informal seated with hands clasped, surrounded by the standard props of his trade: hunks of meat, white cloths, glassware and sketches of past still lives displayed on a wall as aides-mémoire – a masculine counterpart to the portrait of Victoria Dubourg that is also displayed here.

Wall text from the exhibition

 

Edgar Degas (French, 1834-1917) 'Victoria Dubourg' c. 1868-1869

 

Edgar Degas (French, 1834-1917)
Victoria Dubourg
c. 1868-1869
Oil on canvas
81.3 x 64.8cm
Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, Ohio
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. William E. Levis

 

Edgar Degas (French, 1834-1917) 'Mme Jeantaud sur sa chaise longue, avec deux chiens' [Madame Jeantaud on her chaise longue, with two dogs] 1877 (installation view)

 

Edgar Degas (French, 1834-1917)
Mme Jeantaud sur sa chaise longue, avec deux chiens [Madame Jeantaud on her chaise longue, with two dogs] (installation view)
1877
Oil on canvas
Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe
Photo: © Marcus Bunyan and the National Gallery of Victoria

 

Berthe Marie Jeantaud was the wife of Charles Jeantaud, with whom Degas served in the artillery company under the command of Henri Rouart in 1870-1871, during the chaos of the Franco-Prussian War and Paris Commune. Following Berthe Marie’s marriage to Jeantaud in 1872, Degas produced this as well as a second portrait of her. Her cousin was Vicomte Ludovic Lepic, a landscape painter and etcher who taught degas methods of manipulating plate tones in his monotypes. In this remarkable candid and economical oil sketch, Degas depicts Madame Jeantaud at home with her two small dogs at 24 rue de Téhéran.

Wall text from the exhibition

 

Edgar Degas (French, 1834-1917) 'Mme Jeantaud sur sa chaise longue, avec deux chiens' [Madame Jeantaud on her chaise longue, with two dogs] 1877 (installation view detail)

 

Edgar Degas (French, 1834-1917)
Mme Jeantaud sur sa chaise longue, avec deux chiens [Madame Jeantaud on her chaise longue, with two dogs] (installation view detail)
1877
Oil on canvas
Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe
Photo: © Marcus Bunyan and the National Gallery of Victoria

 

Edgar Degas (French, 1834-1917) 'Henri Rouart and his daughter Hélène' 1871-1872 (installation view)

 

Edgar Degas (French, 1834-1917)
Henri Rouart and his daughter Hélène (installation view)
1871-1872
Oil on canvas
63.5 x 74.9cm
Courtesy of Acquavalla Galleries
© Courtesy of Acquavella Galleries
Photo: © Marcus Bunyan and the National Gallery of Victoria

 

Edgar Degas (French, 1834-1917) 'Henri Rouart and his daughter Hélène' 1871-1872

 

Edgar Degas (French, 1834-1917)
Henri Rouart and his daughter Hélène
1871-1872
Oil on canvas
63.5 x 74.9cm
Courtesy of Acquavalla Galleries
© Courtesy of Acquavella Galleries

 

So cordial were Degas’s relations with Henri Rouart and his brother Alexis, who was also an art collector, that he dined with Alexis on Tuesdays and Henri on Fridays. In 1906 Degas wrote to his sister Thérèse that the Rouarts were his only remaining family in France. This portrait of Henri with his daughter Hélène was the first of many portraits. Henri is seen here as a paterfamilias, head of his household (a role that Degas esteemed) and in front of one of his landscapes, which degas also admired enough to invite Henri to exhibit with the ‘impressionists’.

Wall text from the exhibition

 

Installation view of the exhibition 'Degas: A New Vision' at the National Gallery of Victoria International, Melbourne with at right, 'Dead fox in the undergrowth' (1864-1868)

 

Installation view of the exhibition Degas: A New Vision at the National Gallery of Victoria International, Melbourne with at right, Dead fox in the undergrowth (1864-1868)
Photo: © Marcus Bunyan and the National Gallery of Victoria

 

Edgar Degas (French, 1834-1917) 'Dead fox in the undergrowth' 1864-1868

 

Edgar Degas (French, 1834-1917)
Renard mort, sou-bois [Dead fox in the undergrowth]
1864-1868
Oil on canvas
35.0 x 58.0cm
Musée des Beaux-Arts, Rouen
Photo © RMN-Grand Palais

 

While his colleagues exhibition plein-air landscapes as ‘Impressionists’, degas adhered to his position as a ‘Realist’ during the 1860s and 70s, with at times awkward results. Dead fox in the undergrowth displays the powerful sense of physical presence that can be achieved by studying a dead fox in the studio under artificial light, and by using a brush to render the fox’s luscious pelt. Less convincing is the forest setting, which is invited and only roughly blocked out. Here Degas applied thin slashes of green and brown paint to suggest trees and forest floor, emulating, some have suggested, the Realist technique of Gustave Courbet.

Wall text from the exhibition

 

Installation view of the exhibition 'Degas: A New Vision' at the National Gallery of Victoria International, Melbourne

Installation view of the exhibition 'Degas: A New Vision' at the National Gallery of Victoria International, Melbourne

Installation view of the exhibition 'Degas: A New Vision' at the National Gallery of Victoria International, Melbourne showing at left, 'The little fourteen-year-old dancer' (1879-1881); and at centre, 'The song rehearsal' (c. 1872-1873)

 

Installation views of the exhibition Degas: A New Vision at the National Gallery of Victoria International, Melbourne showing at left in the bottom image, The little fourteen-year-old dancer (1879-1881); and at centre, The song rehearsal (c. 1872-1873)
Photos: © Marcus Bunyan and the National Gallery of Victoria

 

Edgar Degas (French, 1834-1917) 'The little fourteen-year-old dancer' 1879-1881, cast 1922-1937

 

Edgar Degas (French, 1834-1917)
The little fourteen-year-old dancer
1879-1881, cast 1922-1937
Bronze with cotton skirt and satin ribbon
99.0 x 35.2 x 24.5cm
Czestochowski/Pingeot 73 (cast unlettered)
Museu de Arte de São Paulo, Assis Chateaubriand
Donated by Alberto José Alves, Alberto Alves Filho and Alcino Ribeiro de Lima

 

At the 1881 ‘impressionist’ group exhibition Degas unveiled a large wax sculpture of an immature ballerina (of which this is a bronze version), which he provocatively clad in real clothing. Critics were scandalised, accusing him of having dredged ‘the lower depths of dance’, choosing his dancer from among the ‘most hatefully ugly’. Degas’ model, ballet student Marie Van Goethem, the daughter of a tailor and a laundress and part-time prostitute, was later to abandon her dance studies and disappear into Paris’ underworld.

Degas produced sculptures in his studio from the 1860s until the 1910s. He modelled them in wax, over steel wire and cork armatures. Never satisfied, he made, destroyed and remade them repeatedly, his primary subjects being thoroughbred racehorses, female dancers and women at their toilette. As Degas’ eyesight deteriorated in his later years, making three-dimensional figures fulfilled a physical and emotional need that transcended any desire to perfect a finished object; he allegedly said that sculpture was ‘a blind man’s trade’.

After Degas’ death in 1917, some 150 wax sculptures were found in his studio, some broken but many intact. His heirs subsequently authorised the casting in bronze, by the Adrien-A. Hébrard Foundry, Paris, and their Milanese master craftsman Albino Palazzolo, of seventy four of the most intact of Degas’ sculptures. While many of Degas’ original wax sculptures still survive, they are too fragile to travel. These bronzes allow wider audiences today to engage with some of the most beautiful sculptures of the nineteenth century.

Wall text from the exhibition

 

Edgar Degas (French, 1834-1917) 'The song rehearsal' c. 1872–1873

 

Edgar Degas (French, 1834-1917)
The song rehearsal
c. 1872-1873
Oil on canvas
81.0 x 64.9cm
House Collection, Dumbarton Oaks, Washington D.C.

 

Edgar Degas (French, 1834-1917) 'Cotton merchants in New Orleans' 1873 (installation view)

 

Edgar Degas (French, 1834-1917)
Marchands de coton à la Nouvelle-Orléans [Cotton merchants in New Orleans] (installation view)
1873
Oil on linen
Harvard Art Museum/Fogg Museum, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Gift of Herbert N. Strauss
Photo: © Marcus Bunyan and the National Gallery of Victoria

 

Edgar Degas (French, 1834-1917) 'Un bureau de coton à la Nouvelle-Orléans' [A cotton office in New Orleans] 1873 (installation view)

 

Edgar Degas (French, 1834-1917)
Un bureau de coton à la Nouvelle-Orléans [A cotton office in New Orleans] (installation view)
1873
Oil on linen
Museé des Beaux-Arts, Pau
Photo: © Marcus Bunyan and the National Gallery of Victoria

 

Edgar Degas (French, 1834-1917) 'Un bureau de coton à la Nouvelle-Orléans' [A cotton office in New Orleans] 1873 (installation view)

 

Edgar Degas (French, 1834-1917)
Un bureau de coton à la Nouvelle-Orléans [A cotton office in New Orleans] (installation view)
1873
Oil on linen
Museé des Beaux-Arts, Pau
Photo: © Marcus Bunyan and the National Gallery of Victoria

 

In October 1872 Degas travelled to New Orleans in the United States, where he stayed for five months with his late mother’s brother Michel Musson and the extended Musson family. The artist’s younger brothers René and Achille had already relocated there, and had opened a wine import business financed by the Parisian Degas family bank. During his stay in Louisiana, Degas painted A cotton office in New Orleans, 1873, which reflected his observations of the industry that was central to that city. This now celebrated painting, which became the first work by Degas to enter a public collection when acquired by Pau’s Musée des Beaux-Arts in 1878, depicts Michel Musson in the foreground sampling cotton fibre in the office of his cotton export business.

René and Achille De Gas appear as relaxed visitors – René reading a newspaper and Achille casually observing the other men at work – in this complex group portrait of fourteen men, which has echoes of the artist’s love of seventeenth-century Dutch guild portraits. A cotton office in New Orleans was the prototype for many of Degas’ works of the 1870s and 1880s: framing that cuts to the heart of the subject and slices through men and objects alike; a de-centred composition viewed from slightly overhead, with a steep, diagonal perspective; a depth of field that creates close-ups while miniaturising anything farther off; and contrasts provided by light sources and, more particularly, by the frequently reproduced backlighting effect.

Wall text from the exhibition

 

Edgar Degas (French, 1834-1917) 'Courtyard of a house (New Orleans, sketch) 1873 (installation view)

 

Edgar Degas (French, 1834-1917)
Cour d’une maison à la Nouvelle-Orléans [Courtyard of a house (New Orleans, sketch)] (installation view)
1873
Oil on canvas
Ordeupgaard, Copenhagen
Bequest of the Danish government, 1951
Photo: © Marcus Bunyan and the National Gallery of Victoria

 

The partially finished state of Courtyard of a house (New Orleans, sketch) reflects Degas’s experiences in the city, as he struggled to fulfil social obligations with his American relatives. The view here looking out from a shaded interior also indicates that Degas was already experiencing problems with his eyesight, which was affected by the harsh Louisiana sunlight.

Wall text from the exhibition

 

Edgar Degas (French, 1834-1917) 'The pedicure' 1873

 

Edgar Degas (French, 1834-1917)
The pedicure
1873
Oil and essence on paper on canvas
61.5 x 46.5cm
Musée d’Orsay, Paris (RF 1986)
Photo © RMN – Hervé Lewandowski

 

The young girl being attended to by a chiropodist in this painting is believed to be Joe Balfour, daughter of Degas’s widowed cousin Estelle Musson, whose husband had been killed in 1862 during the American Civil War. Degas here uses a technique he invented, peinture à l’essence (which entailed using oil pigments with most of the oil blotted away, thinned out with turpentine). Applied like watercolour, it dried with a soft matt finish that Degas preferred to the glossy sheen of traditional oil paintings.

Wall text from the exhibition

 

Installation view of the exhibition 'Degas: A New Vision' at the National Gallery of Victoria International, Melbourne showing 'Interior' (c. 1868-1869)

Edgar Degas (French, 1834-1917) 'Interior' c. 1868-1869 (installation view)

 

Installation views of the exhibition Degas: A New Vision at the National Gallery of Victoria International, Melbourne showing Interior (c. 1868-1869)
Photos: © Marcus Bunyan and the National Gallery of Victoria

 

Edgar Degas (French, 1834-1917) 'Interior' c. 1868-1869

 

Edgar Degas (French, 1834-1917)
Interior
c. 1868-1869
Oil on canvas
81.3 x 114.3cm
Philadelphia Museum of Art, Pennsylvania
The Henry P. McIlhenny Collection in memory of Frances P. McIlhenny, 1986
© Philadelphia Museum of Art

 

Degas ironically referred to this painting as ‘my genre picture’, by which he understated the gravitas of this domestic scene. This drama of seeming violation perpetrated on a young working-class woman b a man displaying the clothing and posture of a young bourgeois acquired in Degas’s hands the breadth and intensity of history painting. The muted colours and dim light accentuate the unspoken violence, anguish and simmering tension between the two people. The open box on the round table at the centre of the painting is a telling symbol of lost virginity. The rosy interior of the gaping jewel-case is brutally expired by the lamp standing next to it.

Wall text from the exhibition

 

 

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Exhibition: ‘An Anonymous Art: American Snapshots from the Peter J. Cohen Gift’ at The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City

Exhibition dates: 15th April – 4th September, 2016

Curator: Keith F. Davis, Senior Curator, Photography at The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art

 

Unknown maker (American). 'Group at pond' c. 1910s from the exhibition 'An Anonymous Art: American Snapshots from the Peter J. Cohen Gift' at The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, April - September, 2016

 

Unknown maker (American)
Group at pond
c. 1910s
Gelatin silver print
3 × 4 inches
The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri
Gift of Peter J. Cohen

 

 

Dis/membering the snapshot

To say that I dislike the term “snapshot” is an understatement. The term snap/shot implies a lack of consideration in the physical act of taking the photograph. In a snap it was shot – like a snap of the fingers or a bolt out of the blue. But if we think about the photographs in this posting … and we then think about the photographs of Henri Lartigue, or Robert Frank and his travels across 1950s America, I would argue that the only difference between Lartigue, Frank and the former “Unknown makers” is that they were embarked upon a photographic project, and, latterly, were decreed artists.

I believe, and I have always believed, that the taking of photographs is a matter of intention on the part of the photographer.

If you look at these photographs from Unknown makers was it their intention to take this photograph, did they think about what they were doing before they pressed the shutter. And the answer is unequivocally, yes they did. Their aim, their purpose, was that they had the intention to take the photograph they did, they determined of their own free will how to frame these photos and at what split second to press the shutter so as to suit their aim, their thought about what they wanted to capture in the image. This is not a “snap” shot in contemporary parlance, but a considered action and intention.

To say, as Keith F. Davis, Senior Curator, Photography does in the press release, that “Snapshots represent a collective visual unconsciousness of 20th-century American culture,” could not be farther from the truth. They may represent a form of collective subconscious, where these images hover in collective memories and dreams waiting to be visualised, but a collective visual unconsciousness? I don’t think so.

Vernacular photography is about a conscious decision to take a photograph and, at its most poignant, it is about a collective movement that emerges from the subconscious of people all the way around the world – in order (a taxonomic state) to document the world around them.

The joy of the women on the bed, the man and women in the cornfield, the couple in love with the Christmas tree, the man riding the bucking horse bareback, even the close-up of child’s mouth – all of the photographs were taken with an inquiring mind, with an intention to look and see, to feel the memory of that event, that time and space – not as a snap/shot but as an expression of (everlasting) life.

“To see a world in a grain of sand and heaven in a wild flower
Hold infinity in the palms of your hand and eternity in an hour.

William Blake


Dr Marcus Bunyan


Many thankx to the The Nelson-Atkins 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.

 

 

Unknown maker (American). 'Man and woman in corn' c. 1930s from the exhibition 'An Anonymous Art: American Snapshots from the Peter J. Cohen Gift' at The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, April - September, 2016

 

Unknown maker (American)
Man and woman in corn
c. 1930s
Gelatin silver print
3 × 4 1/8 inches
The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri
Gift of Peter J. Cohen

 

Unknown maker (American). 'Couple with Christmas tree' c 1940s

 

Unknown maker (American)
Couple with Christmas tree
c. 1940s
Gelatin silver print
3 × 3 inches
The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri
Gift of Peter J. Cohen

 

Unknown maker (American). 'Woman with drink on bed' 1950s

 

Unknown maker (American)
Woman with drink on bed
1950s
Gelatin silver print
3 1/8 x 4 inches
Gift of Peter J. Cohen

 

Unknown maker (American). 'Close-up of child's mouth' 1956

 

Unknown maker (American)
Close-up of child’s mouth
1956
Gelatin silver print
3 × 3 inches
The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri
Gift of Peter J. Cohen

 

Unknown maker (American). 'Superman with dumbbell' 1972

 

Unknown maker (American)
Superman with dumbbell
1972
Ektacolor print
3 1/8 × 3 1/8 inches
The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri
Gift of Peter J. Cohen

 

 

When photography was introduced in 1839, the making of even a single picture was difficult and painstaking. The medium was transformed in the 1880s with the introduction of easier processes and the simple Kodak camera. Amateur photography was born: images became casual and spontaneous, and they were called “snapshots.”

Amateur snapshots are highlighted in An Anonymous Art: American Snapshots from the Peter J. Cohen Gift, which opens at The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City April 15. The Chicago-born Cohen, an investment manager who now lives in New York, bought his first snapshots at a flea market in 1991. Within 20 years he had amassed more than 50,000 of them, and has given away as many as 12,000 snapshots. Cohen gifted the Nelson-Atkins with 350 photos.

“This incredible exhibition of amateur snapshots depicts broadly shared aspects of everyday life,” said Julián Zugazagoitia, Menefee D. and Mary Louise Blackwell CEO and Director of the Nelson-Atkins. “It highlights the deep cultural importance of photography, a visual tradition that flourishes today in images that are made and shared in a variety of ways.”

There are snapshots of pets, baseball games, Christmas trees, amateur plays, vacation fun – and even subjects snapping themselves in mirrors, which could be considered the original selfies.

“The large themes of this exhibition have tremendous continuity,” said Keith F. Davis, Senior Curator, Photography. “Snapshots represent a collective visual unconsciousness of 20th-century American culture – a connection to basic human concerns that is both direct and mysterious.”

Each of the 238 snapshots in An Anonymous Art was hand-selected by Davis himself from an extensive survey of the Cohen collection. The exhibition suggests the medium’s profound social importance as well as its quirky and surprising nature. It features groupings of works illustrating key visual traits and cultural motifs, ranging from accidental multiple exposures to comic and play-acting images. An Anonymous Art runs through Sept 4.

Press release from The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art

 

Unknown maker (American). Flying bi-plane' c. 1920s

 

Unknown maker (American)
Flying bi-plane
c. 1920s
Gelatin silver print
5 3/8 × 3 3/16 inches
The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri
Gift of Peter J. Cohen

 

Unknown maker (American). 'Whoa!' 1928

 

Unknown maker (American)
Whoa!
1928
Gelatin silver print
3 3/16 × 2 1/8 inches
The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri
Gift of Peter J. Cohen

 

 

“Especially poignant are the images captioned “Me,” depicting both adults and children. We may imagine a grown woman writing “me” at the bottom of her childhood photograph as a reminder that she was once a small, vulnerable girl.  In Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography, French theoretician Roland Barthes writes, “In front of the photograph of my mother as a child, I tell myself: she is going to die: I shudder … over a catastrophe which has already occurred.  Whether or not the subject is already dead, every photograph is this catastrophe.”

And yet, despite Barthes’ melancholy, or our own sadness over images of loved ones who have died, each photograph exclaims and reclaims existence – that we have been here.  The snapshot embodies an emotion that existed at the time as an agreement between the photographer and the photographed, and that experience bridges time’s distance. And while that may sound simplistic, it is part of the deeper social meaning of the photographic image as a souvenir of experience – a small, visual (auto)biography.

Barthes goes on to discuss his mother’s photograph, writing, “… [the] photograph was indeed essential, it achieved for me, utopically, the impossible science of the unique being.”  The image of his mother as a child evinced for Barthes his mother’s true nature – kindness. Similarly, these anonymous photos perhaps reveal the essence of the subjects depicted … daredevil brothers, goofy friends and sisters, sedate parents, and so on.”

Dana Self. ‘”An Anonymous Art: American Snapshots from the Peter J. Cohen Gift,” Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art,’ on the KC Studio website July 8, 2016 [Online] Cited 16/12/2025

 

Unknown maker (American) 'Allen and Gladys' c. 1930s

 

Unknown maker (American)
Allen and Gladys
c. 1930s
Gelatin silver print
3 1/8 × 2 1/8 inches
The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri
Gift of Peter J. Cohen

 

Unknown maker (American) 'Dog being held by neck' c. 1940

 

Unknown maker (American)
Dog being held by neck
c. 1940
Gelatin silver print
3 1/2 × 2 1/2 inches
The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri
Gift of Peter J. Cohen

 

Unknown maker (American) 'Doris' 1949

 

Unknown maker (American)
Doris
1949
Gelatin silver print
3 1/8 × 2 1/8 inches
The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri
Gift of Peter J. Cohen

 

Unknown maker (American) 'Boy with bat' c. 1950s

 

Unknown maker (American)
Boy with bat
c. 1950s
Gelatin silver print
3 × 3 1/16 inches
The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri
Gift of Peter J. Cohen

 

 

The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
4525 Oak Street
Kansas City, MO 64111

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

The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art website

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Exhibition: ‘Roberto Donetta Photographer and Seed Salesman from Bleniotal’ at Fotostiftung Schweiz, Winterthur, Zurich

Exhibition dates: 28th May – 4th September, 2016

Curator: Roland Jaeger, Director of Fotostiftung Schweiz in collaboration with the Fondazione Archivio Donetta

 

Roberto Donetta (Swiss, 1865-1932) 'Female Workers in Front of the Chocolate Factory Cima Norma, Dangio-Torre' Nd from the exhibition 'Roberto Donetta Photographer and Seed Salesman from Bleniotal' at Fotostiftung Schweiz, Winterthur, Zurich, May - Sept, 2016

 

Roberto Donetta (Swiss, 1865-1932)
Female Workers in Front of the Chocolate Factory Cima Norma, Dangio-Torre
Nd
© Fondazione Archivio Fotografico Roberto Donetta, Corzoneso

 

 

I have found a hidden gem in Roberto Donetta. He has become one of my favourite photographers, this seed salesman from Bleniotal, who died in obscurity and poverty in 1932.

His photographs are like no other that I have seen. There is a directness to his photographs that is deceptively disarming, and humour as well. His theatre is the the theatre of life: the archaic life of his compatriots in the Blenio Valley. If you look at his work on the Roberto Donetta Archive website the landscapes and ambiguous object photographs are interesting, but it is in the genre of portrait photography that he really excels. This was his passion, photographing people.

Somehow, it seems as if the person being photographed has forgotten that the camera was there, as though it has disappeared from view. As the press release observes, “the people did not dissimulate [to disguise or conceal under a false appearance], indeed it’s almost as if they forgot that someone with a camera was watching, so self-engrossed do they look, serious, at one with themselves.” At one with themselves but also at one with being photographed, which is very unusual. There is little affectation here.

The details of the photographs are fascinating. The placement of the figures in Female Workers in Front of the Chocolate Factory Cima Norma for example, where the left two sitting figures have their legs crossed in the opposite direction while both rest their face in their hands, a central figure, and then two figures interlocked as in an infinity symbol looking at each other. The ‘line’ of the photograph changes from one height to another. We observe that Donetta stages his photographs with infinite care, even when there is a blank wall behind the sitter. In Family Portrait, Bleniotal there is a gorgeous touch, as the mother holds the arm of the boy on the left hand side and gently rests two fingers on his other hand. Donetta’s photographs are full of these familial and human observations.

In Group of musicians in front of a building all the men have cigarettes hanging from their mouths, even as they stare directly, unflinchingly into the camera lens. In Humoristic scene, Bleniotal the man holding the tongs can hardly suppress laughing as the theatrical photograph is being taken. Kittens or toys are held in hands while protective arms wrap around shoulders. Here are the precursors to the work of Diane Arbus, in their honesty and straight forwardness: in its modernity Children with Toys, Bleniotal even reminds me a little of Arbus’ Identical Twins, Roselle, New Jersey, 1967. And then there is the use of temporary backdrops, to imitate the upmarket studios of larger towns: “Donetta did imitate the decorative aesthetic of the late 19th century professional studios: he transformed interior or outdoor spaces into improvised studios by, for example, hanging up fabrics or carpets as backdrops and placing objects like chairs or tables with vases of flowers in the foreground. His portraits are carefully composed and arranged, look uncontrived, calm and archaic.”

Despite their deceptively simple nature, there is a mysterious quality to Donetta’s photographs which is enhanced through the use of these portable backdrops. The fabric backdrop and sheet to the left in A wedding couple staged in front of a cloth obscures a rock wall; the idyllic scene behind the boy in Portrait of a Boy, Bleniotal hides an earthy, rudimentary stone wall (and note the figure at the top of the image, holding the backdrop up); in Family Portrait, Bleniotal the hastily hung sheet has been decorated with leaves and branches; and in Untitled [Portrait of a women] a plain concrete wall acts as the backdrop even as a) the women looks out of the image not towards the camera; b) the eye can escape down the left hand side of the image and c) there is a ghost-like figure at the very right hand side of the image standing in what I presume is a doorway. The frontality of his photographs is also very powerful: in Untitled [Portrait of a man] the man looks like he is wearing his Sunday best jacket replete with bow tie. His legs are spread on the chair, the jacket looks to big for him, is stiff and unforgiving, his workers hands rest in his lap and he stares quizzically out of the image: calm, accepting, himself. In Portrait of Cesarina Andreazzi Lazzari, Bleniotal we (again) notice the textures in the image – the stipple, the concrete, the rocks – and then Cesarina’s stubby, dark hands clutching a bunch of flowers and a book, reminiscent of the dirt under the finger nails and dark features of the peasant boys that appear in the work of Baron Wilhelm von Gloeden.

Above all these are honest, direct and engaging photographs. You can think of Lewis Hine, Jacob Riis, Eugène Atget, Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange and all the FSA photographers, Diane Arbus and others, and yet they don’t come close to the modern/archaic aesthetic of this man. These photographs are a pilgrimage into a past that has long disappeared. But these faces, these people and their lives, still resonate long after they have passed. I was so moved by these photographs I was in tears the other night when I was constructing this posting, studying the intimate details of these images. That means a lot to me.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

PS. I usually don’t publish photographs without title and date but in this instance, to gather together as many Donetta images as possible, I have published them when I have found good quality images on the internet. I believe that in this instance it is very worth while.


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

 

 

Roberto Donetta (Swiss, 1865-1932) 'Untitled' Nd from the exhibition 'Roberto Donetta Photographer and Seed Salesman from Bleniotal' at Fotostiftung Schweiz, Winterthur, Zurich, May - Sept, 2016

 

Roberto Donetta (Swiss, 1865-1932)
Untitled
Nd
© Fondazione Archivio Fotografico Roberto Donetta, Corzoneso

 

Roberto Donetta (Swiss, 1865-1932) 'Untitled' Nd from the exhibition 'Roberto Donetta Photographer and Seed Salesman from Bleniotal' at Fotostiftung Schweiz, Winterthur, Zurich, May - Sept, 2016

 

Roberto Donetta (Swiss, 1865-1932)
Untitled
Nd
© Fondazione Archivio Fotografico Roberto Donetta, Corzoneso

 

Roberto Donetta (Swiss, 1865-1932) 'Untitled' Nd

 

Roberto Donetta (Swiss, 1865-1932)
Untitled
Nd
© Fondazione Archivio Fotografico Roberto Donetta, Cortonese

 

Roberto Donetta (Swiss, 1865-1932) 'Family Portrait, Bleniotal' Nd

 

Roberto Donetta (Swiss, 1865-1932)
Family Portrait, Bleniotal
Nd
© Fondazione Archivio Fotografico Roberto Donetta, Corzoneso

 

Roberto Donetta (Swiss, 1865-1932) 'In Sonntagsgewand: men in the Torre village come together for bowling' Nd

 

Roberto Donetta (Swiss, 1865-1932)
In Sonntagsgewand: men in the Torre village come together for bowling
Nd
© Fondazione Archivio Fotografico Roberto Donetta, Corzoneso

 

Roberto Donetta (Swiss, 1865-1932) 'Untitled [Basket maker], Bleniotal' Nd

 

Roberto Donetta (Swiss, 1865-1932)
Untitled [Basket maker], Bleniotal
Nd
© Fondazione Archivio Fotografico Roberto Donetta, Cortonese

 

Roberto Donetta (Swiss, 1865-1932) 'Family Portrait, Bleniotal' Nd

 

Roberto Donetta (Swiss, 1865-1932)
Family Portrait, Bleniotal
Nd
© Fondazione Archivio Fotografico Roberto Donetta, Cortonese

 

Roberto Donetta (Swiss, 1865-1932) 'Untitled [Group Portrait], Bleniotal' Nd

 

Roberto Donetta (Swiss, 1865-1932)
Untitled [Group Portrait], Bleniotal
Nd
© Fondazione Archivio Fotografico Roberto Donetta, Cortonese

 

Roberto Donetta (Swiss, 1865-1932) 'Group of musicians in front of a building, Bleniotal' 1900-1932

 

Roberto Donetta (Swiss, 1865-1932)
Group of musicians in front of a building, Bleniotal
1900-1932
© Fondazione Archivio Fotografico Roberto Donetta, Cortonese

 

Roberto Donetta (Swiss, 1865-1932) 'Untitled [Group of men], Bleniotal' Nd

 

Roberto Donetta (Swiss, 1865-1932)
Untitled [Group of men], Bleniotal
Nd
© Fondazione Archivio Fotografico Roberto Donetta, Cortonese

 

Roberto Donetta (Swiss, 1865-1932) 'Three girls in the break from work in the fields under a tree' 1900-1932

 

Roberto Donetta (Swiss, 1865-1932)
Three girls in the break from work in the fields under a tree
1900-1932
© Fondazione Archivio Fotografico Roberto Donetta, Cortonese

 

Roberto Donetta (Swiss, 1865-1932) 'Untitled' Nd

 

Roberto Donetta (Swiss, 1865-1932)
Untitled
Nd
© Fondazione Archivio Fotografico Roberto Donetta, Cortonese

 

Roberto Donetta (Swiss, 1865-1932) 'Untitled' Nd

 

Roberto Donetta (Swiss, 1865-1932)
Untitled
Nd
© Fondazione Archivio Fotografico Roberto Donetta, Cortonese

 

Roberto Donetta (Swiss, 1865-1932) 'Humoristic scene, Bleniotal' Nd

 

Roberto Donetta (Swiss, 1865-1932)
Humoristic scene, Bleniotal
Nd
© Fondazione Archivio Fotografico Roberto Donetta, Cortonese

 

Roberto Donetta (Swiss, 1865-1932) 'Humoristic scene, Bleniotal' Nd (detail)

 

Roberto Donetta (Swiss, 1865-1932)
Humoristic scene, Bleniotal (detail)
Nd
© Fondazione Archivio Fotografico Roberto Donetta, Cortonese

 

Roberto Donetta (Swiss, 1865-1932) 'Four Children in Leafs, Bleniotal' Nd

 

Roberto Donetta (Swiss, 1865-1932)
Four Children in Leafs, Bleniotal
Nd
© Fondazione Archivio Fotografico Roberto Donetta, Corzoneso

 

Roberto Donetta (Swiss, 1865-1932) 'Four Children in Leafs, Bleniotal' Nd (detail)

 

Roberto Donetta (Swiss, 1865-1932)
Four Children in Leafs, Bleniotal (detail)
Nd
© Fondazione Archivio Fotografico Roberto Donetta, Corzoneso

 

 

Roberto Donetta (1865-1932) from Ticino is one of Swiss photography’s great outsiders. He managed to survive as a travelling photographer and seed salesman, and upon his death left almost 5,000 glass plates which were preserved merely by chance. These capture the archaic life of his compatriots in the Blenio Valley, which at the time was totally isolated, and the gradual advent of modern times in a precise and sensitive way. Over a period of 30 years and in an era of great change, Donetta became a unique chronicler. At the same time, he saw himself as an artist who – self-taught – experimented freely and knew how to master his medium. His pictures are penetrating and humorous, cheerful and deadly serious – be they of children, families, wedding couples, professional people, the harsh everyday-life of women and men, or of the photographer himself. The Blenio Valley as a microcosm: with Donetta the mountain valley becomes the stage for a great Theater of the World. The exhibition will display about 120 works from the Donetta Archive, many of them on show to the public for the first time ever.

Roberto Donetta was born in Biasca on 6 June 1865. It is not known where he spent his youth. Towards the late 1870s his family most probably moved to Castro in the Blenio Valley, as his father had got a job there as a military functionary. An official register entry on the occasion of his marriage to Teodolinda Tinetti indicates that Roberto Donetta certainly lived in the valley as of 1886. He is registered there as “contadino”, a farmer, which he most likely never was. In 1892 he opened a small grocery shop in Corzoneso, but he had it for only six months. In 1894 he went to London to work as a waiter, returning just 15 months later, sick and exhausted. He then became a hawker and travelled into the most remote corners of the whole valley selling vegetable and flower seeds. As of 1900 he lived in the “Casa Rotonda” in Casserio, part of the Corzoneso municipality. He and Teodolinda meantime had seven children, one of whom died at the age of one. It was around that time that Donetta began to be involved with photography. Apparently Dionigi Sorgesa, a sculptor from Corzoneso, introduced him to the profession and also rented him a camera. Now Donetta was not only a seed merchant but also the valley’s photographer.

A Constant traveller

After turbulent quarrels about the use of their sparse income, he and his family separated in 1912: his wife and children left him in the direction of Bellinzona in search of more lucrative work. Only the youngest son, Saul, remained with his father. On 6 June 1913, his 48th birthday, some of Donetta’s belongings were seized and, for a couple of months, he had no camera, which was a great worry to him: “Not to be able to work for a period of nine months – that severed my connection with my art and made me totally destitute.” Donetta spent the years after the First World War in great solitude, constantly on the road throughout the valley. From 1927 onwards, some of his photographs were published in one of Switzerland’s first illustrated journals, L’Illustré, issued by Ringier.

On the morning of 6 September 1932, Roberto Donetta was found dead in his home. All his photographic equipment was confiscated and auctioned so as to pay off his debts to the municipality. The glass plates, however, were all left untouched. In the mid-1980s Mariarosa Bozzini rediscovered them in Corzoneso.

Between tradition and modernity

Donetta’s personality was full of contradictions. On the one hand, he expressed considerable interest in all the phenomena associated with the advent of modern achievements, such as photography. On the other hand, he was decidedly conservative when it came to the cohesion of the family or his close links with nature. The latter prevented him from leaving the valley to look for more secure work in town. He lamented the constant changes associated with road building and new railway lines, which he did not see as a blessing for the valley. In his capacity as a photographer he succumbed to the fascination of the modern, yet at the same time he expressed a deep respect for long-standing traditions and rituals.

Roberto Donetta’s passion was undoubtedly for portrait photography. The self-taught photographer not only exhibited an astonishing technical mastery in portraying people, but was also able to give free rein to his creativity – despite the fact that this particular field of photography was strongly influenced by the conventions and expectations of his clients. His numerous portraits of children are remarkable. With children he was well able to live out his delight in composing, his talent in staging small scenes. He took the young people seriously, and they in turn were his accomplices, becoming involved in his idiosyncratic ideas.

The chronicler and his style

Throughout his life Donetta accompanied life in the valley, taking commissioned photographs of the inhabitants and the representatives of the different professions, as well as of various events: a visit by a bishop, the arrival of a carousel, a flood, a fire, the construction of a railway line or a bell tower. He was also present at life’s rituals, the transitions from one age group to another, from one social group to the next, or else the prominent fixed points in the year’s cycle, be they secular or ecclesiastical: festivals, weddings, funerals, processions, outdoor church services, these were inconceivable without “il fotografo”. Donetta made photography an important part of those rituals, and over the course of time the photographer was as much a part of the valley as the parson was of the church. This is surely the source of the quality of his photographs: the people did not dissimulate, indeed it’s almost as if they forgot that someone with a camera was watching, so self-engrossed do they look, serious, at one with themselves.

The improvised studio

As Donetta did not have a studio of his own, he travelled the whole valley to take his portraits and produced only small modest prints in postcard format (ie. 7 x 11 cm), which he occasionally stamped with his initials. Often the only ornamentation was an oval vignetting or rounded edges. He regularly delivered the commissioned photographs late because, in order to save chemicals, he only developed his films infrequently. After his rounds as a seed merchant, he then struggled with his business correspondence late into the evening. His works differ greatly from the elegant, classic, gold-edged cards that people could have done those days in the city studios without long waiting periods.

Yet in his own way Donetta did imitate the decorative aesthetic of the late 19th century professional studios: he transformed interior or outdoor spaces into improvised studios by, for example, hanging up fabrics or carpets as backdrops and placing objects like chairs or tables with vases of flowers in the foreground. His portraits are carefully composed and arranged, look uncontrived, calm and archaic. Because of the long exposure times, he was concerned to eliminate chance and spontaneity as far as possible.

In addition to this, he also experimented, or simply took photographs for himself: still life, stormy scenes, cloud formations, strangely shaped cliff or tree outlines. These photographs impress us by their modernity and originality and testify to an inquisitive man with an interest in aesthetic issues.

Press release from Fotostiftung Schweiz

 

Roberto Donetta (Swiss, 1865-1932) 'For the photographer, he briefly interrupts his work: A chef in Bleniotal' Nd

 

Roberto Donetta (Swiss, 1865-1932)
For the photographer, he briefly interrupts his work: A chef in Bleniotal
Nd
© Fondazione Archivio Fotografico Roberto Donetta, Corzoneso

 

Roberto Donetta

 

Roberto Donetta (Swiss, 1865-1932) 'Untitled [Boy and girl]' Nd

 

Roberto Donetta (Swiss, 1865-1932)
Untitled [Boy and girl]
Nd
© Fondazione Archivio Fotografico Roberto Donetta, Cortonese

 

Roberto Donetta

 

Roberto Donetta (Swiss, 1865-1932) 'Children with Toys, Bleniotal' Nd

 

Roberto Donetta (Swiss, 1865-1932)
Children with Toys, Bleniotal
Nd
© Fondazione Archivio Fotografico Roberto Donetta, Corzoneso

 

Roberto Donetta (Swiss, 1865-1932) 'Roberto and Linda Donetta with Their Children Brigida and Saulle' 1905-1910

 

Roberto Donetta (Swiss, 1865-1932)
Roberto and Linda Donetta with Their Children Brigida and Saulle
1905-1910
© Fondazione Archivio Fotografico Roberto Donetta, Corzoneso

 

Roberto Donetta (Swiss, 1865-1932) 'Roberto and Linda Donetta with Their Children Brigida and Saulle' 1905-1910 (detail)

 

Roberto Donetta (Swiss, 1865-1932)
Roberto and Linda Donetta with Their Children Brigida and Saulle (detail)
1905-1910
© Fondazione Archivio Fotografico Roberto Donetta, Corzoneso

 

Roberto Donetta

 

Roberto Donetta (Swiss, 1865-1932) 'A wedding couple staged in front of a cloth' Nd

 

Roberto Donetta (Swiss, 1865-1932)
A wedding couple staged in front of a cloth
Nd
© Fondazione Archivio Fotografico Roberto Donetta, Corzoneso

 

Roberto Donetta (Swiss, 1865-1932) 'Portrait of a Boy, Bleniotal' Nd

 

Roberto Donetta (Swiss, 1865-1932)
Portrait of a Boy, Bleniotal
Nd
© Fondazione Archivio Fotografico Roberto Donetta, Corzoneso

 

Roberto Donetta (Swiss, 1865-1932) 'Killing of a pig, Bleniotal' 1900-1932

 

Roberto Donetta (Swiss, 1865-1932)
Killing of a pig, Bleniotal
1900-1932
© Fondazione Archivio Fotografico Roberto Donetta, Corzoneso

 

Roberto Donetta (Swiss, 1865-1932) 'Family Portrait, Bleniotal' Nd

 

Roberto Donetta (Swiss, 1865-1932)
Family Portrait, Bleniotal
© Fondazione Archivio Fotografico Roberto Donetta, Corzoneso

 

Roberto Donetta (Swiss, 1865-1932) 'Untitled [Portrait of a women]' Nd

 

Roberto Donetta (Swiss, 1865-1932)
Untitled [Portrait of a women]
Nd
© Fondazione Archivio Fotografico Roberto Donetta, Cortonese

 

Roberto Donetta (Swiss, 1865-1932) 'Untitled [Portrait of a man]' Nd

 

Roberto Donetta (Swiss, 1865-1932)
Untitled [Portrait of a man]
Nd
© Fondazione Archivio Fotografico Roberto Donetta, Cortonese

 

Roberto Donetta (Swiss, 1865-1932) 'Portrait of Cesarina Andreazzi Lazzari, Bleniotal' Nd

 

Roberto Donetta (Swiss, 1865-1932)
Portrait of Cesarina Andreazzi Lazzari, Bleniotal
Nd
© Fondazione Archivio Fotografico Roberto Donetta, Corzoneso

 

Roberto Donetta (Swiss, 1865-1932) 'Portrait of Cesarina Andreazzi Lazzari, Bleniotal' Nd (detail)

 

Roberto Donetta (Swiss, 1865-1932)
Portrait of Cesarina Andreazzi Lazzari, Bleniotal (detail)
Nd
© Fondazione Archivio Fotografico Roberto Donetta, Corzoneso

 

Roberto Donetta (Swiss, 1865-1932) 'Self-portrait of Roberto Donetta with hat and a photo album in hand, in front of a wall, Bleniotal' 1900-1932

 

Roberto Donetta (Swiss, 1865-1932)
Self-portrait of Roberto Donetta with hat and a photo album in hand, in front of a wall, Bleniotal
1900-1932
© Fondazione Archivio Fotografico Roberto Donetta, Corzoneso

 

 

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Exhibition: ‘The Memory of the Future. Photographic Dialogues between Past, Present and Future’ at the Musée de l’Elysée, Lausanne

Exhibition dates: 25th May – 28th August, 2016

Curator: Tatyana Franck, Director, Musée de l’Elysée, assisted by Lydia Dorner and Emilie Delcambre

Artists: Takashi Arai / Israel Ariño / Anna Atkins / Patrick Bailly-Maître-Grand Pierre Cordier / Bernd and Hilla Becher / Martin Becka / Binh Danh /Jayne Hinds Bidaut John Dugdale / Jean-Gabriel Eynard / Joan Fontcuberta / Dennis Gabor / Loris Gréaud / JR Idris Khan / Laure Ledoux / Gustave Le Gray / Gabriel Lippmann / Vera Lutter / Christian Marclay / Mathew Brady / Vik Muniz / Oscar Muñoz / Eadweard Muybridge / France Scully Osterman and Mark Osterman Andreas / Andreas Müller-Pohle / Florio Puenter Benjamin Recordon / Dino Simonett / Jerry Spagnoli / Joni Sternbach / James Turrell Martial Verdier / Paul Vionnet / Pierre Wetzel / Victoria Will / Nancy Wilson-Pajic

 

3D Digitisation of Jean-Gabriel Eynard (Swiss, 1775-1863) 'Charles et Mathilde Horngascher-Odier' 1845 from the exhibition 'The Memory of the Future. Photographic Dialogues between Past, Present and Future' at the Musée de l'Elysée, Lausanne, May - August, 2016

 

3D Digitisation of Jean-Gabriel Eynard (Swiss, 1775-1863)
Charles and Mathilde Horngascher-Odier
1845
© Musée de l’Elysée, Lausanne

 

 

Gabriel Lippmann (colour photography) and Dennis Gabor (holograms). Eadweard Muybridge (movement) and Pierre Cordier (chemigrams). Daguerreotypes, calotypes, negatives on dry waxed paper, tintypes, ambrotypes, cyanotypes. Heliogravure, ferrotype, collage and carbon printing. 3D digitisations that “light up” the image from every angle.

What’s old is new again. Then and now, here and there. The memory of future past.

Dr Marcus Bunyan


Many thankx to the Musée de l’Elysée for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

 

 

Oscar Muñoz (Colombian, b. 1951) 'Ante la Imagen' 2009 from the exhibition 'The Memory of the Future. Photographic Dialogues between Past, Present and Future' at the Musée de l'Elysée, Lausanne, May - August, 2016

 

Oscar Muñoz (Colombian, b. 1951)
Ante la Imagen
2009
© Oscar Muñoz, courtesy of the artist and Mor charpentier gallery

 

Oscar Muñoz’s work combines photography, engraving, drawing, installation, video and sculpture, defying all attempts at categorisation. Using non-conventional techniques, his work is a reflection on social concerns and addresses the themes of memory and forgetting, appearance and disappearance, loss and the insecurity of human life. In his work El Coleccionista, the artist uses a triple video projection to show a figure that is sorting, organising and grouping what appears to be personal archives. Oscar Muñoz evokes here the ability of images to be part of multiple narratives, from one image to another, from one context to another. These images propose multiple narrations that overlap and intermingle between the past and present, memory and time.

For Ante la Imagen, Muñoz uses the portrait of the chemist Robert Cornelius (1809-1893), known for having reduced the exposure time of the photographic process of the daguerreotype and for producing one of the first self-portraits, to demonstrate the effectiveness of his method. Muñoz reproduces this portrait by engraving it on a reflecting metallic surface, like a daguerreotype. With each manipulation, the viewer sees the portrait of Cornelius superimposed on his own. The work is composed and decomposed and questions the interior multiplicity of one and the same image. Muñoz replaces this frozen image by a constantly-changing one, vulnerable to deterioration under the effect of air, like life itself.

 

Gabriel Lippmann (Franco-Luxembourgish, 1845-1921) 'Selfportrait' c. 1892

 

Gabriel Lippmann (Franco-Luxembourgish, 1845-1921)
Selfportrait
c. 1892
© Musée de l’Elysée, Lausanne

 

Professor of physics at the Sorbonne, a member of the French Academy of Sciences and author of many scientific works, the international renown of Gabriel Lippmann Is mainly due to his invention of colour photography using the interferential method. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in physics in 1908.

In 1891, he presented his invention, which would revolutionise photography, to the public. Lippmann developed the “wave theory of light”, which held that light bodies vibrate (like sound) and that light is propagated by waves of different speeds. The variations in wavelengths lead to changes in colour. To prove the validity of his theory, Lippmann worked for five years to find a method that would fix these interferences. To do so, he developed a device that made it possible to place a special photographic plate (made of layers proportional to the wavelengths) in contact with a mercury mirror, a very complicated process. The sensitive layer of an average wavelength, green, for example, has 4,000 bright points per millimetre in its thickness, separated by dark intervals. The Musée de l’Elysée has the largest collection of Lippmann prisms in the world.

 

McDonnell Douglas Corp. / Spindler & Hoyer. 'Portrait of Dennis Gabor' 1975

 

McDonnell Douglas Corp. / Spindler & Hoyer
Portrait of Dennis Gabor
1975
© Jonathan Ross Hologram Collection

 

Engineer and physicist, Dennis Gabor is known for having invented the hologram in 1947, for which he was awarded the Holweck prize in 1970, and then the Nobel Prize in physics in 1971. Fascinated by Abbé’s theory of the microscope and Gabriel Lippmann’s method of colour photography, he studied electron optics, which led him to propose the concept of holography that he referred to as “wavefront reconstruction” at the time. The initial project consisted of an electron microscope capable of visualising atom networks and the atoms themselves, but that was not put into practice until 20 years later, whereas the hologram as a photographic process would have to wait for the invention of the laser in the 1960s, the light source necessary for the hologram. Subsequently, Emmett Leith and Juris Upatnieks in the United States and Yuri Denisyuk in Russia contributed to the improvement of Gabor’s invention and presented three-dimensional holograms. Since then, holograms are widely know to the general public through advertising, the production of packaging materials and jewellery items.

The life-size version of the portrait of Gabor can be seen at the offices of the McDonnell Douglas Corporation in the United States, one of the first companies to have attempted to market the holograph. The reduced-size copy presented here was made several years later by Spindler & Hoyer, a German optical company.

 

Eadweard Muybridge (English, 1830-1904) 'Animal Locomotion, Plate 597' 1887

 

Eadweard Muybridge (English, 1830-1904)
Animal Locomotion, Plate 597
1887
© Musée de l’Elysée, Lausanne

 

Christian Marclay (American-Swiss, b. 1955) 'Memento (Survival of the Fittest)' 2008

 

Christian Marclay (American-Swiss, b. 1955)
Memento (Survival of the Fittest)
2008
© Christian Marclay, courtesy Paula Cooper Gallery, New York

 

A well-known filmmaker and multimedia artist, Christian Marclay made his mark on the contemporary art scene by combining the visual arts, film and musical culture. In 2007, he began a project that explores the interactions between sound and vision, as well as the manipulation and the conservation of different forms of recordings. He initiated a series together with the Graphicstudio, University of South Florida involving the use of two archaic recording systems – the cyanotype photography process and the audiotape.

He adopted and adapted the subject of the audiotape, which has become just about obsolete as a result of technological developments, and placed it at the center of his visual abstraction to capture the old soundtracks of hundreds of cassette tapes unfurled like so many streamers, using the cyanotype process. “We assume, because we’re able to capture sounds or images, that they will exist forever – when, in fact, obsolescence makes you feel the limit of those assumptions.” By combining these two mediums, the artist brilliantly explores the resonances between the past and present.

 

JR. 'UNFRAMED, Man Ray revu par JR, Femme aux cheveux longs, 1929, Vevey, Suisse' 2010

 

JR
UNFRAMED, Man Ray revu par JR, Femme aux cheveux longs, 1929, Vevey, Suisse
2010
© JR / Musée de l’Elysée, Lausanne

 

JR has “the largest art gallery in the world”. Thanks to the technique of photo collage, he freely exhibits his work on walls worldwide, thus attracting the attention of those who rarely or never go to museums. His work is a mixture of art and action and deals with commitment, freedom, identity and limits. After finding a camera in the Paris Metro in 2001, he travelled throughout Europe to meet other people whose mode of artistic expression involved the use of the walls and façades that give form to our cities. After observing the people he met and listening to their message, JR pasted their portraits up in streets and basements and on the roof tops of Paris.

JR thus creates “pervasive art” that he puts up on buildings in the Paris suburbs, on walls in the Middle East, on broken bridges in Africa and in the favelas of Brazil. These artistic actions make no distinction between the actors and the spectators. JR’s approach presented here is a mixture of the reinterpretation and recontextualisation of the icons of the history of photography taken from the collections of the Musée de l’Elysée of Lausanne, which he applies to the façades of buildings in the city of Vevey. He thus crops and enlarges the photos of Robert Capa, Man Ray, Gilles Caron and Helen Levitt so that the city becomes a gigantic open-air museum.

 

Binh Danh (American born Vietnam, b. 1979) 'Sphinxes' (by Arthur Putnam, 1912) 2014

 

Binh Danh (American born Vietnam, b. 1979)
Sphinxes (by Arthur Putnam, 1912)
2014
Artist and Haines Gallery courtesy, San Francisco
© Binh Danh

 

“Landscape is what defines me. When I am somewhere new or unfamiliar, I am constantly in dialogue with the past, present and my future self. When I am thinking about landscape, I am thinking about those who have stood on this land before me. Whoever they are, hopefully history recorded their makings on the land for me to study and contemplate.”

Born in Viet Nam, Binh Danh addresses themes of collective and personal memories, history, heritage and mortality. Known for printing his works on unconventional supports such as leaves or grass, he experiments with the photographic process of the daguerreotype in his most recent creations in order to document the history of the city of San Francisco.

Reminiscent of the work of photographic pioneers such as Eadweard Muybridge (1830-1904), Charles Marville (1813-1879) and Eugène Atget (1857-1927), Binh Danh explores the complexities of a constantly evolving city, from the first major expansion in recent years of Silicon Valley. He places San Francisco, cliché of the culture of technology and success, in another time space in order to incite the viewer to reflect on the rapid pace of changes in a city. By choosing the daguerreotype, the artist works on the reflecting surface of the process to incorporate the spectator into his work and to thus transform it into a shared experience.

 

Paul Vionnet (Swiss, 1830-1914) 'La cure d'Etoy' 1870

 

Paul Vionnet (Swiss, 1830-1914)
La cure d’Etoy
1870
Tirage sur papier aristotype
13.4 × 17.8cm
Collection iconographique vaudoise
© Musée de l’Elysée, Lausanne

 

 

With the exhibition The Memory of the Future. Photographic Dialogues between Past, Present and Future, the Musée de l’Elysée encourages contemporary artists to take a close look at photography as a medium, innovates as it reveals a 3D digitisation technology developed by a spin-off from Lausanne’s Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL), and displays its unique visual heritage. 

The Memory of the Future. Photographic Dialogues between Past, Present and Future is the first exhibition that Director Tatyana Franck has curated at the Musée de l’Elysée. It opens up a dialogue between the work of the pioneers of photographic techniques (the past), those of contemporary artists that breathe new life into these skills (the present), and avant-garde technologies that update these early processes (the future). Works from the museum’s collections, contemporary artists and new technologies come face to face and join forces to give a brand new vision of the history of photography. The Memory of the Future aims to configure the present by reconfiguring the past in order to prefigure the future.

Techniques over time

First of all, early photographic processes such as ambrotypes, daguerreotypes, ferrotypes, cyanotypes, etc. are displayed next to works by contemporary artists who breathe life into them. The technical innovations of the past are fertile ground for contemporary art and design. The exhibition includes a waxed paper negative by Gustave Le Gray in dialogue with those by Martin Becka, while cyanotypes by Anna Atkins and Paul Vionnet converse with those by Christian Marclay, Nancy Wilson-Pajic and John Dugdale. Jean-Gabriel Eynard’s daguerreotypes from the museum’s collections are exhibited next to portraits by Takashi Arai and Patrick Bailly-Maître-Grand and landscapes by Binh Danh and Jerry Spagnoli. And as for contemporary ferrotypes, The Memory of the Future shows the work of Joni Sternbach and Jayne Hinds Bidaut as well as portraits taken by Victoria Will at the Sundance Independent Film Festival in 2014.

Works of two scientists who won a Nobel Prize and invented a photographic technique also have pride of place – a self portrait by Gabriel Lippmann (Nobel Prize in Physics in 1908) who invented color photography using the interferential method and a portrait of Dennis Gabor (Nobel Prize in Physics in 1971), the inventor of the holographic process, a photographic technique in relief – echoing a holographic picture by James Turrell, a contemporary artist primarily concerned with light. Lastly, and as a point of convergence for all these photographic processes to fix an image on to a support, the camera obscura is presented through the works of Florio Puenter, Dino Simonett and Vera Lutter. Loris Gréaud – an artist invited to present an original installation capturing the spirit of the Musée de l’Elysée by recording its shadows and light – also explores this technique.

Homage and metamorphosis

The exhibition also presents the “mise en abyme” of iconic pictures from the history of photography reinterpreted by contemporary artists whose works examine the very notion of time or memory.

The earliest photograph in history – by Nicéphore Niépce and dating back to 1826 – is thus transformed by Joan Fontcuberta (Googlegramme Niépce, 2005) using PhotoMosaïque freeware connected online to the Google search engine, and by Andreas Müller-Pohle (Digital Scores VI). The first photographic self portrait in history – by Robert Cornelius in 1839 – is reproduced on a series of mirrors by Oscar Muñoz in 2009 to examine the paradox of the aging of the photographic support, which is, however, supposed to record an image for eternity. While Pierre Cordier pays homage to Eadweard Muybridge’s photographic breaking down of movement, Idris Khan (who took part in the reGeneration exhibition in 2005) pays homage to the iconic photographs of Bernd and Hilla Becher.

Innovating to preserve and showcase

Having launched a campaign in 2014 to digitise its photography books – 1500 books have been scanned so far – the Musée de l’Elysée is continuing to explore techniques to dematerialise its visual heritage for conservation and promotion purposes. Launched in 2015 thanks to the Engagement Migros development fund, an ambitious three dimensional digitisation project puts the Musée de l’Elysée at the forefront of museum innovation.

A venue for exhibitions, conservation and now an experimentation, as part of the exhibition La Mémoire du futur the Musée de l’Elysée is proposing for the first time a space dedicated to the presentation of digitised virtual objects from its collections. This innovative project aims to introduce new collaborative and interactive experiences using the Museum’s collections to a wide range of audiences – whether they be photography enthusiasts, curators or researchers.

Thanks to the Engagement Migros development fund, Innovation partner of the Musée de l’Elysée, the public is invited to experimentally test the first 3D digitisations carried out in partnership with the start-up Artmyn, created at EPFL’s Audiovisual Communications Laboratory (LCAV) led by Martin Vetterli. It will thus be possible to look at the works in 3D with unprecedented precision, but above all, to make the different textures of which they are composed appear on screen by lighting up the digital replicas from any angle.

This new technology comes in the form of a scanner made up of a dome on which are fixed several small lamps of precisely-adjusted intensity that switch on and off in turn depending on each picture scanned. “We are returning to an ancient theory of vision that imagined the eye’s projection towards the world, allowing the spectator once again to become an actor in the photographic experience,” explains Martin Vetterli in the exhibition catalogue.

Preliminary work was carried out with the Collections Department to select the processes that would most benefit from this scanning technology – heliogravure, ambrotype, ferrotype, collage and carbon printing. The first results will be presented in the exhibition. A tactile device supplemented by a video tour of the work presents a collage by René Burri from the René Burri Foundation housed at the Musée de l’Elysée. Rendered in real time and very high resolution, the images that have been cut out and superimposed by the artist can be freely explored so that the visitor can appreciate the visual richness of the work. Visitor experience appraisal is an integral part of the project to optimise presentation techniques and create a digital experimentation area in the museum.

The active participation of visitors to the Museum is an essential step for this first test phase: the interactions and different perceptions of the benefits of the prototype presented will be taken into account for the purpose of developing teaching and learning tools that will subsequently be used to refine and expand the user’s experience and to develop a digital, educational discovery space within the exhibition areas.

Press release from the Musée de l’Elysée

 

Paul Vionnet (Swiss, 1830-1914) 'Lausanne, le pont Chauderon en construction' 1904

 

Paul Vionnet (Swiss, 1830-1914)
Lausanne, le pont Chauderon en construction
1904
Tirage au gélatino-bromure d’argent
39.5 × 23.0cm
Collection iconographique vaudoise
© Musée de l’Elysée, Lausanne

 

Paul Vionnet, a local photographic pioneer, is at the origin of the Iconographic Collection of the Canton of Vaud. This collection, devoted to the history of the Vaud, is at the very foundation of the creation of the Musée de l’Elysée in 1985 as a museum dedicated to the image. During his childhood, Paul Vionnet spent his vacations at his grandparents’ home in Aubonne and was a frequent visitor of Adrien Constant Delessert (1806-1876), a neighbour and renowned Vaud photographer. During his stays there in 1845, Delessert taught him photographic techniques and the calotype.

Fascinated by the sciences, nature and his canton, Paul Vionnet took it upon himself to collect the greatest number of iconographic documents possible concerning the history, landscapes and monuments of the region for the purpose of enriching the collection of the Historical Monuments Service in Lausanne. The documents that he was not able to acquire himself were reproduced using photography. Following in his father’s footsteps, he was ordained pastor in 1856, and assigned to Granges de Sainte-Croix, near Aubonne, and then to Pampigny in 1858. He nevertheless continued to take photographs, having since adopted the wet collodion technique, documenting landscapes and monuments during his free time.

He retired in 1896 and founded the Collection historiographique vaudoise that would house his documents. In 1903, Paul Vionnet bequeathed his private collection to the canton of Vaud, forming the fifth section of the Musée Cantonal des Antiquités. He was named assistant curator, and several years later, the municipality commissioned him to take the photographs for Lausanne à travers les âges.

 

Anna Atkins (English, 1799-1871) 'Adiantum tenerum (Jamaica)' c. 1852

 

Anna Atkins (English, 1799-1871)
Adiantum tenerum (Jamaica)
c. 1852
© Wilson Centre for Photography

 

A British photographer considered to be the first woman to create a photograph, Anna Atkins is also known to have published the first books on botany illustrated with cyanotypes. Passionately interested in science and art, she became a member of the Botanical Society of London in 1839 and realised that the photographic process could be used to obtain precise and detailed botanical images and to provide information at all levels of a society increasingly eager for knowledge.

Anna Atkins drew her inspiration from the inventor of photography, William Henry Fox Talbot (1800-1877), and from a close family friend, John Herschel (1792-1871), a scientist known for the invention and the improvement of the cyanotype. She subsequently developed the process on her own that would allow her to obtain authentic and inexpensive photographic reproductions and that would make her part of the great tradition of her teachers. In 1843, she published her work, British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions, the first volume of which preceded the famous work of Talbot, The Pencil of Nature, by several months. In 1853, she applied the same process to ferns and published Cyanotypes of British and Foreign Ferns,a page of which is presented here.

 

Anonymous. 'Portrait of a young girl' 1860-1870

 

Anonymous
Portrait of a young girl
1860-1870
© Musée de l’Elysée, Lausanne

 

 

This exhibition is an odyssey into the history of photography where different eras are juxtaposed and where artists and their methods dialogue with each other. Through a selection of historic photographic processes and the works of contemporary artists, the spectator is encouraged to observe the influence of the past on today’s artistic creations. The exhibition The Memory of the Future proposes a three-pronged vision: that of the past with the works of the pioneers of photographic techniques, that of the present with contemporary works that revive this know-how, and that of the future with technologies that give a new perspective on the works of the past.

Through century-old processes such as daguerreotypes, calotypes, negatives on dry waxed paper, tintypes, ambrotypes, cyanotypes and including holograms, The Memory of the Future celebrates the founding fathers of photographic techniques by establishing a dialogue between them and contemporary artists. From Gabriel Lippmann to James Turrell, including Robert Cornelius and Oscar Muñoz, this exhibition brings together for the first time some one hundred works whose common thread is their ability to withstand time. The Memory of the Future also proposes a selection of works from the Musée de l’Elysée’s collections that have never before been presented to the public.

After having launched a campaign to digitise its photography books in 2014 – 1,500 books have been digitised as of this time – the Musée de l’Elysée continues to explore techniques to dematerialise its visual heritage in order to preserve and enhance it. Consistent with its ambition to not only preserve works of value but to prospect for new ones, the Musée de l’Elysée has undertaken a 3D digitisation project of its works using a prototype developed by the EPFL (Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne). This technology of the future is presented in this exhibition in the form of a touch screen monitor.

Press release from the Musée de l’Elysée, Lausanne

 

John Dugdale. 'The Clandestine Mind' 1999

 

John Dugdale (American, b. 1960)
The Clandestine Mind
1999
© The John Dugdale Studio

 

John Dugdale (American, b. 1960) 'Mourning Tulips' 1999

 

John Dugdale (American, b. 1960)
Mourning Tulips
1999
© The John Dugdale Studio

 

John Dugdale’s interest in photography goes back to his childhood when he received his first camera at the age of 12 and dreamed of becoming one of the major photographers of the 20th century. After a brilliant career as a fashion photographer, the year 1993 marked the turning point in the life of the artist who lost his sight following a stroke and CMV retinitis. Dugdale nevertheless refused to give up photography and began to take an interest in 19th century photographic techniques, using his family and friends as assistants. He discovered the large format and decided to use the cyanotype process, considering it to be the most direct and the easiest to use.

In his blue works, he portrays his everyday life by reversing the roles. Dugdale poses with a simplistic spirituality that could appear to be in contradiction with the 21st century. Generally posing in the nude, he considers that “life is transient. Once you leave this world, you fly into the universe without clothes. I want people to learn you cannot protect yourself by hiding behind clothes.”

Thanks to its low toxicity, the use of this process allows him to be involved in the printing of his photographs. His sensitivity to historic techniques emphasises the poetry of his work and the transitory nature of time and place. In the hopes of sharing his experience and his healing, Dugdale creates a new body of art by “showing the beauty of life and how one should act around illness.

 

Jerry Spagnoli (American, b. 1956) 'Glass 10/9/12' 2012

 

Jerry Spagnoli (American, b. 1956)
Glass 10/9/12
2012
© Jerry Spagnoli

 

When the photographer Jerry Spagnoli discovered a daguerreotype at a flea market, he described it as the most perfect photograph he had ever seen, a discovery that would influence the rest of his work. After familiarising himself with the process in his studio in San Francisco, the artist experimented with it using equipment from the 19th century and studying the effects obtained in order to understand the technical aspects as well as the visual and expressive potential.

By studying the body and the roots of photographic imagination in his series Anatomical Studies, the portrait, objects and contemporary street scenes, events and non-events in his series The Last Great Daguerreian Survey of the Twentieth Century, Spagnoli attempts to highlight the qualities of the daguerreotype – uniqueness, richness of detail – through the four series presented here, in order to allow a contemporary public to rediscover its virtues. It is also a way for him to approach the optical essence of photography. “With other processes the material substrate of the image can be intrusive, but when you look at a daguerreotype, there is a transparency to the depiction as if you were looking through the lens itself.”

 

Vik Muniz (Brazilian, b. 1961) 'The Steerage (After Alfred Stieglitz)' 2000

 

Vik Muniz (Brazilian, b. 1961)
The Steerage (After Alfred Stieglitz)
2000
from the Pictures of Chocolate series

 

When the photographer Jerry Spagnoli discovered a daguerreotype at a flea market, he described it as the most perfect photograph he had ever seen, a discovery that would influence the rest of his work. After familiarising himself with the process in his studio in San Francisco, the artist experimented with it using equipment from the 19th century and studying the effects obtained in order to understand the technical aspects as well as the visual and expressive potential.

By studying the body and the roots of photographic imagination in his series Anatomical Studies, the portrait, objects and contemporary street scenes, events and non-events in his series The Last Great Daguerreian Survey of the Twentieth Century, Spagnoli attempts to highlight the qualities of the daguerreotype – uniqueness, richness of detail – through the four series presented here, in order to allow a contemporary public to rediscover its virtues. It is also a way for him to approach the optical essence of photography. “With other processes the material substrate of the image can be intrusive, but when you look at a daguerreotype, there is a transparency to the depiction as if you were looking through the lens itself.”

 

Pierre Cordier (Belgian, b. 1933) 'Photo-Chimigramme 17/6/76 I "Hommage à Muybridge 1972"' 1976

 

Pierre Cordier (Belgian, b. 1933)
Photo-Chimigramme 17/6/76 I “Hommage à Muybridge 1972”
1976
© Pierre Cordier

 

Pierre Cordier is a Belgian artist known as the father of the chemigram and for its development as a means of artistic expression. In 1956, writing a dedication with nail polish on photographic paper to a young German woman, Pierre Cordier discovered what he later called the chemigram. This technique “combines the physics of painting (varnish, oil, wax) and the chemistry of photography (photosensitive emulsion, developer and fixer), without the use of a camera or enlarger, and in full light.”

He worked for 30 years as a lecturer on the history of photography at the École Nationale des Arts Visuels in Brussels. When he gave up photography in 1968 to devote himself exclusively to the chemigram, he wanted to pay tribute to the great photography pioneers – Muybridge in 1972 and Marey in 1975. The Homage to Muybridge presented here was inspired by Allan Porter, chief editor of the Swiss revue Camera, one of the most prominent revues in the history of photography. In the issue of Camera of October 1972, we can read: “Cordier used Muybridge’s famous sequence, The Horse in Motion, which he transformed in three different ways: 1. Still subject and mobile camera. 2. Mobile subject and still camera. 3. Subject and camera, both mobile. He then combined the three sequences into one and treated it according to the photochemigram process.”

 

Andreas Muller-Pohle (German, b. 1951) 'Digital scores V (after Nicephore Niepce)' 2001

 

Andreas Muller-Pohle (German, b. 1951)
Digital scores V (after Nicephore Niepce)
2001
Inkjet print
Image: 10 7/8 in x 11 in
Mat: 16 1/8 in x 20 1/8 in
Paper: 12 1/8 in x 12 1/8 in

 

Andreas Müller-Pohle is one of the key figures involved in the ontological as well as the representational nature of photography. Since the 1990s, he has reflected on the radical changes in the essence of technical images. His first artistic project focused on questions of photographic perception and on the recycled photograph.

In the mid-1990s, Müller-Pohle began to explore the use of digital, genetic and political codes. He is one of the first artists to have broken down and translated the analog and the digital codes of images. In his series Digital Scores (after Nicéphore Niépce), he takes us back to the origin of analog photography by translating the photograph of Niépce, View from the Window at Le Gras (taken from a window of his house in 1826), into alphanumeric code. The complete binary transcription of this photograph is then distributed over eight panels.

 

Martin Becka (Czech, b. 1956) 'Le Parc' 2002

 

Martin Becka (Czech, b. 1956)
Le Parc
2002
© Martin Becka

 

After studying photography, Martin Becka worked as a print developer for the Sepia Agency before becoming an independent news photographer. As of the beginning of the 1980s, he began doing research on the history of photography and the pre-industrial photographic processes that he incorporated into his personal creative work. By using traditional processes to photograph ultramodern cities like Dubai and business districts such as La Défense in Paris, the artist proposes a sort of “archeology of the present”, making the spectator reflect on the period in which he lives, the future, and the multiplication of images at a time when their reproducibility is unlimited. He sees photography as a means to “bend time in every possible direction.”

In his installation Le Parc (the André Citroën Public Park in Paris), Becka establishes a dialogue between the past and the present by paying homage to the photographic work of Alfred-Nicolas Normand (1822-1909) and the dry waxed paper negative process developed in 1851 by Gustave Le Gray (1820-1884). By choosing this century-old technique that requires an approach to work that is radically different from those currently in vogue, he is able to obtain negatives with a density adapted to a presentation by transparency and to create and control movement and unique atmospheres. Becka thus encourages the spectator to reflect on the notion of the photographic object.

 

Bernd and Hilla Becher (German, 1931-2007/1934-2015) 'Gas Tank: Essen-Karnap D' 1973

 

Bernd and Hilla Becher (German, 1931-2007/1934-2015)
Gas Tank: Essen-Karnap D
1973
Gelatin silver print

 

Bernd and Hilla Becher (German, 1931-2007/1934-2015) 'Gasbehälter bei Wuppertal (Gas tank near Wuppertal)' 1966

 

Bernd and Hilla Becher (German, 1931-2007/1934-2015)
Gasbehälter bei Wuppertal (Gas tank near Wuppertal)
1966
Gelatin silver print

 

Born during the period of industrial archeology, the Bechers’ work consists, in the words of Pierre Restany, “of an optical pilgrimage at the roots of the industrial world”. The couple proposes a way do see industrial architecture by taking an approach based on inventory methodology. Their work is a reflection on the creation of heritage and raises the question of the heritage value of industrial objects, which is inseparable from their artistic value.

With a focus on archiving and industrial memory, Bernd and Hilla Becher’s approach consists of establishing a detailed inventory and keeping track of industrial structures by photographing sites threatened by obsolescence and often abandoned. The series Gas Tanks includes nine photographs from the period between 1965 and 1973, taken according to the extremely stringent protocol that is characteristic of their work (frontal view, centring of the subject, mid-height, absence of light, etc.). The composition of each portrait is standardised and identical, with emphasis on the frontal aspect and the monumentality of industrial constructions classified according to their functionality and form.

Taking advantage of the extremely reproducible nature of the photograph, the Bechers reveal the massive diffusion and production of images that contribute to erasing our memories of their origins and their authors. In doing so, they observe a civilisation on the decline and highlight the production of an era, vestiges of the human imagination and life.

 

Idris Khan (British, b. 1978) 'Every ... Bernd and Hilla Becher Spherical Type Gasholder' One panel triptych, 2003

 

Idris Khan (British, b. 1978)
Every … Bernd and Hilla Becher Spherical Type Gasholder
One panel triptych, 2003
Lambda Digital C print mounted on aluminium
20 1/2 x 26 1/2 inches

 

Idris Khan (British, b. 1978) 'Every ... Bernd and Hilla Becher Prison Type Gasholder' 2004

 

Idris Khan (British, b. 1978)
Every … Bernd and Hilla Becher Prison Type Gasholder
2004
Lambda Digital C print mounted on aluminium
80 × 65 inches

 

“I try to capture the essence of the building – something that’s been permanently imprinted in someone’s mind, like a memory.”

Idris Khan is fascinated by the photographic medium. Fuelled by images and influential theoretical essays on the history of photography, he re-appropriates the works that had an impact on him and subjects them to a series of transformations in order to see them from a different perspective. His work is a reflection on the passage of time, the accumulation of experiences and, as such, the decrease of unique moments. In his series Homage…, he presents rephotographed works, enlarged and superimposed in multiple layers. He uses digital tools to play with the opacity of the layers so as to strengthen the mystery of the original objects whose layering reveals new details. The work Homage to Bernd Becher shown here reproduces and compiles the photographs that correspond to the Bechers’ typology in order to celebrate the vestiges of these vanished industrial infrastructures.

Fascinated by the ability of the photographic medium to capture the soul as well as the body image, Idris Khan, in his series Rising Series… After Eadweard Muybridge “Human and Animal Locomotion”, pays homage to Muybridge’s early scientific experiments using the camera to sequentially record human and animal movement. Beyond the tribute paid to photography that is defined here as a compilation of knowledge, Idris Khan positions himself with respect to a medium laden with history and with a bright future ahead of it.

 

Victoria Will (American, b. 1980) 'Kristen Stewart' 2014

 

Victoria Will (American, b. 1980)
Kristen Stewart
2014
© Victoria Will

 

Kristen Stewart poses for a tintype (wet collodion) portrait at The Collective and Gibson Lounge, during the 2014 Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah. (Photo by Victoria Will/Invision/AP)

Victoria Will began her career as a staff photographer for the New York Post.Specialized at the time in portraits and fashion, her photographs were disseminated worldwide by the magazines W, the New York Times and Vogue. When she was invited for the fourth time to the Sundance Film Festival, an American independent film festival, she decided to try something new and to replace her digital reflex camera with the century-old tintype process to make portraits of movie stars. Following her success, she renewed the experience in the following years and gradually improved this complex technique.

Overcoming the difficulties of the process, its sensitivity to time and the danger of the chemical products involved, the photographer successively made portraits in 7 to 8 minutes of actors such as Vincent Cassel, Robert Redford, Jennifer Connelly, Spike Lee and Ethan Hawke. “What I love about the process is how raw it is,” says Victoria. “We live in an age of glossy magazines and overly retouched skin. But there is no lying with tintypes. You can’t get rid of a few wrinkles like in Photoshop.”

Both the photographer and her public “appreciate the honesty of these photographs. Development leaves a lot of room for the unexpected: we discover a face that we thought was familiar while being the contrary of digital portraits. The stages in the darkroom contribute to the idea of creating something unique and refreshing.”

 

 

The Musée de l’Elysée
18, avenue de l’Elysée
CH - 1014 Lausanne
Phone: + 41 21 316 99 11

Opening hours:
Tuesday – Sunday, 11am – 6pm
Closed Monday, except for bank holidays

The Musée de l’Elysée website

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Book: ‘HAND-COLOURED NEW ZEALAND: THE PHOTOGRAPHS OF WHITES AVIATION’ by Peter Alsop

August 2016

 

HAND-COLOURED NEW ZEALAND THE PHOTOGRAPHS OF WHITES AVIATION by Peter Alsop cover

 

HAND-COLOURED NEW ZEALAND: THE PHOTOGRAPHS OF WHITES AVIATION by Peter Alsop cover

 

 

A beautiful book by my New Zealand friend Peter Alsop about that countries hand coloured scenic photos. Whites Aviation changed the way New Zealanders viewed their country. Take a look inside this book.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

 

 

“A magical cocktail of aviation and photography … painted with cotton wool.”

“Nothing can change the authenticity and aesthetic of a hand-made craft.”

“This beautiful book follows Marcus King: Painting New Zealand for the World in providing another significant step towards understanding New Zealand’s art and design. However, for me, reading this book has been a transformational experience. In my youth, a Whites Aviation photograph, whether in a living room or office, represented the absence of other art in everyday Kiwi lives. Having read this book, I’ve come to realise that Whites’ hand-coloured photos were instead a harbinger; a forerunner, an object of contemporary art in thousands of New Zealand homes.”

Douglas Lloyd Jenkins, Art & Design Historian

 

Book blurb

Every single photo coloured by hand? Using cotton wool? Yes, such was the era of hand-coloured photography – a painting and photograph in one – the way you got a high-quality colour photo before colour photography became mainstream.

Some of New Zealand’s best hand-coloured photos were produced by Whites Aviation from 1945. For over 40 years, the glorious scenic vistas were a sensation, adorning offices and lounges around the land; patriotic statements within New Zealand’s emerging visual arts. Now, despite massive changes in society and photography, the stunning scenes and subtle tones still enchant, as coveted collectibles; decorations on screen; and as respected pieces of photographic art.

But, until now, this inspirational story has not been told; nor the full stories of Leo White (company founder); Clyde Stewart (chief photographer and head of colouring); and the mission-critical ‘colouring girls’. New Zealand’s first published collection of hand-coloured photography is also now enshrined, ready to enchant for decades more. Nothing, it seems, can change the appeal of an alluring hand-made craft.

 

 

The Colourist

Lovely 3 min doco on hand-coloured photography and Whites Aviation. Every photo coloured by hand.

 

HAND-COLOURED NEW ZEALAND THE PHOTOGRAPHS OF WHITES AVIATION by Peter Alsop page 31

HAND-COLOURED NEW ZEALAND THE PHOTOGRAPHS OF WHITES AVIATION by Peter Alsop page 41

HAND-COLOURED NEW ZEALAND THE PHOTOGRAPHS OF WHITES AVIATION by Peter Alsop page 50

 

HAND-COLOURED NEW ZEALAND: THE PHOTOGRAPHS OF WHITES AVIATION by Peter Alsop pages 31, 41 and 50.

 

 

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Review: ‘Max and Olive: The photographic life of Olive Cotton and Max Dupain’ at The Ian Potter Museum of Art, Melbourne

Exhibition dates: 31st May – 24th July, 2016

National Gallery of Australia touring exhibition

Curator: Shaune Lakin

 

Installation view of the exhibition 'Max and Olive: The photographic life of Olive Cotton and Max Dupain' at The Ian Potter Museum of Art, Melbourne

 

Installation view of the exhibition Max and Olive: The photographic life of Olive Cotton and Max Dupain at The Ian Potter Museum of Art, Melbourne.
Photo: © Marcus Bunyan, The National Gallery of Australia and The Ian Potter Museum of Art

 

 

An independent vision

Pictorialism, Surrealism and Modernism: Light, geometry and atmosphere

This is the quintessential hung “on the line” exhibition from the National Gallery of Australia which features the work of two well respected Australian photographers, Max Dupain and Olive Cotton, showing over three gallery spaces at The Ian Potter Museum of Art, Melbourne. Of its type, it is a superb exhibition which rewards repeated viewing and contemplation of the many superb photographs it contains.

While Dupain may be the more illustrious of the two featured artists – notable for taking the most famous photograph in Australian photographic history (Sunbaker, 1937, below); for being the first Australian photographer to embrace Modernism; and for bringing a distinctly Australian style to photography (sun, sea, sand) – it is the artist Olive Cotton’s work that steals almost every facet of this exhibition through her atmospheric images.

Dupain’s importance in the history of Australian photography cannot be underestimated. He dragged Australian photography from Pictorialism to Modernism in a few short years and met fierce resistance from the conservative camera clubs, stuck in the age of Pictorialism, because of it. He was the first to understand what Modernism meant for the medium in Australia, and how photographers would in future picture the country. He wanted to see the world through ‘modern’ eyes. As he observed, ‘(photography) belongs to the new age … it is part and parcel of the terrific and thrilling panorama opening out before us today – of clean concrete buildings, steel radio masts, and the wings of the air line. But its beauty is only for those who themselves are aware of the ‘zeitgeist’ – who belong consciously and proudly to this age, and have not their eyes forever wistfully fixed on the past.’ Dupain’s awareness of the ‘zeitgeist’ of modernity was coupled with a keen eye for composition, light and form (what Dupain later termed ‘passing movement and changing form’), and an understanding of photography’s expressive potential. Over the next 50 years he captured many memorable images, some of the most famous images ever taken of this sun burnt country.

Dupain started to hit his straps with his early cross-over images which contained elements of both Pictorialism and Modernism. His 1930s series of three photographs of Fire Stairs at Bond Street Studio (one of which is feature in the exhibition), and images such as Design – suburbia (1933, below) and Still life (1935, below) still possess that soft, raking light that was so beloved by Pictorialists, coupled with an implicit understanding of form, geometry and light. As fellow photographer David Moore observes, by the time of photographs such as Pyrmont silos (1935, below) and Through the Windscreen (1935), ‘any return to sentimental Pictorialism was precluded’. That sense of the European avant-garde, the aesthetics of contemporary European photography, the strength of industrial forms, imbues Dupain’s photographs with a crisp, clean decisiveness, that ‘symphony of forms and textures’. Whether it be the monumentalism of silos, or the monumentalism of bodies (such as in the classic Bondi, 1939), Dupain relished the opportunity to merge aesthetics with representation, pushing the boundaries of what was thought possible within the medium, believing that both representation and aesthetics could exist within the same frame. Evidence of this merging of can be seen in photographs such as Untitled [Factory chimney stacks] (1940, below) and Backyard, Forster, New South Wales (1940, below). These images are silent in their formalism… they are very quiet, and still, and rather haunting, beautiful in their tonality (with lots of yellow in the 8 x 10 and perhaps even small prints).

Dupain and Cotton both revel “in photography’s great capacity to make sense of the relations of light, texture and form as they exist in the present,” and evidence “a modernist concern with line, form and space; documentary photography’s interest in realism and ‘the living moment’; and the pictorial and formal attributes of commercial photography.” But as the press release insightfully observes, “Comparisons articulate and make apparent Dupain’s more structured – even abstracted – approach to art and to the world; similarly, comparisons highlight Cotton’s more immersive relationship to place, with a particularly deep and instinctual love of light and its ephemeral effects.” And this is where the photographs of Olive Cotton are so much more engaging, and alive, than those of Max Dupain.

While Dupain was busy running a commercial studio (with Cotton his assistant and for a couple of years his wife), Olive seems to have had more freedom to experiment, to express herself in a less structured way than her erstwhile husband. Walking around this exhibition my initial thoughts were wow, Olive Cotton, you are an absolute star. Photographs such as The way through the trees (1938, below), while not possessing the technical brilliance of a Dupain, possess something inherently more appealing – a sensitivity and feeling for subject that nearly overwhelms the senses. Truly here is a symphony of texture, light and form. The composition is a subtle paean, a song of praise to the natural and modern world – a world of geometry, textures, light and form. The rendition of this image, a performance of interpretation, is simply magnificent in its sensitivity to subject matter. The print is also glorious in its delicacy and colour. For me, this is what is so appealing about the work of Olive Cotton, an innate sensitivity that all of her photographs seem to possess – in composition, in proportion, in printing and in colour. Cotton maintained an independent vision forged out of experimentation, creating spaces for erotic imaginings, spaces for action and spaces for quiet contemplation. Her use of light and shade, of body and shadow, of classical and modernist motifs … is superlative. While Dupain’s photographs are more structured and more dazzling in a technical sense, Cotton’s photographs possess more “atmosphere”, a complex and insightful way of seeing and imaging the world which has few equals in the annals of Australian photography.

Below is a short transcription of a voice memo I made on my phone as I toured around the exhibition for the third time:

“What a great show this is, the photographs of Max Dupain and Olive Cotton. But it is the photographs of Olive Cotton that are the wonder of this exhibition. Photographs such as Orchestration in light (1937, below), Sky submerged (c. 1937) and especially The way through the trees (1938, below) are just masterpieces of complex seeing. A sort of… mmmm … an intimate previsualisation where there are hints of Pictorialism – dappled light, moss on the trees – and yet there is a geometric form to the composition that marks it as definitively Modernist. As the wall text states, “this exceptional landscape appears at first glance like a classic Pictorialist view of the Australian bush but typical of Cotton’s best pictures, this landscape merges Pictorialism’s stylistic and formal codes with those of a cosmopolitan modernist sensibility. Cotton pays particular attention to the similarly angled tree trunks, as well as the all over pattern of the spotted gums and the dapples of light, not bound or hemmed in dogma, Cotton created a view of being completely immersed in the landscape.” The colour of the print, there are hints of pinks and greens and beiges. When was it taken and printed, it must have been an early one, 1938 … and then again the beautiful tonality of it. Wow!

As with all of her best work Cotton is constructing her environment – through music, through geometry, through light. Over the city (1940, below), the light over the city, the shadow of the city, the silhouette of the city in outline, followed by Grass at sundown (1939, below) shooting contre jour, into the light. In Max after surfing (1937, below) there is evidence of Cotton’s understanding of the play of form, of light, of shadow and the composition of the pictorial plane into triangles, horizontals and verticals. This creates a sense of mystery within the four walls of the photograph. As art historian Tim Bonyhady observes, it ‘is not just one of the most erotic Australian photographs, but possibly the first sexually charged Australian photograph by a woman of a man’. The sensuality and atmosphere of the Cotton’s are just gorgeous. Olive Cotton just has such a marvellous grasp of the construction of the picture plane using form, texture and shadow… and feeling. If had a choice I would take away most of the Cotton’s (laughs), because I think they are just amazing…”

There are so many great images in this exhibition, from both Cotton and Dupain, that is hard to know where to start. I haven’t even mentioned images such as Dupain’s sensual but commercial Jean with wire mesh (c. 1935, below), his seminal Street at Central (1939, below) with its raking light and abstraction, or Cotton’s most famous image Teacup ballet (1935, below). I could go on and on. The only disappointment with the exhibition is that, for the uninitiated, there is little to place both photographers works in the context of their time and place, other than a few The Home magazines in a couple of display cases and the wall text. There is little sense of what a tumultuous period this was in Australian history – between two world wars, during a depression, with the advent of modernity, freedom of movement through cars, White Australia policy in full swing, meat and four veg on the table, women’s place in the home, the rise of vitalism and the cult of the bronzed Aussie body and the worship of nature and the outdoors, mateship and the beach as a place of socialisation. But that is the nature of such a classic, hung “on the line” exhibition. It would have been great to see some large photographs, floor to ceiling, of the environment from which all these nearly contextless (as in a particular time and place) images emerged but this is a minor quibble. In the end, I restate that this is a stunning exhibition that is a must see for any aficionado of great Australian photography. Go see it before it closes.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

Word count: 1,685


Many thankx to The Ian Potter 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. All installation images © Marcus Bunyan, The National Gallery of Australia and The Ian Potter Museum of Art.

 

 

“I like few people … to go into a room of strangers is a chore for me … I can effect a relationship, but afterwards, I think: was it worth it?”


Max Dupain

 

“Looking at the work of these two great Australian photographers together is enlightening; they were often shooting the same subjects, or pursuing subjects and pictorial effects in similar ways. Rarely do we get to see two great Australian artists working side-by-side in this way. And while Max Dupain’s reputation might now stand well above most other Australian photographers, this exhibition shows that Olive Cotton had a significant role to play in his development as a photographer, and was in many ways his equal.”


Shaune Lakin

 

 

Gallery one

 

Installation view of the exhibition 'Max and Olive: The photographic life of Olive Cotton and Max Dupain' at The Ian Potter Museum of Art, Melbourne

Installation view of the exhibition 'Max and Olive: The photographic life of Olive Cotton and Max Dupain' at The Ian Potter Museum of Art, Melbourne

Installation view of the exhibition 'Max and Olive: The photographic life of Olive Cotton and Max Dupain' at The Ian Potter Museum of Art, Melbourne

Installation view of the exhibition 'Max and Olive: The photographic life of Olive Cotton and Max Dupain' at The Ian Potter Museum of Art, Melbourne showing at left, Max Dupain's 'Bawley Point landscape' (1938) and at middle, Dupain's 'Untitled [Factory chimney stacks]', 1940

 

Installation views of the exhibition Max and Olive: The photographic life of Olive Cotton and Max Dupain at The Ian Potter Museum of Art, Melbourne showing at left in the bottom image, Max Dupain’s Bawley Point landscape (1938) and at middle, Dupain’s Untitled [Factory chimney stacks], 1940
Photos: © Marcus Bunyan, The National Gallery of Australia and The Ian Potter Museum of Art

 

Installation view of the exhibition 'Max and Olive: The photographic life of Olive Cotton and Max Dupain' at The Ian Potter Museum of Art, Melbourne

Installation view of the exhibition 'Max and Olive: The photographic life of Olive Cotton and Max Dupain' at The Ian Potter Museum of Art, Melbourne showing Max Dupain's famous 'Sunbaker' (1937) at second right

 

Installation views of the exhibition Max and Olive: The photographic life of Olive Cotton and Max Dupain at The Ian Potter Museum of Art, Melbourne showing in the bottom image, Max Dupain’s famous Sunbaker (1937) at second right
Photos: © Marcus Bunyan, The National Gallery of Australia and The Ian Potter Museum of Art

 

Installation view of the exhibition 'Max and Olive: The photographic life of Olive Cotton and Max Dupain' at The Ian Potter Museum of Art, Melbourne

Installation view of the exhibition 'Max and Olive: The photographic life of Olive Cotton and Max Dupain' at The Ian Potter Museum of Art, Melbourne

Installation view of the exhibition 'Max and Olive: The photographic life of Olive Cotton and Max Dupain' at The Ian Potter Museum of Art, Melbourne showing Olive Cotton's most famous photograph, 'Teacup ballet' (1935) at left

 

Installation views of the exhibition Max and Olive: The photographic life of Olive Cotton and Max Dupain at The Ian Potter Museum of Art, Melbourne showing in the bottom image Olive Cotton’s most famous photograph, Teacup ballet (1935) at left
Photos: © Marcus Bunyan, The National Gallery of Australia and The Ian Potter Museum of Art

 

Installation view of the exhibition 'Max and Olive: The photographic life of Olive Cotton and Max Dupain' at The Ian Potter Museum of Art, Melbourne showing Max Dupain's 'Jean with wire mesh' (c. 1935) at right

 

Installation view of the exhibition Max and Olive: The photographic life of Olive Cotton and Max Dupain at The Ian Potter Museum of Art, Melbourne showing Max Dupain’s Jean with wire mesh (c. 1935) at right
Photo: © Marcus Bunyan, The National Gallery of Australia and The Ian Potter Museum of Art

 

Gallery two

 

Installation view of the exhibition 'Max and Olive: The photographic life of Olive Cotton and Max Dupain' at The Ian Potter Museum of Art, Melbourne

Installation view of the exhibition 'Max and Olive: The photographic life of Olive Cotton and Max Dupain' at The Ian Potter Museum of Art, Melbourne showing a cabinet with view of 'The Home' magazine (April 1st 1933 right) which feature the photographs of Max Dupain

 

Installation views of the exhibition Max and Olive: The photographic life of Olive Cotton and Max Dupain at The Ian Potter Museum of Art, Melbourne showing in the bottom image, a cabinet with view of The Home magazine (April 1st 1933 right) which feature the photographs of Max Dupain
Photos: © Marcus Bunyan, The National Gallery of Australia and The Ian Potter Museum of Art

 

Gallery three

 

Installation view of the exhibition 'Max and Olive: The photographic life of Olive Cotton and Max Dupain' at The Ian Potter Museum of Art, Melbourne

Installation view of the exhibition 'Max and Olive: The photographic life of Olive Cotton and Max Dupain' at The Ian Potter Museum of Art, Melbourne

Installation view of the exhibition 'Max and Olive: The photographic life of Olive Cotton and Max Dupain' at The Ian Potter Museum of Art, Melbourne

Installation view of the exhibition 'Max and Olive: The photographic life of Olive Cotton and Max Dupain' at The Ian Potter Museum of Art, Melbourne showing Max Dupain's 'Street at Central' (1939) left, followed by his 'Thin man' (1936) and Olive Cotton's 'Fashion shot, Cronulla sandhills (Max Dupain photographing model)' (1937) at right

 

Installation views of the exhibition Max and Olive: The photographic life of Olive Cotton and Max Dupain at The Ian Potter Museum of Art, Melbourne showing in the bottom image, Max Dupain’s Street at Central (1939) left, followed by his Thin man (1936) and Olive Cotton’s Fashion shot, Cronulla sandhills (Max Dupain photographing model) (1937) at right
Photos: © Marcus Bunyan, The National Gallery of Australia and The Ian Potter Museum of Art

 

Installation view of the exhibition 'Max and Olive: The photographic life of Olive Cotton and Max Dupain' at The Ian Potter Museum of Art, Melbourne

Installation view of the exhibition 'Max and Olive: The photographic life of Olive Cotton and Max Dupain' at The Ian Potter Museum of Art, Melbourne

Installation view of the exhibition 'Max and Olive: The photographic life of Olive Cotton and Max Dupain' at The Ian Potter Museum of Art, Melbourne

 

Installation views of the exhibition Max and Olive: The photographic life of Olive Cotton and Max Dupain at The Ian Potter Museum of Art, Melbourne. Photos: © Marcus Bunyan, The National Gallery of Australia and The Ian Potter Museum of Art

 

 

Olive Cotton (1911-2003) and Max Dupain OBE (1911-1992) were pioneering modernist photographers. Cotton’s lifelong obsession with photography began at age eleven with the gift of a Kodak Box Brownie. She was a childhood friend of Dupain’s and in 1934 she joined his fledgling photographic studio, where she made her best-known work, Teacup Ballet, in about 1935. Throughout the 1930s, Dupain established his reputation with portraiture and advertising work and gained exposure in the lifestyle magazine The Home. Between 1939 and 1941, Dupain and Cotton were married and she photographed him often; her Max After Surfing is frequently cited as one of the most sensuous Australian portrait photographs. While Dupain was on service during World War II Cotton ran his studio, one of very few professional women photographers in Australia. Cotton remarried in 1944 and moved to her husband’s property near Cowra, New South Wales. Although busy with a farm, a family, and a teaching position at the local high school, Cotton continued to take photographs and opened a studio in Cowra in 1964. In the 1950s, Dupain turned increasingly to architectural photography, collaborating with architects and recording projects such as the construction of the Sydney Opera House. Dupain continued to operate his studio on Sydney’s Lower North Shore until he died at the age of 81. Cotton was in her seventies when her work again became the subject of attention. In 1983, she was awarded a Visual Arts Board grant to reprint negatives that she had taken over a period of forty years or more. The resulting retrospective exhibition in Sydney in 1985 drew critical acclaim and has since assured her reputation.

Text from the National Portrait Gallery website

 

Olive Cotton (Australian, 1911 - 2003) 'Only to taste the warmth, the light, the wind' c. 1939

 

Olive Cotton (Australian, 1911-2003)
Only to taste the warmth, the light, the wind
c. 1939
Gelatin silver photograph

PHOTOGRAPH NOT IN EXHIBITION

 

 

Only to taste the warmth, the light, the wind appears to have been the only print Cotton made of this image. It was found in the late 1990s and has been shown only once, in an exhibition at the AGNSW in 2000 where it was also used on the catalogue cover. It was unusual for Cotton to print so large, yet it is entirely fitting that this monumental head and shoulder shot of a beautiful young woman should be presented in this way. The subject was a model on a fashion shoot at which Cotton was probably assisting. Cotton often took her own photographs while on such shoots and used them for her private portfolio. The photograph transcends portraiture, fashion and time to become a remarkable image of harmony with the elements.

Cotton took the title for this photograph from an 1895 poem by English poet Laurence Binyon, ‘O summer sun’:

O summer sun, O moving trees!
O cheerful human noise, O busy glittering street!
What hour shall Fate in all the future find,
Or what delights, ever to equal these:
Only to taste the warmth, the light, the wind,
Only to be alive, and feel that life is sweet?1

A photographer whose work straddles pictorialism, modernism and documentary, Cotton maintained an independent vision throughout her working life, based on the close observation of nature. Her understanding of the medium of photography was not to do with capture, but rather ‘drawing with light’.

1. 1915, ‘Poems of today’, English Association, London p 96

Text from the Art Gallery of New South Wales website © Art Gallery of New South Wales Photography Collection Handbook, 2007

 

Olive Cotton (Australian, 1911 - 2003) 'Max' c. 1935 from the exhibition 'Max and Olive: The photographic life of Olive Cotton and Max Dupain' at The Ian Potter Museum of Art, Melbourne, May - July, 2016

 

Olive Cotton (Australian, 1911-2003)
Max
c. 1935
Gelatin silver photograph
14.8 x 14.5cm
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
Purchased 1998

 

In this highly abstracted portrait, Cotton seems to present Dupain as an athlete – perhaps, with his strangely extended arms, a hammer thrower, in an image that predates by at least two years Dupain’s own photographs of athletes outdoors. It is likely that Cotton photographed her friend in this way because of the graphic pictorial effect she wished to achieve. Cotton exploits the shape of the Rolleiflex camera’s square-format film: Dupain’s body cuts across the right-hand corner of the picture, from which his overstretched forearms (the shape and tone of which were the result of much dodging and burning in the darkroom) create a diagonal oblique angle that is classically modernist. A similar conflation of diagonal lines, which was common to the ways that modern life in Australia at the time was represented in advertising and architectural photography, can also be seen in pictures such as Surf’s edge and Teacup ballet.

Text © National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

 

Max Dupain put his lack of clannishness down to a temperament which inclined to the stoic and an early life as an only child. He relished the solitude of his darkroom, familiar places and routines and the early morning calm of Sydney Harbour, where he rowed his scull until prevented by ill health in the early 1990s. He was not a joiner or follower of teams; he was republican in politics and agnostic. Philosophically, Dupain mixed rationalism and a less defined alliance with the passionate exhortation to live directly in one’s environment, body and heart. This philosophy was espoused by poets and writers such as D.H Lawrence, from the movement known in the 1920s and 1930s as Vitalism.

Although he acknowledged that he was a bit of a loner by temperament, portraiture was a significant part of Max Dupain’s personal and professional work. He included some dozen or so portraits in his selection for his 1948 monograph, fifty plates showing ‘my best work since 1935’. Dupain’s images, including many portraits especially of the 1930s to 1960s, have stamped the public image of this era of rapid progress and increasing cultural sophistication in Australia. Portraiture was at the top stratum of Dupain’s first three decades of work but volume decreased markedly from the 1960s, when Max Dupain and Associates, his business, began to specialise in architectural and industrial commissions.

‘Vintage Max’ by Gael Newton, 1 June 2003

 

Max Dupain (Australian, 1911-1992) 'Sunbaker' 1937 from the exhibition 'Max and Olive: The photographic life of Olive Cotton and Max Dupain' at The Ian Potter Museum of Art, Melbourne, May - July, 2016

 

Max Dupain (Australian, 1911-1992)
Sunbaker
1937
Gelatin silver photograph
37.7 x 43.2cm
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
Gift of the Philip Morris Arts Grant 1982

 

Olive Cotton (Australian, 1911-2003) 'The photographer's shadow (Olive Cotton and Max Dupain)' c. 1935

 

Olive Cotton (Australian, 1911-2003)
The photographer’s shadow (Olive Cotton and Max Dupain)
c. 1935
Gelatin silver photograph
16.6 x 15.2cm
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

 

Olive Cotton (Australian, 1911-2003) 'The sleeper' 1939

 

Olive Cotton (Australian, 1911-2003)
The sleeper
1939
Gelatin silver photograph
29.2 x 25.0cm
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
Purchased 1987

 

The sleeper 1939, Olive Cotton’s graceful study of her friend Olga Sharp resting while on a bush picnic, made around the same time as Max Dupain’s Sunbaker, presents a different take upon the enjoyment of life in Australia. The woman is relaxed, nestled within the environment. The mood is one of secluded reverie.

Text © National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

 

Max Dupain (Australian, 1911-1992) 'Untitled [Olive Cotton in Wheat Fields]' Nd (probably late 1930s)

 

Max Dupain (Australian, 1911-1992)
Untitled [Olive Cotton in Wheat Fields]
Nd (probably late 1930s)
Gelatin silver photograph

PHOTOGRAPH NOT IN EXHIBITION

 

Olive Cotton (Australian, 1911-2003) 'Max' 1939

 

Olive Cotton (Australian, 1911-2003)
Max
1939
Gelatin silver photograph
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

 

Cotton shot this portrait of fellow Australian photographer, Max Dupain during their brief marriage at their home in Longueville on Sydney’s lower north shore. Dupain is captured affectionately in the portrait, represented as at once casual through pose and, as industrious on account of his rolled up sleeves and the Rolleiflex TLR camera which hangs from his neck. It is indicative of the combination of a working and personal relationship Cotton and Dupain shared during the late 1930s when they operated a commercial studio together. The couple separated in 1941 but Cotton went on to manage the Dupain Studio while Max was away serving as a camouflage officer during the Second World War 1.

1. Ennis H 2005, ‘Olive Cotton: photographer’, National Library of Australia, p. 6

Text from the Art Gallery of New South Wales website © Art Gallery of New South Wales Photography Collection Handbook, 2007

 

Olive Cotton (Australian, 1911-2003) 'Max after surfing' 1937

 

Olive Cotton (Australian, 1911-2003)
Max after surfing
1937
Gelatin silver photograph
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
Purchased 2006

 

This intimate study of Dupain, who Cotton was romantically involved with at the time, first appeared in the mid-1990s; Cotton did not include it in her reassessment of her oeuvre in the mid-1980s that involved making prints of her best images. For many commentators, this remains a radical image in the history of Australian photography. For the art historian Tim Bonyhady, it ‘is not just one of the most erotic Australian photographs, but possibly the first sexually charged Australian photograph by a woman of a man’. This is the only known vintage print of the image, which inexplicably carries the signature and a message from the fashion photographer George Hoyningen‑Huene, who visited Sydney in December 1937 and spent time with Dupain. It suggests perhaps that Hoyningen-Huene was present when Cotton made the print.

Text © National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

 

Max after surfing is a portrait of Dupain taken in 1939, around the time of their brief marriage. While the photograph was taken indoors, the sharply delineated contrast and the dramatic interplay between light and shade evoke harsh sunlight. The work is loaded with suggestion and emotional intimacy. As art historian and curator Helen Ennis noted in 2000, the close vantage point and the tension between visible form and dense shadow ‘creates a space for erotic imaginings’.

A photographer whose work straddles Pictorialism, modernism and documentary, Cotton maintained an independent vision throughout her working life, based on the close observation of nature. Her understanding of the medium of photography was not to do with capture, but rather ‘drawing with light’.

Text from the Art Gallery of New South Wales website © Art Gallery of New South Wales Photography Collection Handbook, 2007

 

Max Dupain (Australian, 1911-1992) 'Jean with wire mesh' c. 1935

 

Max Dupain (Australian, 1911-1992)
Jean with wire mesh
c. 1935
Gelatin silver photograph
46.0 x 34.5cm
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
Purchased 2006

 

This portrait of Jean Lorraine, a close friend of Cotton, was one of many taken of her by Cotton and Dupain. This photograph is notable for its technical virtuosity – Dupain’s control of the variegated light across Jean’s body, beautifully lyrical and sensuous, is masterful. It also reflects Dupain’s active interest in the work of Man Ray, whose earlier Shadow patterns on Lee Miller’s torso (1930) was no doubt an influence. Like Man Ray’s image of his lover, Dupain’s portrait of Jean is also notable for its eroticism. While Dupain might have argued that this photograph was a study of light falling on surfaces, the light and shade take particular pleasure in the form of Jean’s naked torso. This eroticism has been underplayed throughout the history of the picture, not surprising given the nature of the relationships involved: when it was published in The Home in February 1936, Jean with wire mesh was known simply as a Photographic study. Dupain printed at least two versions of this shot, another with Jean’s eyes open.

Text © National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

 

Olive Cotton (Australian, 1911-2003) 'Girl with mirror' 1938

 

Olive Cotton (Australian, 1911-2003)
Girl with mirror
1938
Gelatin silver photograph
Image 31.7 x 29.9cm
Sheet 32.6 x 30.6cm
Purchased 1987

 

The photographs Cotton took while attending Dupain’s fashion shoots often focussed on the graphic effects created by light rather than fashion or the dynamics of the shoot itself. Cotton’s role as assistant left her free to explore personal interests, without the imperative of getting a shot for the assignment. This image of a model attending to her make-up, seemingly absorbed in her own image, is primarily concerned with the patterns created by light falling on sand dunes and the way they contrast with the decorative print of her clothing. It is notable that the image we see in the mirror is not the model’s face, but the patterns created by light hitting the sand. As Cotton later remembered, ‘I took it mostly because I really liked the pattern in the sand and the contrasting pattern in the left-hand corner’, which includes a series of diagonal shadows cast by Dupain’s tripod.

Text © National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

 

Max Dupain (Australian, 1911-1992) 'The floater' 1939

 

Max Dupain (Australian, 1911-1992)
The floater
1939
Gelatin silver photograph
National Gallery of Australia
Purchased 1976

 

Two versions of this image of a woman floating in water were printed by Dupain, so like Sunbaker it held particular interest for him. It acknowledges one of the great moments in avant-garde photography, André Kertész’s iconic study of underwater distortion Underwater swimmer (1917). As with Kertész, Dupain’s interest was with the visual effects created by light hitting the water and the impact of this on the contours of the swimmer. In his personal copy of the anthology Modern Photography (1931), Dupain highlighted the writer G.H. Saxon Mills’ claim that photography’s value existed in both its capacity to record the world and the optical effects it found or created – ‘its … symphony of forms and textures.’

Wall text

 

Olive Cotton (Australian, 1911-2003) 'Fashion shot, Cronulla sandhills (Max Dupain photographing model)' 1937

 

Olive Cotton (Australian, 1911-2003)
Fashion shot, Cronulla sandhills (Max Dupain photographing model)
1937
Cronulla, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Gelatin silver photograph
Image 30.4 x 38.5cm
Sheet 40.2 x 48.7cm
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
Purchased 1988

 

As the studio assistant, Cotton accompanied Dupain on fashion shoots to attend to models, doing their make-up and helping with costume changes. She often used these opportunities to take her own photographs, including this wonderful image of Dupain photographing the model Noreen Hallard for David Jones. As well as producing a striking image of Dupain and Hallard at work, Cotton was interested in the landscape in which they operated, paying particular attention to the pattern created by their footsteps in the sand.

Text © National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

 

 

Olive Cotton and Max Dupain are key figures in Australian visual culture. They shared a long and close personal and professional relationship. This exhibition looks at their work made between 1934 and 1945, the period of their professional association; this was an exciting period of experimentation and growth in Australian photography, and Cotton and Dupain were at the centre of these developments.

This is the first exhibition to look at the work of these two photographers as they shared their lives, studio and professional practice. Looking at their work together is instructive; they were often shooting the same subjects, or pursuing subjects and pictorial effects in similar ways. Comparisons articulate and make apparent Dupain’s more structured – even abstracted – approach to art and to the world; similarly, comparisons highlight Cotton’s more immersive relationship to place, with a particularly deep and instinctual love of light and its ephemeral effects.

This exhibition focuses on the key period in each of their careers, when they made many of their most memorable images. Keenly aware of international developments in photography, Cotton and Dupain experimented with the forms and strategies of modernist photography, especially Surrealism and the Bauhaus, and drew upon the sophisticated lighting and compositions of contemporary advertising and Hollywood glamour photography.

They brought to these influences their own, close association with the rich context of Australian life and culture during the 1930s and ’40s. Their achievement can be characterised, borrowing terms they used in discussions of their work, as the development of a ‘contemporary Australian photography’: a modern photographic practice that reflected their own, very particular relationships to the world and to each other.

Lives

Cotton and Dupain’s friendship stretched back to childhood summers spent at Newport Beach, NSW, where their families spent summer holidays. They were both given their first cameras – Kodak Box Brownies – by relatives as young teenagers, and spent days together wandering around taking photographs. They shared a similar commitment to photography as teenagers and young adults: both made and published or exhibited photographs while at school, and in 1929 they became members of the Photographic Society of New South Wales. But their approach to achieving the ‘professional life’ of a photographer took different paths: Dupain undertook a formal apprenticeship with the Pictorialist master Cecil Bostock between 1930-33, while Cotton studied arts at Sydney University with the idea of becoming a teacher and photographed after hours.

Cotton and Dupain became romantically involved in 1928 and married in 1939; they separated in 1941 and eventually divorced in 1944. In spite of these personal vicissitudes, Cotton and Dupain remained professionally connected. Cotton managed the Dupain studio from late 1941-45, while he worked with the Department of Home Security’s Camouflage Unit during the Second World War. On his return, Cotton left Sydney and spent the rest of her life in relative isolation near Cowra, NSW, where she raised her family of two with husband Ross McInerney and, between 1964 and 1983, operated a small studio. And while Dupain returned from the war to develop his reputation and significance as Australia’s most recognised twentieth-century photographer, his work was deeply affected by his experience of the war and took on a completely different complexion to his work from the previous decade.

Studio

In 1934, Dupain opened a studio in a rented room at 24 Bond Street, Sydney; Cotton joined him as his assistant soon after. By 1936, the Dupain studio’s business had expanded to the extent that it moved into larger premises in the same building, before relocating in early 1941 to a whole floor of a building at 49 Clarence Street.

Their positions at the Dupain studio were clearly defined – he was the photographer, she the studio assistant. Even so, Cotton and Dupain each maintained distinct but in some ways closely aligned practices, both in and out of the studio. Cotton did not tend to take photographs commercially until after she took over the management of the Dupain studio in late 1941, when photographs were circulated in her name. Before then, she made use of the studio’s equipment after hours, including Dupain’s large Thornton Pickard camera; her work was exhibited and published on occasion, both locally and internationally.

At the same time, Dupain’s photographs became increasingly widely-seen and influential. Sydney Ure Smith’s iconic monthly magazine The Home regularly published Dupain’s portraits, documentary work, social photographs (often actually taken by Cotton), and fashion and product photographs made for clients such as David Jones. When Dupain went to war, the studio continued to operate successfully under Cotton’s management. While some long-standing clients such as David Jones took their business elsewhere, Cotton took some of her most important pictures in the early 1940s, and her increasing confidence at this time can be identified across images of the city, industry and labour.

Dialogue

Cotton and Dupain were active members of Sydney’s network of young artists and photographers, of which the Dupain studio was a centre. Along with their contemporaries, including figures like Geoffrey Powell, Damien Parer and Lawrence Le Guay, they staked a claim for photography as a vital part of contemporary culture, exhibiting photographs alongside other artworks at venues like Sydney’s David Jones Gallery.

Their networks included members of Sydney’s progressive architectural, design, publishing and advertising communities, with whom they often collaborated. The threads of influence within this complex network of making, exhibiting, publishing and commissions were intricate. It is possible, for example, to see Dupain’s strong visual style affect those around him. His interest in surrealist style, which really took hold in 1935, can be identified in work by other, often lesser photographers working at the time, and indeed in the design of The Home, which published his work in editorial and advertisements. There were also times when Cotton indicated certain directions for Dupain. For example, her images of bodies outdoors, which cleverly pulled together classical and modernist motifs, predate similar images by Dupain.

It is clear also that Cotton and Dupain were engaging in dialogue within their own work. Their shared interest in photographing form, texture and shadow is seen across many pictures throughout the mid- to late 1930s. Their pictures also engage critically with photography as a medium, in images that draw attention to the photograph as a double of its subject, and in pictures that seem to play with photograph’s stillness. As Dupain later remembered, together they ‘shared the problems of photography’.

Contemporary Australian Photography

What were ‘the problems of photography’ that Dupain and Cotton sought to settle? In the most straightforward sense, they involved the assumption that Australian photographers were yet to completely embrace or realise the medium’s potential, which rested in careful attention to its aesthetic possibilities, recognition of its mechanical origins, and negotiation of the particular way the medium engaged notions of objectivity and subjectivity. Their solution to these problems involved a progressive photographic practice that intended to release photography from the shackles of history and orthodoxy, and to revel in photography’s great capacity to make sense of the relations of light, texture and form as they exist in the present.

Cotton’s and Dupain’s solution to ‘the problems of photography’ was to make work that made a feature of the medium’s modernity, and the strange way that mechanics, physics and aesthetics come together in modern photography to look at the world and to find beauty in it. They did this in a way that remained firmly footed in their own, very particular place in the world and history. In terms of style, their solution integrated legacies of Pictorialism – especially its interest in the atmospheric effects found in landscape – with a range of other, often competing modes and styles: a modernist concern with line, form and space; documentary photography’s interest in realism and ‘the living moment’; and the pictorial and formal attributes of commercial photography.

It is possible that, for the first time, Australian photography found in the work of Cotton and Dupain a contemporary expression: a photographic practice that emerged from, responded to and expressed the mood, ambitions and sensibility of its time.

Press release from The Ian Potter Museum of Art

 

Max Dupain (Australian, 1911-1992) 'Street at Central' 1939

 

Max Dupain (Australian, 1911-1992)
Street at Central
1939
Gelatin silver photograph
45.6 x 37.5cm
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
Purchased 1976

 

Max Dupain (Australian, 1911-1992) 'Street at Central' 1939

 

Max Dupain (Australian, 1911-1992)
Street at Central
1939
Gelatin silver photograph
45.6 x 37.5cm
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
Purchased 1976

 

Two different versions of this photograph. Notice the different cropping and colour of each image, and how it adds emphasis to the light and to the shadows of the people.

 

Olive Cotton (Australian, 1911-2003) 'Teacup ballet' 1935

 

Olive Cotton (Australian, 1911-2003)
Teacup ballet
1935
Gelatin silver photograph
37.5 x 29.5cm
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
Purchased 1983

 

‘This picture evolved after I had bought some inexpensive cups and saucers from Woolworths for our studio coffee breaks to replace our rather worn old mugs. The angular handles reminded me of arms akimbo, and that led to the idea of making a photograph to express a dance theme.

When the day’s work was over I tried several arrangements of the cups and saucers to convey this idea, without success, until I used a spotlight and realised how important the shadows were. Using the studio camera, which had a 6 ½ x 4 ½ inch ground glass focusing screen, I moved the cups about until they and their shadows made a ballet-like composition and then photographed them on a cut film negative. The title of the photograph suggested itself.

This was my first photograph to be shown overseas, being exhibited, to my delight, in the London Salon of Photography in 1935.’ Olive Cotton 1995 1

Olive Cotton and Max Dupain were childhood friends and, although she graduated in English and mathematics from the University of Sydney in 1934, her interest in photography led her to work in Dupain’s studio from this year. Cotton was employed as a photographer’s assistant in the studio, however she worked assiduously on her own work and continued to exhibit in photography salon exhibitions. Tea cup ballet is one of Cotton’s most well-known photographs and yet it is somewhat eccentric to her main practice, being at first glance typically modernist with its dramatic lighting and angular shapes. Her longstanding interest in organic forms provides a deeper reading. The abstraction of form by the lighting and the placement of the cups and saucers enables the relationship to dancers on a stage to become clear.

1. Ennis H 1995, ‘Olive Cotton: photographer’, National Library of Australia, Canberra p. 25

Text from the Art Gallery of New South Wales website © Art Gallery of New South Wales Photography Collection Handbook, 2007

 

Among Cotton’s most famous photographs, Teacup ballet has very humble origins. It was taken after hours in the Dupain studio and used a set of cheap cups and saucers Cotton had earlier bought from a Woolworths store for use around the studio. As she later recounted: ‘Their angular handles suggested to me the position of “arms akimbo” and that led to the idea of a dance pattern’. The picture uses a range of formal devices that became common to Cotton’s work, especially the strong backlighting used to create dramatic tonal contrasts and shadows. The picture achieved instant success, and was selected for exhibition in the London Salon of Photography for 1935.

Text © National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

 

Olive Cotton (Australian, 1911-2003) 'Shasta daisies' 1937

 

Olive Cotton (Australian, 1911-2003)
Shasta daisies
1937
Gelatin silver photograph
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
Purchased 1987

 

Celebrated Australian photographer Olive Cotton was given her first Box Brownie by her family for her eleventh birthday (1922) and continued to experiment with taking and developing pictures throughout the 1920s. By the early 1930s Cotton had mastered the Pictorialist style so popular at the time and was on her way to establishing her own approach which also incorporated Modernist principles. The recurrent themes of landscape and plant-life are important to the photographer’s approach, which photography scholar Helen Ennis describes as Cotton’s concern for the ‘potential for pattern-making’.

Shasta daisies is an interesting and rare combination of natural form and a highly-constructed scenario, the flowers having been photographed in Cotton’s studio and carefully arranged for the camera. Cotton, in the 1995 book, wrote of the photograph: “I chose to photograph these in the studio because out of doors I would have had less control of the lighting and background. I examined the composition very carefully through the studio camera’s large ground glass focussing screen and – the view from the camera’s position being slightly different to my own – made as many rearrangements to the flowers as seemed necessary. I then used (apart from a background light) one source of light to try and convey a feeling of outdoors.” Shasta daisies is important within Cotton’s oeuvre for uniting her interest in plants in their natural ‘outdoors’ environment with her enquiry into photographic form and space.

Text from the Art Gallery of New South Wales website

 

Max Dupain (Australian, 1911-1992) 'Homage to D.H. Lawrence' 1937

 

Max Dupain (Australian, 1911-1992)
Homage to D.H. Lawrence
1937
Gelatin silver photograph
45.8 x 33.9cm
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
Purchased 1982

 

Dupain admired vitalist philosophies, which argued that modern identity had become fragmented and asserted the importance of the integration of body and emotion, of sensual and emotional experience. He was attracted to the work of British writer D.H. Lawrence, especially his insistence on the ‘thingness’ of things as a way of embodying a properly integrated mind and body. This photograph uses surrealist juxtaposition to draw together a copy of Lawrence’s Selected poems, a flywheel (representing the modern world) and a classical bust, recalling the idealised relationship of natural and sensual worlds in ancient Greece and Rome. Other images incorporating classical busts appeared in the pages of the Modern Photography annuals, but Dupain makes them his own, lifted above mere pastiche.

Text © National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

 

Olive Cotton (Australian, 1911-2003) 'Orchestration in light' 1937

 

Olive Cotton (Australian, 1911 – 2003)
Orchestration in light
1937
Gelatin silver photograph
Image 24.1 x 27.4cm
Sheet 25.4 x 28.2cm
Purchased with assistance from the Helen Ennis Fund
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

 

Cotton took this landscape early one morning at Wullumbi Gorge in the New England tablelands, during a camping trip with Dupain. It is remarkable for both the way the light transforms the landscape into quivering energy and the way Cotton makes sense of that enigmatic experience in pictorial form. As its title suggests, the photograph recalled for Cotton – who trained as a musician as a girl – a musical composition, particularly ‘the beautiful graduation in tone going from a bass tone to a high treble at the top of the picture’.

Text © National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

 

Olive Cotton (Australian, 1911-2003) 'The patterned road' 1938

 

Olive Cotton (Australian, 1911-2003)
The patterned road
1938
Gelatin silver photograph
24.6 x 28.8cm
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
Purchased 1983

 

Max Dupain (Australian, 1911-1992) 'Bawley Point landscape' 1938

 

Max Dupain (Australian, 1911-1992)
Bawley Point landscape
1938
Gelatin silver photograph
29 x 26.6cm
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
Purchased 1982

 

This landscape, one of many taken by Dupain on the south coast of New South Wales, was made in the same year as Cotton’s similar study of shadow and landscape, The patterned road (above). These two landscapes share an interest in what Dupain later termed ‘passing movement and changing form’. Although Dupain rarely published or circulated his landscapes at this time, pictures such as Bawley Point landscape certainly relate to a broad range of other images, perhaps most notably still lifes and nudes, that articulated an Australian modernist photography through the interplay of light passing through openings. These images find monumental stillness in movement and strong shadows, which quite literally ‘double’ their subject.

Text © National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

 

Olive Cotton (Australian, 1911-2003) 'Over the city' 1940

 

Olive Cotton (Australian, 1911-2003)
Over the city
1940
Gelatin silver photograph
32.2 x 30.3cm
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
Purchased 1987

 

Olive Cotton (Australian, 1911-2003) 'Grass at sundown' 1939

 

Olive Cotton (Australian, 1911-2003)
Grass at sundown
1939
Gelatin silver photograph
Primary Insc: Signed and dated l.l. pencil, “Olive Cotton ’39”. Titled l.r. pencil, “Grass at sundown”.
Printed image 28.9 x 30.8cm
Sheet 30.0 x 31.6cm
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
Gift of the artist 1987

 

Max Dupain (Australia 1911-1992) 'Design – suburbia' 1933

 

Max Dupain (Australia, 1911-1992)
Design – suburbia
1933
Gelatin silver photograph
29.4 x 23.6cm
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
Purchased 1982

 

This early image proudly displays the influence of the work of pictorialist photographers that Dupain knew well, most notably the Sydney-based photographer, Harold Cazneaux. At the time Dupain made this image, he was serving an apprenticeship in the commercial studio of Cecil Bostock, a Pictorialist and founding member with Cazneaux of the Sydney Camera Circle in 1916. Dupain’s interest in the pictorial effects created by light passing through apertures (here, the posts and beams of a suburban fence) seems to remember similar images of light streaming through blinds and pergolas by Cazneaux, who Dupain called ‘the father of modern Australian photography’. The fascination with capturing light as it passes through openings will stay with Dupain throughout his life, though the focus will sharpen as he moves away from the diffused effects favoured by art photographers in the early decades of the century.

Text © National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

 

Max Dupain (Australia 1911-1992) 'Still life' 1935

 

Max Dupain (Australia, 1911-1992)
Still life
1935
Gelatin silver photograph
29.0 x 20.8cm
Purchased 1982

 

While the subject of this photograph seems to be a simple, lidded pail (which featured in a number of Dupain’s still lifes) seen in morning light, it is actually an exercise in abstraction. Of most interest to Dupain is the complex network of diagonal lines created by light, shadow and timber boards. The picture reflects the pleasure Dupain took in the pictorial effects created by light (he was fond of quoting the Belgian photographer Léonard Misonne’s dictum, ‘the subject is nothing, light is everything’), and at the same time expresses the fundamental principle upon which his photographic practice was always based. While the image of light passing through apertures is an analogy for the way the camera operates, the still life also embodies photography’s expressive potential. As Dupain later stated, ‘with still-life you can arrange or rearrange or do what you like, it becomes a very, very personal exercise that you have total control over’.

Text © National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

 

Max Dupain (Australian, 1911-1992) 'Pyrmont silos' 1933, printed later

 

Max Dupain (Australian, 1911-1992)
Pyrmont silos
1935
Gelatin silver photograph
Printed image 25.2 x 19.2cm
Sheet 31.2 x 26.2cm
Mount 42.4 x 32.0
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
Purchased 1976

 

Max Dupain was the first Australian photographer to embrace Modernism, and took a number of photographs of Pyrmont silos in the 1930s. There were no skyscrapers in Sydney until the late 1930s so the silos, Walter Burley Griffin’s incinerators and the Sydney Harbour Bridge were the major points of reference for those interested in depicting modern expressions of engineering and industrial power. Olive Cotton’s Drainpipes 1937 shows the precisely formed circles and curves of the pipes, interspersed with slivers of light and long shadows.

In almost text-book fashion, this image reflects Dupain’s assimilation of the aesthetics of contemporary European photography, which he encountered in publications such as the Das Deutsche Lichtbild [The German photograph] and Modern Photography annuals, the 1932 edition of which was edited by Man Ray. While Dupain’s relationship to the contemporary world was complicated, he nonetheless advocated for the latest photographic trends out of Europe and America, and for photographing modern, industrial subjects; as he asserted in 1938, ‘great art has always been contemporary in spirit’. Writing in 1975 about this image for Dupain’s retrospective at the Australian Centre for Photography, fellow photographer David Moore, who had worked with Dupain in the late 1940s, saw it as a turning point in Dupain’s career, believing that here ‘his awareness of the strength of industrial forms was confirmed with confident authority … From this moment any return to sentimental Pictorialism was precluded’.

Text © National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

 

Pyrmont silos is one of a number of photographs that Dupain took of these constructions in the 1930s. In all cases Dupain examined the silos from a modernist perspective, emphasising their monumentality from low viewpoints under a bright cloudless sky. Additionally, his use of strong shadows to emphasise the forms of the silos and the lack of human figures celebrates the built structure as well as providing no sense of scale. Another photograph by Dupain in the AGNSW collection was taken through a car windscreen so that the machinery of transport merges explicitly with industrialisation into a complex hard-edge image of views and mirror reflections. There were no skyscrapers in Sydney until the late 1930s so the silos, Walter Burley Griffin’s incinerators and the Sydney Harbour Bridge were the major points of reference for those interested in depicting modern expressions of engineering and industrial power.

Dupain was the first Australian photographer to embrace modernism. One of his photographs of the silos was roundly criticised when shown to the New South Wales Photographic Society but Dupain forged on regardless with his reading, thinking and experimentation. Some Australian painting and writing had embraced modernist principles in the 1920s, but as late as 1938 Dupain was writing to the Sydney Morning Herald:

“Great art has always been contemporary in spirit. Today we feel the surge of aesthetic exploration along abstract lines, the social economic order impinging itself on art, the repudiation of the ‘truth to nature criterion’ … We sadly need the creative courage of Man Ray, the original thought of Moholy-Nagy, and the dynamic realism of Edouard [sic] Steichen.”1

1. Dupain, M 1938, “Letter to the editor,” in Sydney Morning Herald, 30 March

Text from the Art Gallery of New South Wales website © Art Gallery of New South Wales Photography Collection Handbook, 2007

 

Max Dupain (Australian, 1911-1992) 'Backyard, Forster, New South Wales' 1940

 

Max Dupain (Australian, 1911-1992)
Backyard, Forster, New South Wales
1940
Gelatin silver photograph
30.5 x 30.5cm
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
Purchased 1983

 

This highly formal view of the backyard of a hotel in the coastal town of Forster embodies Dupain’s sense of Australian modernist photography. The picture’s frontalism and overriding use of horizontals and verticals acknowledge that the camera faced its subject face-to-face and that the view has been consciously framed. But as the title of the photograph makes clear, it is also a record of a particular place. In his personal copy of G.H. Saxon Mills’ essay ‘Modern photography’, which greatly assisted Dupain to conceptualise his own sense of a contemporary photographic practice, Dupain highlighted and annotated with a question mark the following statement: ‘”modern” photography means photography whose aim is partly or wholly aesthetic, as opposed to photography which is merely documentary or representational.’ Dupain believed that both were possible within the same frame.

Text © National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

 

Max Dupain (Australian, 1911-1992) '(Factory chimney stacks)' 1940

 

Max Dupain (Australian, 1911-1992)
[Factory chimney stacks]
1940
Gelatin silver photograph
49.0 x 38.4cm
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
Purchased 1983

 

Dupain highlighted the writer G.H. Saxon Mills’ claim that photography’s value existed in both its capacity to record the world and the optical effects it found or created – ‘its … symphony of forms and textures.’

These factory chimney stacks are reduced to their most simple and direct form, which is shown free of any distraction. As Dupain noted, borrowing from the great American architectural historian Lewis Mumford, the ‘mission of the photograph is to clarify the subject’. The choice of subject matter was influenced by an essay by the English journalist, G.H. Saxon Mills, written in 1931 and read by Dupain soon after: ‘(photography) belongs to the new age … it is part and parcel of the terrific and thrilling panorama opening out before us today – of clean concrete buildings, steel radio masts, and the wings of the air line. But its beauty is only for those who themselves are aware of the ‘zeitgeist’ – who belong consciously and proudly to this age, and have not their eyes forever wistfully fixed on the past.’

Text © National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

 

Olive Cotton (Australian, 1911-2003) 'The way through the trees' 1938

 

Olive Cotton (Australian, 1911-2003)
The way through the trees
1938
Gelatin silver photograph
29.6 x 29.0cm
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
Gift of the artist 1987

 

Max Dupain (Australian, 1911-1992) 'An old country homestead, Western Australia' 1946

 

Max Dupain (Australian, 1911-1992)
An old country homestead, Western Australia
1946
Gelatin silver photograph

PHOTOGRAPH NOT IN EXHIBITION

 

 

The Ian Potter Museum of Art
The University of Melbourne,
Corner Swanston Street and Masson Road
Parkville, Victoria 3010

Opening hours: Tuesday – Saturday 11am – 5pm

The Ian Potter Museum of Art website

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William Blackwood: ‘Panorama of Sydney & Harbour from Government House’ 1858

July 2016

 

 

William Blackwood (1824-1897) 'Panorama of Sydney & Harbour from Government House' 1858 front cover

 

Blackwood’s Panorama of Sydney & Harbour from Government House 1858 front cover

 

 

We can only imagine the impact viewing this immense panorama (over 3m long) of eleven imperial size, wet plate photographs had on the populace of Sydney. They would have seen little like it before, and of such clarity and quality.

I have included text, additional photographs and paintings to help the viewer and researcher position the panorama historically within the context of time and place.

For example, note how illustriously and romantically the artist captures every detail in a painting such as Conrad Martens Campbell’s Wharf (1857, below), then notice how rough and ready the sections of this photographic panorama are even as they pertain to the veracity of the occasion. The length of each exposure can be estimated by the movement of the large sailing ship in the centre of section 7 of the panorama – at a guess probably just under a minute.

While larger individual images of the panorama can be found on the State Library of New South Wales website, the whole panorama photograph on that site is very small and gives little idea of how the individual sections concertina out. Some of the images also seem denuded, drained of their colour, probably due to the poor condition of the images (notably sections 2, 8, 9 and 11) .

Hopefully these images – which can be reproduced without getting permission from institutions – more fully reflect the beauty and sensitivity of the panorama.

It was a great pleasure to meet collector Dennis Joachim, the owner of this panorama, up at Mossgreen in Armadale, Victoria recently. What a remarkable man and such great energy!

Dr Marcus Bunyan


Please click on the long small image below to see the full panorama. Click again to enlarge and scroll from left to right.

 

 

William Blackwood (Australian, 1824-1897) 'Panorama of Sydney & Harbour from Government House' 1858

 

William Blackwood (Australian, 1824-1897)
Panorama of Sydney & Harbour from Government House
1858
12 albumen photoprints (comprising 1 panorama in 11 sections – 1 photoprint) in a leather and gold embossed album
Images 19 x 29cm
Panorama length 324.5cm

 

 

Olaf William Blackwood, also known as William Blackwood, was a portrait painter of Swedish and Scottish descent. It was, however as a professional photographer of panoramic Sydney views that he achieved the greatest success. By 1858, he had established a photographic studio in Woolloomooloo and began photographing surrounding street scenes, using the collodion wet-plate process. He took eleven imperial size, wet plate photographs from the roof of Government House which he then combined to form a large scale Panorama of Sydney Harbour, the first and largest produced in the colony. His panoramic views were met with critical acclaim, and were praised by The Sydney Morning Herald as ‘faultless’, ‘super-excellent’ and the ‘largest yet seen’1

By August, his 180 degree panorama of Sydney Harbour was again praised as ‘superior to anything of the kind we have seen. Nothing dim or smoky appears … no muddled trees – no hazy outlines – no hard sheets of glaring white for water’2 This was the most sophisticated and extensive panorama photography ever produced in Australia. Blackwood published another album that same year consisting of some of the earliest Australian architectural studies, and photographs of Sydney’s nine banks. From a technical point of view, Blackwood’s albums were an extraordinary achievement.

Large format views required extreme skill on the part of the photographer, and he coated his plates and processed them while still wet. In the early 1860s Blackwood worked in partnership with Henry Goodes and they created eight photographic views which were submitted to the New South Wales section of the 1862 London International Exhibition. Between 1862 and 1864, Blackwood worked with James Walker at Walker’s Pitt Street studio. Despite his early, energetic and entrepreneurial projects, little is known of Blackwood’s output after 1859 and he seems to have left photography after 1864.

1/ Sydney Morning Herald, 26 March 1858
2/ Sydney Morning Herald, 4 August 1858

Text from the Mossgreen website [Online] Cited 01/07/2016. No longer available online

 

William Blackwood (Australian, 1824-1897) 'Panorama of Sydney & Harbour from Government House' 1858 section 1

 

Blackwood’s Panorama of Sydney & Harbour from Government House 1858 section 1

Entrance to Government House, Macquarie Street, city view including Customs House, Sydney Cove

 

William Blackwood (Australian, 1824-1897) 'Panorama of Sydney & Harbour from Government House' 1858 section 2

 

Blackwood’s Panorama of Sydney & Harbour from Government House 1858 section 2

Entrance to Government House, Macquarie Street, city view including Customs House, Sydney Cove.

(The Customs House is horizontally left of the tall ship’s mast with the row of double windows)

 

Charles Percy Pickering (Australian, 1825-1908) 'Customs House' 1872

 

Charles Percy Pickering (Australian, 1825-1908)
Customs House
1872
New South Wales. Government Printing Office
Collection of the State Library of New South Wales

 

Customs House

The Customs House is an historic Sydney landmark located in the city’s Circular Quay area. Constructed initially in 1844-1845, the building served as the headquarters of the Customs Service until 1990. The driving force behind the construction of the original sandstone edifice on Circular Quay was Colonel John George Nathaniel Gibbes, the Collector of Customs for New South Wales for a record term of 25 years from 1834 to 1859. Colonel Gibbes persuaded the Governor of New South Wales, Sir George Gipps, to begin construction of the Customs House in 1844 in response to Sydney’s growing volume of maritime trade. The building project also doubled as an unemployment relief measure for stonemasons and labourers during an economic depression which was afflicting the colony at the time.

The two-storey Georgian structure was designed by Mortimer Lewis and featured 13 large and expensive windows in the facade to afford a clear view of shipping activity in Sydney Cove. Colonel Gibbes, who dwelt opposite Circular Quay on Kirribilli Point, was able to watch progress on the Customs House’s construction from the verandah of his private residence, Wotonga House (now Admiralty House). The Customs House opened for business in 1845 and replaced cramped premises at The Rocks. It was partially dismantled and expanded to three levels under the supervision of the then Colonial Architect, James Barnet, in 1887. Various additions were made over the next century, particularly during the period of the First World War, but some significant vestiges of the original Gibbes-Lewis building remain.

Text from the Wikipedia website

 

Charles Percy Pickering (Australian, 1825-1908) 'Panorama of Sydney & Harbour from Government House' 1858 section 3

 

Blackwood’s Panorama of Sydney & Harbour from Government House 1858 section 3

City view, Sydney Cove, The Rocks, Campbell’s Wharf and Dawes Point

 

Conrad Martens (England 1801 - Australia 1878; Australia from 1835) 'Campbell's Wharf' 1857

  

Conrad Martens (England 1801 – Australia 1878; Australia from 1835)
Campbell’s Wharf
1857
Watercolour with highlights in gum arabic
Image: 46 x 66cm
National Gallery of Australia

 

Campbell’s Wharf

From his arrival in 1835 until his death in 1878, Conrad Martens was the most celebrated artist in Sydney. Although a skilled painter in oils, his greatest works were executed in watercolour, and Campbell’s Wharf is among his most ambitious compositions. Commissioned by John Campbell in 1857, the work portrays the income source of the Campbell family, whose eighteenth and nineteenth century business interests encompassed wharfing, storing and merchant shipping.

On the right is Campbell’s Wharf and warehouses that stretched along the west side of Sydney Cove. To their left are the old Campbell residence and the new Mariners Church. In the centre of the painting rises the four-storied Miles Building, and to its left juts the Cumberland Place buildings along the skyline. All this is viewed through a jumble of trading vessels, the source of the Campbell family wealth. The painting is, however, more than a depiction of maritime industry and family property. Martens was well acquainted with the work of the British painter JMW Turner, whose romantic landscapes are suffused with delicate evocations of light. Silhouetted against a soft pink sky, Martens transforms an industrial setting into a picturesque landscape awash with luminous colour.

Text © National Gallery of Australia, Canberra 2014

 

William Blackwood (Australian, 1824-1897) 'Panorama of Sydney & Harbour from Government House' 1858 section 4

 

Blackwood’s Panorama of Sydney & Harbour from Government House 1858 section 4

City view, Sydney Cove, The Rocks, Campbell’s Wharf & Dawes Point

 

Dawes Point, New South Wales

By the 1840s the people of Dawes Point and Millers Point were a maritime community in which rich and poor mixed more than elsewhere in Sydney. Wharf owners and traders lived and worked beside those who worked on the wharves and bond stores, as well as those who arrived and left on ships. Only two of the merchant houses, built by and for the early wharf owners, survive. One is Walker’s 50-foot wide villa built around 1825 and now part of Milton Terrace at 7-9 Lower Fort Street; the other is the home and offices of Edwards and Hunter, built in 1833 above their wharves which is where the Wharf Theatre now stands.

The fortunes of Dawes Point and Millers Point fluctuated more than elsewhere in Sydney. Mostly prosperous in its early years, the area was less desirable by the 1890s, and in 1900 there was a catastrophic event that led to a complete reshaping of Millers Point. At the beginning of the 20th century the government compulsorily acquired all private wharves, homes and commercial properties in the Rocks, Dawes Point and Millers Point. Modern and efficient wharves with dual level access were built, as well as new accommodation for workers, such as the Workers Flats of Lower Fort Street designed by Government Architect Vernon.

Most people still believe this redevelopment can be attributed entirely to an outbreak of plague in 1900, with the government acting benevolently as it demolished homes as well as wharves, and not for the last time decimated a community, while presenting their actions as ‘slum clearance’. In the 1960s and ’70s the government tried again to clear the area and build high-rise offices, but this was thwarted by the Green Bans, supported community and unions. In 2016, the NSW Government is again ‘relocating’ the long-term community of Dawes Point, Millers Point and The Rocks, and only a handful of these residents remain, while the majority of houses and flats along Lower Fort Street and Trinity Avenue are vacant.

Text from the Wikipedia website

 

William Blackwood (Australian, 1824-1897) 'Panorama of Sydney & Harbour from Government House' 1858 section 5

 

Blackwood’s Panorama of Sydney & Harbour from Government House 1858 section 5

Sydney Harbour, Fort Macquarie, views to the North Shore

 

North Shore

Before British settlement, the Lower North Shore was home to the Gorualgal (Mosman and southern Willoughby) and Cammeraygal (North Sydney and Eastern Lane Cove). After the establishment of Sydney in 1788, settlement of the North Shore of the harbour was quite limited. One of the first settlers was James Milson who lived in the vicinity of Jeffrey Street in Kirribilli, directly opposite Sydney Cove. The north shore was more rugged than the southern shore and western areas of the harbour and had limited agricultural potential. The early activities in the area included tree felling, boatbuilding and some orchard farming in the limited areas of good soil. The North Shore railway line was built in the 1890s. Access to the Sydney CBD, located on the southern shore of the harbour remained difficult until the completion of the Sydney Harbour Bridge in 1932. This led to commencement the development of suburbs on the North Shore.

Text from the Wikipedia website

 

William Blackwood (Australian, 1824-1897) 'Panorama of Sydney & Harbour from Government House' 1858 section 6

 

Blackwood’s Panorama of Sydney & Harbour from Government House 1858 section 6

Sydney Harbour, Fort Macquarie (Bennelong Point/Opera House), views to the North Shore

 

Fort Macquarie (Bennelong Point/Opera House)

Fort Macquarie was a square castellated battlement fort built at Bennelong Point, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, where the Sydney Opera House now stands. A half moon battery on the east point of Bennelong Point was constructed in May 1798 when the ship HMS Supply was withdrawn from service, Lieutenant William Kent and crew were assigned to man the battery. The battery consisted of some of the guns taken from HMS Supply.

Governor Lachlan Macquarie directed that a fort be built between December 1817 to February 1821 under the direction of Francis Greenway. The fort was named after Governor Lachlan Macquarie. It was a square fort with circular bastions at each corner and a castellated square tower. The battery consisted of fifteen pieces of ordnance: ten 24-pounders and five 6-pounders. Three sides of the fort abutted Sydney Harbour. The two-storey tower in the middle of the fort, housed a guardroom and storehouse. The tower was 27.4 m (90 ft) in circumference. A powder magazine capable of storing 350 barrels of gunpowder was constructed underneath and the tower could provide accommodation for a small military detachment of 1 officer and 18 men, with stores for the battery. A drawbridge, on the landward side, over a small channel leading to a gate beneath the tower provided entry to the fort.

Fort Macquarie was demolished in 1901 to make way for new electric tramway sheds named Fort Macquarie Tram Depot.

Text from the Wikipedia website

 

Bennelong Point

The point was originally a small tidal island, Bennelong Island, that largely consisted of rocks with a small beach on the western side. The island was located on the tip of the eastern arm of Sydney Cove and was apparently separated from the mainland at high tide. For a brief period in 1788, this relatively isolated protrusion into Port Jackson (Sydney’s natural harbour) was called Cattle Point as it was used to confine the few cattle and horses that had been brought from Cape Town by Governor Phillip with the First Fleet.

The area at that time was also strewn with discarded oyster shells from many long years of gathering by the local aboriginal women. Those shells were regathered by the newly arrived convict women and burnt to make lime for cement mortar. The point was called Limeburners’ Point for that reason, though those shells only furnished enough lime to make a single building, the two-storey government house. In the early 1790s, the Aborigine Bennelong – employed as a cultural interlocutor by the British – persuaded New South Wales Governor Arthur Phillip to build a brick hut for him on the point, giving it its name.

In the period from 1818 to 1821, the tidal area between Bennelong Island and the mainland was filled with rocks excavated from the Bennelong Point peninsula. The entire area was levelled to create a low platform and to provide suitable stone for the construction of Fort Macquarie. While the fort was being built, a large portion of the rocky escarpment at Bennelong Point was also cut away to allow a road to be built around the point from Sydney Cove to Farm Cove. This was known as Tarpeian Way. The existence of the original tidal island and its rubble fill were largely forgotten until the late 1950s when both were rediscovered during the excavations related to the construction of the Sydney Opera House. Prior to the Opera House’s construction, Bennelong Point had housed Fort Macquarie Tram Depot.

Text from the Wikipedia website

 

Kerry & Co. 'Fort Macquarie' 1870

 

Kerry & Co.
Fort Macquarie
1870
Albumen photograph
From the collections of the Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales

 

Fort Macquarie was built on the end of Bennelong Point, where the Sydney Opera House now stands. Completed by convict labour in 1821 using stone from the Domain, the fort had 15 guns and housed a small garrison. The powder magazine beneath the tower was capable of storing 350 barrels of gunpowder. The fort was demolished in 1901 to make way for the tramway sheds that occupied the site until the construction of the Utzon masterpiece

 

Kerry & Co. 'Fort Macquarie' 1870

 

Kerry & Co.
Fort Macquarie
1870
Albumen photograph
From the collections of the Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales

 

Anonymous photographer. 'The tram shed at Bennelong Point before the Sydney Opera House was built' 1952

 

Anonymous photographer
The tram shed at Bennelong Point before the Sydney Opera House was built
1952

William Blackwood (Australian, 1824-1897) 'Panorama of Sydney & Harbour from Government House' 1858 section 7

 

Blackwood’s Panorama of Sydney & Harbour from Government House 1858 section 7

Sydney Harbour view, sailing ships, Fort Denison (to the far right in the distance), Garden Island, Lady Macquarie’s Chair

 

Anonymous photographer. 'SS Nieuw Holland passing Fort Denison, Sydney Harbour' c. 1930

 

Anonymous photographer
SS Nieuw Holland passing Fort Denison, Sydney Harbour
c. 1930
Australian National Maritime Museum collection

 

Fort Denison was built on an island that was known to Indigenous people in the area as Muddawahnyuh, meaning ‘rocky island’. After European settlement in 1788 the island was called Pinchgut by convicts who were marooned there with meagre rations of bread and water as punishment for serious breaches of the peace. The island was originally a 15 metre sandstone rock, but during the 1800s it was excavated to provide sandstone to build Circular Quay, at that time the centre of shipping in Sydney.

 

Anonymous photographer. 'Fort Denison' c. 1930

 

Anonymous photographer
Fort Denison
c. 1930
Glass negative, quarter plate
Tom Lennon Photographic Collection from the Powerhouse Museum

 

Fort Denison

In 1839, two American warships entered the harbour at night and circled Pinchgut Island. Concern with the threat of foreign attack caused the government to review the harbour’s inner defences. Barney, who had earlier reported that Sydney’s defences were inadequate, recommended that the government establish a fort on Pinchgut Island to help protect Sydney Harbour from attack by foreign vessels. Fortification of the island began in 1841 but was not completed. Construction resumed in 1855 because of fear of a Russian naval attack during the Crimean War, and was completed on 14 November 1857. The newly built fort then took its current name from Sir William Thomas Denison, the Governor of New South Wales from 1855 to 1861.

The fortress features a distinctive Martello tower, the only one ever built in Australia and the last one ever constructed in the British Empire. It was constructed using 8,000 tonnes (7,900 long tons) of sandstone from nearby Kurraba Point, Neutral Bay. The tower’s walls are between 3.3-6.7 metres (11-22 ft) thick at the base and 2.7 metres (8 ft 10 in) thick at the top. However, developments in artillery rendered the fort largely obsolete by the time it was completed. The tower itself had quarters for a garrison of 24 soldiers and one officer. Fort Denison’s armament included three 8-inch (200 mm) muzzle loaders in the tower, two 10-inch (250 mm) guns, one on a 360-degree traverse on the top of the tower and one in a bastion at the other end of the island, and twelve 32-pound (15 kg) cannons in a battery between the base of the tower and the flanking bastion. Eventually all the guns were removed, except for the three 8-inch (200 mm) muzzle-loading cannons in the gun room in the tower, which were installed before construction was complete.

Text from the Wikipedia website

 

George Roberts (Australian born United Kingdom, c. 1800-1865) '[Mrs Macquarie's chair]' c. 1843-1865

 

George Roberts (Australian born United Kingdom, c. 1800-1865)
[Mrs Macquarie’s chair]
c. 1843-1865
Watercolour
Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales

 

American & Australasian Photographic Company. 'Mrs Macquarie's Chair, Sydney' c. 1870-1875

 

American & Australasian Photographic Company
Mrs Macquarie’s Chair, Sydney (B. O. Holtermann seated at centre)
c. 1870-1875
State Library of New South Wales

 

Bernhardt Otto Holtermann (Australian born Germany, 1838-1885)

Bernhardt Otto Holtermann (29 April 1838 – 29 April 1885) was a successful gold miner, businessman, sponsor of photography for the encouragement of immigration and member of parliament. Perhaps his greatest claim to fame is his association with the Holtermann Nugget, the largest gold specimen ever found, 1.5 meters (59 inches) long, weighing 286 kg (630 pounds), in Hill End, near Bathurst, and with an estimated gold content of 3000 troy ounces (93 kg).

Holtermann financed and possibly participated in photographer Beaufoy Merlin’s project to photograph New South Wales and exhibit the results abroad to encourage immigration. The work was taken up after Merlin’s death in 1873 by his assistant, Charles Bayliss. In 1875, Holtermann and Bayliss produced the Holtermann panorama, a series of “23 albumen silver photographs which join together to form a continuous 978-centimetre view of Sydney Harbour and its suburbs.” Some of the photographs, including the panorama, were displayed at the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition, where they won a bronze medal. The panorama was also displayed at the 1878 Exposition Universelle Internationale in Paris. 

Almost seventy years after Holtermann’s death, more than 3,000 of the glass negatives created by Merlin and Bayliss were retrieved from a garden shed in the Sydney suburb of Chatswood. The UNESCO-listed collection of negatives, known as The Holtermann Collection, is housed in the State Library of New South Wales.

Text from the Wikipedia website

 

Mrs Macquarie’s Chair

Mrs Macquarie’s Chair (also known as Lady Macquarie’s Chair) is an exposed sandstone rock cut into the shape of a bench, on a peninsula in Sydney Harbour, hand carved by convicts from sandstone in 1810 for Governor Macquarie’s wife Elizabeth. The peninsula itself is named Mrs Macquarie’s Point, and is part of the The Domain, near the Royal Botanic Gardens. Mrs Macquarie was the wife of Major-General Lachlan Macquarie, Governor of New South Wales from 1810 to 1821. Folklore has it that she used to sit on the rock and watch for ships from Great Britain sailing into the harbour. She was known to visit the area and sit enjoying the panoramic views of the harbour.

Above the chair is a stone inscription referring to Mrs Macquarie’s Road. That road was built between 1813 and 1818, and ran from the original Government House (now the Museum of Sydney) to Mrs Macquarie’s Point. It was built on the instruction of Governor Macquarie for the benefit of his wife. There is no remaining evidence of the original road, other than a culvert over which the road ran.

Text from the Wikipedia website

 

William Blackwood (Australian, 1824-1897) 'Panorama of Sydney & Harbour from Government House' 1858 section 8

 

Blackwood’s Panorama of Sydney & Harbour from Government House 1858 section 8

Sydney Harbour view, sailing ships, Fort Denison, Garden Island, Lady Macquarie’s Chair

 

William Blackwood (Australian, 1824-1897) 'Panorama of Sydney & Harbour from Government House' 1858 section 9

 

Blackwood’s Panorama of Sydney & Harbour from Government House 1858 section 9

Farm Cove, views to Potts Point and Darlinghurst

 

William Blackwood (Australian, 1824-1897) 'Panorama of Sydney & Harbour from Government House' 1858 section 10

 

Blackwood’s Panorama of Sydney & Harbour from Government House 1858 section 10

Farm Cove, views to Potts Point and Darlinghurst

 

Potts Point

Potts Point is named for Joseph Hyde Potts, who was employed by the Bank of New South Wales. He purchased six-and-a-half acres of harbourside land in an area then known as Woolloomooloo Hill – which he renamed Potts Point. Much of the area that today comprises Potts Point and the adjacent suburb of Elizabeth Bay, originally constituted part of a land grant to Alexander Macleay, who was the New South Wales Colonial Secretary from 1826 to 1837, and for whom Macleay Street is named. NSW Judge Advocate, John Wylde (for whom Wylde Street is named) was another 19th-century public servant who owned land in the area.

 

William Blackwood (Australian, 1824-1897) 'Panorama of Sydney & Harbour from Government House' 1858 section 11

 

Blackwood’s Panorama of Sydney & Harbour from Government House 1858 section 11

The Government Domain, Government House Stables

 

William Blackwood (Australian, 1824-1897) 'Panorama of Sydney & Harbour from Government House' 1858 Government House

 

Blackwood’s Panorama of Sydney & Harbour from Government House 1858

Government House with porte cochère

 

Government House

In 1845 the British government agreed that a new Government House in Sydney had become a necessity, and the royal architect, Edward Blore, was instructed to draw up plans. Construction commenced in 1837 and was supervised by colonial architect Mortimer Lewis and Colonel Barney of the Royal Engineers. Stone, cedar, and marble for the construction were obtained from various areas of New South Wales. A ball in honour of the birthday of Queen Victoria was held in the new building in 1843, although construction was not complete. The first resident, Governor George Gipps, did not move in until 1845.

Government House, with its setting on Sydney Harbour, has a garden area of 5 hectares and is located south of the Sydney Opera House, overlooking Farm Cove. It was designed in a romantic Gothic revival style – castellated, crenellated, turreted and is decorated with oil portraits and the coats of arms of its successive occupants. Additions have included a front portico in 1873, an eastern verandah in 1879 and extensions to the ballroom and governor’s study in 1900-01.

Text from Wikipedia website

 

Definition of porte cochère. 1: a passageway through a building or screen wall designed to let vehicles pass from the street to an interior courtyard. 2: a roofed structure extending from the entrance of a building over an adjacent driveway and sheltering those getting in or out of vehicles.

 

John Paine (Australian born England, 1833-1908) 'The entrance gates of Government House, Sydney' c. 1878

 

John Paine (Australian born England, 1833-1908)
The entrance gates of Government House, Sydney
c. 1878
Albumen print
15 x 20.4cm
Caroline Simpson Library & Research Collection

 

The Government House entrance gates and guardhouse, completed in 1848, are shown here in their original location on Macquarie Street. The elaborate iron gates were supported by six sandstone piers: in the centre was the ceremonial entrance, marked by metalwork lanterns complete with crowns, and this was flanked by two carriage gates and a pair of pedestrian gates. The design of the gates and guardhouse is attributed to the Colonial Architect Mortimer Lewis, the gatehouse being identical to the ‘Forest Gate Keeper’s Lodge’ illustrated in H B Zeigler’s ‘The Royal Lodges in Windsor Great Park’ (1839) The Gothic Revival guardhouse consisted of four rooms to accommodate the guard, with open verandahs on two sides, and it was to also serve the Treasury, completed on the opposite side of Macquarie Street c. 1850 (also designed by Lewis). The entrance gates and guardhouse, as a Gothic style entrance lodge, were consistent with Picturesque ideals for the entrance to a large estate and formed an appropriately imposing entrance to the vice regal residence.

 

William Blackwood (Australian, 1824-1897) 'Panorama of Sydney & Harbour from Government House' 1858 back cover

 

Blackwood’s Panorama of Sydney & Harbour from Government House 1858 back cover

 

 

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