Epiphany: a moment in which you suddenly see or understand something in a new or very clear way.
Stephen Shore’s photographs are the most insightful epiphanies in this posting, picturing as they do “what he ate, the rest stops he visited, the people he met.” In other words, the wor(l)d as he saw it.
Dr Marcus Bunyan
Many thankx to The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.
“With the unspoken rules that exhibitions in the Met’s contemporary photography gallery must be drawn exclusively from the museum’s permanent collection and be organised as surveys of the period from the late 1960s to the present, it’s no wonder that these long running shows are often so broad that their themes seem to dissolve into edited collections of everything. The newest selection of images is tied up under the umbrella of “everyday epiphanies”, a construct that implies a delight in the ordinary, the quotidian, or the familiar, but in fact, reaches outward beyond these routine boundaries to works that have a wide variety of conceptual underpinnings and points of view. With some effort, it’s possible to follow the logic of why each piece has been included here, but when seen together, the diversity of the works on view diminishes the show’s ability to deliver any durable insights… The works that function best inside this theme are those that capture moments of unexpected, elemental elegance, often as a result of the way the camera sees the world.”
Martha Rosler (American, b. 1943) Semiotics of the Kitchen (still) 1975 Video Purchase, Henry Nias Foundation Inc. Gift, 2010 Courtesy Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI), New York
Carrie Mae Weems (American, b. 1953) Untitled (Man Smoking) 1990 From the Kitchen Table Series Gelatin silver print Image: 71.8 × 71.8cm (28 1/4 × 28 1/4 in.) Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York
Since the birth of photography in 1839, artists have used the medium to explore subjects close to home – the quotidian, intimate, and overlooked aspects of everyday existence. Everyday Epiphanies: Photography and Daily Life Since 1969, an exhibition of 40 works at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, presents photographs and videos from the last four decades that examine these ordinary moments. The exhibition features photographs by a wide range of artists including John Baldessari, Philip-Lorca diCorcia, Fischli & Weiss, Jan Groover, Robert Gober, Nan Goldin, Elizabeth McAlpine, Gabriel Orozco, David Salle, Robert Smithson, Stephen Shore, and William Wegman, as well as videos by Martha Rosler, Ilene Segalove, Brandon Lttu, and Svetlana and Igor Kopytiansky.
Daily life, as it had been lived in Western Europe and America since the 1950s, was called into question in the late 1960s by a counterculture that rebelled against the prior “cookie-cutter” lifestyle. Everything from feminism to psychedelic drugs to space exploration suggested a nearly infinite array of alternative ways to perceive reality; and artists and thinkers in the ’60s and ’70s proposed a “revolution of everyday life.” A four-part work by David Salle from 1973 exemplifies the artist’s flair for piquant juxtaposition at an early stage in his career. In depicting four women in bathrobes standing before their respective kitchen windows in contemplative states, Salle goes against the grain of feminist orthodoxy – revealing a penchant for courting controversy that he would expand in his later paintings; pasted underneath the black-and-white images of the women are brightly coloured labels of their preferred coffee brands, with the arbitrarily differentiated brands signifying an insufficient substitute for true freedom in the postwar era. Martha Rosler’s bracingly caustic video Semiotics of the Kitchen and Ilene Segalove’s wistfully funny The Mom Tapes complete a trio of works investigating the role of women in a rapidly changing society.
In the 1980s, artists’ renewed interest in conventions of narrative and genre led to often highly staged or produced images that hint at how even our deepest feelings are mediated by the images that surround us. In the wake of the economic crash of the late 1980s, photographers focused increasingly on what was swept under the carpet – the repressed and the taboo. Sally Mann’s Jesse at Five (1987) depicts the artist’s daughter as the central figure, half-dressed, dolled-up, and posed like an adult. Mann often created these frank images of her children and caused some controversy during the culture wars of the late 1980s and early 1990s. However, her photographs of her children are remarkable for the artist’s assured handling of a potentially explosive subject with equanimity and grace.
During the following decade, artists created photographs and videos that confused the real and the imaginary in ways that almost eerily predicted the epistemological quandaries posed by the digital revolution. Meanwhile, a trio of recently made works by Erica Baum, Elizabeth McAlpine, and Brandon Lattu combine process and product in novel ways to comment obliquely on the shifting sands of how we come to know the world in our digital age.
Press release from The Metropolitan Museum of Art website
As a teenager in the 1960s, Shore was one of two in-house photographers at Andy Warhol’s Factory. During his first cross-country photographic road trip, Shore adopted the catholic approach of his mentor, accepting into his art everything that came along – what he ate, the rest stops he visited, the people he met. He then processed his colour film as “drugstore prints”, the imprecise, colloquial term for the kind of amateur non-specialised snapshots that filled family photo albums. The entire series of 229 prints was shown for the first time in 1974 and acquired by the Metropolitan from that exhibition.
Curator: Ingo Taubhorn, with additional cabinet exhibition curation by Dr. Sabine Schnakenberg
PLEASE NOTE: THIS POSTING CONTAINS ART WORK OF FEMALE NUDITY – IF YOU DO NOT LIKE PLEASE DO NOT LOOK, FAIR WARNING HAS BEEN GIVEN
Many thankx to House of Photography at Deichtorhallen Hamburg for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.
House of Photography at Deichtorhallen Hamburg announces an exhibition of the legendary photographer Guy Bourdin (1928-1991), on view from November 1, 2013 – January 26, 2014. This most comprehensive exhibition to date is both an overview of the essential components of Guy Bourdin’s oeuvre and an introduction to unveiling works from his personal archives which have never been seen before. This is the first time that both his works as a painter and his notes on films are being shown at an exhibition. B&W shots dating from the 1950s are also included, showing portraits of artists and views of the city of Paris as well as Polaroids, sketches and texts. The exhibition examines Guy Bourdin’s oeuvre, but moreover, it provides insight into the complex working processes of the photographer’s mind and aims to establish his status as a visionaire image maker.
Guy Bourdin’s career spanned more than forty years during which time he worked for the world’s leading fashion houses and magazines. With the eye of a painter, Guy Bourdin created images that contained fascinating stories, compositions, both in B&W and in colours. He was among the 1st to create images with narratives, telling stories and shows that the image is more important than the product which is displayed. Using fashion photography as his medium, he sent out his message, one that was difficult to decode, exploring the realms between the absurd and the sublime. Famed for his suggestive narratives and surreal aesthetics, he radically broke conventions of commercial photography with a relentless perfectionism and sharp humour.
During the 1950s, Guy Bourdin launched his career with fashion assignments for Vogue Paris working in B&W. It’s nearly unknown, that half of the oeuvre of Guy Bourdin is black-and-white and as amazingly powerful as his colour works. He developed colour photography to its maximum effect, creating dramatic accents with intense colour saturation and textures in his compositions. Guy Bourdin used the format of the double spread magazine page in the most inventive way. He tailored his compositions to the constraints of the printed page both conceptually and graphically, and the mirror motif so central in his work finds its formal counterpart in the doubleness of the magazine spread. Layout and design become powerful metaphors for the photographic medium, engaging the eye and with it, the mind. While on the one hand employing formal elements of composition, Guy Bourdin, on the other hand, sought to transcend the reality of the photographic medium with surreal twists to the apparent subject of his images and his unconventional manipulation of the picture plane. Given total creative freedom and with uncompromising artistic ethic, Guy Bourdin captured the imagination of a whole generation at the late 1970s, recognised as the highest note in his career.
Guy Bourdin was an image maker, a perfectionist. He knew how to grab the attention of the viewer and left nothing to chance. He created impeccable sets, or when not shooting in his studio rue des Ecouffes in le Marais, in undistinguished bedrooms, on the beach, in nature, or in urban landscapes. The unusual dramas that unfold in these seemingly everyday scenes and ordinary encounters pique our subconscious and invite our imagination. Moreover, he developed a technic using hyper real colours, meticulous compositions of cropped elements such as low skies with high grounds and the interplay of light and shadows as well as the unique make-up of the models.
“Guy Bourdin irreverently swept away all the standards of beauty, conventional morals and product portrayals in one fell swoop. Around the female body he constructed visual disruptions, the outrageous, the hair-raising, the indiscreet, the ugly, the doomed, the fragmentary and the absent, torsos and death – all the tension and the entire gamut of what lies beyond the aesthetic and the moral,” explains the exhibition’s curator Ingo Taubhorn. Bourdin investigates in minute detail the variables of fashion photography, from brash posing to subtle performances and from complex settings to novel and disturbing notions of images.
Guy Bourdin’s imagery not only changed the course of fashion photography but influenced a host of contemporary artists, photographers and filmmakers. It is without question, that Guy Bourdin’s work for Vogue and his highly acclaimed print advertising for Charles Jourdan in the 1970s are now being seen in the appropriate context of contemporary art.
Press release from House of Photography at Deichtorhallen Hamburg
Curators: Sarah Greenough, Senior Curator and head of the department of photographs, and Nancy Anderson, head of the department of American and British paintings
William Earle Williams (American, b. 1950) Folly Beach, South Carolina, 1999 1999 Gelatin silver print Image: 19.05 x 19.05cm (7 1/2 x 7 1/2 in.) National Gallery of Art, Washington, Mary and Dan Solomon Fund
This photograph is part of William Earle Williams’ series Unsung Heroes: African American Soldiers in the Civil War, depicting locations where black troops served, fought, and died.
“A man’s face as a rule says more, and more interesting things, than his mouth, for it is a compendium of everything his mouth will ever say, in that it is the monogram of all this man’s thoughts and aspirations.”
Arthur Schopenhauer
Now this is portrait photography, and all done with relatively long exposures. By god did they know how to take a photograph that has some presence, some frame of mind that evidences a distinct point of view. I had the best fun assembling this posting, even though it took me many hours to do so. The details are exquisite – the hands clasped on the lap, the hands holding the pipe and, best of all, the arched hand with the fingers gently touching the patterned fabric – such as you don’t observe today. The research to find out as much as I could about these people was both fascinating and tragic: “Abraham Brown accidentally killed himself while cleaning his gun on July 11, 1863.”
It is interesting to see the images without an over-mat so that you can observe the backdrop and props in the photographers studio, captured on the whole plate. The narrative external to the matted image, outside the frame. But this view of the image gives a spurious reading of the structure and tension points of the photograph. Any photographer worth his salt previsualises the image and these photographers would have been no different. They would have known their studio, their backdrops and props, and would have known which over-mat they were going to place the finished image in (chosen by themselves or the client). Look at any of the images I have over-matted in white and see how the images come alive in terms of their tension points and structure. How the body takes on a more central feature of the image. How props such as the American flag in Private Abraham F. Brown (1863, below) form a balancing triangle to the figure using the flag, the chair and the trunk as anchor points. This is how these images were intended to be seen and it is this form that gives them the most presence and power.
While it is intriguing to see what lies beyond the over-mat this continuum should not be the centre of our attention for it is the histories, subjectivities and struggles of these brave men that should be front and centre, just as they appear within this cartouche of their life.
Dr Marcus Bunyan
PS. I have just noticed that the Ambrotype by an unknown photographer Unidentified Private, Company I, 54th Massachusetts Regiment (1863, below) and the Albumen print by an unknown photographer Private James Matthew Townsend (1863, below) are taken in the same studio – notice the table and fabric and the curtain at right hand side. They were probably taken at the same sitting when both men were present. One obviously chose an Ambrotype and the other an Albumen print, probably because of cost?
Many thankx to the National Gallery of Art, Washington for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.
Unknown photographer Unidentified Private, Company I, 54th Massachusetts Regiment (details) 1863 Ambrotype Overall: 11.2 x 8.6cm (4 7/16 x 3 3/8 in.) Image: 8.7 x 6.4cm (3 7/16 x 2 1/2 in.) The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History
Unknown photographer Private Abraham F. Brown 1863 Tintype Mat: 17.8 x 12.7cm (7 x 5 in.) Image: 8 x 7cm (3 1/8 x 2 3/4 in.) Courtesy of the Massachusetts Historical Society
This photograph depicts Private Abraham F. Brown, a member of Company E, part of the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment, the first black regiment raised in the North during the Civil War.
Unknown photographer Private Abraham F. Brown(with over-mat) 1863 Tintype
Portrait as it would have originally been mated. The outline of the original mat can be seen in the image above.
Unknown photographer Private Abraham F. Brown (inverted with over-mat to show background extraneous to portrait) 1863 Tintype
Obscured image without overmat in order to show the original painted backdrop behind the figure in isolation.
Unknown photographer Private Abraham F. Brown (detail) 1863 Tintype
Obscured image without overmat in order to show the original painted backdrop behind the figure in isolation – detail of writing on wheel
Unknown photographer Private Abraham F. Brown 1863 Tintype Mat: 17.8 x 12.7cm (7 x 5 in.) Image: 8 x 6.5cm (3 1/8 x 2 9/16 in.) Courtesy of the Massachusetts Historical Society
Abraham F. Brown (American, b. c. 1833-1863)
Private Abraham F. Brown probably had his portrait made shortly after the 54th arrived in SC in June 1863. A sailor born in Toronto, Canada, Abraham Brown accidentally killed himself while cleaning his gun on July 11, 1863, on James Island, northwest of Fort Wagner.
During the Civil War, he served as a Private in Company E of the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry of the Union Army, the first regiment in the United States made up entirely of enlisted men of color. He was about 30 years old, single and working as a seaman when he enlisted on 4 April 1863 from Toronto, New York [sic]. He was killed on 11 July 1863 “accidentally by himself” on James Island in South Carolina one week before the Second Battle of Fort Wagner.
Unknown photographer Private Abraham F. Brown (with over-mat) 1863 Tintype
Portrait as it would have originally been mated. The outline of the original mat can be seen in the image above.
Unknown photographer Private Richard Gomar c. 1880 Tintype Mat: 17.8 x 12.7cm (7 x 5 in.) Image: 8.5 x 6cm (3 3/8 x 2 3/8 in.) Courtesy of the Massachusetts Historical Society
Richard Gomar (aka Gomes) (American, 1846-1895)
Richard Gomar enlisted in Company H on 17 April 1863 at the age of seventeen and was mustered in on 13 May. He was a labourer from Battle Creek, Michigan. He was mustered out after the regiment’s return to Boston on 20 August 1865. He received a state bounty of $50, and his last known address was Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
Portrayed here in a half-length study, Gomar is in civilian clothes and on his waistcoat is wearing a membership badge of the Grand Army of the Republic, the Union veterans’ organisation. This version of the badge was adopted in 1880. According to regulation, Gomar wears the badge on the left breast of his waistcoat, but the tintype process has reversed the image.
Richard Gomar (aka Gomes) was born on August 12, 1846 in Battle Creek Michigan to Joseph Gomar and Hannah Teabelt. He was working as a laborer before traveling to Boston to enlist on April 17, 1863, and was mustered in as a Private in Company H, 54th Massachusetts Infantry on May 13, 1863, receiving a state bounty of $50. The regiment fought famously at Fort Wagner on James Island, South Carolina where they suffered over 300 casualties, but they also fought bravely in the Battles of Olustee, Florida, Honey Hill, South Carolina, and Boykin’s Mills, South Carolina, as well as many other skirmishes in Florida and South Carolina. Private Gomar was sick at Morris Island, South Carolina from January to March 1865. He mustered out with his company on August 20, 1865 at Mount Pleasant, South Carolina.
Gomar enlisted in Troop K, 10th U.S. Cavalry, one of the original “Buffalo Soldier” regiments on August 14, 1867, at Fort Riley, Kansas serving through his discharge on August 14, 1872. The regiment transferred HQ to Fort Gibson, Indian Territory (present day Oklahoma), fighting during the Indian Wars, including against Black Kettle’s band of Cheyenne, and the Comanches out of Camp Wichita.
Following his service in the 10th U.S. Cavalry, he moved to Cedar Rapids, Iowa where he worked as a janitor, married Amelia Kelly in 1886 and they adopted a son. Richard Gomar passed away on July 28, 1895 in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
David Lay. “Richard Gomar,” on the Stories of the United States Colored Troops Facebook page December 18, 2023 [Online] Cited 24/03/2026. Used under fair use conditions for the purposes of education and research
H. C. Foster (?) Private John Gooseberry, musician 1864 Tintype Mat: 17.8 x 12.7cm (7 x 5 in.) Image: 10 x 6.8cm (3 15/16 x 2 2/3 in.) Plate: 10.7 x 8.1cm (4 3/16 x 3 3/16 in.) Courtesy of the Massachusetts Historical Society
John Gooseberry (American, c. 1838-1876)
One of the twenty-one Black recruits from Canada, twenty-five-pear-old Goosberry, a sailor of St. Catharines, Ontario, was mustered into Company E on July 16, 1863, just two days before the fateful assault on Fort Wagner. He was mustered out of service on August 20, 1865, at the disbanding of the regiment. Born in New Orleans, he survived the war but died destitute at about age 38.
Goosberry appears in this full-length photograph wearing his uniform as a company musician, holding a fife and standing before a plain backdrop. The buttons and buckle of the uniform have been hand coloured, and there is an impression remaining on the tintype from an earlier oval frame.
H. C. Foster (?) Private John Gooseberry, musician (detail) 1864 Tintype
H. C. Foster (?) Private Alexander H. Johnson, musician 1864 Tintype Mat: 17.8 x 12.7cm (7 x 5 in.) Image: 8 x 6.5cm (3 1/8 x 2 9/16 in.) Courtesy of the Massachusetts Historical Society
Johnson served as a musician in Co. C. of the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment. Colonel Shaw referred to Private Alexander Johnson, a 16-year-old recruit from New Bedford, Massachusetts, as the “original drummer boy.” He was with Shaw when the colonel died at Fort Wagner and carried important messages to other officers during the battle.
Alexander H. Johnson enlisted at the age of 16 as a drummer boy in the 54th Massachusetts Infantry. He was the first black musician to enlist during the Civil War, and is depicted as the drummer leading the column of troops on the memorial honouring Colonel Shaw and the 54th Massachusetts in front of the Massachusetts state house in Boston. Alex was adopted by William Henry Johnson, the second black lawyer in the United States and close associate of Frederick Douglass. Johnson’s original surname was Howard and his mother was a Perry. His grandfather was Peter Perry, a native Hawaiian whaler who married an Indian woman.
After the war, Alex Johnson was a member of both the Grand Army of the Republic General George H. Ward Post #10 and of the Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War in Worcester, Massachusetts. He is frequently mentioned in the book We All Got History by Nick Salvatore. Alexander Johnson died 19 March 1930, at the age of 82, just a few weeks after the 67th anniversary of his enlistment in the 54th.
H. C. Foster (?) Private Alexander H. Johnson, musician(detail) 1864 Tintype
Alexander H. Johnson (American, 1846-1930)
Of all the pictures of 54th Regiment soldiers that we exhibited, the tintype of Private Alexander Howard Johnson, who played the drum, was one of the most haunting. He looks so young, vulnerable, and hesitant. Only 17 years old when he enlisted in 1863, he was, like many other drummers, younger than the regulation minimum age of 18. But the army, desperate for recruits, turned a blind eye.
Although today we tend to think of drummers in their ceremonial role, leading troops in parade, in fact they served a critical function in battle. During the deafening noise and chaos, when it was often impossible to hear an officer’s commands, the drummers issued orders through different drumbeats – one sequence for advance, another for attack, and still others to signal retreat and imminent danger. They also helped carry wounded soldiers to field hospitals and aided medical personnel in amputations and other procedures.
Despite his youth, Private Johnson was probably well prepared to assume such an important and dangerous job. Born Alexander Howard in New Bedford, Massachusetts, he was, for unknown reasons, separated from his parents before the age of five and adopted by William Henry Johnson, a local, influential Black man. Before he enlisted, Alexander was a seaman, another perilous profession that required physical strength along with the ability to work well with others and quickly assess rapidly changing situations. This experience served Private Johnson well. Colonel Shaw singled him out in his letters as “the original drummer boy,” and he was with the colonel when he died in the Battle of Fort Wagner. Private Johnson went on to participate in several other battles, including Major General William Tecumseh Sherman’s infamous March to the Sea.
Unlike many of his comrades, Private Johnson survived the Civil War and returned home to New Bedford. A few years later he moved to Worcester, Massachusetts, where he married Mary Johnson in 1870. They had 17 children, but sadly only five survived into adulthood – a troubling indication of the poor healthcare afforded to African Americans. In 1907 Private Johnson was honored by a local newspaper that proclaimed him one of the best drummers in Massachusetts and noted that there was “hardly a drummer who marches the streets of Worcester who has not received instruction from him.” When Johnson died in 1930, another newspaper noted that he had been an active member of the Grand Army of the Republic, a fraternal order of Union army veterans and one of the first advocacy groups to support voting rights for Black veterans. The obituary also referenced his nickname. While African Americans had not been allowed to be officers during the Civil War, Johnson had always worn a military cap, prompting his neighbours to call him Major.
In 1904 Private Johnson, along with other members of the Grand Army of the Republic, visited the bronze version of The Shaw 54th Regiment Memorial installed across from the State House in Boston, Massachusetts. All agreed that the drummer in the memorial strongly resembled Private Johnson, even though he had never posed for Saint-Gaudens.
They also recognised, as so many others have before and since, that the figure of the drummer – the first in line, the smallest in stature, and the youngest in age – was a compelling symbol of the bravery of even the most vulnerable in the fight for freedom. If not in fact, then in spirit, The Shaw 54th Regiment Memorial is a commanding monument to the heroism of Private Alexander Howard Johnson and all the soldiers of the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry.
Sarah Greenough. “Remembering Private Alexander Howard Johnson,” on the National Gallery of Art website, November 9, 2021 [Online] Cited 24/03/2026. Used under fair use conditions for the purposes of education and research
Unknown photographer Private William J. Netson, musician c. 1863-1864 Tintype Mat: 17.8 x 12.7cm (7 x 5 in.) Image: 8.5 x 6.5cm (3 3/8 x 2 9/16 in.) Courtesy of the Massachusetts Historical Society
William J. Netson (American, b. c. 1836 – 1912)
Netson served as a Musician, in Co. E, of the 54th Massachuetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment.
Born about 1836, Netson enlisted in the 54th Massachusetts on April 4, 1863. He served in Company E as a musician. While helping a wounded soldier at the Battle of Olustee, horses pulling an artillery caisson knocked him over. Netson sustained an injury to his left eye and back that bothered him for the rest of his life. He died in 1912 in Connecticut.
William Netson was born at sea about 1836. His father was born in the West Indies.
During the Civil War, he was a private in the all Black 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, Company K. Enlisted on 4 April 1863 from Niagara, New York. He was 27 years old, single and working as a labourer when he enlisted. Mustered out 20 August 1865 and settled in Norwich, Connecticut.
Unknown photographer Private William J. Netson, musician (with over-mat) c. 1863-1864 Tintype
Portrait as it would have originally been mated. The outline of the original mat can be seen in the image above.
Unknown photographer Private Charles A. Smith c. 1880 Tintype Overall: 8.7 x 6.2cm (3 7/16 x 2 7/16 in.) Image: 8.7 x 6cm (3 7/16 x 2 3/8 in.) Courtesy of the Massachusetts Historical Society
Charles A. Smith (American, b. c. 1844 – d. unknown)
Smith served as a Private in Co. C. of the 54th Massachuetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment.
During the Civil War, he served as a Private in Company C of the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry of the Union Army, the second regiment in the United States made up entirely of enlisted men of color. He was about 19 years old, single and working as a laborer when he enlisted. Mustered out 20 August 1865 with his regiment.
Company C participated in the Second Battle of Fort Wagner on 18 July 1863, the Battle of Olustee on 20 February 1864, and picketed at the Coosawhatchie crossroads during the Battle of Honey Hill.
Unknown photographer Sergeant Henry F. Steward 1863 Ambrotype Mat: 17.8 x 12.7cm (7 x 5 in.) Image: 10.5 x 8cm (4 1/8 x 3 1/8 in.) Courtesy of the Massachusetts Historical Society
A twenty-three year old farmer from Adrian, Michigan, Henry Steward enlisted on 4 April 1863 and was mustered in on April 23. As a non-commissioned officer, as were all Black officers, Steward was actively engaged in the recruiting of soldiers for the regiment. He died of disease at the regimental hospital on Morris Island, South Carolina, on 27 September 1863, and his estate was paid a $50 state bounty. Standing at attention with his sword drawn in this full-length study, Steward is posed in front of a plain backdrop, but a portable column has been wheeled in to add detail on the left. Hand-coloured trousers and buttons highlight the uniform in this Ambrotype of Sergeant Steward.
Beginning in March 1863, African American recruits streamed into Camp Meigs on the outskirts of Boston, eager to enlist in the 54th. By May, the regiment numbered more than 1,000 soldiers. Most were freemen working as farmers or labourers; some were runaway slaves. Many of the new enlistees, proud of their professions and uniforms, had photographs of themselves taken. Their pictures recall Frederick Douglass’ 1863 speech before an audience of potential recruits: “Once let the black man get upon his person the brass letters, U.S.; let him get an eagle on his button and a musket on his shoulder and bullets in his pocket, and there is no power on the earth or under the earth which can deny that he has earned the right of citizenship in the United States.”
Henry F. Steward, shown here, actively recruited for the 54th in Michigan. He had been promoted to sergeant soon after he arrived at Camp Meigs and probably had this portrait made shortly after he received his rifle and uniform. Proud of his new career, Stewart paid an extra fee to have the photographer tint his cap, sword, breastplate, and pants with paint to highlight their importance. Steward survived the Battle of Fort Wagner but died just over two months later, most likely of dysentery.
Unknown photographer Sergeant Henry F. Steward (with over-mat) 1863 Ambrotype
Portrait as it would have originally been mated. The outline of the original mat can be seen in the image above.
Continuing its year-long celebration of African American history, art, music, and culture, the National Gallery of Art announces a major exhibition honouring one of the first regiments of African Americans formed during the Civil War. Tell It with Pride: The 54th Massachusetts Regiment and Augustus Saint-Gaudens’ Shaw Memorial will be on view in the American galleries on the West Building’s Main Floor from September 15, 2013, through January 20, 2014. The 54th Massachusetts fought in the Battle of Fort Wagner, South Carolina, on July 18, 1863, an event that has been documented and retold in many forms, including the popular movie Glory, released in 1989.
“Then, as today, the soldiers of the 54th Massachusetts Regiment captured the imagination: they were common men propelled by deep moral principles, willing to sacrifice everything for a nation that had taken much from them but now promised liberty,” said Earl A. Powell III, director, National Gallery of Art. “This exhibition celebrates the brave members of the 54th, Augustus Saint-Gaudens’ Shaw Memorial commemorating their heroism, and the works of art they and the monument continue to inspire.”
The magisterial Shaw Memorial (1900) by Augustus Saint-Gaudens (1848-1907), on long-term loan to the Gallery from the U.S. Department of the Interior, the National Park Service, and the Saint-Gaudens National Historic Site, is considered by many to be one of the finest examples of 19th-century American sculpture. This monument commemorates the July 18, 1863, storming of Fort Wagner by Colonel Robert Gould Shaw and the 54th Massachusetts, a troop of African American soldiers led by white officers that was formed immediately after President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation. Although one-third of the regiment was killed or wounded in the assault, including Shaw himself, the fierce battle was considered by many to be a turning point in the war: it proved that African Americans could be exemplary soldiers, with a bravery and dedication to country that equaled the nation’s most celebrated heroes.
Part of the exhibition’s title, “Tell It with Pride,” is taken from an anonymous letter written to the Shaw family announcing the death of Robert Gould Shaw. The letter is included in the exhibition and the catalogue accompanying the show.
When Saint-Gaudens created the figures in the memorial, he based his depiction of Shaw on photographs of the colonel, but he hired African American models, not members of the 54th Massachusetts, to pose for the other soldiers. This exhibition seeks to make real the anonymous African American soldiers of the 54th, giving them names and faces where possible. The first section of the exhibition shows vintage photographic portraits of the soldiers, the people who recruited them – including the noted abolitionists Frederick Douglass, Wendell Phillips, Charles Lenox Remond, and Sojourner Truth – and the women who nursed, taught, and guided them, such as Clara Barton, Charlotte Forten, and Harriet Tubman. In addition, the exhibition presents a copy of the Emancipation Proclamation, a recruiting poster, a letter written by a soldier, Corporal James Henry Gooding, to President Lincoln arguing for equal pay, and the Medal of Honor awarded to the first African American to earn this distinction, Sergeant William H. Carney, as well as other documents related to both the 54th Massachusetts and the Battle of Fort Wagner. Together, these works of art and documents detail critical events in American history and highlight both the sacrifices and the valour of the individual soldiers.
The second half of the exhibition looks at the continuing legacy of the 54th Massachusetts, the Battle of Fort Wagner, and the Shaw Memorial. By presenting some of the plaster heads Saint-Gaudens made in preparation for his work on the Shaw Memorial, the exhibition discusses its development from 1883, when Saint Gaudens’ concept began to take shape, through the installation of the bronze monument on Boston Common in 1897, to the artist’s final re-working in the late 1890s of the original plaster now on view at the National Gallery of Art. The exhibition concludes by showing how the Shaw Memorial remains a deeply compelling work that continues to inspire artists as diverse as Lewis Hine, Richard Benson, Carrie Mae Weems, and William Earle Williams, who have reflected on these people, the event, and the monument itself in their own art.”
For over a century, the 54th Massachusetts, its famous battle at Fort Wagner, and the Shaw Memorial have remained compelling subjects for artists. Poets such as Paul Laurence Dunbar and Robert Lowell praised the bravery of these soldiers, as did composer Charles Ives. Artists as diverse as Lewis Hine, Richard Benson, Carrie Mae Weems, and William Earle Williams have highlighted the importance of the 54th as a symbol of racial pride, personal sacrifice, and national resilience. These artists’ works illuminate the enduring legacy of the 54th Massachusetts in the American imagination and serve as a reminder, as Ralph Ellison wrote in an introduction to Invisible Man, “that war could, with art, be transformed into something deeper and more meaningful than its surface violence.
Press release from the National Gallery of Art website
Unknown photographer Private Charles H. Arnum 1864 Tintype Mat: 17.8 x 12.7cm (7 x 5 in.) Image: 10 x 6.5cm (3 15/16 x 2 9/16 in.) Courtesy of the Massachusetts Historical Society
Charles H. Arum (American, b. c. 1843 – 1943)
Listed as a teamster and a resident of Springfield, Massachusetts, the twenty-one year old Arnum enlisted at Littleton and was mustered in as a private into Company E on November 4, 1863. He served with the regiment until it was disbanded on August 20, 1865. He received $325 as a state bounty, and his last known address was North Adams, Massachusetts.
This full-length study of Arnum shows him in uniform with his hand resting upon the American flag, which is draped over a table in the foreground. Behind him is a painted backdrop representing a seashore military camp.
Unknown photographer Second Lieutenant Ezekiel G. Tomlinson, Captain Luis F. Emilio, and Second Lieutenant Daniel Spear October 12, 1863 Tintype Overall: 8.6 x 6.5cm (3 3/8 x 2 9/16 in.) Image: 8.3 x 6.2cm (3 1/4 x 2 7/16 in.) Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division
Ezekiel G. Tomlinson (American, 1841-1885)
Born to John and Catherine Tomlinson within the Quaker faith, Ezekiel, along with his 9 siblings grew up without a Father, as John died about 1850. To assist support of his family, he enlisted as a Seaman in the Port of Philadelphia at the age of 18. Ezekiel volunteered early during the Civil War and enlisted as First Sergeant and then Sergeant Major, 29th Penn Infantry July 9, 1861. This was followed by being mustered in to the 54th Massachusetts Infantry as a 2nd Lieutenant on 15 September 1863. He was quickly recommended for promotion to 1st Lieutenant by the Governor of Massachusetts, taking effect 6 January 1864. During the Florida campaign, he was injured and resigned (disability) May 3, 1864.
During the Civil War, he served as a white commissioned officer – Second Lieutenant – in the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry of the Union Army, the second regiment in the United States made up entirely of enlisted men of color. He was about 23 years old, single and working as a sailmaker when he enlisted as a Second Lieutenant on 19 July 1863 from Boston, Massachusetts. He did not muster, however, until 13 March 1864. Resigned 12 June 1865.
Prior to his service with the 54th, he also served in Company H of the 24th Massachusetts in 1861 and again briefly at the beginning of 1864.
John Adams Whipple (American, 1822-1891) Colonel Robert Gould Shaw 1863 Albumen print Image: 8.4 x 5.8cm (3 5/16 x 2 5/16 in.) Boston Athenaeum
Death at the Battle of Fort Wagner
The 54th Regiment was sent to Charleston, South Carolina to take part in the operations against the Confederates stationed there. On July 18, 1863, along with two brigades of white troops, the 54th assaulted Confederate Battery Wagner. As the unit hesitated in the face of fierce Confederate fire, Shaw led his men into battle by shouting, “Forward, Fifty-Fourth, forward!” He mounted a parapet and urged his men forward, but was shot through the heart and died almost instantly. According to the Colors Sergeant of the 54th, he was shot and killed while trying to lead the unit forward and fell on the outside of the fort.
The victorious Confederates buried him in a mass grave with many of his men, an act they intended as an insult. Following the battle, commanding Confederate General Johnson Hagood returned the bodies of the other Union officers who had died, but left Shaw’s where it was. Hagood informed a captured Union surgeon that “had he been in command of white troops, I should have given him an honourable burial; as it is, I shall bury him in the common trench with the niggers that fell with him.” Although the gesture was intended as an insult, it came to be seen as an honour by Shaw’s friends and family that he was buried with his soldiers.
Efforts were made to recover Shaw’s body (which had been stripped and robbed prior to burial), but his father publicly proclaimed that he was proud to know that his son was interred with his troops, befitting his role as a soldier and a crusader for emancipation. In a letter to the regimental surgeon, Lincoln Stone, Frank Shaw wrote:
“We would not have his body removed from where it lies surrounded by his brave and devoted soldiers… We can imagine no holier place than that in which he lies, among his brave and devoted followers, nor wish for him better company – what a body-guard he has!”
Annie Haggerty Shaw, a widow at the age of 28, never remarried. She lived with her family in New York, Lenox and abroad, a revered figure and in later years an invalid. She died in 1907 and is buried at the cemetery of Church-on-the Hill in Lenox.
John Adams Whipple (September 10, 1822 – April 10, 1891) was an American inventor and early photographer. He was the first in the United States to manufacture the chemicals used for daguerreotypes; he pioneered astronomical and night photography; he was a prize-winner for his extraordinary early photographs of the moon; and he was the first to produce images of stars other than the sun (the star Vega and the Mizar-Alcor stellar sextuple system), which was thought to be a double star until 2009.
Unknown photographer Captain Luis F. Emilio c. 1863-1865 Tintype Overall: 12.7 x 7.62cm (5 x 3 in.) Image: 6.6 x 5.33cm (2 5/8 x 2 1/8 in.) Pamplin Historical Park and The National Museum of the Civil War Soldier
Luis F. Emilio (American, 1844-1918)
Luis F. Emilio (December 22, 1844 – September 16, 1918) was a Captain in the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, an American Civil War Union regiment. Emilio was born on December 22, 1844 in Salem, Massachusetts, the son of a Spanish immigrant who made his living as a music instructor. Although the minimum age for service in the Union army was 18, in 1861 – at age 16 – Emilio gave his age as 18 and enlisted in Company F of the 23rd Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry. He was noticeably brave and steadfast, and by September, 1862 he had been promoted to the rank of Sergeant.
Emilio was among the group of original officers of the 54th selected by Massachusetts War Governor John Albion Andrew. He mustered in as a 2nd Lieutenant on March 30, 1863. Two weeks later, he was promoted to 1st Lieutenant, and on May 27, he was made Captain of Company E. Captain Emilio emerged from the ferocious assault on Fort Wagner on July 18, 1863 as the regiment’s acting commander, since all of the other ranking officers had been killed or wounded. He fought with the 54th for over three years of dangerous combat, mustering out of the Union army on March 29, 1865, still not yet 21 years old.
Following the war, he went into the real estate business, first in San Francisco, and later in New York. After assisting two old comrades documenting the history of the 23rd Massachusetts regiment in the mid-1880s, he began work on his own documentation of the 54th, publishing the first edition of Brave Black Regiment in 1891, and the revised edition in 1894. He died in New York on September 16, 1918 after a long illness, and was buried in the Harmony Grove Cemetery in Salem, Massachusetts.
Unknown photographer Unidentified Private, Company I, 54th Massachusetts Regiment 1863 Ambrotype Overall: 11.2 x 8.6cm (4 7/16 x 3 3/8 in.) Image: 8.7 x 6.4cm (3 7/16 x 2 1/2 in.) The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History
Major J. W. Appleton (American, 1832–1913) Diary of Major J. W. Appleton open to tintype of Private Samuel J. Benton c. 1865-1885 Handwritten journal with clippings, drawings, and photographic prints Page size: 35.56 x 20.96 cm (14 x 8 1/4 in.) Image: 6.5 x 5.2cm (2 9/16 x 2 1/16 in.) West Virginia University Libraries, West Virginia and Regional History Collection
John W.M. Appleton (1832–1913) was a prominent Union officer in the American Civil War, best known as a captain (later Major) in the 54th Massachusetts Infantry, the first African American regiment recruited in the North. He led Company A in key combat actions across South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida.
Samuel J. Benton (b. c. 1845 – d. unknown) was a private in Company A of the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry of the Union Army, the first regiment in the United States made up entirely of enlisted men of color. He was about 18 years old, single and working as a waiter when he enlisted on 11 March 1863 in New York, New York. On 30 April 1863, during a private quarrel, he shot and killed Corporal William Wilson. He was tried and sentenced to imprisonment or hanging commuted to ten years imprisonment and served time until December 1865 when he was pardoned by order of the War Department. Discharged 4 December 1865 from Boston, Massachusetts.
On March 11, 1863, eighteen-year-old Samuel J. Benton enlisted in the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment. Benton was from Charlton, New York, a small farming community in Saratoga County. The 54th Massachusetts began recruiting in Boston in mid-February, however more soldiers were needed and recruiters turned their attention to states throughout the Northeast and Midwest and even into Canada to locate enough eligible black men to fill the regiment. At the time of his enlistment, Benton was working as a waiter in New York City, and was recruited by Lieutenant John W.M. Appleton. (For his efforts, Appleton was promoted and given command of Company A of the 54th Massachusetts.)
About a month later, William Wilson, a twenty-nine-year-old laborer, also enlisted in the 54th Massachusetts in Indianapolis, Indiana. Wilson joined Benton as a private in Company “A” of the regiment, and was soon promoted to corporal. Together they went off to war after the regiment was fully recruited on May 14, 1863. After a period of intense training under Colonel Robert G. Shaw, the 54th Massachusetts experienced its first heavy combat in July 1863 at Battery Wagner, at the tip of Morris Island, South Carolina. As members of Company “A”, Private Benton, Corporal Wilson, and Captain Appleton were in the thick of the fighting, which cost Colonel Shaw his life, and resulted in 281 casualties for the regiment.
Captain Appleton, who was wounded twice in the fighting at Battery Wagner, was promoted and sent to recuperate in a hospital in Boston. (He eventually resigned his commission in November 1864 due his wounds.) Benton and Wilson survived the battle unscathed, and continued to campaign in Florida and South Carolina with the 54th Massachusetts until April 1865. Their last campaign, commanded by General Edward E. Potter, consisted of raid through South Carolina’s Low Country, from their base in Georgetown towards Camden. The 54th Massachusetts was tasked with destroying railroads and capturing the “vast amount of rolling stock” that had been trapped during Sherman’s March to the Sea. Sherman’s instructions were blunt, “[The] food supplies in that section should be exhausted [and] those cars and locomotives should be destroyed if to do it costs you 500 men.”
Potter’s Raid began on April 5, 1865, and continued until April 21st, when news of a general cease fire was received. Potter’s Raid consisted of some of the last engagements of the Civil War, including a battle at Boykin’s Mill on April 18th. The 54th Massachusetts lost two men killed and 13 wounded in the fighting, including Private James P. Johnson, a twenty-one-year-old from Owego, New York, and Company “A” commander Lieutenant Edward L. Stevens, who was the last Union officer killed in action during the war. (Stevens had replaced Lieutenant Frederick Rogers as Company “A” commander, who was wounded earlier in the raid. Stevens was killed by a fourteen-year-old Confederate Home Guardsman.) Upon their return to Georgetown, on March 25th, Potter reported that his men had marched over 300 miles, destroyed 16 locomotives and 245 rail cars, burned 51,000 bales of cotton, and liberated approximately 5,000 slaves. The war for the 54th Massachusetts, was over.
A few days after their return, the troops in Georgetown began to depart for other posts. Unfortunately, the end of the war did not mean the end of the killing. On March 30th, in what was described officially as a “private quarrel,” Private Benton shot and killed Corporal Wilson. Benton was court-martialed and sentenced to be hanged. (There is no record of where Wilson was buried.) Shortly afterwards, Benton’s sentence was commuted to ten years imprisonment. In August 1865, Benton and eight other civilian inmates of the Charleston Jail escaped. However, he was swiftly recaptured and sent to Fort Delaware, on Pea Patch Island in the Delaware River, in September 1865. Benton also had friends at the Convent of Our Lady of Mercy in Charleston, as Mother Superior Teresa Barry and Sister Xavier Dunn wrote a letter on October 16, 1865, asking for a “pardon of Samuel J. Benton, colored, 54th Massachusetts Volunteers, imprisoned in Fort Delaware for the crime of murder.”
Edward Townsend, the acting Adjutant General of the U.S. Army replied to the letter from the Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy, assuring him that the “release of Benton” had been ordered “by letter from this office.” However, what Townsend didn’t reveal was that on December 4th, the War Department had directed the “release and discharge without pay” of all the convicts at Fort Delaware. (The War Department wanted to close Fort Delaware to save money.) As a result, Benton was returned to Boston and officially discharged by the State of Massachusetts in January 1866. The last known information about Benton is from the 1870 Census, where Benton is listed as a boat porter in Ward 10 of New Orleans, Louisiana.
Anonymous text from the This Week in the Civil War Facebook page, March 12, 2025 [Oline] Cited 24/03/2026. Used under fair use conditions for the purposes of education and research
Unknown photographer Sergeant Major John Wilson June 3, 1864 Albumen print Image: 9.1 x 5.8cm (3 9/16 x 2 5/16 in.) West Virginia University Libraries, West Virginia and Regional History Collection
John Wilson, a painter from Cincinnati, Ohio, had this portrait made a month after he was promoted to sergeant major in May 1864. One of only five African American non-commissioned officers in the regiment at the time, Wilson proudly displayed his stripes and cap with its horn and the number “54.”
Unknown photographer Private James Matthew Townsend 1863 Albumen print Image: 8.6 x 5.8cm (3 3/8 x 2 5/16 in.) Collection of Greg French
Abraham Bogardus (American, 1822-1902) Major Martin Robison Delany c. 1865 Albumen print Image: 8.6 x 5.3cm (3 3/8 x 2 1/16 in.) Courtesy of the National Park Service, Gettysburg National Military Park
Martin Robison Delany (May 6, 1812 – January 24, 1885) was an African-American abolitionist, journalist, physician, and writer, arguably the first proponent of American black nationalism. He was one of the first three blacks admitted to Harvard Medical School. Trained as an assistant and a physician, he treated patients during the cholera epidemics of 1833 and 1854 in Pittsburgh, when many doctors and residents fled the city. Active in recruiting blacks for the United States Colored Troops, he was commissioned as a major, the first African-American field officer in the United States Army during the American Civil War.
Abraham Bogardus (November 29, 1822 – March 22, 1908) was an American Daguerreotypist and photographer who made some 200,000 daguerreotypes during his career.
Unknown photographer Captain Norwood P. Hallowell c. 1862-1863 Albumen print Overall: 10.16 x 6.35cm (4 x 2 1/2 in.) Image: 8.8 x 5.9cm (3 7/16 x 2 5/16 in.) Pamplin Historical Park and The National Museum of the Civil War Soldier Courtesy of Pamplin Historical Park & The National Museum of the Civil War Soldier
Norwood Penrose “Pen” Hallowell (April 13, 1839 – April 11, 1914) was an officer in the Union Army during the American Civil War. One of three brothers to serve with distinction during the war, he and his brother Edward Needles Hallowell both became commanders of the first all-black regiments. He is also remembered for his close friendship with and influence upon future Supreme Court justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., who was his classmate at Harvard and his comrade during the war.
Hallowell’s fervent abolitionism led him to volunteer for service in the Civil War, and he inspired Holmes to do the same. He was commissioned a first lieutenant on July 10, 1861, joining the 20th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry with his brother, Edward, and Holmes. Hallowell fought in the Battle of Ball’s Bluff on October 21, 1861, in which he distinguished himself by leading a line of skirmishers to hold off Confederate forces. Hallowell then swam across the Potomac River, constructed a makeshift raft, and made several trips to the Virginia bank to rescue trapped Union soldiers before his raft fell apart. Hallowell was promoted to captain on November 26, 1861. He was wounded in the Battle of Glendale on June 30, 1862, and suffered more severe wounds in the Battle of Antietam on September 17. His left arm was shattered by a bullet but later saved by a surgeon; Holmes was shot in the neck. Both took refuge in a farmhouse (a historic site now known as the Royer-Nicodemus House and Farm) and were eventually evacuated.
On April 17, 1863, he was promoted to lieutenant colonel, as second-in-command (after Colonel Robert Gould Shaw) of the 54th Massachusetts, one of the first all-black regiments in the U.S. On May 30, he accepted Governor John A. Andrew’s personal request that he be made colonel in command of the 55th Massachusetts, another all-black regiment. He and his regiment were stationed at Charleston Harbor and participated in the siege and eventual taking of Fort Wagner; Hallowell was one of the first to enter the fort after its abandonment. Hallowell faced continuing disability due to his wounds, and was discharged on November 2, 1863.
J. E. Farwell and Co. To Colored Men. 54th Regiment! Massachusetts Volunteers, of African Descent 1863 Ink on paper Overall: 109.9 x 75.2cm (43 1/4 x 29 5/8 in.) Courtesy of the Massachusetts Historical Society
The Massachusetts 54th Regiment was the first military unit consisting of black soldiers to be raised in the North during the Civil War. Prior to 1863, no concerted effort was made to recruit black troops as Union soldiers. At the beginning of the war, black men offered to serve as soldiers for the Union cause, however these offers were rejected by the military establishment and the country as a whole. A few makeshift regiments were raised – including the First South Carolina Regiment with whom the 54th Regiment would serve at Fort Wagner – however most were raised in the South and consisted primarily of escaped and abandoned slaves. (Footnote 1) The passage of the Emancipation Proclamation in December of 1862 provided the impetus for the use of free black men as soldiers and, at a time when state governors were responsible for the raising of regiments for federal service, Massachusetts was the first to respond with the formation of the 54th Regiment. (Footnote 2)
Soon after Governor John A. Andrew was allowed to begin recruiting black men for his newly formed 54th Regiment, Andrew realised the financial costs involved in such an undertaking and set out to raise money. He appointed George L. Stearns as the leader of the recruiting process, and also appointed the so-called “Black Committee” of prominent and influential citizens. The committee and those providing encouragement included Frederick Douglass, Amos A. Lawrence, William Lloyd Garrison, and Wendell Phillips, and $5000 was quickly raised for the cause. Newly appointed officers in the regiment also played an active part in the recruiting process. (Footnote 3)
An advertisement was placed in the Boston Journal for February 16, 1863 addressed “To Colored Men” recruiting “Good men of African descent.” It, like the recruiting posters, offered a “$100 bounty at the expiration of the term of service, pay $13 per month, and State aid for families”; it was signed by Lieutenant William J. Appleton of the 54th. (Footnote 4) Twenty-five men enlisted quickly, however the arrival of men at the recruiting stations and at Camp Meigs, Readville, soon slowed down. Stearns soon became aware that Massachusetts did not have enough eligible black men to fill a regiment and recruiters were sent to states throughout the North and South, and into Canada.
Pennsylvania proved to he a fertile source for recruits, with a major part of Company B coming from Philadelphia, despite recent race riots there. New Bedford and Springfield, Massachusetts, blacks made up the majority of Company C, while approximately seventy men recruited from western Massachusetts and Connecticut formed much of Company D. (Footnote 5) Stearns’s line of recruiting stations from Buffalo to St. Louis produced volunteers from New York, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Canada. Few of the men were former slaves; most were freemen working as seamen, farmers, labourers, or carpenters. By May 1863, the regiment was full with 1000 enlisted men and a full complement of white officers. The remaining recruits became the nucleus of the 55th Massachusetts Regiment, commanded by Norwood P. Hallowell, who, for a short time, had served as second-in-command to Robert Gould Shaw of the 54th. (Footnote 6)
The question of pay to the volunteers became an important issue, even before the regiment’s departure from Boston on May 18. When Governor Andrew first proposed the idea to Edwin M. Stanton, Secretary of War, Andrew was assured that the men would be paid, clothed, and treated in the same way as white troops. As the recruiting posters and newspaper advertisements stated, this included a state bounty and a monthly pay of $13. In July of 1863, an order was issued in Washington fixing the compensation of black soldiers at the labourers’ rate of $10 per month. This amount was offered on several occasions to the men of the 54th, but was continually refused. Governor Andrew and the Massachusetts legislature, feeling responsible for the $3 discrepancy in pay promised to the troops, passed an act in November of 1863 providing the difference from state funds. The men refused to accept this resolution, however, demanding that they receive full soldier pay from the federal government. It was not until September of 1864 that the men of the 54th received any compensation for their valiant efforts, finally receiving their full pay since the time of enlistment, totalling $170,000. (Footnote 7) Each soldier was paid a $50 bounty before leaving Camp Meigs and this is the extent of the bounty that many received. By a later law, $325 was paid to some men, however most families received no State aid. (Footnote 8)
Although the Massachusetts 54th Regiment was the first to enlist black men as soldiers in the North, it was only the beginning for blacks as Union soldiers. By the end of the war, a total of 167 units, including other state regiments and the United States Colored Troops, were raised, totalling 186,097 men of African descent recruited into federal service. (Footnote 9)
Text from the project “Witness to America’s Past” on the Massachusetts Historical Society Collections Online website [Online] Cited 15/01/2014. No longer available online. Used under fair use conditions for the purposes of education and research
Footnotes
1/ Burchard, Peter. One Gallant Rush: Robert Gould Shaw and His Brave Black Regiment. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1965, p. xi.
2/ Hargrove, Hondon B. Black Union Soldiers in the Civil War. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 1988, p. xi.
3/ Ibid., pp. 77-78.
4/ Emilio, Luis F. History of the fifty-fourth Regiment of Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, 1863-1865. 2nd ed. Boston Boston Book Co., 1894, pp. 8-9.
5/ Ibid., pp. 9-10.
6/ Burchard, Peter. One Gallant Rush: Robert Gould Shaw and His Brave Black Regiment. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1965, pp. 83-90.
7/ Massachusetts Soldiers, Sailors, and Marines in the Civil War.. 8 vols. Norwood, Mass.: Printed at The Norwood Press, 4:657.
8/ Emilio, Luis F. History of the fifty-fourth Regiment of Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, 1863-1865. 2d ed. Boston Boston Book Co., pp. 327-328.
9/ Hargrove, Hondon B. Black Union Soldiers in the Civil War. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 1988, p. 2.
Augustus Saint-Gaudens (American, 1848-1907) Shaw Memorial 1900 Patinated plaster Overall (without armature or pedestal): 368.9 x 524.5 x 86.4cm (145 1/4 x 206 1/2 x 34 in.) Overall (with armature & pedestal): 419.1 x 524.5 x 109.2cm (165 x 206 1/2 x 43 in.) U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service, Saint-Gaudens National Historic Site, Cornish, New Hampshire, on long-term loan to the National Gallery of Art
Even before the war’s end in April 1865, the courage and sacrifice that the 54th Massachusetts demonstrated at Fort Wagner inspired artists to commemorate their bravery. Two artists working in Boston, Edward Bannister and Edmonia Lewis, were among the first to pay homage to the 54th in works they contributed to a fair that benefited African American soldiers. Yet it was not until the late 19th century that Augustus Saint-Gaudens’ Shaw Memorial solidified the 54th as an icon of the Civil War in the American consciousness.
Commissioned by a group of private citizens, Saint-Gaudens first conceived the memorial as a single equestrian statue of Colonel Shaw, following a long tradition of military monuments. Shaw’s family, however, uncomfortable with the portrayal of their 25-year-old son in a fashion typically reserved for generals, urged Saint-Gaudens to rework his design. The sculptor revised his sketch to honour both the regiment’s famed hero and the soldiers he commanded – a revolutionary conception at the time. Saint-Gaudens worked on his memorial for 14 years, producing a plaster and a bronze version.
When the bronze was dedicated on Boston Common on Memorial Day 1897, Booker T. Washington declared that the monument stood “for effort, not victory complete.” After inaugurating the Boston memorial, Saint-Gaudens continued to modify the plaster, reworking the horse, the faces of the soldiers, and the appearance of the angel above them. The success of his final plaster earned the artist the grand prize for sculpture when it was shown at the 1900 Universal Exposition in Paris. It was installed at the National Gallery of Art in 1997, on long-term loan from the U.S. Department of the Interior, the National Park Service, and the Saint-Gaudens National Historic Site in Cornish, New Hampshire.
In 1973 Richard Benson and Lincoln Kirstein published Lay This Laurel, a book with photographs by Benson, an essay by Kirstein, and poems and writings by Emily Dickinson, Frederick Douglass, and Walt Whitman, among others. It was intended to focus renewed attention on the bronze version of the Shaw Memorial on Boston Common, which had fallen into disrepair.
Carrie Mae Weems (American, b. 1953) Restless After the Longest Winter You Marched & Marched & Marched From the series, From Here I Saw What Happened and I Cried 1995-1996 Chromogenic colour print with etched text on glass Overall: 67.31 x 57.79cm (26 1/2 x 22 3/4 in.) Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York
In this piece Carrie Mae Weems appropriated and altered one of Richard Benson’s photographs of the Shaw Memorial. Printed with a blood red filter, it is placed beneath glass etched with words that allude to African Americans’ quest for freedom and equal rights as well as their long struggle to attain them.
National Gallery of Art National Mall between 3rd and 7th Streets Constitution Avenue NW, Washington
Co-curators: April M. Watson and Jane L. Aspinwall, Associate Curators of Photography at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
Rachel Herman (American) Hannah and Tim 2007 Inkjet print (printed 2012) Gift of the Hall Family Foundation
Facile, Facies, Facticity
“The structure of presentation – point-of-view and frame – is intimately implicated in the reproduction of ideology(the ‘frame of mind’ of our ‘points-of-view’). More than any other textual system, the photograph presents itself as ‘an offer you can’t refuse’.”
Victor Burgin 1
“Facies simultaneously signifies the singular air of a face, the particularity of its aspect, as well as the genre or species under which this aspect should be subsumed. The facies would thus be a face fixed to a synthetic combination of the universal and the singular: the visage fixed to the regime of representation, in a Helgian sense.
Why the face? – Because in the face the corporeal surface makes visible something of the movements of the soul, ideally. This also holds for the Cartesian science of the expression of the passions, and perhaps also explains why, from the outset, psychiatric photography took the form of an art of the portrait.”
Georges Didi-Huberman 2
How shallow contemporary portrait photography has become when compared to the sensual portraits of Julia Margaret Cameron, the grittiness of Gordon Parks or the in your face style of Diane Arbus. I think the word facile (from Latin facilis ‘easy’, from facers ‘do, make’) with its link to the etymologically similar word ‘face’ (Old Latin facies) is a good way to describe most of the photographs in this posting. These simplistic, nihilistic portraits, with their contextless backgrounds and head on frontally (also the name of an insipid Australian portrait photography prize), are all too common in contemporary portraiture. People with dead pan expressions stare at the camera, stare off camera. The photographs offer little insight and small engagement for the viewer. If these photographs are representative of the current ‘frame of mind’ of our ‘points-of-view’ vis a vis the construction of identity then the human race is in deep shit indeed. As we accept an offer that we can’t refuse – the reflexivity of selfies, an idealised or passive image of ourselves reflected back through the camera lens º we uncritically accept the mirror image, substituting passive receptivity for active (critical) reading. We no longer define and engage critically with something we might call ‘photographic discourse’:
“A discourse can be defined as an arena of information exchange, that is, as a system of relations between parties engaged in communicative activity. In a very important sense the notion of discourse is a notion of limits. That is, the overall discourse relation could be regarded as a limiting function, one that establishes a bounded arena of shared expectations as to meaning. It is this limiting function that determines the very possibility of meaning. To raise the issue of limits, of the closure affected from within any given discourse situation, is to situate oneself outside, in a fundamentally metacritical relation, to the criticism sanctioned by the logic of the discourse…
A discourse, then, can be defined in rather formal terms as the set of relations governing the rhetoric of related utterances. The discourse is, in the most general sense, the context of the utterance, the conditions that constrain and support its meaning, that determine its semantic target.”3
These photographs have few conditions that support their meaning. The context of their utterances is constrained by their own efficacy and passivity. Paul Virilio, speaking of contemporary images, describes them as ‘viral’. He suggests that they communicate by contamination, by infection. In our ‘media’ or ‘information’ society we now have a ‘pure seeing’; a seeing without knowing.4 A seeing without knowing… quite appropriate for these faceless images, images that contaminate how we observe humans living in the world. Of course, one can be involved in logical criticism of the discourse from within but that still gives the discourse power. By situating yourself outside the conditions that constrain the discourse, you can criticise from a different perspective, “seeing something new” as an active, temporal protension of seeing. “Such is the fundamental instability of the pleasure of seeing, of Schaulust, between memory and threat.”5 We may glance, instead of staring (as the subject of these portraits blankly stare back) – the glance becoming a blow of the eye, the acting-out of seeing.6
Here is a possible way forward for contemporary photographic portraiture: a description of the states of the body and the air of the face through a subtle and constant art of the recovering of surfaces, an inquiry that always seeks depth – conceptual depth – in the filmy fabric or stratum of the cameras imaging of the constructed subject. In other words an inquiry into the source, the etiology and logic of the subjects own being – through the glance, not the passive gaze. Even as the object of knowledge is photographically detained for observation, fixed to objectivity, that knowledge can slip away from itself into what Georges Didi-Huberman calls the paradox of photographic resemblance.7
“Thus photography is ultimately an uncertain technique (see Barthes. Camera Lucida. p. 18), changeable and ill-famed, too. Photography stages bodies: changeability. And at one moment or another, subtly, it belies them (invents them), submitting them instead to figurative extortion. As figuration, photography always poses the enigma of the “recumbence of the intelligible body,” even as it lends itself to some understanding of this enigma, and even as this understanding is suffocated…
And when one comes to pose oneself, before a photograph, paradoxical questions: whom does this photographed face resemble? Exactly whose face is being photographed? In the end, doesn’t a photograph resemble just anyone? Well, one cannot, for all that, simply push resemblance aside like a poorly posed problem. Rather, one points a finger at Resembling as an unstable, vain, and phantasmatic temporal motion. One interrogates the drama of imaginary evidence.
For “to resemble,” or Resembling, is the name for a major concern about time in the visible. This is precisely what exposes all photographic evidence to anxiety, and beyond it, to staging, compromises, twisted meanings, and simulacra. And this is how photography circumvents itself – in its own sacrilege. It blasphemes it own evidence because evidence is diabolical. It ruins evidence, from a theater.”8
Only through slippage may we stumble upon the uncertainty of the soul in the uncertainty of the photographic technique. Only through the facticity of the face, the “thrownness” – Heidegger’s Geworfen, which denotes the arbitrary or inscrutable nature of Dasein, being there or presence, that connects the past with the present, just as photographs do – of the individual rendered in the lines of the human face can we engage with the intractable conditions of human existence. Not a bland resemblance-filled anxiety (the hair covering the face, the face in suburban ephemera, the compressed face pressed up against the condensation-filled window), but an unstable signification that has been passionately re(as)sembled in the anxiety of photographic evidence. Only then can contemporary portrait photography make visible something of the movements of the soul, ideally.
“Into this world we’re thrown /
Like a dog without a bone”
(Jim Morrison, Riders on the Storm, 1971)
Dr Marcus Bunyan
Endnotes
1/ Burgin, Victor (ed.,). Thinking Photography. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1982, p. 146
2/ Didi-Huberman, Georges. Invention of Hysteria: Charcot and the Photographic Iconography of the Salpetriere (trans. Alisa Hartz). Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2003, p. 49
3/ Burgin, pp. 84-85
4/ Virilio, Paul. “The Work of Art in the Electronic Age,” in Block No. 14, Autumn, 1988, pp. 4-7 quoted in McGrath, Roberta. “Medical Police,” in Ten.8 No. 14, 1984 quoted in Watney, Simon and Gupta, Sunil. “The Rhetoric of AIDS,” in Boffin, Tessa and Gupta, Sunil (eds.,). Ecstatic Antibodies: Resisting the AIDS Mythology. London: Rivers Osram Press, 1990, p. 143
5/ Didi-Huberman, op. cit., pp. 27-28
6/ Ibid., “Coup d’oeil, signifying “glance,” literally means the “blow of an eye.” Here as elsewhere, Didi-Huberman draws on the notion of the glance as a blow. He also works with the various meanings of trait, including trait, line, draught, and shaft of an arrow” – Translator
7/ Didi-Huberman, op. cit., p. 59
8/ Didi-Huberman, op. cit.,p. 65
Many thankx to 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.
Anna Shteynshleyger (Russian, b. 1977) City of Destiny (Covered) 2007 Inkjet print Gift of the Hall Family Foundation
Lise Sarfati (French, b. 1958) Emily, 2860 Sunset Blvd. 2012 Chromogenic print Gift of the Hall Family Foundation
Alec Soth (American, b. 1969) Mother and daughter, St. Paul, Minnesota, 1999 1999
LaToya Ruby Frazier (American, b. 1982) Momme 2008 Gelatin silver print Gift of the Hall Family Foundation
This exhibition will explore the breadth and global diversity of contemporary photographic portraiture since 2000, highlighting recent acquisitions to the museum’s permanent collection.
About Face will include works by twenty-nine artists from the United States, England, Canada, France, Germany, Russia, Japan, Iran and South Africa. Though each of these photographers approaches portrait-making differently, certain thematic threads resonate throughout the show, including questions of racial, cultural, ethnic, class and gender identity; the relationship between individuals and typologies; the way photographic processes themselves inform meaning; the relevance of historical precedents to contemporary practice; and the impact of media stereotypes on self-presentation. Considered collectively, the works in About Face offer a provocative and engaging forum for considering the question: how do we define portraiture today?
The project will present two distinct, simultaneous exhibitions: About Face, our in-gallery exhibition at the Nelson-Atkins, and Making Pictures of People, a digital exhibition presented online for web-based audiences worldwide. Visitors will be able to access the Flak Photo exhibition via touch screens in the gallery and on mobile devices outside the museum. The goal of our collaboration is twofold: to celebrate the complementary experiences of engaging with photographs as objects and as images, and to connect museum visitors in Kansas City with an international community deeply engaged in thinking about portraiture and contemporary photographic practice.
“Contemporary photographers approach portraiture from multiple perspectives, and this show reflects that diversity,” said April M. Watson, who co-curated this exhibition with Jane L. Aspinwall (both are Associate Curators of Photography). “Some portraits emphasise the construction of identity through race, gender and class, while others question the relationship between individuality and typology, or the impact of the media on self-presentation. At the core is the relationship between the photographer and his or her subject, and how that interaction translates in the final portrait.” Adds Aspinwall: “Some of these photographers use antiquated processes such as the daguerreotype and tintype to make portraits of contemporary subjects. These historical resonances add an interesting dimension to the show.
Press release from the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art website
Richard Learoyd (English, b. 1966) Erika 2007 Ilfachrome print Gift of the Hall Family Foundation in honour of the 75th anniversary of The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
Jocelyn Lee (American born Italy, b. 1962) Untitled (Julia and Greenery) 2005 Chromogenic print Gift of the Hall Family Foundation
Jim Goldberg (American, b. 1953) Prized Possession, Democratic Republic of Congo 2008 Gelatin silver print Gift of the Hall Family Foundation
Vanessa Winship (British, b. 1960) Hakkari 8 2007-2008 Inkjet print (printed 2008) Gift of the Hall Family Foundation
Pieter Hugo (South African, b. 1976) Annebelle Schreuders (1) 2012 Inkjet print Gift of the Hall Family Foundation
Sage Sohier (American, b. 1954) 12-Year Old Boy with His Father 2009 Inkjet print Gift of the Hall Family Foundation
Michael Wolf (American, b. 1954) Tokyo Compression #18 2010 Inkjet print Gift of the Hall Family Foundation
Tomoko Sawada (Japanese, b. 1977) Recruit/BLACK 2006 Chromogenic print Purchase: acquired through the generosity of the Photography Society
The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art 4525 Oak Street Kansas City, MO 64111
PLEASE NOTE: THIS POSTING CONTAINS ART PHOTOGRAPHS OF FEMALE NUDITY – IF YOU DO NOT LIKE PLEASE DO NOT LOOK, FAIR WARNING HAS BEEN GIVEN
Philip-Lorca diCorcia (American, b. 1951) Norfolk 1979 Fujicolor Crystal Archive print 16 x 20 inches (40.6 x 50.8cm) Courtesy the artist and David Zwirner, New York/London
This is (our) reality.
Many thankx to the De Pont museum of contemporary art for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.
Philip-Lorca diCorcia (American, b. 1951) Eddie Anderson, 21 years old, Houston, Texas, $ 20 1990-1992 Fujicolor Crystal Archive print 30 x 40 inches (76.2 x 101.6cm) Courtesy the artist and David Zwirner, New York/London
Philip-Lorca diCorcia (American, b. 1951) New York 1993 Ektacolor print 30 x 40 inches (76.2 x 101.6cm) Courtesy the artist and David Zwirner, New York/London
Philip-Lorca diCorcia (American, b. 1951) Hong Kong 1996 Ektacolor print 25 x 37 1/2 inches (63.50 x 95.25cm) Courtesy the artist, and David Zwirner, New York/London
Starting October 5, 2013 De Pont museum of contemporary art is hosting the first European survey of the oeuvre of US photographer Philip-Lorca diCorcia. Born in 1951, diCorcia is one of the most important and influential contemporary photographers. His images oscillate between everyday elements and arrangements that are staged down to the smallest detail. In his works, seemingly realistic images that are taken with an ostensibly documentary eye are undermined by their highly elaborate orchestration. This exhibition is organised in collaboration with Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt.
One of the primary issues that diCorcia addresses is the question of whether it is possible to depict reality, and this is what links his photographs, most of which he creates as series. For Hustlers (1990-1992), for example, he took pictures of male prostitutes in meticulously staged settings, while in what is probably his most famous series, Heads (2000-2001), he captured an instant in the everyday lives of unsuspecting passers‐by. Alongside the series Streetwork (1993-1999), Lucky 13 (2004) and A Storybook Life (1975-1999), the exhibition at the Schirn, which was organised in close collaboration with the artist, will also present works from his new and ongoing East of Eden (2008-) project for the first time.
In addition, the work Thousand (2007) will also be on show in Tilburg. This installation consisting of 1,000 Polaroid’s, which are considered one complete work, offers a distinctive vantage point into the artist’s sensibility and visual preoccupations. Seen alongside Polaroid’s from some of diCorcia’s most recognised bodies of work and distinctive series – Hustlers, Streetwork, Heads, Lucky Thirteen – are intimate scenes with friends, family members, and lovers; self portraits; double-exposures; test shots from commercial and fashion shoots; the ordinary places of everyday life, such as airport lounges, street corners, bedrooms; and still life portraits of common objects, including clocks and lamps.
For the Hustlers series (1990-1992), diCorcia shot photographs of male prostitutes along Santa Monica Boulevard in Hollywood. The artist carefully staged the protagonists’ positions as well as the setting and the accompanying lighting. The titles of the respective photographs make reference to the name, age, and birthplace of the men as well as the amount of money diCorcia paid them for posing and which they typically receive for their sexual services. Staged in Tinseltown, the Hollywood district of Los Angeles, the hustlers become the touching performers of their own lost dreams.
The streets of New York, Tokyo, Paris, London, Mexico City, or Los Angeles are the setting for diCorcia’s Streetwork series. Produced between 1993 and 1999, passers-by walk into the artist’s photo trap on their way home, to work, to the gym, or to the grocery store, unsuspectingly passing through diCorcia’s arranged photoflash system. The photographer releases the shutter at a certain moment, “freezing” it in time. DiCorcia has time stand still in the hustle and bustle of big-city life and shifts individuals and groups of people into the centre of events. In much the same way as in Hustlers, what counts here is not the documentary character of the work; instead, diCorcia poses the question: What is reality?
The artist heightens this focus on the individual in his subsequent series, Heads (2000-2001), for which he selected seventeen heads out of a total of some three thousand photographs. The viewer’s gaze is directed toward the face of the passer-by, who is moved into the centre of the image by means of the lighting and the pictorial detail. The rest remains in shadowy darkness. The individuals – a young woman, a tourist, a man wearing a suit and tie – seem strangely isolated, almost lonely, their gazes otherworldly. DiCorcia turns the inside outward and for a brief moment elevates the individual above the crowd. The artist produces a profound intimacy.
With Streetwork and Heads, diCorcia treads a very individual path of street photography, which in America looks back at a long tradition established by artists such as Walker Evans, Robert Frank, or Diane Arbus. He reinvents the seemingly chance moment and transfers it into the present.
The painterly quality of diCorcia’s photographs, which is produced by means of dramatic lighting, becomes particularly evident in the series Lucky 13 (2004). The artist captures the athletic, naked bodies of pole dancers in the midst of a falling motion. The women achieve a sculptural plasticity by means of the strong lighting and the almost black background, and seem to have been chiselled in stone. Although the title of the series, an American colloquialism used to ward off a losing streak, makes reference to the seamy milieu of strip joints, the artist is not seeking to create a milieu study or celebrate voyeurism. Instead, the performers become metaphors for impermanence, luck, or the moment they begin to fall, suggesting the notion of “fallen angels.”
DiCorcia also includes a religious element in his most recent works, the series East of Eden, a work in progress that is being published for the first time in the catalogue accompanying the exhibition. Besides the biblical inspiration, which the title underscores, a literary connection can furthermore be made to the eponymous novel by John Steinbeck, which relates the story of Cain and Abel in the form of an American family saga set between the period of the Civil War and World War I. In his choice of motifs, diCorcia makes use of iconographic visual worlds: an apple tree in all its tantalising glory, a blind married couple sitting at the dining table, a landscape photograph that leads us into endless expanses.
DiCorcia deals intensely with the motif of the figure in his oeuvre. His compact compositions are marked by a non-dialogue between people and their environment or between individual protagonists. The motifs captured in compositional variations in most of the series feature painterly qualities. Subtly arranged and falling back on a complex orchestration of the lighting, the visual worlds created by the American manifest social realities in an almost poetic way. The emotionally and narratively charged works are complex nexuses of iconographic allusions to and depictions of contemporary American society.
Press release from the De Pont website
Philip-Lorca diCorcia (American, b. 1951) Head #10 2001 Fujicolor Crystal Archive print 48 x 60 inches (121.9 x 152.4cm) Courtesy the artist and David Zwirner, New York/London
Philip-Lorca diCorcia (American, b. 1951) Head #11 2001 Fujicolor Crystal Archive print 48 x 60 inches (121.9 x 152.4cm) Collection De Pont museum of contemporary art, Courtesy the artist and David Zwirner, New York/London
Philip-Lorca diCorcia (American, b. 1951) Lola 2004 Fujicolor Crystal Archive print 64 1/2 x 44 1/2 inches (163.8 x 113cm) Courtesy the artist and David Zwirner, New York/London
Philip-Lorca diCorcia (American, b. 1951) Juliet Ms. Muse 2004 Fujicolor Crystal Archive print 64 1/2 x 44 1/2 inches (163.8 x 113cm) Courtesy the artist and David Zwirner, New York/London
Philip-Lorca diCorcia (American, b. 1951) The Hamptons 2008 Inkjet print 40 x 60 inches (101.6 x 152.4cm) Courtesy the artist and David Zwirner, New York/London
Philip-Lorca diCorcia (American, b. 1951) Sylmar, California 2008 Inkjet print 56 x71 inches (142.2 x 180.3cm) Collection De Pont museum of contemporary art, Courtesy the artist and David Zwirner, New York/London
De Pont museum of contemporary art Wilhelminapark 1 5041 EA Tilburg
Curator: Brian Piper, Freeman Family Curator of Photographs, Prints, and Drawings at NOMA
André Kertész (American born Hungary, 1894-1985) Leger’s Studio 1926-1927 Gelatin silver print Image: 3 1/8 x 4 1/4in. (8 x 10.8cm) The New Orleans Museum of Art Museum purchase, Women’s Volunteer Committee Fund
There are some rare and beautiful photographs in this posting. I have never seen the Kertész (Leger’s Studio 1926-1927) with its wonderful structure and tonality nor the unusual Mapplethorpe (Staircase, 1140 Royal 1982). I particularly like the Bellocq (Bedroom Mantel, Storyville c. 1911-1913) with its complex medley of shapes and images.
Dr Marcus Bunyan
Many thankx to The New Orleans 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.
Lee Friedlander (American, b. 1934) Untitled (Self-Portrait Reflected in Window, New Orleans) c. 1965 Gelatin silver print Image: 7 x 10 3/4 in. (17.6 x 27.2cm) Mount: 11 x 14 in. (27.9 x 35.5cm) The New Orleans Museum of Art Museum purchase through the National Endowment for the Arts Grant
Robert Frank (American, 1924-2019) Canal Street, New Orleans 1955 Gelatin silver print Image: 11 x 13 4/5 in. (28 x 35.2cm) The New Orleans Museum of Art Museum purchase through the National Endowment for the Arts and Museum Purchase Funds
Henri Cartier-Bresson (French, 1908-2004) Louisiana 1947, printed c. 1975 Gelatin silver print Image: 9 5/8 x 14 3/16 in. (24.4 x 36cm) Paper: 12 x 16 in. (30.3 x 40.4cm) The New Orleans Museum of Art Museum purchase, General Acquisition Fund
Theodore Lilienthal (American, 1829-1894) Charles Hotel, New Orleans c. 1867 Albumen print Image: 10 3/4 x 13 13/16 in. (27.2 x 35.1cm) Mount: 17 x 22 1/4 in. (43.3 x 56.6cm) The New Orleans Museum of Art Museum Purchase
Featuring masterworks by photographers Edward Weston, William Henry Fox Talbot, André Kertész, Robert Mapplethorpe, and many more, the New Orleans Museum of Art’s upcoming exhibition, Photography at NOMA, explores the Museum’s rich permanent photography collection through a selection of some of its finest works from the early 1840s to the 1980s.
The first comprehensive presentation of works from NOMA’s collection since the 1970s, the exhibition includes over 130 of the most important photographs in the Museum’s collection and presents rare and unusual examples from throughout photography’s history. On view November 10, 2013 through January 19, 2014, the exhibition highlights the tremendous depth and breadth of the Museum’s collection and includes photographs made as works of art as well as advertising images, social documents, and more. The photographers featured in the exhibition range from some of the most recognisable names in the field, including Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Frank, and Lewis Hine, to unknown photographers – reflecting the vast spectrum of photographic activity since the medium’s inception in the 19th century.
“NOMA began collecting photographs seriously in the early 1970s when photography was not commonly found in American art museum collections. Today our holdings include nearly 10,000 works, representing a broad range of creative energy and achievement,” said Susan Taylor, NOMA’s Director. “Our collection has strong roots in New Orleans history. Our city has long been an epicentre for the work of established and emerging photographers and we are delighted to share this aspect of New Orleans history with our audiences.”
“Since its origins, photography has infiltrated every aspect of modern life, from art to war, and religion to politics and many of these applications are represented in NOMA’s extensive collection,” said Russell Lord, Freeman Family Curator of Photographs. “Despite the collection’s long history, it remains one of the best kept secrets in this country. Photography at NOMA is an opportunity to re-examine and bring to the fore the diverse range of works found in the collection.”
Since the 1970s, NOMA has built an extensive collection of photographs that represents a wide range of achievement in that medium from the 1840s to the present. Today the collection comprises nearly 10,000 works with images by some of the most significant photographic artists including Berenice Abbott, Ansel Adams, Diane Arbus, Ilse Bing, and Edward Steichen, among many others. The collection includes examples that reflect photography’s international scope, from an 1843 view from his hotel window in Paris by William Henry Fox Talbot to a view of Mount Fuji by Kusakabi Kimbei, but it is also strong in photographs made in and around New Orleans by regional and national photographers such as E. J. Bellocq, Walker Evans, Clarence John Laughlin, and Robert Polidori.
Photography at NOMA features works by Berenice Abbott, Ansel Adams, Diane Arbus, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Walker Evans, Robert Frank, Robert Mapplethorpe, William Henry Fox Talbot, and Edward Weston, among many others.
Press release from the NOMA website
Felix Moissenet (American, b. circa 1814) Freeman c. 1855 Sixth plate daguerreotype Image: 3 1/4 x 2 3/4 in. (8 x 6.8cm) Case (open): 3 5/8 x 6 3/8 in. (9.2 x 16.1cm) The New Orleans Museum of Art Museum purchase
Thomas Augustine Malone (British, 1823-1867) Demonstration of the Talbotype December 11, 1848 Calotype (Talbotype) negative 7 3/8 x 9 2/16 in. (18.8 x 23.3cm) The New Orleans Museum of Art Museum purchase
Robert Mapplethorpe (American, 1946-1989) Staircase, 1140 Royal 1982 Gelatin silver print Image: 15 1/5 x 15 1/5 in. (38.5 x 38.5cm) Paper: 20 x 16 in. (50.6 x 40.4cm) The New Orleans Museum of Art Promised gift from H. Russell Albright, MD
William Henry Fox Talbot (British, 1800-1877) View of the Paris Boulevards from the First Floor of the Hôtel de Louvais, Rue de la Paix 1843 Salted paper print from a paper negative Image: 6 3/8 x 6 3/4 in. (16.2 x 17.1cm) Paper: 7 1/2x 9 in. (19 x 23cm) The New Orleans Museum of Art Museum purchase, 1977 Acquisition Fund Drive
Morton Schamberg (American, 1881-1918) Cityscape 1916 Gelatin silver print Image: 9 1/2 x 7 1/2 in. (24 x 19cm) Mount: 15 3/4 x 13 in. (40 x 33cm) The New Orleans Museum of Art Museum purchase, Women’s Volunteer Committee Fund
Clarence John Laughlin (American, 1905-1985) A Mangled Staircase (No. 2) 1949 Gelatin silver print Image: 13 1/2 x 10 13/16 in. (34.2 x 27.5cm) Mount: 17 x 14 in. (43 x 35.5cm) The New Orleans Museum of Art Bequest of Clarence John Laughlin
E. J. Bellocq (American, 1873-1949) Bedroom Mantel, Storyville c. 1911-1913 Glass negative Plate: 10 x 8 in. (25.2 20.2cm) Museum purchase
Lewis Hine (American, 1874-1940) [Mechanic and Steam Pump] c. 1930 Gelatin silver print Image: 9 1/2 x 7 in. (24.3 x 17.6cm) Paper: 10 x 8 in. (25.2 x 20.3cm) The New Orleans Museum of Art Museum Purchase
The New Orleans Museum of Art One Collins Diboll Circle, City Park New Orleans, LA 70124 Phone: (504) 658-4100
Curator: Kristen Gresh, Estrellita and Yousuf Karsh Assistant Curator of Photographs at the MFA
Gohar Dashti (Iranian, b. 1980) Untitled #5 2008
I love that this archive gives a presence to disparate voices.
This is an important exhibition, one that challenges “Western notions about the ‘Orient,’ examines the complexities of identity, and redefines documentary as a genre.” The work of 12 women artists from Iran and the Arab World challenge stereotypes and provides insight into political and social issues. “The images – ranging from fine art to photojournalism – refute the conception that Arab and Iranian women are “oppressed and powerless,” instead reinforcing that some of the most significant photographic work in the region today is being done by women.”
Dr Marcus Bunyan
Many thankx to The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.
Gohar Dashti (Iranian, b. 1980) Untitled #2 2008
Tanya Habjouqa (Jordanian, b. 1975) Untitled 2009 From the Women of Gaza series
Tanya Habjouqa (Jordanian, b. 1975) Untitled 2009 From the Women of Gaza series
Rania Matar (Lebanese/Palestinian/American, b. 1964) Stephanie, Beirut, Lebanon 2010
Rania Matar (Lebanese/Palestinian/American, b. 1964) Alia, Beirut, Lebanon 2010
Rula Halawani (Palestinian, b. 1964) Untitled XIII 2002
Lalla Essaydi (Moroccan, b. 1956) Bullets Revisited #3 2012
Power and passion will be on display at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA) in an exhibition of works by 12 women photographers from Iran and the Arab World. The first of its kind in North America, the exhibition features approximately 100 photographs and two videos, created almost entirely within the last decade, that challenge stereotypes and provide insight into political and social issues. The images – ranging from fine art to photojournalism – refute the conception that Arab and Iranian women are “oppressed and powerless,” instead reinforcing that some of the most significant photographic work in the region today is being done by women. On view from August 27, 2013 – January 12, 2014, She Who Tells a Story: Women Photographers from Iran and the Arab World highlights the rich artistic expression of pioneering photographers Jananne Al-Ani, Boushra Almutawakel, Gohar Dashti, Rana El Nemr, Lalla Essaydi, Shadi Ghadirian, Tanya Habjouqa, Rula Halawani, Nermine Hammam, Rania Matar, Shirin Neshat, and Newsha Tavakolian. Accompanying the exhibition is a new publication, She Who Tells a Story (MFA Publications, September 2013), authored by exhibition curator Kristen Gresh, the MFA’s Estrellita and Yousuf Karsh Assistant Curator of Photographs. This exhibition is generously supported by the Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation. Additional support from the Barbara Jane Anderson Fund.
“She Who Tells a Story brings together recent photographs from 12 groundbreaking artists,” said Malcolm Rogers, Ann and Graham Gund Director of the MFA. “Their works tell stories that evoke a range of emotion, challenge our perception, and present the Middle East with a fresh perspective.”
In Arabic, the word rawiya means “she who tells a story.” These photographs are a collection of stories about contemporary life in Iran and the Arab World. The exhibition will explore themes of “Deconstructing Orientalism,” “Constructing Identities,” and “New Documentary,” revealing the individuality of each artist’s work, while allowing glimpses into the region’s social and political landscapes. The MFA has acquired 18 of the works on view in the Henry and Lois Foster Gallery in the Linde Family Wing for Contemporary Art. Acquisitions made in 2013 include Roja (Patriots) from the series Book of Kings (2012) by Shirin Neshat; the complete series of nine photographs in Mother, Daughter, Doll (2010) by Boushra Almutawakel; three prints from the series Women of Gaza(2009) by Tanya Habjouqa; two photos from the series The Metro (2003) by Rana El Nemr; two prints from the series Qajar (1998) by Shadi Ghadirian; and Untitled #2 from Today’s Life and War (2008) by Gohar Dashti.
“Reflecting on the power of politics and the legacy of war, the photographs in this exhibition challenge Western notions about the ‘Orient,’ examine the complexities of identity, and redefine documentary as a genre,” said curator Kristen Gresh, who was first exposed to this work while living abroad for 15 years, teaching history of photography in Paris and Cairo.
Historically, Orientalism refers to depictions by European or American artists of the East, including Middle Eastern, North African, and Eastern cultures – often presenting the “Orient” as culturally inferior. The history of photography in the area has largely consisted of images created by outsiders, ranging from pyramids and sacred biblical sites to staged harem scenes and belly dancers. Coupled with myths and traditional tales like the “Persian” Queen Sheherazade and the “Arabian” Thousand and One Nights, misconceptions continue to persist to this day. These stereotypes are shattered with Shirin Neshat’s groundbreaking series Women of Allah (1993-1997). The series grew out of a visit she made to her native Iran 15 years after the Iranian Revolution (1979). On view are four portraits from the series – Untitled (1996), Speechless (1996), I Am Its Secret (1993) and Identified (1995) – each of which incorporate elements of the veil (or hijab), gun, text and gaze and break down Orientalist myths, showing women empowered in the face of opposition. Among the earliest photographs in the exhibition, they are overlaid with Persian script from contemporary Iranian women writers and evoke the role that women played in the Iranian Revolution. The series marked a turning point in the recent history of representation and debates about the veil, inspiring exploration by other photographers.
In addition to Neshat, others have had an impact on the history of visual representation and the perception of Orientalist stereotypes. In the diptych Untitled I & II (1996) Iraqi-born Jananne Al-Ani uses the women in her family (and herself) to show a progression in veiling, from unveiled to fully veiled, and back again. The installation of the large-format prints have the effect of trapping the viewer between the women’s unblinking stares, using the power of the lens to address myths about the oppression of Muslim women. Moroccan-born Lalla Essaydi, a former painter and alumnus of the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (SMFA), uses iconography from 19th-century Orientalist paintings as inspiration to explore and question her own cultural identity. In the triptych Bullets Revisited #3 (2012), the most expansive work in the exhibition at 5 1/2 x 12 1/2 feet, and Converging Territories #29 (2004), she uses calligraphy (a typically male art form) to suggest the complexity of gender roles within Islamic culture. In Bullets Revisited #3, silver and golden bullet casings evoke symbolic violence, referencing her fear about growing restrictions on women in a new, post-revolutionary era that followed demonstrations and protests in the Arab world that began in 2010.
Like Neshat’s and Al-Ani’s work from the 1990s, the iconic series Qajar (1998) by Iranian artist Shadi Ghadirian was a point of departure for many photographers of the time. Ghadirian, who currently lives in Tehran, took pictures that illustrated issues of identity and being female in Iran. The nine prints on view from the Qajar series juxtapose young women in traditional dress with then-forbidden objects, such as boom boxes, musical instruments, and makeup, suggesting tension between tradition and modernity, restriction and freedom, public and private. Also included in the exhibition is another, later Ghadirian series that presents juxtapositions – Nil, Nil (2008), which brings to the forefront the experience of women at home during war, invoking untold tales of loss and waiting. The series includes images of bullets protruding from a handbag; a grenade in a bowl of fruit; and a military helmet hanging on the wall next to a headscarf, bringing to mind the complexities of male and female public personas and private desires.
Ghadirian’s early staged portraits laid the foundation for later photographers to address the subject of identity, including Boushra Almutawakel, a native of Yemen. Her series Mother, Daughter, Doll (2010) uses the veil to challenge social trends and the rise of religious extremism, which calls for women – and even young girls – to cover their bodies in public. The staged portraits do not denounce the hijab, but protest the extremist notions of covering bodies and the trend toward black. The nine prints on display show smiles from mother and daughter fade as their colorful clothing disappears from one picture to the next. The series ends with an image of an empty pedestal draped in black fabric as mother, daughter and doll are completely eliminated – a statement about erasing the individual through dress. Almutawakel offers a sensitive perspective on the public and private lives of young women, as does Lebanese-born Rania Matar in her series A Girl and Her Room (2009, 2010). These six portraits of young women from the Middle East capture girls in their bedrooms, surrounded by their belongings. Despite a diversity of settings and sitters, the series reflects the universally-shared experiences of coming of age and the complexities of being a young woman.
Identity is further investigated in the work of photojournalist Newsha Tavakolian, who currently lives in Tehran and whose recent photos of the Iranian elections appeared in publications from The New York Times to Time magazine. After experiencing difficulty photographing in public in 2009, she turned to fine art photography to address social issues. The exhibition presents six portraits, six imaginary CD covers, and a six-screen video from her series Listen (2010), all portraying professional singers who, as women, are forbidden by Islamic tenets to perform in public or to record CDs in their native country of Iran. Tavakolian’s singers do not appear with microphones, although each is clearly caught mid-song. Her passion for these women’s stories inspired her to create the imaginary CD covers that represent the character of each performer. The accompanying video shows the women emotionally mouthing unheard words, suggesting the idea of imposed silence. Metaphors of music, voice and expression, are also found in other works on display, such as in the Qajar series, and in Mystified (1997) by Neshat.
Tavakolian represents a generation of post-revolutionary Iranian photographers, while Neshat represents a generation of artists born before the revolution but who have left the country. Neshat left her native country in 1974 to study art in the United States before the upheaval in 1979, and she continues to draw on her cultural heritage. Eight images from her series Book of Kings (2012) will be on view in the exhibition. This recent series, translating its title from the 1,000-year-old Persian epic Shahnameh, marked a return to black-and-white photography and is composed of portraits of groups of individuals that Neshat calls the Masses, the Patriots, and the Villains. The figures in this series stand for the thousands that participated in protests, particularly the Iranian Green Movement (2009) and the Arab Spring (2011). The Masses are represented by headshots of Arab and Iranian men and women whose faces are overlaid with calligraphy – except for the eyes and mouth. The pictures are meant to be shown side by side to simulate power of the people. Just as she did in Women of Allah, Neshat pursues paradoxes of past and present and power and submission; Book of Kings also demonstrates her development and evolution as an artist.
In addition to addressing social and political issues, She Who Tells a Story also presents a new kind of documentary – artistic imagination brought to real-life experiences. Themes of war, occupation, protest, and revolt, as well as concerns about photography as a medium, all find a place in this new genre. Just as Ghadirian’s Nil, Nil recounted stories of war, Iranian Gohar Dashti’s work also tackles the subject. Both photographers grew up during the Iran-Iraq war (1980-1988). Dashti’s Today’s Life and War (2008) is a series of theatrical, staged photographs in which a couple pursues ordinary activities in a fictionalised battlefield. In Untitled #5, they sit as newlyweds in the shell of an abandoned car and in Untitled #7, on the ground at a makeshift traditional table celebrating the Persian New Year, Nowruz. The remaining four prints show the couple performing daily routines but interrupted by symbols of war – a tank, missile head, wall of sandbags. Dashti’s images are metaphors for the experience of war and recall her own memories of childhood living near the Iran-Iraq border.
Alternatives to Dashti’s staged documentaries can be found in the works of Egyptian Rana El Nemr and Jordanian Tanya Habjouqa, both of whom directly capture people in urban settings. In The Metro (2003), El Nemr inconspicuously shoots passengers in the car designated for women, seated or standing, deep in thought. The images convey how anonymous daily life can be, and how people interact with one another in public spaces. Habjouqa’s Women of Gaza (2009) records the experience of women in Gaza, who, like all residents of the occupied territory, live with limited freedom. Taken over a span of two months, the images celebrate modest pleasures, including a picnic on the beach, a boat ride, and an aerobics class. Habjouqa gently portrays the bright side of her subjects’ lives. Women of Gaza is one example of photojournalism on display.
Another area of exploration for Middle Eastern photographers is the medium itself. Al-Ani, Rula Halawani, and Nermine Hammam push the boundaries of photography in new ways. Al-Ani’s works Aerial I and Shadow Sites II, a single channel video, depict the Jordanian landscape from an airplane. The nearly nine-minute video, made exclusively from photographs that dissolve one into another, combine nature, flight, and technology. Halawani, a native of Palestine who currently resides in East Jerusalem, addresses the experience of destruction and displacement. In Negative Incursions (2002), a series of pictures of the 2002 Israeli invasion of the West Bank, she photographs scenes of war and then enlarges and prints them in their negative form. This technique obscures the specifics of time and place, increasing the dramatic intensity and resulting in powerful images of tanks in action, grieving mothers and families in the rubble of the aftermath. Streaks of light among the ruins are a metaphor for the plight of the Palestinian people, while thick black borders imitate the shape of a television screen to convey Halawani’s criticism of media coverage.
Hammam’s Cairo Year One (2011-2012), addressing the 18-day uprising in Egypt (January 2011) and its aftermath, also experiments with uses of photography. It consists of 13 prints in two parts: Upekkha (reference to Buddhist concept of equanimity) and Unfolding (reference to folding Japanese screens). In Upekkha, Hammam imbeds photographs of soldiers in Tahrir Square within peaceful landscape scenes from postcards from her personal collection, showing the vulnerability of the young men. In contrast, the second part of the series, Unfolding, was created after the uprising was over, when it was difficult for her to photograph. In the two prints, she combines reproductions of 17th and 18th Japanese screens with photos of police brutality.
Press release from The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston website
Nermine Hammam (Egyptian, b. 1967) Dreamland I 2011
Nermine Hammam (Egyptian, b. 1967) The Break 2011
Rana El Nemr (Egyptian, b. 1974) Metro #7 2003
Newsha Tavakolian (Iranian, b. 1981) Don’t Forget This Is Not You (for Sahar Lotfi) 2010
Newsha Tavakolian (Iranian, b. 1981) I Am Eve (for Mahsa Vahdat) 2010
Boushra Almutawakel (Yemeni, b. 1969) Mother, Daughter, Doll series 2010
Shadi Ghadirian (Iranian, b. 1974) Nil, Nil #4 2008
Shadi Ghadirian (Iranian, b. 1974) Untitled 1998 From Qajar series
Shirin Neshat (Iranian, b. 1957) Roja 2012
Shirin Neshat (Iranian, b. 1957) Speechless 1996
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston Avenue of the Arts 465 Huntington Avenue Boston, Massachusetts
Curator: Russell Lord, Freeman Family Curator of Photographs at NOMA
Gordon Parks (American, 1912-2006) Untitled, Harlem, New York 1948 Gelatin silver print, printed later Courtesy The Gordon Parks Foundation
Another great photographer with a social conscience. Fantastic to observe the dynamics of the proof sheets and how the images were cropped for final publication. The angles, the angles of Red’s young brother are illuminating, to see how the photographer framed his subject, what worked, what didn’t. There is a relatively new boxed set of the complete works of this artist published by Stiedl titled Gordon Parks Collected Works (2012).
Dr Marcus Bunyan
Many thankx to The New Orleans 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.
“”The Making of an Argument” evaluates the editorial decisions made by the magazine and, in doing so, comments on how the context in which a picture is presented can drastically alter its message. “In order to meet the expectations set up by the subtitle and the opening text, an overwhelming majority of the pictures selected underscore violence, fear, frustration, aggression, or despair. Of the twenty-one images reproduced, only five strike a lighter note,” writes Russell Lord, the curator of photographs at NOMA. Lord also notes that the ways the images were cropped and darkened further functioned to convey the magazine’s intended message.”
Genevieve Fussell. “Gordon Parks: The Making of an Argument,” on The New Yorker website October 28, 2013 [Online] Cited 19/01/2021. Used under fair use conditions for the purposes of education and research
Gordon Parks (American, 1912-2006) Untitled, Harlem, New York 1948 Gelatin silver print, printed later Courtesy The Gordon Parks Foundation
Gordon Parks (American, 1912-2006) Untitled, Harlem, New York 1948 Gelatin silver print, printed later Courtesy The Gordon Parks Foundation
Gordon Parks (American, 1912-2006) Untitled, Harlem, New York 1948 Gelatin silver print, printed later Courtesy The Gordon Parks Foundation
Gordon Parks (American, 1912-2006) Untitled, Harlem, New York 1948 Gelatin silver print, printed later Courtesy The Gordon Parks Foundation
This image shows both the full frame image that Gordon Parks shot and the cropped selection, framed in editor’s marking pen, that was ultimately published in Life magazine. The cropped version dramatically heightens the intensity of the image, bringing the viewer closer to the fight (see proof sheet below).
Gordon Parks (American, 1912-2006) Untitled, Harlem, New York 1948 Gelatin silver print, printed later Courtesy The Gordon Parks Foundation
Gordon Parks (American, 1912-2006) Untitled, Harlem, New York 1948 Gelatin silver print, printed later Courtesy The Gordon Parks Foundation
The opening spread of “Harlem Gang Leader,” Life, November 1, 1948
This exhibition explores the making of Gordon Parks’ first photographic essay for Life magazine in 1948, “Harlem Gang Leader.” After gaining the trust of one particular group of gang members and their leader, Leonard “Red” Jackson, Parks produced a series of photographs that are artful, poignant, and, at times, shocking. From this large body of work (Parks made hundreds of negatives) the editors at Life selected twenty-one pictures to print in the magazine, often cropping or enhancing details in the pictures in the process. Gordon Parks: The Making of an Argument traces this editorial process and parses out the various voices and motives behind the production of the picture essay.
The exhibition considers Parks’ photographic practice within a larger discussion about photography as a narrative device. Featuring vintage photographs, original issues of Life magazine, contact sheets, and proof prints, the exhibition raises important questions about the role of photography in addressing social concerns, its use as a documentary tool, and its function in the world of publishing…
“This project raises important questions about the role of photography in addressing social concerns, its use as a documentary tool, and its function in the world of publishing,” said Susan M. Taylor, NOMA’s Director. “We are delighted to be working with The Gordon Parks Foundation on this exhibition since it is a project that addressed many of the major issues that Parks would explore throughout his career.”
In 1948, Gordon Parks began a professional relationship with Life magazine that would last twenty-two years. For his first project, he proposed a series of pictures about the gang wars that were then plaguing Harlem, believing that if he could draw attention to the problem then perhaps it would be addressed through social programs or government intervention. As a result of his efforts, Parks gained the trust of one particular group of gang members and their leader, Leonard “Red” Jackson, and produced a series of pictures of them that are artful, emotive, poignant, touching, and sometimes shocking. From this larger body of work, twenty-one pictures were selected for reproduction in a graphic and adventurous layout in Life magazine.
At each step of the selection process – as Parks chose each shot, or as the picture editors at Life re-selected from his selection – any intended narrative was complicated by another curatorial voice. Curator Russell Lord notes, “By the time the reader opened the pages of Life magazine, the addition of text, and the reader’s own biases further rendered the original argument into a fractured, multi-layered affair. The process leads to many questions: ‘What was the intended argument?’ and ‘Whose argument was it?’.”
Gordon Parks: The Making of an Argument examines these questions through a close study of how Parks’ first Life picture essay was conceived, constructed and received.”
Press release from the NOMA website
Gordon Parks (American, 1912-2006) Untitled, Harlem, New York 1948 Gelatin silver print, printed later Courtesy The Gordon Parks Foundation
Gordon Parks (American, 1912-2006) Untitled, Harlem, New York 1948 Gelatin silver print, printed later Courtesy The Gordon Parks Foundation
Gordon Parks (American, 1912-2006) Untitled, Harlem, New York 1948 Gelatin silver print, printed later Courtesy The Gordon Parks Foundation
Gordon Parks (American, 1912-2006) Untitled, Harlem, New York 1948 Gelatin silver print, printed later Courtesy The Gordon Parks Foundation
Gordon Parks (American, 1912-2006) Untitled, Harlem, New York 1948 Gelatin silver print, printed later Courtesy The Gordon Parks Foundation
Gordon Parks (American, 1912-2006) Untitled, Harlem, New York 1948 Gelatin silver print, printed later Courtesy The Gordon Parks Foundation
Gordon Parks (American, 1912-2006) Untitled, Harlem, New York 1948 Gelatin silver print, printed later Courtesy The Gordon Parks Foundation
Gordon Parks (American, 1912-2006) Untitled, Harlem, New York 1948 Gelatin silver print, printed later Courtesy The Gordon Parks Foundation
The New Orleans Museum of Art One Collins Diboll Circle, City Park New Orleans, LA 70124 Phone: (504) 658-4100
More images from this wonderful photographer who was a low-level Soviet agent while exiled in Britain after the Second World War and who destroyed most of her photos as well as many negatives out of fear of prosecution in 1951. Thanks to contemporary research we can begin to see the vision of this artist. In her photo essays, an impassioned record, she imaged social injustice and showed it to the world… creating her own inimitable style and a “comprehensive and freestanding body of work.”
“Her photos are impressive for the quality of the dialogue with those portrayed and the social context is always visible and tangible. “The women, children and workers photographed by her seem less objectified and, to some extent at least, are placed in a better position to represent themselves,” writes Duncan Forbes, curator of the exhibition.” (press release)
The quality of the dialogue with those portrayed.
You can feel that in these images, that the photographer has a care and respect for the people that she is photographing, probably more so than the photographs of Bill Brandt from the same period. She seems to have a greater connection and concern for her subject matter.
I also love their grittiness, poignancy and above all their humanity. Look at the arrangement of figures in Family, Stepney, London (about 1932, below) as the viewers eye is led by the two staggered boys on the bed up to the eldest daughter, looking away off camera, while the mother steadfastly gazes directly into the camera clutching her youngest daughter tightly. The smile on the little girls face is a joy.
“No Home, No Dole” was the reality of life in London back then, with the Great Depression taking hold. I remember growing up in the 1960s and things weren’t much better in my grandmothers house, even the old farmhouse I grew up in. No hot running water, my mother bathing us kids in a tin tub on the kitchen floor with water heated up in the kettle on the stove. It was subsistence living for we were the poorest of the poor.
That Edith Tudor Hart had the courage of her convictions and recorded these environments shows a human being of great moral character.
We are grateful that the images survive.
Dr Marcus Bunyan
Many thankx to the Wien Museum for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image. View the exhibition online catalogue.
“If curator Duncan Forbes and photographers Owen Logan and Joanna Kane have resurrected an amazing archive, Tudor-Hart’s own life is curiously out of focus. Her struggles and sorrows are mute beneath the weight of her images. Her late life feels only half-lived: she struggled under the scrutiny of the security services until her death in 1973; she destroyed much documentation, including her list of negatives. As a woman photographer with left-wing associations, work became scarce. As a communist and a suspected traitor she was blacklisted and in the 1950s she gave up photography altogether.
What’s left, or rather what has been patiently reconstructed, is an impassioned record of the terrible long shadow of tyranny in Europe, and of a divided Britain that makes you both deeply ashamed and occasionally proud.”
Moria Jeffrey review of the exhibition 04/07/2013 on the Art Global website [Online] Cited 06/01/2014. No longer available online. Used under fair use conditions for the purposes of education and research
The rediscovery of a great Austrian-British photographer Edith Tudor-Hart (1908-1973), who is known in Austrian history of photography as Edith Suschitzky, belonged to the group of those politically engaged photographers who faced political developments in the inter-war years with socially critical force.
Edith Suschitzky studied at the Bauhaus in Dessau and worked as a photographer in Vienna around 1930 – while simultaneously a Soviet agent. In 1933 she married an Englishman who likewise had close connections to the Communist Party, and fled with him to Great Britain. There she created brilliant social reportage in the slums of London or in the coal mining areas of Wales, today some of the key examples of British workers’ photography. The exhibition is the first monographic presentation of Edith Tudor-Hart’s work. As well as the period in England, a selection from the early Viennese works are on show. Her unpretentious, documentary-influenced photographs on social themes come mainly from the collections of the National Galleries of Scotland
Following Barbara Pflaum, Elfriede Mejchar and Trude Fleischmann, the Wien Museum is once again putting on a solo exhibition dedicated to a great Austrian photographer: Edith Tudor-Hart (1908-1973), also known in the annals of photographic history by her maiden name Edith Suschitzky. She belonged to the group of politically engaged male and female photographers who, from the 1920s onwards, responded to political developments from a socially critical standpoint – both in Austria and in exile in England, where she became an important figure in the Worker Photography Movement. The exhibition, which was previously on show in Edinburgh, is the first ever overview of the work of this in equal measure fascinating and significant artist. It arose out of a cooperation between the National Galleries of Scotland and the Wien Museum and has been curated by Duncan Forbes, the long-standing Senior Curator of Photography at the National Galleries of Scotland and the new Director of the Fotomuseum Winterthur.
Edith Tudor-Hart was born in Vienna in 1908 as Edith Suschitzky and grew up in a social-democratic household; her father ran a workers’ bookshop in the Favoriten district of Vienna and a revolutionary publishing house. She had contact with the Communist Party of Austria (KPÖ) and the Communist International already from a young age and both charged her with tasks – with legal party work as well as with intelligence activities. Early on, Tudor-Hart become interested in pedagogy; she completed training in the Montessori method and moved in circles that promoted radical, anti-authoritarian school and education reforms. It was likely the period of study at the Bauhaus in Dessau (1928-1930) that first brought her to photography, even though Tudor-Hart is listed in the archives only as a participant on the famous preparatory course and not as a student in the photography department. Her first pictures were taken in about 1930 and “show a technically accomplished photographer, who explored subjects such as the deprivation of the working class and the reform-oriented culture of Austrian Social Democracy as well as the threat posed by military and fascist forces” (as the historian of photography Anton Holzer has written). At the same time she embarked on a career as a photo journalist for illustrated publications.
It was the period in which, thanks to technological advances, photography in the mass media had gained immensely in importance. From the beginning, Tudor-Hart viewed the camera as a political weapon that could be used to document social injustices; she had little time for the formal experiments of the avant-garde. Photography had ceased to be “an instrument for recording events and became instead the means to bring events about and to influence them. It became a living art form that involved the people” (Edith Tudor-Hart). Her first photo series, published in the magazines Der Kuckuck, Arbeiter-Illustrierte-Zeitung and Die Bühne, include a reportage on the deprived East End of London and a series on everyday life in the Vienna Prater. That she was a Communist and yet was working for a social-democratic publication such as Der Kuckuck was down to the fact that the KPÖ played a minimal role in the media (and political) landscape of Austria – in this respect the young photographer had to adapt to the commercial realities of her profession. However, she was also active for the Soviet news agency TASS and, in addition, she continued with her intelligence activities. She was described by a fellow agent as “modest, competent and brave”, ready “to give her all for the Soviet cause”. This eventually became Edith Tudor-Hart’s undoing: when the Austrian government moved against Nazis and Communists, she was arrested without further ado. In the same year she married the English doctor Alexander Tudor-Hart, which allowed her to escape to Great Britain in 1934. “When one views Suschitzky’s photographic work from her Vienna years, it becomes clear that already in her early period, she created a comprehensive and freestanding body of work,” writes Anton Holzer.
Among the miners in Wales
In exile, Edith Tudor-Hart’s photographs took on a sharper socially critical edge. She went with her husband to South Wales, where he practised as a doctor in the coal mining region. The economic crisis had hit heavy industry and mining in northern England particularly hard and in many small towns and villages, nine out of ten men were unemployed. The photos from the mining and shipbuilding region of Tyneside also tell of crippling economic hardship and social decline. With her pictures, Tudor-Hart clearly stood out from the mainstream of British photography, characterised at that time by a bourgeois, somewhat sweet and sentimental aesthetic. Her photos are impressive for the quality of the dialogue with those portrayed and the social context is always visible and tangible. “The women, children and workers photographed by her seem less objectified and, to some extent at least, are placed in a better position to represent themselves,” writes Duncan Forbes, curator of the exhibition. During the slight economic recovery of the mid-1930s, Tudor-Hart was able to build up a photo studio in London: “Edith Tudor-Hart – Modern Photography” it said on her headed paper. She specialised in portraiture and was also able to obtain some advertising work, for example for the toy manufacturer Abbatt Toys. In addition, she supplied photos to new British illustrated publications, including the magazine Lilliput and the popular paper Picture Post, as well as to government departments such as the British Ministry of Education. For her, working for the traditional papers of Fleet Street was, however, not an option. Alongside the equally consistent and nuanced workers’ photography, Tudor-Hart concentrated on work with children, especially after the Second World War, and in this she could call on a wide network of contacts. These included the Austrian paediatrician and curative educator Karl König as well as Anna Freud and Donald Winnicott, two of the leading protagonists of child psychoanalysis. She was concerned with issues of child welfare, heath and education and received commissions from agencies such as the British Medical Association, Mencap and the National Baby Welfare Council. In contrast to the static, studio-based portrait photography customary at the time, Tudor-Hart showed families and especially children as natural and lively.
After the Second World War and with the onset of the Cold War, Tudor-Hart’s personal situation worsened as she was still active as a low-level Soviet agent. In 1951, shortly after the Soviet spy Kim Philby was interrogated for the first time, she destroyed most of her photos as well as many negatives out of fear of prosecution. “Her life as a partisan for the Soviet cause ended with her a defeated and demoralised woman,” writes Duncan Forbes. She stopped publishing photos at the end of the 1950s, presumably at the request of the British secret services. Despite being questioned numerous times she was never arrested. Edith Tudor-Hart lived out her final years until her death in 1973 as an antiques dealer in Brighton.
That her photographic work was rediscovered is thanks to her brother, the photographer and cameraman Wolfgang Suschitzky. He saved a number of negatives from destruction and, in 2004, presented his sister’s photographic archive to the Scottish National Galleries. This exhibition and catalogue make Edith Tudor-Hart’s exceptional work accessible to a wider public for the first time. The exhibition was on show at the National Galleries of Scotland in Edinburgh in spring 2013 and, after its run at the Wien Museum, will also be on display in Berlin. For the first time, it offers an overview of Tudor-Hart’s work from her years in both Vienna and England; many of the photos have never been seen before. Furthermore, the first comprehensive work on this great Austrian artist is being published on the occasion of this exhibition.
Curator: Nicholas Chambers, The Milton Fine Curator of Art at The Andy Warhol Museum
Yasumasa Morimura (Japanese, b. 1951) To My Little Sister: for Cindy Sherman 1998 Ilfochrome print mounted on aluminium 55 x 31 inches Private Collection, New York
Cindy Sherman, eat your actress out…
A fascinating, erudite analysis of the difference between Edouard Manet’s Olympia and Yasumasa Morimura’s Futago can be found on the seemingly anonymous Hoegen: Thoughts About Gender, Sex And Sexualityweb page (excerpt below).
If you can find an author’s name it would be appreciated!
Dr Marcus Bunyan
Many thankx to The Andy Warhol Museum for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.
Yasumasa Morimura (Japanese, b. 1951) Portrait (Futago) 1988 Colour photograph 82 3/4 x 118 inches Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh; A.W. Mellon Acquisition Endowment Fund, 92.108
In Anne D’Alleva’s article concerning reception theory, she draws upon several scholars of art and literature to discuss the importance of not only the artist, but also of the viewer. She discusses the symbiotic relationship that must exist and the merits of the ideal viewer. The two artworks that she mentions to support her arguments are Edouard Manet’s Olympia and Ysumasa Morimura’s Futago. These two artworks are prime examples of works that establish an ideal viewer, or viewers, as well as a mirror stage. These two theories assist the art historian to go beyond the biography of the artist and question the relationship of the image and it’s audience.
Just as Wolfgang Iser believes there is an implied reader for literature, one must believe that there is an implied viewer of Edouard Manet’s Olympia and a different implied viewer for Yasumasa Morimura’s Futago (114). In the case of Manet’s Olympia, one might believe the ideal implied viewer is a white and wealthy man of the upper class. This ideal viewer would appreciate, or maybe question, the bold gaze of Olympia, and possibly even recognize her as the popular courtesan (116)…
The ideal viewer for Morimura’s photograph is not as easy to define. One might make the presumption that Morimura desires the same ideal viewer of Manet, so that they can simply see the work differently. Also, one could assume that he intended his painting to be viewed by Asian, upper class homosexuals who have seen Manet’s Olympia and want to connect on a more personal level. Either of these audiences may be ideal.
According to Ernest Kris, art “requires the participation of both artist and spectator.” (110) Therefore, there must be something that establishes a relationship of the ideal viewer and the photograph of Yasumasa Morimura. Since it is a photograph, and not a painting, there is a humanistic connection that is not present in Manet’s Olympia that ultimately assists the creation of an image-audience relationship. The gaze is not a representation of a gaze but the actual gaze of Morimura establishing a deeper relationship with the ideal viewer of the artist and subject. Since the ideal audience is harder to define for Morimura’s photograph, the establishing element of the relationship between the ideal viewer and the artwork are also hard to define. If the ideal viewer is exactly that of Manet’s: a white, wealthy, upper-class man, then the “shock factor” of the image is multiplied. The ideal viewer has just begun to accept this shocking image of a nude female daring to look at her viewer when Morimura decided to change the race, gender, and possibly the sexual orientation of the subject of the artwork. This assumption, however, provides that the viewer come with “pre-understanding” as described by Roman Ingarden (113); in this case, a memory of Manet’s Olympia. If one assumes that this image is meant for the common man, this relationship is established through the use of photography, the universal and common way to capture images. If one assumes the connection between the inclusive group of Asian, male, homosexuals, then the establishment of the relationship is directly associated with the subject and artist…
The reception theory of Ernest Gombrich states the importance of perception is clearly prevalent within these works (113). The artists have taken their own interpretations of these works, but one must value the fact that their ideal viewers can be similar and have similar perceptions. The differences of their individual perceptions provide for the differences between their viewers. However, the perception of the viewer, whether ideal or not, is the ultimate reflection of the artwork in the culture.
Clearly, the mirror stage is present in these two images. The viewer does not seem to view their self in the artwork directly, but they do feel a connection to the work. Morimura most definitely used Manet’s Olympia as a basis image for his Futago. Although some details are incongruous, the overall effect of Futago is a mirrored image of the whole self of Olympia. There are several differences in these paintings that one may attribute to race and gender that affect the dynamics of the mirror effect. Most obviously, Morimura, who was his own subject in his photographic rendition of Manet’s Olympia, is a man. This affects the mirror image of the body. He is leaner, has no curves and is more muscular. Also, his race affects skin color as well as the some of the details of the picture. He has clearly chosen a kimono to replace the intricate shawl, and a seated, waving cat to replace standing one – both of these depictions have significance in Asian culture (116). Cultural implications are evident.
Overall, these two images reflect Anne D’Avelia’s idea that that two similar artworks can have two different implied viewers. Also, they can mirror each other in certain respects, but diverge in others. These help reinforce D’Avelia notes that gender, expression, details, and race, all play roles in developing the image-audience relationship. They also reflect our class work exploring the troubling of gender norms and the gaze.
Anonymous. “Olympia vs. Futago,” in the article ‘Hoegen: Thoughts about Gender, Sex and Sexuality’ on the Fairfield University website [Online] Cited 19/01/2021. Used under fair use conditions for the purposes of education and research
Yasumasa Morimura (Japanese, b. 1951) Doublonnage (Marcel) 1988 Colour photograph 59 x 47 1/4 inches Private Collection, New York
Art History
Yasumasa Morimura’s reprisals of European masterpieces are, at once, acts of homage and parody. Painstakingly realised, his photographic reconstructions of paintings by Leonardo da Vinci, Johannes Vermeer, Rembrandt van Rijn and Edouard Manet, among others, bring compositional questions together with those pertaining to race, gender and sexuality. In doing so, they reveal both the aesthetics and the politics embedded in the art historical canon.
Actresses
This section of the exhibition focuses on Morimura’s restaging of scenes from award winning films featuring Marlene Dietrich, Audrey Hepburn, Liza Minnelli, Jodie Foster and many others. It is notable that the artist’s impersonations are not anonymous but well-known stars, archetypes of Hollywood’s leading ladies. As stated in their titles, each work is a self-portrait and together they propose a range of possibilities for the artist’s own identity. Morimura has stated, “My own self-definition includes this entire zone of possibilities. When I apply this way of thinking to making a self-portrait, it becomes what I call an ‘open self-portrait.’
Yasumasa Morimura (Japanese, b. 1951) M’s Self-portrait No.15 1995 Gelatin silver print 18 1/2 x 21 1/4 inches (framed) Collection of the artist, on deposit at the Toyota Municipal Museum of Art
Yasumasa Morimura (Japanese, b. 1951) Self-portrait (Actress)/after Elizabeth Taylor 1 1996 Ilfochrome print mounted to plexiglass 47 1/4 x 37 1/4 inches Courtesy of the artist and Luhring Augustine, New York
Yasumasa Morimura (Japanese, b. 1951) M’s self-portrait No. 56/B 9 (or “as Marilyn Monroe”) 1996 Gelatin silver print Edition 6 of 10 11 3/4 x 14 inches
For more than three decades Japanese artist Yasumasa Morimura has forged an extraordinary body of work that reimagines the visual culture of the West, as well as that of his native Japan. Whether portraying Elizabeth Taylor, Mao Zedong or Andy Warhol, Morimura’s iconic images examine the practice of photography while also claiming a space for the self in historical narratives. The artist inserts himself as the subject(s) in all of his works. The exhibition, Yasumasa Morimura: Theater of the Self, is a retrospective of Morimura’s 30 year career covering his fascination with the self-portrait, celebrity, gay and transgendered life, art history, and popular culture align him closely with the work of Andy Warhol. Morimura has described himself as Warhol’s “conceptual son.”
Developed in close collaboration with the artist, the exhibition focuses on three important bodies of work: his celebrated “Art History” photographs in which he painstakingly restages European masterpieces; “Requiem” in which Morimura recreates iconic photographs relating to political and cultural life; and the “Actors” series in which he assumes the personae of Hollywood luminaries such as Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley and Audrey Hepburn.
Milton Fine Curator of Art, Nicholas Chambers states, “Including almost 100 images, many of which have never before been seen in the United States, Theater of the Self offers audiences an in-depth view of Morimura’s work. His pictures reveal a sophisticated form of engagement with the worlds of celebrity, art and the mass media that is at once celebration and critique, homage and parody, and has the effect of questioning the nature of the individual’s relationship to culture-at-large.””
Press release from The Warhol website
Requiem
The artworks comprising the Requiem Series are derived from photographic sources and depict prominent masculine figures in moments of triumph or transition. Substituting himself for ideologues, dictators and creative thinkers, Morimura reflects on what these figures represent for the broader culture and on the role of photography in celebrating, demonising or memorialising them.
Yasumasa Morimura (Japanese, b. 1951) A Requiem: Vietnam War 1968-1991 1991-2006 Gelatin silver print
Yasumasa Morimura (Japanese, b. 1951) A Requiem: Theater of Creativity / Andy Warhol in Motion 2010 Digital video, black and white, silent, 3:58 minutes Collection of the artist
Yasumasa Morimura (Japanese, b. 1951) A Requiem: Mishima 1970 2006 Digital video, colour, sound, 7:42 minutes Courtesy of the artist and Luhring Augustine, New York
Yasumasa Morimura (Japanese, b. 1951) A Requiem: Red Dream / Mao 2007 C- print mounted on alpolic 59 x 47 1/4 inches Courtesy of the artist and Luhring Augustine, New York
Yasumasa Morimura (Japanese, b. 1951) A Requiem: Oswald, 1963 2006 Gelatin silver print Courtesy of the artist and Luhring Augustine, New York
The Andy Warhol Museum 117 Sandusky Street Pittsburgh, PA 15212-5890 Phone: 412.237.8300
![Lewis Hine (American, 1874-1940) '[Mechanic and Steam Pump]' c. 1930](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/79-84-hine-web.jpg "Lewis Hine (American, 1874-1940) '[Mechanic and Steam Pump]' c. 1930")
Art Blart _ art and cultural memory archive 
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