Review: ‘Minor White: Manifestations of the Spirit’ at the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

Exhibition dates: 8th July – 19th October, 2014

Curator: Paul Martineau is associate curator in the Department of Photographs at the J. Paul Getty Museum.

 

Minor White (American, 1908-1976) 'Vicinity of Rochester, New York' 1954 from the exhibition 'Minor White: Manifestations of the Spirit' at the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, July - October, 2014

 

Minor White (American, 1908-1976)
Vicinity of Rochester, New York
1954
Gelatin silver print
18.4 x 23.2cm (7 1/4 x 9 1/8 in.)
Promised gift of Daniel Greenberg and Susan Steinhauser
Reproduced with permission of the Minor White Archive, Princeton University Art Museum
© Trustees of Princeton University

 

 

Never the objective camera, always a mixture of spirit and emotion

Minor White and Eugène Atget. Eugène Atget and Minor White. These two photographers were my heroes when I first started studying photography in the early 1990s. They remain so today. Nothing anyone can say can take away from the sheer simple pleasure of really looking at photographs by these two icons of the art form.

I have waited six years to do a posting on the work of Minor White, and this exhibition is the first major retrospective of White’s work since 1989. This posting contains thirty seven images, one of the biggest collections of his photographs available on the web.

What drew me to his work all those years ago? I think it was his clarity of vision that so enthralled me, that showed me what is possible – with previsualisation, clear seeing, feeling and thinking – when exposing a photograph. And that exposing is really an exposing of the Self.

Developing the concept of Steiglitz’s ‘equivalents’ (where a photograph can stand for an/other state of being), White “sought to access, and have connection to, fundamental truths… Studying Zen Buddhism, Gurdjieff and astrology, White believed in the photographs’ connection to the subject he was photographing and the subject’s connection back via the camera to the photographer forming a holistic circle. When, in meditation, this connection was open he would then expose the negative in the camera hopeful of a “revelation” of spirit in the subsequent photograph.” (MB) The capturing of these liminal moments in the flux of time and space is such a rare occurrence that one must be patient for the sublime to reveal itself, if only for a fraction of a second.

Although I cannot view this exhibition, I have seen the checklist of all the works in the exhibition. The selection is solid enough covering all the major periods in White’s long career. The book is also solid enough BUT BOTH EXHIBITION AND BOOK ARE NOT WHAT WE REALLY WANT TO SEE!

At first, Minor White photographed for the individual image – and then when he had a body of work together he would form a sequence. He seemed to be able to switch off the sequence idea until he felt “a storm was brewing” and his finished prints could be placed in another context. It was only with the later sequences that he photographed with a sequence in mind (of course there is also the glorious fold-out in The Eye That Shapes that is the Totemic sequence that is more a short session that became a sequence). In his maturity Minor White composed in sequences of images, like music, with the rise and fall of tonality and range, the juxtaposition of one image next to another, the juxtaposition of twenty or more images together to form compound meanings within a body of work. This is what we really need to see and are waiting to see: an exhibition and book titled: THE SEQUENCES OF MINOR WHITE. I hope in my lifetime! **

How can you really judge his work without understanding the very form that he wanted the work to be seen in? We can access individual images and seek to understand and feel them, but in MW their meaning remains contingent upon their relationship to the images that surround them, the ice/fire frisson of that space between images that guides the tensions and relations to each other. Using my knowledge as an artist and musician, I have sequenced the first seven images in this posting just to give you an idea of what a sequence of associations may look like using the photographs of Minor White. I hope he would be happy with my selection. I hope I have made them sing.

Other than a superb range of tones (for example, in Pavilion, New York 1957 between the flowers in shadow and sun – like an elegy to Edward Weston and the nautilus shell / pepper in the tin) the size, contrast, lighter/darker – warmer/cooler elements of MW’s photographs are all superb. These are the first things we look at when we technically critique prints from these simple criteria, and there aren’t many that pass. But these are all well made images by MW. He was never Diogenes with a camera, never the objective camera, he was always involved… and his images were printed with a mixture of spirit and emotion. Now, try and FEEL your response to the first seven images that I have put together. Don’t be too analytical, just try, with clear, peaceful mind and still body, to enter into the space of those images, to let them take you away to a place that we rarely allow ourselves to visit, a place that is is out of our normal realm of existence. It is possible, everything is possible. If photography becomes something else -then it does -then it does.

Finally, I want to address the review of the book by Blake Andrews on the photo-eye blog website (Blake Andrews. “Book Review: Manifestations of the Spirit,” on the photo-eye blog website October 6, 2014 [Online] Cited 26/06/2021). The opening statement opines: “Is photography in crisis again? Well then, it must be time for another Minor White retrospective.” What a thrown away line. As can be seen from the extract of an interview with MW (published 1977, below), White didn’t care what direction photography took because he could do nothing about it. He just accepted it for what it is and moved with it. He was not distressed at the direction of contemporary photography because it was all grist to the mill. To say that when photography is in crisis (it’s always in crisis!) you wheel out the work of Minor White to bring it back into line is just ridiculous… photography is -what it is, -what it is.

Blake continues, “Minor White was a jack-of-all-styles in the photo world, trying his hand at just about everything at one time or another. The plates in the book give a flavour of his shifting – some might say dilettantish – photo styles.” Obviously he agrees with this assessment otherwise he would not have put it in. I do not. Almost every artist in the world goes on a journey of discovery to find their voice, their metier, and that early experimentation is part of the overall journey, the personal and universal narrative that an artist pictures. Look at the early paintings of Jackson Pollock or Mark Rothko in their representational ease, or the early photographs of Aaron Siskind and how they progress from social documentary to abstract expressionism. The same with MW. In this sense every artist is a dilettante. Every photograph is part of his journey as an artist and has value in an of itself.

And I don’t believe that his mature voice was “internalised, messy, and deliberately obtuse,” – it is only so to those that do not understand what he sought to achieve through his images, those who don’t really understand his work.

Blake comments, “Twenty-five years later White’s star is rising again. One could speculate the reasons for the timing, that photography is in crisis, or at least adrift, and in need of a guru. But the truth is photography has been on the therapist’s couch since day one, going through this or that level of doubt or identity crisis. Is it an art? Science? Documentation? Can it be trusted? When Minor White came along none of these questions had been resolved, and they never will. But every quarter century or so it sure feels good to hang your philosopher’s hat on something solid. Or at least someone self-assured.”

Every quarter of a century, hang your philosophers hat on something solid? Or at least someone self-assured? The last thing that you would say about MW was that the was self-assured (his battles with depression, homosexuality, God, and the aftermath of his experiences during the Second World War); and the last thing that you would say about the philosophy and photographs of MW is that they are something solid and immovable.

For me, the man and his images are always moving, always in a constant state of flux, as avant-garde (in the sense of their accessing of the eternal) and as challenging and essential as they ever were. Through his work and writings Minor White – facilitator, enabler – allowed the viewer to become an active participant in an aesthetic experience that alters reality, creating an über reality (if you like), one whose aesthetics promotes an interrogation of both ourselves and the world in which we live.

“There are plays written on the simplest themes which in themselves are not interesting. But they are permeated by the eternal and he who feels this quality in them perceives that they are written for all eternity.” ~ Constantin Stanislavsky, (1863-1938) / My Life in Art.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

 

**The Minor White Archive at Princeton University Museum of Art has a project called The Minor White Archive proof cards: “The ultimate goal of this project is a stand-alone website dedicated to the Minor White Archive, and the completely scanned proof cards represent significant progress to this end. The website will be an authoritative source for the titles and dates of White’s photographs. All of the scanned proof cards will be available on the website so that users can search the primary source information as well as major published titles. Additionally, the website will include White’s major published sequences, with additional sequences uploaded gradually until the complete set is online. Eventually, the hope is to have subject-term browsing available, adding another access point to the Archive.”

Sarah Moore. “The Minor White Archive proof cards,” on the Princeton University Art Museum website 2014 [Online] Cited 26/06/2021


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

 

 

“Self-discovery through a camera? I am scared to look for fear of discovering how shallow my Self is! I will persist however … because the camera has its eye on the exterior world. Camera will lead my constant introspection back into the world. So camerawork will save my life.”

“When you try to photograph something for what it is, you have to go out of yourself, out of your way, to understand the object, its facts and essence. When you photograph things for what ‘Else’ they are, the object goes out of its way to understand you.”


Minor White

 

 

When Paul Martineau, an associate curator at the J. Paul Getty Museum, in Los Angeles, was collecting photographs for a new retrospective of Minor White’s photography, he discovered an album called The Temptation of Saint Anthony Is Mirrors. Only two copies of the volume were produced, each containing thirty-two images of Tom Murphy, Minor’s student and model. “It’s a visual love letter: he only created two, one given to Tom and one for him,” Martineau told me.

Martineau’s show, Minor White: Manifestations of the Spirit, is the first major retrospective of White’s work since 1989. White was born in Minneapolis, in 1908, took photographs for the Works Progress Administration during the nineteen-thirties, and served in the Army during the Second World War. He kept company with Ansel Adams, Alfred Steiglitz, and Edward Steichen, and, in 1952, he helped found the influential photography magazine Aperture. Martineau said that, while the Getty retrospective “comes at a time when life is rife with visual imagery, most of it designed to capture our attention momentarily and communicate a simple message,” White aimed to more durably express “our relationships with one another, with the natural world, with the infinite.” White believed that all of his photographs were self-portraits; as Martineau put it, “he pushed himself to live what he called a life in photography.”

 

Minor White (American, 1908-1976) 'Stony Brook State Park, New York' 1960 from the exhibition 'Minor White: Manifestations of the Spirit' at the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, July - October, 2014

 

Minor White (American, 1908-1976)
Stony Brook State Park, New York
1960
Gelatin silver print
30.5 x 24.1cm (12 x 9 1/2 in.)
Daniel Greenberg and Susan Steinhauser
Reproduced with permission of the Minor White Archive, Princeton University Art Museum
© Trustees of Princeton University

 

Minor White (American, 1908-1976) '72 N. Union Street, Rochester, New York' 1960Minor White. '72 N. Union Street, Rochester, New York' 1960

 

Minor White (American, 1908-1976)
72 N. Union Street, Rochester, New York
1960
Gelatin silver print
30.5 x 24.1cm (12 x 9 1/2 in.)
Daniel Greenberg and Susan Steinhauser
Reproduced with permission of the Minor White Archive, Princeton University Art Museum
© Trustees of Princeton University

 

Minor White (American, 1908-1976) 'The Sound of One Hand Clapping, Pultneyville, New York' 1957

 

Minor White (American, 1908-1976)
The Sound of One Hand Clapping, Pultneyville, New York
1957
Gelatin silver print
24.4 x 25.1cm (9 5/8 x 9 7/8 in.)
Purchased in part with funds provided by Daniel Greenberg, Susan Steinhauser, and the Greenberg Foundation
Reproduced with permission of the Minor White Archive, Princeton University Art Museum
© Trustees of Princeton University

 

Minor White (American, 1908-1976) 'Haags Alley, Rochester, New York' 1960

 

Minor White (American, 1908-1976)
Haags Alley, Rochester, New York
1960
Gelatin silver print
30.5 x 24.1cm (12 x 9 1/2 in.)
Daniel Greenberg and Susan Steinhauser
Reproduced with permission of the Minor White Archive, Princeton University Art Museum
© Trustees of Princeton University

 

Minor White (American, 1908-1976) 'Tom Murphy, San Francisco, California' 1948

 

Minor White (American, 1908-1976)
Tom Murphy, San Francisco, California
1948
Gelatin silver print
12.5 x 10cm (4 15/16 x 3 15/16 in.)
The Minor White Archive, Princeton University Art Museum, bequest of Minor White
© Trustees of Princeton University

 

Minor White (American, 1908-1976) '72 N. Union Street, Rochester, New York' 1958

 

Minor White (American, 1908-1976)
72 N. Union Street, Rochester, New York
1958
Gelatin silver print
26.7 x 29.2cm (10 1/2 x 11 1/2 in.)
Promised gift of Daniel Greenberg and Susan Steinhauser
Reproduced with permission of the Minor White Archive, Princeton University Art Museum
© Trustees of Princeton University

 

 

Controversial, misunderstood, and sometimes overlooked, Minor White (American 1908-1976) pursued a life in photography with great energy and ultimately extended the expressive possibilities of the medium. A tireless worker, White’s long career as a photographer, teacher, editor, curator, and critic was highly influential and remains central to understanding the history of photographic modernism. Minor White: Manifestations of the Spirit, on view July 8 – October 19, 2014 at the J. Paul Getty Museum, Getty Center is the first major retrospective of his work since 1989.

The exhibition includes never-before-seen photographs from the artist’s archive at Princeton University, recent Getty Museum acquisitions, a significant group of loans from the collection of Daniel Greenberg and Susan Steinhauser, alongside loans from the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Portland Art Museum, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Also featured is White’s masterly photographic sequence Sound of One Hand (1965).

“Minor White had a profound impact on his many students, colleagues, and the photographers who considered him a true innovator, making this retrospective of his work long overdue” says Timothy Potts, director of the J. Paul Getty Museum. “The exhibition brings together a number of loans from private and public collections, and offers a rare opportunity to see some of his greatest work alongside unseen photographs from his extensive archive.”

One of White’s goals was to photograph objects not only for what they are but also for what they may suggest, and his pictures teem with symbolic and metaphorical allusions. White was a closeted homosexual, and his sexual desire for men was a source of turmoil and frustration. He confided his feelings in the journal he kept throughout his life and sought comfort in a variety of Western and Eastern religious practices. This search for spiritual transcendence continually influenced his artistic philosophy.

Early Career, 1937-1945

In 1937, White relocated from Minneapolis, where he was born and educated, to Portland, Oregon. Determined to become a photographer, he read all the photography books he could get his hands on and joined the Oregon Camera Club to gain access to their darkroom. Within five years, he was offered his first solo exhibition at the Portland Art Museum (1942). White’s early work exhibits his nascent spiritual awakening while exploring the natural magnificence of Oregon. His Cabbage Hill, Oregon (Grande Ronde Valley) (1941) uses a split-rail fence and a coil of barbed wire to demonstrate the hard physical labor required to live off the land as well as the redemption of humankind through Christ’s sacrifice on the cross.

During World War II, White served in Army Intelligence in the South Pacific. Upon discharge, rather than return to Oregon, he spent the winter in New York City. There, he studied art history with Meyer Shapiro at Columbia University, museum work with Beaumont Newhall at the Museum of Modern Art, and creative thought in photography with photographer, gallerist, and critic Alfred Stieglitz (American, 1864-1946).

Midcareer, 1946-1964

In 1946, famed photographer Ansel Adams (American, 1902-1984) invited White to teach photography at the California School of Fine Arts (CSFA) in San Francisco. The following year, White established himself as head of the program and developed new methods for training students. His own work during this period began to shift toward the metaphorical with the creation of images charged with symbolism and a critical aspect known as “equivalence,” meaning an image may serve as an idea or emotional state beyond the subject pictured. In 1952, White co-founded the seminal photography journal Aperture and was its editor until 1975.

In 1953, White accepted a job as an assistant curator at the George Eastman House (GEH) in Rochester, New York, where he organised exhibitions and edited GEH’s magazine Image. Coinciding with his move east was an intensification of his study of Christian mysticism, Zen Buddhism, and the I Ching. In 1955, he began teaching a class in photojournalism at the Rochester Institute of Technology and shortly after began to accept one or two live-in students to work on a variety of projects that were alternately practical and spiritually enriching. During the late 1950s and continuing until the mid-1960s, White traveled the United States during the summers, making his own photographs and organising photographic workshops in various cities across the country.

By the late 1950s, at the height of his career, White pushed himself to do the impossible – to make the invisible world of the spirit visible through photography. White’s masterpiece – and the summation of his persistent search for a way to communicate ecstasy – is the sequence Sound of One Hand, so named after the Zen koan which asks “What is the sound of one hand clapping?”

“White’s sequences are meant to be viewed from left to right, preferably in a state of relaxation and heightened awareness,” says Paul Martineau, associate curator of photographs at the J. Paul Getty Museum and curator of the exhibition. “White called on the viewer to be an active participant in experiencing the varied moods and associations that come from moving from one photograph to the next.”

Late Career, 1965-1976

In 1965, White was appointed professor of creative photography at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he developed an ambitious program in photographic education. As he aged, he became increasingly concerned with his legacy, and began working on his first monograph, Mirrors Messages Manifestations, which was published by Aperture in 1969. The following year, White was awarded a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, and he was the subject of a major traveling retrospective organised by the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 1971.

Beginning in the late 1960s and continuing until the early 1970s, White organised a series of groundbreaking thematic exhibitions at MIT – the first of which served as a springboard for forming the university’s photographs collection. In 1976, White died of heart failure and bequeathed his home to the Aperture Foundation and his photographic archive of more than fifteen thousand objects to Princeton University. The exhibition also includes work by two of White’s students, each celebrated photographers in their own right, Paul Caponigro (American, 1932-2024) and Carl Chiarenza (American, born 1935).

“An important aspect of Minor White’s legacy was his influence on the next generation of photographers,” says Martineau. “Over the course of a career that lasted nearly four decades, he managed to maintain personal and professional connections with hundreds of young photographers – an impressive feat for a man dedicated to the continued exploration of photography’s possibilities.

Press release from the J. Paul Getty Museum website

 

Minor White (American, 1908-1976) 'Navarro River, California' 1947

 

Minor White (American, 1908-1976)
Navarro River, California
1947
Gelatin silver print
35.6 x 45.7cm (14 x 18 in.)
Lent by Gloria Katz and Willard Huyck
Reproduced with permission of the Minor White Archive, Princeton University Art Museum
© Trustees of Princeton University

 

Minor White (American, 1908-1976) 'Nude Foot, San Francisco, California' Negative, 1947; print, 1975

 

Minor White (American, 1908-1976)
Nude Foot, San Francisco, California
Negative, 1947; print, 1975
Gelatin silver print
22.9 x 30.5cm (9 x 12 in.)
Promised gift of Daniel Greenberg and Susan Steinhauser
Reproduced with permission of the Minor White Archive, Princeton University Art Museum
© Trustees of Princeton University

 

Minor White (American, 1908-1976) 'Pavilion, New York' 1957

 

Minor White (American, 1908-1976)
Pavilion, New York
1957
Gelatin silver print
22.5 x 29.5cm (8 7/8 x 11 5/8 in.)
Purchased in part with funds provided by Daniel Greenberg, Susan Steinhauser, and the Greenberg Foundation
Reproduced with permission of the Minor White Archive, Princeton University Art Museum
© Trustees of Princeton University

 

Minor White (American, 1908-1976) 'Cabbage Hill, Oregon (Grande Ronde Valley)' 1941

 

Minor White (American, 1908-1976)
Cabbage Hill, Oregon (Grande Ronde Valley)
1941
Gelatin silver print
18 x 22.9cm (7 1/16 x 9 in.)
The Minor White Archive, Princeton University Art Museum, bequest of Minor White
© Trustees of Princeton University

 

Minor White (American, 1908-1976) 'Self-Portrait, West Bloomfield, New York' 1957

 

Minor White (American, 1908-1976)
Self-Portrait, West Bloomfield, New York
1957
Gelatin silver print
17.8 x 20.6cm (7 x 8 1/8 in.)
The Minor White Archive, Princeton University Art Museum, bequest of Minor White
© Trustees of Princeton University

 

 

Interview with Minor White

Q. How would you like to see photography develop?

A. It makes absolutely no difference what I want it to do. It’s going to do what it’s going to do. All I can do is stand back and observe it.

Q. What don’t you want it to do?

A. That doesn’t make any difference either, It’ll do that whether I want it to or not!

Q. Surely, you’ve got to have some feelings?

A. In one sense I don’t care what photography does at all. I can just watch it do it. I can control my photography, I can do what I want with it – a little. If I can get into  contact  with something much wiser than myself , and it says get out of photography, maybe I would. I hesitate to say this because I know its going to be misunderstood. I’ll put I this way – I’m trying to be in contact with my Creator when I photograph. I know perfectly well its not possible to do this all the time, but there can be moments.

Q. Do you see anything in contemporary photography that distresses you?

A. What ever they do is fine.

Q. Is there any work that you are particularly interested in?

A. What ever my students are doing.

Q. There seems to be a passing on of certain sets of ideas and understandings. Do you feel yourself to be an inheritor of a set of ideas or ideals?

A. Naturally. After all I have two parents, so I inherited some thing. I’ve had many spiritual fathers for example. The photographers who I have been influenced by for example. There have been many other external influences. Students have had an influence. In a sense that’s an inheritance. After a while we work with material that comes to us and it becomes ours, we digest it. It becomes energy and food for us, its ours. And then I can pass it on to somebody else with a sense of responsibility and validity. I am quoting it in my words, it has become mine and that person will take it from me – just as I have taken it from people who have influenced me. Take what you can use, digest it, make it yours, and then transmit it to your children or your students.

Q. It’s a cycle?

A. No, it’s a continuous line. Not a cycle at all.


Interview by Paul Hill and Thomas Cooper of Minor White, published in 3 parts in the January, February and March editions of Camera 1977.

 

Minor White (American, 1908-1976) 'Point Lobos, California' 1948

 

Minor White (American, 1908-1976)
Point Lobos, California
1948
Gelatin silver print
16.8 x 19.5cm (6 5/8 x 7 11/16 in.)
The Minor White Archive, Princeton University Art Museum, bequest of Minor White
© Trustees of Princeton University

 

Minor White (American, 1908-1976) 'San Francisco, California' 1949

 

Minor White (American, 1908-1976)
San Francisco, California
1949
Gelatin silver print
18.5 x 18.7cm (7 5/16 x 7 3/8 in.)
The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Purchase
Reproduced with permission of the Minor White Archive, Princeton University Art Museum
© Trustees of Princeton University

 

Minor White (American, 1908-1976) 'Vicinity of Dansville, New York' Negative, 1955; print, 1975

 

Minor White (American, 1908-1976)
Vicinity of Dansville, New York
Negative, 1955; print, 1975
Gelatin silver print
22.9 x 30.5cm (9 x 12 in.)
Promised gift of Daniel Greenberg and Susan Steinhauser
Reproduced with permission of the Minor White Archive, Princeton University Art Museum
© Trustees of Princeton University

 

Minor White (American, 1908-1976) Images in the bound sequence 'The Temptation of Saint Anthony Is Mirrors'

 

(top)

Minor White (American, 1908-1976)
Images 9 and 10 in the bound sequence The Temptation of Saint Anthony Is Mirrors
1948
Gelatin silver prints
9.3 x 11.8cm; 11.2 x 9.1cm
The Minor White Archive, Princeton University Art Museum, bequest of Minor White
© Trustees of Princeton University

(bottom)

Minor White (American, 1908-1976)
Images 27 and 28 in the bound sequence The Temptation of Saint Anthony Is Mirrors
1948
Gelatin silver prints
5.3 x 11.6cm; 10.6 x 8.9cm
The Minor White Archive, Princeton University Art Museum, bequest of Minor White
© Trustees of Princeton University

 

Minor White (American, 1908-1976) 'Rochester, New York' 1963

 

Minor White (American, 1908-1976)
Rochester, New York
1963
Gelatin silver print
9.2 x 7.3cm (3 5/8 x 2 7/8 in.)
Promised gift of Daniel Greenberg and Susan Steinhauser
Reproduced with permission of the Minor White Archive, Princeton University Art Museum
© Trustees of Princeton University

 

 

Minor White: Manifestations of the Spirit book

Controversial, eccentric, and sometimes overlooked, Minor White (1908-1976) is one of the great photographers of the twentieth century, whose ideas and philosophies about the medium of photography have exerted a powerful influence on a generation of practitioners and still resonate today. Born and raised in Minneapolis, his photographic career began in 1938 in Portland, Oregon with assignments as a “creative photographer” for the Oregon Art Project, an outgrowth of the Works Progress Administration (WPA).

After serving in World War II as a military intelligence officer, White studied art history at Columbia University in New York. It was during this period that White’s focus started to shift toward the metaphorical. He began to create images charged with symbolism and a critical aspect called “equivalency,” which referred to the invisible spiritual energy present in a photograph made visible to the viewer and was inspired by the work of Alfred Stieglitz. White’s belief in the spiritual and metaphysical qualities in photography, and in the camera as a tool for self-discovery, was crucial to his oeuvre.

Minor White: Manifestations of the Spirit (Getty Publications, 2014) gathers together for the first time a diverse selection of more than 160 images made by Minor White over five decades, including some never published before. Accompanying the photographs is an in-depth critical essay by Paul Martineau entitled “‘My Heart Laid Bare’: Photography, Transformation, and Transcendence,” which includes particularly insightful quotations from his journals, which he kept for more than forty years.

The result is an engaging narrative that weaves through the main threads of White’s work and life – his growth and tireless experimentation as an artist; his intense mentorship of his students; his relationships with Edward Weston, Alfred Stieglitz, and Ansel Adams, who had a profound influence on his work; and his labor of love as cofounder and editor of Aperture magazine from 1952 until 1976. The book also addresses White’s life-long spiritual search and ongoing struggle with his own sexuality and self-doubt, in response to which he sought comfort in a variety of religious practices that influenced his continually metamorphosing artistic philosophy.

Published here in its entirety for the first time is White’s stunning series The Temptation of Anthony Is Mirrors, consisting of 32 photographs of White’s student and model Tom Murphy made in 1947 and 1948 in San Francisco. White’s photographs of Murphy’s hands and feet are interspersed within a larger group of portraits and nude figure studies. White kept the series secret for years as at the time he made the photographs it was illegal to publish or show images with male frontal nudity. Anyone making such images would be assumed to be homosexual and outed at a time when this invariably meant losing gainful employment.

Other works shown in this rich collection are White’s early images of the city of Portland that depict his experimentations with different styles and nascent spiritual awakening; his photographs of the urban streets of San Francisco where he lived for a time; his elegant images of rocks, sandy beaches and tidal pools in Point Lobos State Park in Northern California that are an homage to Edward Weston; and the series The Sound of One Hand made in the vicinity of Rochester, New York where he also taught classes at the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) and curated shows at the George Eastman House (GEH). Paul Martineau describes this iconic series as “White’s chef d’oeuvre, the work that is the summation of his persistent search or a way to communicate ecstasy.” Among the eleven images in the Getty collection are Windowsill Daydreaming, Rochester, Night Icicle, 72 N. Union Street, Rochester, and Pavilion, New York.

Text from the J. Paul Getty Museum

 

Minor White (American, 1908-1976) '"Something Died Here," San Francisco, California' 1947

 

Minor White (American, 1908-1976)
“Something Died Here,” San Francisco, California
1947
Gelatin silver print
22.8 x 17.5cm (9 x 6 7/8 in.)
The Minor White Archive, Princeton University Art Museum, bequest of Minor White
© Trustees of Princeton University

 

Minor White (American, 1908-1976) 'Dodd Building, Portland, Oregon' c. 1939

 

Minor White (American, 1908-1976)
Dodd Building, Portland, Oregon
c. 1939
Gelatin silver print
34.3 x 26.7cm (13 1/2 x 10 1/2 in.)
Fine Arts Program, Public Buildings Service, U.S. General Services Administration

 

Minor White (American, 1908-1976) 'San Mateo County, California / Leonard Nelson, Vicinity of Stinson Beach, Marin County, California, November 1947' 1947

 

Minor White (American, 1908-1976)
San Mateo County, California / Leonard Nelson, Vicinity of Stinson Beach, Marin County, California, November 1947
1947
Gelatin silver print
30.5 x 50.8cm (12 x 20 in.)
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Ralph M. Parsons Fund
Reproduced with permission of the Minor White Archive, Princeton UniversityArt Museum
© Trustees of Princeton University

 

Minor White (American, 1908-1976) 'Lily Pads and Pike, Portland, Oregon' c. 1939

 

Minor White (American, 1908-1976)
Lily Pads and Pike, Portland, Oregon
c. 1939
Gelatin silver print
34 x 26.8cm (13 3/8 x 10 9/16 in.)
Fine Arts Program, Public Buildings Service, U.S. General Services

 

Minor White (American, 1908-1976) 'Design (Cable and Chain), Portland, Oregon' c. 1940

 

Minor White (American, 1908-1976)
Design (Cable and Chain), Portland, Oregon
c. 1940
Gelatin silver print
33.8 x 25.8cm (13 5/16 x 10 3/16 in.)
Fine Arts Program, Public Buildings Service, U.S. General Services Administration

 

Minor White (American, 1908-1976) 'Peeled Paint, Rochester, New York' 1959

 

Minor White (American, 1908-1976)
Peeled Paint, Rochester, New York
1959
Gelatin silver print
31.1 x 22.9cm (12 1/4 x 9 in.)
Promised gift of Daniel Greenberg and Susan Steinhauser
Reproduced with permission of the Minor White Archive, Princeton University Art Museum
© Trustees of Princeton University

 

Minor White (American, 1908-1976) 'Empty Head, 72 N. Union Street, Rochester, New York' 1962

 

Minor White (American, 1908-1976)
Empty Head, 72 N. Union Street, Rochester, New York
1962
Gelatin silver print
30 x 23cm (11 13/16 x 9 1/16 in.)
Purchased in part with funds provided by Daniel Greenberg, Susan Steinhauser, and the Greenberg Foundation
Reproduced with permission of the Minor White Archive, Princeton University Art Museum
© Trustees of Princeton University

 

Minor White (American, 1908-1976) 'Burned Mirror, Rochester, New York' 1959

 

Minor White (American, 1908-1976)
Burned Mirror, Rochester, New York
1959
Gelatin silver print
30.5 x 22cm (12 x 8 11/16 in.)
Purchased in part with funds provided by Daniel Greenberg, Susan Steinhauser, and the Greenberg Foundation
Reproduced with permission of the Minor White Archive, Princeton University Art Museum
© Trustees of Princeton University

 

Minor White (American, 1908-1976) 'Essence of Boat, Lanesville, Massachusetts' 1967

 

Minor White (American, 1908-1976)
Essence of Boat, Lanesville, Massachusetts
1967
Gelatin silver print
31.8 x 23.8cm (12 1/2 x 9 3/8 in.)
Daniel Greenberg and Susan Steinhauser
Reproduced with permission of the Minor White Archive, Princeton University Art Museum
© Trustees of Princeton University

 

Minor White (American, 1908-1976) 'Ivy, Portland, Oregon' Negative,1964; print, 1975

 

Minor White (American, 1908-1976)
Ivy, Portland, Oregon
Negative,1964; print, 1975
Gelatin silver print
22.9 x 30.5cm (9 x 12 in.)
Promised gift of Daniel Greenberg and Susan Steinhauser
Reproduced with permission of the Minor White Archive, Princeton University Art Museum
© Trustees of Princeton University

 

Minor White (American, 1908-1976) '72 N. Union Street, Rochester, New York' 1960

 

Minor White (American, 1908-1976)
72 N. Union Street, Rochester, New York
1960
Gelatin silver print
30.5 x 24.1cm (12 x 9 1/2 in.)
Daniel Greenberg and Susan Steinhauser
Reproduced with permission of the Minor White Archive, Princeton University Art Museum
© Trustees of Princeton University

 

Minor White (American, 1908-1976) 'Moencopi Strata, Capitol Reef National Park, Utah' 1962

 

Minor White (American, 1908-1976)
Moencopi Strata, Capitol Reef National Park, Utah
1962
Gelatin silver print
32.7 x 24.1cm (12 7/8 x 9 1/2 in.)
Promised gift of Daniel Greenberg and Susan Steinhauser
Reproduced with permission of the Minor White Archive, Princeton University Art Museum
© Trustees of Princeton University

 

Minor White (American, 1908-1976) 'Windowsill Daydreaming, Rochester, New York' 1958

 

Minor White (American, 1908-1976)
Windowsill Daydreaming, Rochester, New York
1958
Gelatin silver print
24.4 x 25.1cm (9 5/8 x 9 7/8 in.)
Purchased in part with funds provided by Daniel Greenberg, Susan Steinhauser, and the Greenberg Foundation
Reproduced with permission of the Minor White Archive, Princeton University Art Museum
© Trustees of Princeton University

 

Minor White (American, 1908-1976) 'Notom, Utah' 1963

 

Minor White (American, 1908-1976)
Notom, Utah
1963
Gelatin silver print
39.4 x 31.1cm (15 1/2 x 12 1/4 in.)
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
Reproduced with permission of the Minor White Archive, Princeton University Art Museum
© Trustees of Princeton University

 

Minor White (American, 1908-1976) 'Gloucester, Massachusetts' 1973

 

Minor White (American, 1908-1976)
Gloucester, Massachusetts
1973
Gelatin silver print
21.6 x 29.2cm (8 1/2 x 11 1/2 in.)
Daniel Greenberg and Susan Steinhauser
Reproduced with permission of the Minor White Archive, Princeton University Art Museum
© Trustees of Princeton University

 

Minor White (American, 1908-1976) 'Batavia, New York' 1958

 

Minor White (American, 1908-1976)
Batavia, New York
1958
Gelatin silver print
34 x 20.3cm (13 3/8 x 8 in.)
Purchased in part with funds provided by Daniel Greenberg, Susan Steinhauser, and the Greenberg Foundation
Reproduced with permission of the Minor White Archive, Princeton University Art Museum
© Trustees of Princeton University

 

Minor White (American, 1908-1976) 'Night Icicle, 72 N. Union Street, Rochester, New York' 1959

 

Minor White (American, 1908-1976)
Night Icicle, 72 N. Union Street, Rochester, New York
1959
Gelatin silver print
30.5 x 23cm (12 x 9 1/16 in.)
Purchased in part with funds provided by Daniel Greenberg, Susan Steinhauser, and the Greenberg Foundation
Reproduced with permission of the Minor White Archive, Princeton University Art Museum
© Trustees of Princeton University

 

Minor White (American, 1908-1976) '203 Park Ave., Arlington, Massachusetts' 1966

 

Minor White (American, 1908-1976)
203 Park Ave., Arlington, Massachusetts
1966
Gelatin silver print
34.3 x 12.7cm (13 1/2 x 5 in.)
Promised gift of Daniel Greenberg and Susan Steinhauser
Reproduced with permission of the Minor White Archive, Princeton University Art Museum
© Trustees of Princeton University

 

Minor White (American, 1908-1976) 'Easter Sunday, Stony Brook State Park, New York' 1963

 

Minor White (American, 1908-1976)
Easter Sunday, Stony Brook State Park, New York
1963
Gelatin silver print
23.7 x 9.2cm (9 5/16 x 3 5/8 in.)
Promised gift of Daniel Greenberg and Susan Steinhauser
Reproduced with permission of the Minor White Archive, Princeton University Art Museum
© Trustees of Princeton University

 

Minor White (American, 1908-1976) 'Mission District, San Francisco, California' 1949

 

Minor White (American, 1908-1976)
Mission District, San Francisco, California
1949
Gelatin silver print
33.8 x 9.5cm (13 5/16 x 3 3/4 in.)
The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Purchase
Reproduced with permission of the Minor White Archive, Princeton University Art Museum
© Trustees of Princeton University

 

 

The J. Paul Getty Museum
1200 Getty Center Drive
Los Angeles, California 90049

Opening hours:
Tuesday – Friday, Sunday 10am – 5.30pm
Saturday 10am – 8pm
Monday Closed

The J. Paul Getty Museum website

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Exhibition: ‘Sharp, Clear Pictures: Edward Steichen’s World War 1 and Condé Nast Years’ at The Art Institute of Chicago

Exhibition dates: 24th June – 13th October, 2014

 

 

Photographic Section, U.S. Air Service, American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) and Major Edward J. Steichen, A.S.A. 'Bomb Dropped From Airplane' 1918 from the exhibition 'Sharp, Clear Pictures: Edward Steichen's World War 1 and Condé Nast Years' at The Art Institute of Chicago, June - October, 2014

 

Photographic Section, U.S. Air Service, American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) and Major Edward J. Steichen, A.S.A.
Bomb Dropped From Airplane
1918
Gelatin silver print, from loose-leaf album of aerial photographs from the Photographic Section, Air Service, American Expeditionary Forces, World War I
The Art Institute of Chicago, gift of William Kistler
© 2014 The Estate of Edward Steichen/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

 

 

Brave man, hanging over the side of a rickety biplane at 15,000 feet taking aerial photographs during World War One but just look at the images he brought back, especially the hellish Untitled (Vaux) (1918-1919, below). I’m still not that convinced by his portraiture. The technical proficiency is magnificent (lighting, set, costume) but they are just too styled for me – the cat in the top left corner of Noel Coward (1932, below), the bowler hat of Charles Chaplin (1931, below) and the double shadow of Fred Astaire in Funny Face (1927, below) coupled with bands of light/dark and tons of “atmosphere” (certainly not sharp and clear!) which echo the mannerisms of Pictorialism. I see little modernist aesthetics and advertising tactics in these photographs. They are beautiful but they leave me unengaged. I much prefer the advertising photography in the next posting, much more angular and modern. You will have to wait and see what it is!

Dr Marcus Bunyan


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

 

 

Photographic Section, U.S. Air Service, American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) and Major Edward J. Steichen, A.S.A. 'In Chateau Thierry Sector showing service bridges destroyed by retreating enemy forces' September 7, 1918 from the exhibition 'Sharp, Clear Pictures: Edward Steichen's World War 1 and Condé Nast Years' at The Art Institute of Chicago, June - October, 2014

 

Photographic Section, U.S. Air Service, American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) and Major Edward J. Steichen, A.S.A.
In Chateau Thierry Sector showing service bridges destroyed by retreating enemy forces
September 7, 1918
Gelatin silver print, from loose-leaf album of aerial photographs from the Photographic Section, Air Service, American Expeditionary Forces, World War I
The Art Institute of Chicago, gift of William Kistler
© 2014 The Estate of Edward Steichen/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

 

Photographic Section, U.S. Air Service, American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) and Major Edward J. Steichen, A.S.A. 'In Chateau Thierry Sector showing service bridges destroyed by retreating enemy forces' (detail) September 7, 1918 (detail)

 

Photographic Section, U.S. Air Service, American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) and Major Edward J. Steichen, A.S.A.
In Chateau Thierry Sector showing service bridges destroyed by retreating enemy forces (detail)
September 7, 1918
Gelatin silver print, from loose-leaf album of aerial photographs from the Photographic Section, Air Service, American Expeditionary Forces, World War I
The Art Institute of Chicago, gift of William Kistler
© 2014 The Estate of Edward Steichen/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

 

Photographic Section, U.S. Air Service, American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) and Major Edward J. Steichen, A.S.A. 'Concrete landing platform for airplanes at Puxieux (each strip about 50 ft. wide by 250 ft long), crescent shape mass was formed by the pile of broken concrete when the platform was removed, altitude 15,000 ft.,' August 23, 1918

 

Photographic Section, U.S. Air Service, American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) and Major Edward J. Steichen, A.S.A.
Concrete landing platform for airplanes at Puxieux (each strip about 50 ft. wide by 250 ft long), crescent shape mass was formed by the pile of broken concrete when the platform was removed, altitude 15,000 ft.,
August 23, 1918
Gelatin silver print, from loose-leaf album of aerial photographs from the Photographic Section, Air Service, American Expeditionary Forces, World War I
The Art Institute of Chicago, gift of William Kistler
© 2014 The Estate of Edward Steichen/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

 

Photographic Section, U.S. Air Service, American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) and Major Edward J. Steichen, A.S.A. 'Concrete landing platform for airplanes at Puxieux (each strip about 50 ft. wide by 250 ft long), crescent shape mass was formed by the pile of broken concrete when the platform was removed, altitude 15,000 ft.,' (detail) August 23, 1918 (detail)

 

Photographic Section, U.S. Air Service, American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) and Major Edward J. Steichen, A.S.A.
Concrete landing platform for airplanes at Puxieux (each strip about 50 ft. wide by 250 ft long), crescent shape mass was formed by the pile of broken concrete when the platform was removed, altitude 15,000 ft., (detail)
August 23, 1918
Gelatin silver print, from loose-leaf album of aerial photographs from the Photographic Section, Air Service, American Expeditionary Forces, World War I
The Art Institute of Chicago, gift of William Kistler
© 2014 The Estate of Edward Steichen/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

 

Photographic Section, U.S. Air Service, American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) and Major Edward J. Steichen, A.S.A. 'Untitled (Vaux)' 1918/1919

 

Photographic Section, U.S. Air Service, American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) and Major Edward J. Steichen, A.S.A.
Untitled (Vaux)
1918-1919
Gelatin silver print, from loose-leaf album of aerial photographs from the Photographic Section, Air Service, American Expeditionary Forces, World War I
The Art Institute of Chicago, gift of William Kistler
© 2014 The Estate of Edward Steichen/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

 

 

At the start of World War I in 1914, Edward Steichen was a pioneering champion of art photography – catapulting to fame as a leading member of the Photo Secessionists and as cofounder of the trailblazing magazine Camera Work. Yet by the early 1920s, Steichen had rejected the soft focus, dreamy landscapes and portraits of his early years in favour of realist photographs made for informational purposes or popular consumption. This turning point was first marked by his role in World War I as chief of the Photographic Section of the American Expeditionary Forces from 1917 to 1919; and was fully realised in his subsequent work as lead photographer at Condé Nast publications from 1923 to 1937.

While on military duty, Steichen helped adapt aerial photography for intelligence purposes, implementing surveillance programs that had a lasting impact on modern warfare. He later reflected: “The wartime problem of making sharp, clear pictures from a vibrating, speeding airplane ten to twenty thousand feet in the air had brought me a new kind of technical interest in photography… Now I wanted to know all that could be expected from photography.” Steichen began to value photography’s capacity to transmit and encode information, and he soon proved his savvy as a collaborator and producer rather than a solitary auteur – new skills that enabled his subsequent groundbreaking career in magazines. Upon his return to New York in 1923, Steichen joined Condé Nast publications, creating iconic fashion photographs and celebrity portraits for Vogue and Vanity Fair. Over a period of nearly 15 years he created images that redefined the field through their clever use of modernist aesthetics and advertising tactics, becoming an influential impresario who promoted photography as a mass-media tool.

Focusing on rarely seen Steichen photographs drawn from the Art Institute’s collection, this exhibition includes a unique album of over 80 World War I aerial photographs assembled and annotated by Steichen himself as well as a group of iconic glamour portraits and fashion photographs done for Condé Nast, featuring notable figures such as Greta Garbo, Fred Astaire, and Gloria Swanson.

Text from The Art Institute of Chicago website

 

Edward Steichen (American, 1879-1973) 'Mary Duncan in "Lilly,"' 1931

 

Edward Steichen (American, 1879-1973)
Mary Duncan in “Lilly”
1931
The Art Institute of Chicago, bequest of Edward Steichen by direction of Joanna T. Steichen and George Eastman House
© 2014 The Estate of Edward Steichen/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

 

 

Throughout his extensive career, famed photographer Edward Steichen (1879-1973) championed photography’s multiple roles – from his earliest efforts to promote American photography as an equal among the modern fine arts, to his groundbreaking work for the magazine industry. A new exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago, Sharp, Clear Pictures: Edward Steichen’s World War I and Condé Nast Years, on view from June 28 – September 28, 2014, in Galleries 1-4, examines a crucial period in Steichen’s career, when he rejected the painterly Pictorialist aesthetic of his early years in favour of a straight, information-based approach. This turning point was first signalled by Steichen’s role in World War I, as chief of the Photographic Section of the American Expeditionary Forces from 1917 to 1919, and was fully realised in his work as lead photographer at Condé Nast Publications from 1923 to 1937.

Focusing on rarely seen Steichen photographs drawn from the Art Institute’s collection, this exhibition includes a unique album of over 80 World War I aerial photographs assembled and annotated by Steichen himself as well as a group of iconic glamour portraits and fashion photographs done for Condé Nast, featuring such early Hollywood royalty as Mary Pickford, Greta Garbo, Fred Astaire, Charlie Chaplin and Gloria Swanson, as well as key historical figures like Winston Churchill.

Prior to WWI, Edward Steichen was a pioneering champion of art photography – he had a leading reputation in the Photo Secession movement in New York, and, along with his mentor Alfred  Stieglitz, had cofounded its trail-blazing fine-art journal Camera Work. Together, they opened the Little Galleries of the Photo-Secession, later 291, which first presented Picasso, Bråncusi, and a range of progressive photographers to the American public. In 1906, seeking a change, Steichen moved to Voulangis, France, with his family, where he immersed himself in European modern art. They remained there until the outbreak of the war in 1914, when, under the threat of advancing German troops, they fled home to the United States.

In July 1917, Steichen entered active duty with the goal of becoming “a photographic reporter, as Mathew Brady had been in the Civil War,” but he quickly abandoned this romantic notion to help implement the newest weapon of war – aerial photography. While on military duty, Steichen helped adapt aerial photography for intelligence purposes, implementing surveillance programs that had a lasting impact on modern warfare. He later reflected: “The wartime problem of making sharp, clear pictures from a vibrating, speeding airplane ten to twenty thousand feet in the air had brought me a new kind of technical interest in photography… Now I wanted to know all that could be expected from photography.” Steichen began to value photography’s capacity to transmit and encode information, and he soon proved his savvy as a collaborator and producer rather than a solitary auteur – new skills that enabled his subsequent groundbreaking career in magazines.

Following his military discharge in 1919, Steichen returned to Voulangis, where for a period of three years he created work that embraced clear focus, close cropping, and other techniques of modernist photography. Upon his return to New York in 1923, Steichen joined Condé Nast Publications, creating iconic fashion photographs and celebrity portraits for Vogue and Vanity Fair. In undertaking this challenging endeavour, the organisational and technical skills Steichen gained during his time in the military and in Voulangis proved invaluable.

Steichen championed the cultural and economic potential of celebrity, fashion, and advertising photography, creating images that became the foundation for contemporary magazine photography. Over a period of nearly 15 years he created images that redefined the field through their clever use of modernist aesthetics and advertising tactics, becoming an influential impresario who promoted photography as a mass-media tool.

Press release from The Art Institute of Chicago website

 

Edward Steichen (American, 1879-1973) 'Self-Portrait with Brush and Palette' 1902

 

Edward Steichen (American, 1879-1973)
Self-Portrait with Brush and Palette
1902
The Art Institute of Chicago, Alfred Stieglitz Collection
© 2014 The Estate of Edward Steichen/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

 

Edward Steichen (American, 1879-1973) 'Mary Pickford' 1924

 

Edward Steichen (American, 1879-1973)
Mary Pickford
1924
The Art Institute of Chicago, Bequest of Edward Steichen by direction of Joanna T. Steichen and George Eastman House
© 2014 The Estate of Edward Steichen/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

 

Edward Steichen (American, 1879-1973) 'Fred Astaire in Funny Face' 1927

 

Edward Steichen (American, 1879-1973)
Fred Astaire in Funny Face
1927
The Art Institute of Chicago, Bequest of Edward Steichen by direction of Joanna T. Steichen and George Eastman House
© 2014 The Estate of Edward Steichen/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

 

Edward Steichen (American, 1879-1973) 'Noel Coward' 1932

 

Edward Steichen (American, 1879-1973)
Noel Coward
1932
The Art Institute of Chicago, bequest of Edward Steichen by direction of JoannaT. Steichen and George Eastman House
© 2014 The Estate of Edward Steichen/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

 

Edward Steichen (American, 1879-1973) 'Charles Chaplin' 1931

 

Edward Steichen (American, 1879-1973)
Charles Chaplin
1931
The Art Institute of Chicago, Bequest of Edward Steichen by direction of Joanna T. Steichen and George Eastman House
© 2014 The Estate of Edward Steichen/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

 

Edward Steichen (American, 1879-1973) 'Lily Pons' 1932

 

Edward Steichen (American, 1879-1973)
Lily Pons
1932
The Art Institute of Chicago, bequest of Edward Steichen by direction of Joanna T. Steichen and George Eastman House
© 2014 The Estate of Edward Steichen/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

 

Edward Steichen (American, 1879-1973) 'Winston Churchill' 1932

 

Edward Steichen (American, 1879-1973)
Winston Churchill
1932
The Art Institute of Chicago, Bequest of Edward Steichen by direction of Joanna T. Steichen and George Eastman House
© 2014 The Estate of Edward Steichen/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

 

Edward Steichen (American, 1879-1973) 'Greta Garbo and John Gilbert' 1928

 

Edward Steichen (American, 1879-1973)
Greta Garbo and John Gilbert
1928
The Art Institute of Chicago, bequest of Edward Steichen by direction of Joanna T. Steichen and George Eastman House
© 2014 The Estate of Edward Steichen/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

 

 

The Art Institute of Chicago
111 South Michigan Avenue
Chicago, Illinois 60603-6404
Phone: (312) 443-3600

Opening hours:
Thursday – Monday 11am – 5pm
Closed Tuesday and Wednesday

The Art Institute of Chicago website

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Exhibition: ‘A World of Its Own: Photographic Practices in the Studio’ at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York Part 2

Exhibition dates: 8th February – 2nd November, 2014

The Edward Steichen Photography Galleries, third floor

Curators: Organised by Quentin Bajac, The Joel and Anne Ehrenkranz Chief Curator, with Lucy Gallun, Assistant Curator, Department of Photography

 

Peter Hujar (American, 1934-1987) 'David Wojnarowicz' 1981 from the exhibition 'A World of Its Own: Photographic Practices in the Studio' at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York, February - November, 2014

 

Peter Hujar (American, 1934-1987)
David Wojnarowicz
1981
Gelatin silver print
14 x 14″ (35.6 x 35.6cm)
The Fellows of Photography Fund
Museum of Modern Art Collection

 

 

Many thankx to MoMA for allowing me to publish four of the photographs in the posting. The rest of the images were sourced from the Internet in order to give the reader a more comprehensive understanding of what this exhibition is actually about – especially if you are thousands of miles away and have no hope of ever seeing it!

See Part 1 of the posting.

Dr Marcus Bunyan


Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

 

The exhibition is divided into 6 themes each with its own gallery space:

1/ Surveying the Studio
2/ The Studio as Stage
3/ The Studio as Set
4/ A Neutral Space
5/ Virtual Spaces
6/ The Studio, from Laboratory to Playground

 

A Neutral Space

 

Harry Callahan (American, 1912-1999) 'Eleanor' 1948 from the exhibition 'A World of Its Own: Photographic Practices in the Studio' at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York, February - November, 2014

 

Harry Callahan (American, 1912-1999)
Eleanor
1948
Gelatin silver print
4 1/2 x 3 1/4″ (11.4 x 8.3cm)
Gift of the artist
Museum of Modern Art Collection

 

Charles Harry Jones (English, 1866-1959) 'Brussels Sprouts' c. 1900

 

Charles Harry Jones (English, 1866-1959)
Brussels Sprouts
c. 1900
Gelatin silver printing-out-paper print
6 1/8 × 8 1/16″ (15.5 × 20.5cm)
Acquired through the generosity of Robert B. Menschel
Museum of Modern Art Collection

 

Charles Harry Jones (1866 – 15 November 1959) was an English gardener and photographer, noted for his still lifes of fruit and vegetables.

The photographs were probably made between 1895 and 1910, and likely while he was employed at Ote Hall. Jones’ work was never exhibited in his lifetime, and was largely unknown even to his family, until the photographic prints were discovered by accident in 1981. Sean Sexton found a suitcase containing hundreds of prints of vegetables, fruits and flowers at Bermondsey antiques market. Other than a very few exceptions, Jones’ photographs exist only in unique examples. None of the glass-plate negatives have been located.

Jones isolated his vegetables, fruits and flowers against neutral dark or light backgrounds, in the manner of formal studio portraits. He used long exposures and small apertures to give depth of field.

Text from the Wikipedia website

 

Imogen Cunningham (American, 1883-1976) 'Cala Leaves' 1932

 

Imogen Cunningham (American, 1883-1976)
Cala Leaves
1932
Gelatin silver print
9 9/16 x 7 9/16″ (24.3 x 19.2cm)
Gift of Paul F. Walter
Museum of Modern Art Collection

 

Karl Blossfeldt (German, 1865-1932) 'Chrysanthemum segetum – Feverfew' before 1928

 

Karl Blossfeldt (German, 1865-1932)
Chrysanthemum segetum – Feverfew Enlarged 8 Times
Before 1928
Gelatin silver print
11 15/16 × 9 7/16″ (30.4 × 23.9cm)
Thomas Walther Collection. Gift of James Thrall Soby, by exchange
Museum of Modern Art Collection
© 2022 Karl Blossfeldt / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

 

Edward Weston (American, 1886-1958) 'Nude, Mexico' 1925

 

Edward Weston (American, 1886-1958)
Nude, Mexico
1925
Palladium print
8 3/8 × 7 5/8″ (21.2 × 19.3cm)
Gift of David H. McAlpin
Museum of Modern Art Collection
© 1981 Center for Creative Photography, Arizona Board of Regents

 

Richard Avedon (American, 1923-2004) 'Carl Hoefert, unemployed blackjack dealer, Reno, Nevada', from the series 'In the American West' August 30, 1983

 

Richard Avedon (American, 1923-2004)
Carl Hoefert, unemployed blackjack dealer, Reno, Nevada, from the series In the American West
August 30, 1983
Gelatin silver print, printed 1985
47 1/2 x 37 1/2″ (120.6 x 95.2cm)
Gift of the artist
Museum of Modern Art Collection

 

Peter Hujar (American, 1934-1987) 'Pascal (Paris)' 1980

 

Peter Hujar (American, 1934-1987)
Pascal (Paris)
1980
Gelatin silver print
14 5/8 x 14 11/16″ (37.1 x 37.3cm)
Gift of David Wojnarowicz
Museum of Modern Art Collection

 

Valérie Belin (French, b. 1964) 'Untitled' from the series 'Mannequins' 2003

 

Valérie Belin (French, b. 1964)
Untitled from the series Mannequins
2003
Gelatin silver print
61 x 49″ (154.9 x 124.5cm)
Purchase
Museum of Modern Art Collection

 

Laurie Simmons (American, b. 1949) Allan McCollum (American, b. 1944) 'Untitled' from the series 'Actual Photos' 1985

 

Laurie Simmons (American, b. 1949)
Allan McCollum (American, b. 1944)
Untitled from the series Actual Photos
1985
Silver dye bleach print
9 5/16 x 6 5/16″ (23.7 x 16.1cm)
Joel and Anne Ehrenkranz Fund
Museum of Modern Art Collection

 

Josephine Meckseper (German, b. 1964) 'Blow-Up (Michelli, Knee-Highs)' 2006

 

Josephine Meckseper (German, b. 1964)
Blow-Up (Michelli, Knee-Highs)
2006
Chromogenic colour print
78 5/8 x 62 5/8″ (199.7 x 159.1cm)
Fund for the Twenty-First Century
Museum of Modern Art Collection

 

Robert Mapplethorpe (American, 1946-1989) 'Hermes' 1988

 

Robert Mapplethorpe (American, 1946-1989)
Hermes
1988
Gelatin silver print
19 1/4 × 19 1/4″ (48.9 × 48.9cm)
Gift of Agnes Gund
Museum of Modern Art Collection
© 2022 Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation

 

Virtual Spaces

 

Christian Marclay (American and Swiss, b. 1955) 'Allover (Genesis, Travis Tritt, and Others)' 2008

 

Christian Marclay (American and Swiss, b. 1955)
Allover (Genesis, Travis Tritt, and Others)
2008
Cyanotype
Composition and sheet: 51 1/2 x 97 3/4″ (130.8 x 248.3cm)
Publisher and printer: Graphic studio, University of South Florida, Tampa
Acquired through the generosity of Steven A. and Alexandra M. Cohen
Museum of Modern Art Collection

 

Luigi Veronesi (Italian, 1908-1998) 'Composition' 1935

 

Luigi Veronesi (Italian, 1908-1998)
Composition
1935
Gelatin silver print
9 7/16 × 11 1/4″ (24 × 28.6 cm)
Thomas Walther Collection. Gift of Ansel Adams, by exchange
Museum of Modern Art Collection
© 2022 Archivio Luigi Veronesi, Milan

 

Luigi Veronesi (28 May 1908 – 25 February 1998) was an Italian photographer, painter, scenographer and film director born in Milan.

 

Thomas Ruff (German, b. 1958) 'phg.06' 2012

 

Thomas Ruff (German, b. 1958)
phg.06
2012
Chromogenic colour print
100 3/8 x 72 13/16″ (255 x 185cm)
Courtesy David Zwirner, New York/London
Museum of Modern Art Collection

 

Man Ray (American, 1890-1976) 'Rayograph' 1923

 

Man Ray (American, 1890-1976)
Rayograph
1923
Gelatin silver print
9 7/16 x 7″ (23.9 x 17.8cm)
Purchase
Museum of Modern Art Collection

 

György Kepes (American born Hungary, 1906-2001) 'Abstraction – Surface Tension #2' c. 1940

 

György Kepes (American born Hungary, 1906-2001)
Abstraction – Surface Tension #2
c. 1940
Gelatin silver print
14 x 11 1/8″ (35.6 x 28.3cm)
Gift of the artist
Museum of Modern Art Collection

 

The Studio, from Laboratory to Playground

 

Barbara Morgan (American, 1900-1992) 'Pure Energy and Neurotic Man' 1941

 

Barbara Morgan (American, 1900-1992)
Pure Energy and Neurotic Man
1941
Gelatin silver print, printed 1971
19 1/8 x 15 1/2″ (48.6 x 39.3cm)
Gift of the artist
Museum of Modern Art Collection

 

Barbara Morgan (American, 1900-1992) 'Cadenza' 1940

 

Barbara Morgan (American, 1900-1992)
Cadenza
1940
Gelatin silver print, printed 1971
17 7/8 x 15″ (45.4 x 38.2cm)
Gift of the artist
Museum of Modern Art Collection

 

Berenice Abbott (American, 1898-1991) 'Focusing Water Waves, Massachusetts Institute of Technology' 1958-1961

 

Berenice Abbott (American, 1898-1991)
Focusing Water Waves, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
1958-1961
Gelatin silver print
6 9/16 x 7 15/16″ (16.7 x 20.1cm)
Gift of Ronald A. Kurtz
Museum of Modern Art Collection

 

Berenice Abbott (American, 1898-1991) 'Wave Pattern with Glass Plate, Massachusetts Institute of Technology' 1958-1961

 

Berenice Abbott (American, 1898-1991)
Wave Pattern with Glass Plate, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
1958-1961
Gelatin silver print
6 9/16 x 7 9/16″ (16.7 x 19.2cm)
Gift of Ronald A. Kurtz
Museum of Modern Art Collection

 

Heinz Hajek-Halke (German, 1898-1983) 'Embrace (Umarmung)' 1947-1951

 

Heinz Hajek-Halke (German, 1898-1983)
Embrace (Umarmung)
1947-1951
Gelatin silver print
15 5/8 x 11 3/8″ (39.7 x 29.0cm)
Gift of the artist
Museum of Modern Art Collection

 

Harold Edgerton (American, 1903-1990) 'Lead Falling in a Shot Tower' 1936

 

Harold Edgerton (American, 1903-1990)
Lead Falling in a Shot Tower
1936
Gelatin silver print
7 9/16 x 9 1/2″ (19.3 x 24.2cm)
Gift of Gus and Arlette Kayafas
Museum of Modern Art Collection

 

Harold Edgerton (American, 1903-1990) 'Bouncing Ball Bearing' 1962

 

Harold Edgerton (American, 1903-1990)
Bouncing Ball Bearing
1962
Gelatin silver print
9 9/16 x 7 11/16″ (24.3 x 19.5cm)
Gift of Gus and Arlette Kayafas
Museum of Modern Art Collection

 

Harold Edgerton (American, 1903-1990) 'This is Coffee' 1933

 

Harold Edgerton (American, 1903-1990)
This is Coffee
1933
Gelatin silver print
9 7/8 x 12 7/8″ (25.1 x 32.7cm)
Gift of the artist
Museum of Modern Art Collection

 

Roman Signer (Swiss, b. 1938) 'Sand Curtain (Sandvorhang)' 1983

 

Roman Signer (Swiss, b. 1938)
Sand Curtain (Sandvorhang)
1983
Super 8 film transferred to video (colour, silent)
Approximately 2 min.
Committee on Media Funds
Museum of Modern Art Collection

 

Roman Signer (Swiss, b. 1938) 'Sand Stairs (Sandtreppe)' 1975

 

Roman Signer (Swiss, b. 1938)
Sand Stairs (Sandtreppe)
1975
Super 8 film transferred to video (colour, silent)
Approximately 2 min.
Committee on Media Funds
Museum of Modern Art Collection

 

Roman Signer (Swiss, b. 1938) 'Rubber Motor (Gummimotor)' 1983

 

Roman Signer (Swiss, b. 1938)
Rubber Motor (Gummimotor)
1983
Super 8 film transferred to video (colour, silent)
Approximately 2 min.
Committee on Media Funds
Museum of Modern Art Collection

 

Roman Signer (Swiss, b. 1938) 'Sand Cone (Sandkegel)' 1984

 

Roman Signer (Swiss, b. 1938)
Sand Cone (Sandkegel)
1984
Super 8 film transferred to video (colour, silent)
Approximately 2 min.
Committee on Media Funds
Museum of Modern Art Collection

 

Roman Signer (Swiss, b. 1938) 'Sand Pillar (Sandturm)' 1987

 

Roman Signer (Swiss, b. 1938)
Sand Pillar (Sandturm)
1987
Super 8 film transferred to video (colour, silent)
Approximately 2 min.
Committee on Media Funds
Museum of Modern Art Collection

 

Roman Signer (Swiss, b. 1938) 'Sand (Sand)' 1988

 

Roman Signer (Swiss, b. 1938)
Sand (Sand)
1988
Super 8 film transferred to video (colour, silent)
Approximately 2 min.
Committee on Media Funds
Museum of Modern Art Collection

 

Roman Signer (Swiss, b. 1938) 'Umbrella (Schirm)' 1989

 

Roman Signer (Swiss, b. 1938)
Umbrella (Schirm)
1989
Super 8 film transferred to video (colour, silent)
Approximately 2 min.
Committee on Media Funds
Museum of Modern Art Collection

 

Roman Signer (Swiss, b. 1938) 'Barrel (Fass)' 1985

 

Roman Signer (Swiss, b. 1938)
Barrel (Fass)
1985
Super 8 film transferred to video (colour, silent)
Approximately 2 min.
Committee on Media Funds
Museum of Modern Art Collection

 

Roman Signer (Swiss, b. 1938) 'Carriage (Wagen)' 1982

 

Roman Signer (Swiss, b. 1938)
Carriage (Wagen)
1982
Super 8 film transferred to video (colour, silent)
Approximately 2 min.
Committee on Media Funds
Museum of Modern Art Collection

 

Roman Signer (Swiss, b. 1938) 'Tube (Schlauch)' 1982

 

Roman Signer (Swiss, b. 1938)
Tube (Schlauch)
1982
Super 8 film transferred to video (colour, silent)
Approximately 2 min.
Committee on Media Funds
Museum of Modern Art Collection

 

Roman Signer (b. 1938 in Appenzell, Switzerland) is principally a visual artist who works in sculpture, installations photography, and video. Signer’s work has grown out of, and has affinities with both land art and performance art, but they are not typically representative of either category.It is often being described as following the tradition of the Swiss engineer-artist, such as Jean Tinguely and Peter Fischli & David Weiss.

Signer’s “action sculptures” involve setting up, carrying out, and recording “experiments” or events that bear aesthetic results. Day-to-day objects such as umbrellas, tables, boots, containers, hats and bicycles are part of Signer’s working vocabulary. Following carefully planned and strictly executed and documented procedures, the artist enacts and records such acts as explosions, collisions, and the projection of objects through space. Signer advocates ‘controlled destruction, not destruction for its own sake’. Action Kurhaus Weissbad (1992) saw chairs catapulted out of a hotel’s windows; Table (1994) launched a table into the sea on four buckets; Kayak (2000) featured the artist being towed down a road in a canoe. In documenta 8 (1987), he catapulted thousands of sheets of paper into the air to create an ephemeral wall in the room for a brief, but all the more intense moment. As the Swiss representative at the Venice Biennale in 1999, he made 117 steel balls fall from the ceiling on to lumps of clay lying on the ground. Many of his happenings are not for public viewing, and are only documented in photos and film. Video works like Stiefel mit Rakete (Boot with Rocket) are integral to Signer’s performances, capturing the original setup of materials that self-destruct in the process of creating an emotionally and visually compelling event.

Text from Wikipedia website

 

Kiki Smith (American born Germany, b. 1954) 'My Secret Business' 1993

 

Kiki Smith (American born Germany, b. 1954)
My Secret Business
1993
Lithograph
23 9/16 x 18 1/8″ (59.8 x 46cm)
Gift of Howard B. Johnson
Museum of Modern Art Collection

 

Adrian Piper (American, b. 1948) 'Food for the Spirit #2' 1971, printed 1997

 

Adrian Piper (American, b. 1948)
Food for the Spirit #2
1971, printed 1997
Gelatin silver print
14 9/16 x 15″ (37 x 38.1cm)
The Family of Man Fund
Museum of Modern Art Collection

 

Adrian Piper (American, b. 1948) 'Food for the Spirit #8' 1971, printed 1997

 

Adrian Piper (American, b. 1948)
Food for the Spirit #8
1971, printed 1997
Gelatin silver print
14 9/16 x 14 15/16″ (37 x 38cm)
The Family of Man Fund
Museum of Modern Art Collection

 

Adrian Piper (American, b. 1948) 'Food for the Spirit #14' 1971, printed 1997

 

Adrian Piper (American, b. 1948)
Food for the Spirit #14
1971, printed 1997
Gelatin silver print
14 9/16 x 15″ (37 x 38.1cm)
The Family of Man Fund
Museum of Modern Art Collection

 

Harold Edgerton (American, 1903-1990) 'Indian Club Demonstration' 1939

 

Harold Edgerton (American, 1903-1990)
Indian Club Demonstration
1939
Gelatin silver print
13 x 10″ (33.0 x 26.0cm)
Gift of the artist
Museum of Modern Art Collection

 

Harold Edgerton (American, 1903-1990) 'Bobby Jones with an Iron' 1938

 

Harold Edgerton (American, 1903-1990)
Bobby Jones with an Iron
1938
Gelatin silver print
9 5/8 x 11 1/2″ (24.4 x 29.2cm)
Gift of the artist
Museum of Modern Art Collection

 

John Divola (American, b. 1949) 'Untitled' from the series 'Vandalism' 1974

 

John Divola (American, b. 1949)
Untitled from the series Vandalism
1974
Gelatin silver print
7 1/16 x 7 1/16″ (18.0 x 18.0cm)
Purchase
Museum of Modern Art Collection

 

John Divola (American, b. 1949) 'Untitled' from the series 'Vandalism' 1974

 

John Divola (American, b. 1949)
Untitled from the series Vandalism
1974
Gelatin silver print
7 x 7″ (17.9 x 17.9cm)
Purchase
Museum of Modern Art Collection

 

Robert Frank (American born Switzerland, 1924-2019) 'Boston' March 20, 1985 (detail)

 

Robert Frank (American born Switzerland, 1924-2019)
Boston (detail)
March 20, 1985
Colour instant prints (Polaroids) with hand-applied paint and collage
Each 27 3/4 x 22 1/4″ (70.3 x 56.4cm)
Acquired through the generosity of Polaroid Corporation
Museum of Modern Art Collection

 

Anna Blume (German, 1937-2020) Bernhard Blume (German, 1937-2011) 'Kitchen Frenzy (Küchenkoller)' 1986 (detail)

 

Anna Blume (German, 1937-2020)
Bernhard Blume (German, 1937-2011)
Kitchen Frenzy (Küchenkoller) (detail)
1986
Gelatin silver prints
Each 66 15/16 x 42 1/2″ (170 x 108cm)
Acquired through the generosity of the Contemporary Arts Council of The Museum of Modern Art
Museum of Modern Art Collection

 

Anna Blume (née Helming; 21 April 1936 – 18 June 2020) and Bernhard Johannes Blume (8 September 1937 – 1 September 2011) were German art photographers. They created sequences of large black-and-white photos of staged scenes in which they appeared themselves, with objects taking on a “life” of their own. Their works have been shown internationally in exhibitions and museums, including New York’s MoMA. They are regarded as “among the pioneers of staged photography”. …

Anna and Bernhard Blume together created installations, sequences of large photo scenes and, mostly in the 1990s, Polaroids. Both created drawings. They staged and photographed scenes in which they appeared themselves, with objects taking on a “life” of their own. According to the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation, their process was to create their picture sequences together and complete all related tasks without outside help. That included designing the sets and costumes, developing the negatives, and producing enlargements; at each stage the artwork was refined, polished and painted. Anna said: “Wir malen mit der Kamera, und diese malerische Arbeit findet auch noch im Labor statt.” (We paint with our camera, and this painterly work continues in the lab, too.) The images were produced without the aid of digital manipulation or post-production montages. Taking pictures of a “flying, crashing, and swirling world”, the artists used safety features such as ropes, nets and mattresses.

Text from the Wikipedia website

 

 

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Exhibition: ‘A World of Its Own: Photographic Practices in the Studio’ at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York Part 1

Exhibition dates: 8th February – 2nd November, 2014

The Edward Steichen Photography Galleries, third floor

Curators: Organised by Quentin Bajac, The Joel and Anne Ehrenkranz Chief Curator, with Lucy Gallun, Assistant Curator, Department of Photography

 

Bruce Nauman (American, b. 1941) 'Composite Photo of Two Messes on the Studio Floor' 1967 from the exhibition 'A World of Its Own: Photographic Practices in the Studio' at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York, February - November, 2014

 

Bruce Nauman (American, b. 1941)
Composite Photo of Two Messes on the Studio Floor 
1967
Gelatin silver print
40 1/2″ x 10′ 3″ (102.9 x 312.4cm)
Gift of Philip Johnson
Museum of Modern Art Collection

 

 

A bumper two part posting on this fascinating, multi-dimensional subject: photographic practices in the studio, which may be a stage, a laboratory, or a playground. The exhibition occupies all MoMA’s six photography galleries, each gallery with its own sub theme, namely, Surveying the Studio, The Studio as Stage, The Studio as Set, A Neutral Space, Virtual Spaces and The Studio, from Laboratory to Playground. See Part 2 of the posting.

The review of this exhibition “When a Form Is Given Its Room to Play” by Roberta Smith on the New York Times website (6th February 2014) damns with faint praise. The show is a “fabulous yet irritating survey” which “dazzles but often seems slow and repetitive.” Smith then goes on to list the usual suspects: “And so we get professional portraitists, commercial photographers, lovers of still life, darkroom experimenters, artists documenting performances and a few generations of postmodernists, dead and alive, known and not so, exploring the ways and means of the medium. This adds up to plenty to see: around 180 images from the 1850s to the present by some 90 photographers and artists. The usual suspects here range from Julia Margaret Cameron to Thomas Ruff, with Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, Lucas Samaras, John Divola and Barbara Kasten in between.” There are a few less familiar and postmodern artists thrown in for good measure, but all is “dominated by black-and-white images in an age when colour reigns.”

The reviewer then rightly notes the paucity of “postmodern photography of the 1980s, much of it made by women, that did a lot to reorient contemporary photo artists to the studio. It is a little startling for an exhibition that includes so many younger artists dealing with the artifice of the photograph (Ms. Belin, for example) to represent the Pictures Generation artists with only Cindy Sherman, James Casebere and (in collaboration with Allan McCollum) Laurie Simmons” before finishing on a positive note (I think!), noting that the curators “had aimed for a satisfying viewing experience, which, these days, is something to be grateful for.”


SOMETHING TO BE GRATEFUL FOR… OH, TO BE SO LUCKY IN AUSTRALIA!

Just to have the opportunity to view an exhibition of this quality, depth and breadth of concept would be an amazing thing. Even a third of the number of photographs (say 60 works) that address this subject at any one of the major institutions around Australia would be fantastic but, of that, there is not a hope in hell.

Think Marcus, think… when was the last major exhibition, I mean LARGE exhibition, at a public institution in Australia that actually addressed specific ISSUES and CONCEPTS in photography (such as this), not just putting on monocular exhibitions about an artists work or exhibitions about a regions photographs?

Ah, well… you know, I can’t really remember.

Perhaps the American Dreams exhibition at Bendigo Art Gallery, but that was a GENERAL exhibition about 20th century photography with no strong investigative conceptual theme and it was imported from George Eastman House.

Here in Australia, all we can do is look from afar, purchase the catalogue and wonder wistfully what the exhibition actually looks like and what we are missing out on. MoMA sent me just 10 images media images. I have spent hours scouring the Internet for other images to fill the void of knowledge and vision (and then cleaning those sometimes degraded images), so that those of us not privileged enough to be able to visit New York may gain a more comprehensive understanding of what this exhibition, and this multi-faceted dimension of photography, is all about.

It’s a pity that our venerable Australian institutions and the photography curators in them seem to have had a paucity of ideas when it comes to expounding interesting critiques of the medium over the last twenty years or so. What a missed opportunity.

Dr Marcus Bunyan


Many thankx to MoMA for allowing me to publish six of the photographs in the posting. The rest of the images were sourced from the Internet. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

 

 

Installation view of the exhibition 'A World of Its Own: Photographic Practices in the Studio' at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York

 

Installation view of the exhibition A World of Its Own: Photographic Practices in the Studio at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York, February – November, 2014

 

Installation view of the exhibition 'A World of Its Own: Photographic Practices in the Studio' at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York, February - November, 2014

 

Installation view of the exhibition A World of Its Own: Photographic Practices in the Studio at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York, February – November, 2014

 

Installation view of the exhibition 'A World of Its Own: Photographic Practices in the Studio' at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York, February - November, 2014 showing at right, Seydou Keïta's 'Untitled' 1959

 

Installation view of the exhibition A World of Its Own: Photographic Practices in the Studio at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York, February – November, 2014 showing at right, Seydou Keïta’s Untitled 1959

 

Installation view of the exhibition 'A World of Its Own: Photographic Practices in the Studio' at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York, February - November, 2014 showing at left and centre the work of Richard Avedon including 'Carl Hoefert, unemployed blackjack dealer, Reno, Nevada', from the series 'In the American West' August 30, 1983; and at right, the work of Peter Hujar including at second and third right, 'David Wojnarowicz' both 1981, and at right, 'Pascal (Paris)' 1980

 

Installation view of the exhibition A World of Its Own: Photographic Practices in the Studio at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York, February – November, 2014 showing at left and centre the work of Richard Avedon including Carl Hoefert, unemployed blackjack dealer, Reno, Nevada, from the series In the American West August 30, 1983; and at right, the work of Peter Hujar including at second and third right, David Wojnarowicz both 1981, and at right, Pascal (Paris) 1980

 

Installation view of the exhibition 'A World of Its Own: Photographic Practices in the Studio' at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York, February - November, 2014

 

Installation view of the exhibition A World of Its Own: Photographic Practices in the Studio at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York, February – November, 2014

 

Surveying the Studio

 

Uta Barth (American, b. 1958) 'Sundial (07.13)' 2007 from the exhibition 'A World of Its Own: Photographic Practices in the Studio' at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York, February - November, 2014

 

Uta Barth (American, b. 1958)
Sundial (07.13)
2007
Chromogenic colour prints
each 30 x 28 1/4″ (76.2 x 71.8cm)
The Photography Council Fund
Museum of Modern Art Collection

 

Geta Brâtescu (Romanian, 1926-2018) 'The Studio. Invocation of the Drawing' (L'Atelier. Invocarea desenului) 1979

 

Geta Brâtescu (Romanian, 1926-2018)
The Studio. Invocation of the Drawing (L’Atelier. Invocarea desenului)
1979
Gelatin silver prints with tempera on paper
33 1/16 x 27 9/16″ (84 x 70cm)
Modern Women’s Fund
Museum of Modern Art Collection

 

Geta Brătescu was a Romanian visual artist with works in drawing, collage, photography, performance, illustration and film. In 2008, Brătescu received an honorary doctorate from the Bucharest National University of Arts for “her outstanding contributions to the development of contemporary Romanian art”. Brătescu was artistic director of literature and art magazine Secolul 21. A major retrospective of her work was held at the National Museum of Art of Romania in December 1999. In 2015 Brătescu’s first UK solo exhibition was held at the Tate Liverpool. In 2017, she was selected to represent Romania at the 57th Venice Biennale.

 

Man Ray (American, 1890-1976) 'Laboratory of the Future' 1935

 

Man Ray (American, 1890-1976)
Laboratory of the Future
1935
Gelatin silver print
9 1/16 x 7″ (23.1 x 17.8cm)
Gift of James Johnson Sweeney
Museum of Modern Art Collection

 

Charles Sheeler (American, 1883-1965) 'Cactus and Photographer's Lamp, New York' 1931

 

Charles Sheeler (American, 1883-1965)
Cactus and Photographer’s Lamp, New York
1931
Gelatin silver print
9 1/2 x 6 5/8″ (23.5 x 16.6cm)
Gift of Samuel M. Kootz
Museum of Modern Art Collection

 

 

Bringing together photographs, films, videos, and works in other mediums, A World of Its Own: Photographic Practices in the Studio examines the ways in which photographers and artists using photography have worked and experimented within the four walls of the studio space, from photography’s inception to today. Featuring both new acquisitions and works from the Museum’s collection that have not been on view in recent years, A World of Its Own includes approximately 180 works, by approximately 90 artists, such as Berenice Abbott, Uta Barth, Zeke Berman, Karl Blossfeldt, Constantin Brancusi, Geta Brătescu, Harry Callahan, Robert Frank, Jan Groover, Barbara Kasten, Man Ray, Bruce Nauman, Paul Outerbridge, Irving Penn, Adrian Piper, Edward Steichen, William Wegman, and Edward Weston.

The exhibition considers the various roles played by the photographer’s studio as an autonomous space; depending on the time period, context, and the individual motivations (commercial, artistic, scientific) and sensibilities of the photographer, the studio may be a stage, a laboratory, or a playground. Organised thematically, the display unfolds in multiple chapters. Throughout the 20th century, artists have explored their studio spaces using photography, from the use of composed theatrical tableaux (in photographs by Julia Margaret Cameron or Cindy Sherman) to neutral, blank backdrops (Richard Avedon, Robert Mapplethorpe); from the construction of architectural sets within the studio space (Francis Bruguière, Thomas Demand) to chemical procedures conducted within the darkroom (Walead Beshty, Christian Marclay); and from precise recordings of time and motion (Eadweard Muybridge, Dr. Harold E. Edgerton) to amateurish or playful experimentation (Roman Signer, Peter Fischli / David Weiss). A World of Its Own offers another history of photography, a photography created within the walls of the studio, and yet as groundbreaking and inventive as its seemingly more extroverted counterpart, street photography.”

Text from the MoMA website

 

The exhibition is divided into 6 themes each with its own gallery space:

1/ Surveying the Studio
2/ The Studio as Stage
3/ The Studio as Set
4/ A Neutral Space
5/ Virtual Spaces
6/ The Studio, from Laboratory to Playground

 

The Studio as Stage

 

Unidentified photographer (French?) 'Untitled' c. 1855

 

Unidentified photographer (French?)
Untitled
c. 1855
Albumen silver print from a wet-collodion glass negative
9 3/16 × 6 1/8″ (23.4 × 15.5cm)
Gift of Paul F. Walter
Museum of Modern Art Collection

 

Cecil Beaton (British, 1904-1980) 'Edith Sitwell' 1927

 

Cecil Beaton (British, 1904-1980)
Edith Sitwell
1927
Gelatin silver print
11 1/2 × 9 5/8″ (29.3 × 24.5 cm)
Gift of Paul F. Walter
Museum of Modern Art Collection
© 2022 Estate of Cecil Beaton

 

George Platt Lynes (American, 1907-1955) 'Untitled' 1941

 

George Platt Lynes (American, 1907-1955)
Untitled
1941
Gelatin silver print
7 5/8 x 9 5/8″ (19.2 x 24.4cm)
Anonymous gift
Museum of Modern Art Collection

 

Lucas Samaras (American, 1936-2024) 'Auto Polaroid' 1969-1971

 

Lucas Samaras (American born Greece, 1936-2024)
Auto Polaroid
1969-1971
Eighteen black-and-white instant prints (Polapan), with hand-applied ink
Each 3 3/4 x 2 15/16″ (9.5 x 7.4cm)
Overall 14 5/8 x 24″ (37.2 x 61cm)
Gift of Robert and Gayle Greenhill
Museum of Modern Art Collection

 

Working in the digital realm long before it was associated with fine art, Samaras pioneered radical new modes of image making throughout his storied career, pushing and redefining the boundaries of portraiture and self-portraiture over the course of seven decades. Centering on the body and the psyche, Samaras’s autobiographical work across photography, painting, installation, assemblage, drawing, textile, and sculpture often meditates on the malleable, shapeshifting nature of selfhood. “I like remaking myself in photography,” the artist once said. …

In the late 1960s, Samaras began working with a Polaroid 360 camera, creating his iconic Auto Polaroids by altering hundreds of images, mostly self-portraits, with applications of ink by his own hand. In 1973, using a Polaroid SX-70, he took this collagist approach further by manipulating the wet emulsion of the film with a stylus or his fingertip before the chemicals set. The resulting distortions in his Photo-Transformations series took on abstract, otherworldly effects, which he would continue exploring amid the rise of other image making technologies in the following decades.

Anonymous. “Remembering Lucas Samaras,” on the Pace Gallery website Mar 7, 2024 [Online] Cited 06/06/2024

 

Lucas Samaras (American, 1936-2024) 'Auto Polaroid' 1969-1971 (detail)

Lucas Samaras (American, 1936-2024) 'Auto Polaroid' 1969-1971 (detail)

Lucas Samaras (American, 1936-2024) 'Auto Polaroid' 1969-1971 (detail)

 

Lucas Samaras (American, 1936-2024)
Auto Polaroid (details)
1969-1971
Eighteen black-and-white instant prints (Polapan), with hand-applied ink
Each 3 3/4 x 2 15/16″ (9.5 x 7.4cm)
Overall 14 5/8 x 24″ (37.2 x 61cm)
Gift of Robert and Gayle Greenhill
Museum of Modern Art Collection

 

Julia Margaret Cameron (British, 1815-1879) 'Madonna with Children' 1864

 

Julia Margaret Cameron (British, 1815-1879)
Madonna with Children
1864
Albumen silver print
10 1/2 x 8 5/8″ (26.7 x 21.9cm)
Gift of Shirley C. Burden
Museum of Modern Art Collection

 

Julia Margaret Cameron (British, 1815-1879) 'Untitled (Mary Ryan?)' c. 1867

 

Julia Margaret Cameron (British, 1815-1879)
Untitled (Mary Ryan?)
c. 1867
Albumen silver print
13 3/16 x 11″ (33.5 x 27.9cm)
Gift of Shirley C. Burden
Museum of Modern Art Collection

 

Nadar (Gaspard-Félix Tournachon) (French, 1820-1910) Adrien Tournachon (French, 1825-1903) 'Pierrot Surprised' 1854-1855

 

Nadar (Gaspard-Félix Tournachon) (French, 1820-1910)
Adrien Tournachon (French, 1825-1903)
Pierrot Surprised
1854-1855
Albumen silver print
11 1/4 x 8 3/16″ (28.6 x 20.8cm)
Suzanne Winsberg Collection. Gift of Suzanne Winsberg
Museum of Modern Art Collection

 

Maurice Tabard (French, 1897-1984) 'Untitled' 1929

 

Maurice Tabard (French, 1897-1984)
Untitled
1929
Gelatin silver print
6 9/16 x 6 1/2″ (16.7 x 16.5cm)
Gift of Robert Shapazian
Museum of Modern Art Collection

 

Edward Steichen (American born Luxembourg, 1879-1973) 'Anna May Wong' 1930

 

Edward Steichen (American born Luxembourg, 1879-1973)
Anna May Wong
1930
Gelatin silver print
16 9/16 x 13 7/16″ (42.1 x 34.1cm)
Gift of the artist
Museum of Modern Art Collection

 

“Taking people away from their natural circumstances and putting them into the studio in front of a camera did not simply isolate them, it transformed them. Sometimes the change was subtle; sometimes it was great enough to be almost shocking. But always there was transformation.”

~ Irving Penn 1974

 

Cindy Sherman (American, b. 1954) 'Untitled #131' 1983

 

Cindy Sherman (American, b. 1954)
Untitled #131
1983
Chromogenic colour print
35 x 16 1/2″ (89 x 41.9cm)
Joel and Anne Ehrenkranz Fund
Museum of Modern Art Collection

 

The Studio as Set

 

Barbara Kasten (American, b. 1936) 'Construct I-F' 1979

 

Barbara Kasten (American, b. 1936)
Construct I-F
1979
Colour instant print (Polaroid Polacolor)
9 1/2 x 7 1/2″ (24.0 x 19.0cm)
Acquired through the generosity of Wendy Larsen
Museum of Modern Art Collection

 

Barbara Kasten (American, b. 1936) 'Construct NYC 17' 1984

 

Barbara Kasten (American, b. 1936)
Construct NYC 17
1984
Silver dye bleach print
29 3/8 x 37 1/16″ (74.7 x 94.1cm)
Gift of Foster Goldstrom
Museum of Modern Art Collection

 

James Casebere (American, b. 1953) 'Subdivision with Spotlight' 1982

 

James Casebere (American, b. 1953)
Subdivision with Spotlight
1982
Gelatin silver print
14 13/16 x 18 15/16″ (37.6 x 48.1cm)
Purchase
Museum of Modern Art Collection

 

Francis Bruguière (American, 1879-1945) 'Light Abstraction' c. 1925

 

Francis Bruguière (American, 1879-1945)
Light Abstraction
c. 1925
Gelatin silver print
9 15/16 x 7 15/16″ (25.2 x 20.2cm)
Gift of Arnold Newman
Museum of Modern Art Collection

 

Francis Joseph Bruguière (15 October 1879 – 8 May 1945) was an American photographer.

Francis Bruguière was born in San Francisco, California, to Emile Antoine Bruguière (1849-1900) and Josephine Frederikke (Sather) Bruguière (1845-1915). He was the youngest of four sons born into a wealthy banking family and was privately educated. His brothers were painter and physician Peder Sather Bruguière (1874-1967), Emile Antoine Bruguiere Jr. (1877-1935), and Louis Sather Bruguière (1882-1954), who married wealthy heiress Margaret Post Van Alen. He was also a grandson of banker Peder Sather. His mother died in the 1915 sinking of the British ocean liner SS Arabic by a German submarine.

In 1905, having studied painting in Europe, Bruguière became acquainted with photographer and modern art promoter Alfred Stieglitz (who accepted him as a Fellow of the Photo-secession), and set up a studio in San Francisco, recording in a Pictorialist style images of the city after the earthquake and fire; some of them were reproduced in a book called San Francisco in 1918. He co-curated the photographic exhibition at the 1915 Panama-California Exposition in San Diego, and nine of his photographs were included in The Evanescent City (1916) by George Sterling.

In 1918, following the decline of the family fortune, he moved to New York City where he made his living by photographing for Vanity Fair, Vogue, and Harper’s Bazaar. Soon he was appointed the official photographer of the New York Theatre Guild. In this role he photographed the British stage actress Rosalinde Fuller, who was debuting in What’s in a Name? (1920), and she partnered him for the rest of his life.

Throughout his life, Bruguière experimented with multiple-exposure, solarization (years ahead of Man Ray), original processes, abstracts, photograms, and the response of commercially available film to light of various wavelengths. Until his one-man show at the Art Centre of New York in 1927, he showed this work only to friends. In the mid-1920s, he planned to make a film called The Way, depicting stages in a man’s life, to be played by Sebastian Droste with Rosalinde doing all the female parts. To obtain funding, Bruguière took photographs of projected scenes, but Droste died before filming started; so we are left with only the still pictures.

In 1927 they moved to London, where Bruguière co-created the first British abstract film, Light Rhythms, with Oswell Blakeston. Long thought to have been lost, it has now been recovered. During World War II, he returned to painting.

Text from the Wikipedia website

 

Jaromír Funke (Czech, 1896-1945) 'Composition' c. 1925

 

Jaromír Funke (Czech, 1896-1945)
Composition
c. 1925
Gelatin silver print
9 1/4 × 11 9/16″ (23.4 × 29.3cm)
Acquired through the generosity of Blanchette Hooker Rockefeller
Museum of Modern Art Collection
© 2022 Miloslava Rupešová

 

Jaromír Funke (1 August 1896 – 22 March 1945) was a leading Czech photographer during the 1920s and 1930s.

Funke was recognised for his “photographic games” using mirrors, lights, and insignificant objects, such as plates, bottles, or glasses, to create unique works. In his still life imagery he created abstracts of forms and shadows reminiscent of photograms. His work was regarded as logical, original and expressive in nature. A typical feature of Funke’s work would be the “dynamic diagonal.”

Text from the Wikipedia website

 

Paul Outerbridge (American, 1896-1958) 'Images de Deauville' 1936

 

Paul Outerbridge (American, 1896-1958)
Images de Deauville
1936
Tri-colour carbro print
15 3/4 x 12 1/4″ (40 x 31.1cm)
Gift of Mrs. Ralph Seward Allen
Museum of Modern Art Collection

 

Shozo Kitadai, Kiyoji Otsuji. 'Untitled' from the portfolio 'APN (Asahi Picture News)' 1953-1954

 

Shozo Kitadai, Kiyoji Otsuji
Untitled from the portfolio APN (Asahi Picture News)
1953-1954
Gelatin silver print, printed 2003
7 1/2 × 5 9/16″ (19 × 14.2cm)
Gift of Shigeru Yokota
Museum of Modern Art Collection
© 2022 Seiko Otsuji

 

Irving Penn (American, 1917-2009) 'Three Steel Blocks, New York' 1980

 

Irving Penn (American, 1917-2009)
Three Steel Blocks, New York
1980
Platinum/palladium print
13 1/4 × 20 11/16″ (33.6 × 52.5cm)
Acquired through the generosity of Lily Auchincloss
Museum of Modern Art Collection
© The Irving Penn Foundation

 

Elad Lassry (Israeli, b. 1977) 'Nailpolish' 2009

 

Elad Lassry (Israeli, b. 1977)
Nailpolish
2009
Chromogenic colour print
14 1/2 x 11 1/2″ (36.8 x 29.2cm)
Fund for the Twenty-First Century
Museum of Modern Art Collection

 

 

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New York, NY 10019
Phone: (212) 708-9400

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Exhibition: ‘Carelton Watkins: The Stanford Albums’ at the Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University

Who are the interesting photographers anywhere who are alive now?

And my answer would be: there are very few who are alive now that are interesting.

Exhibition dates: 23rd April – 17th August, 2014

Curators: Elizabeth Kathleen Mitchell (Cantor curator of prints, drawings, and photographs) and George Philip LeBourdais (PhD candidate in Stanford’s Department of Art & Art History)

 

Carleton Watkins (American, 1829-1916) 'Sugar Loaf Islands and Seal Rocks, Farallons' 1868-1869 from the exhibition 'Carelton Watkins: The Stanford Albums' at the Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University, April - August, 2014

 

Carleton Watkins (American, 1829-1916)
Sugar Loaf Islands and Seal Rocks, Farallons
1868-1869
From the album Photographs of the Pacific Coast
Albumen print
Lent by Department of Special Collections, Stanford University Libraries.

 

 

Who would you put in your top eleven photographers of all time?

(in no particular order)

~ Minor White
~ Eugene Atget
~ Frederick Sommer
~ Carelton Watkins
~ Julia Margaret Cameron
~ Walker Evans
~ Edward Weston
~ Lee Friedlander
~ Manuel Alvarez Bravo
~ Diane Arbus
~ Paul Strand

and then it gets a bit more difficult…

Is it a Josef Sudek, Robert Adams, Aaron Siskind, Man Ray, Berenice Abbott, Helen Levitt, Emmet Gowin, William Clift, Ernest Cole, William Eggleston, Alfred Stieglitz, Cindy Sherman, Charles Marville, Saul Leiter, Wolfgang Tillmans and suggestions from others – André Kertész, Josef Koudelka, Dorothea Lange, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Edouard Boubat, Paul Caponigro, Mario Giacomelli, etc …

What is more interesting is to ask:


Who are the interesting photographers anywhere who are alive now?

And my answer would be: there are very few who are alive now that are interesting.

That is – by looking at the ideas that are present in poetry, music, philosophy or even politics – who is there that is truly taking these ideas forward (or ideas that are as interesting).


Or who is arranging images with the elegance of a Sommer or an Atget or the dynamics of Arbus

= few if any.

In other words whose acts am I hanging upon, so that I am waiting with great anticipation to see what they are going to do next.

Only a few is my answer.


Which living photographers would I walk a mile to see their work?

= some (eg Lee Friedlander, Wolfgang Tillmans)


Which living Australian photographers would I walk an hour in the hot January sun to see?

= possibly two (Bill Henson, Rosemary Laing)

Dr Marcus Bunyan

PS. Just look at Cape Horn, near Celilo (1867, below). You are not likely to see a more magnificent landscape photograph than this.


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

 

 

Carleton Watkins (American, 1829-1916) 'Devils' Cañon Geysers, Looking Up' c. 1867 from the exhibition 'Carelton Watkins: The Stanford Albums' at the Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University, April - August, 2014

 

Carleton Watkins (American, 1829-1916)
Devils’ Cañon Geysers, Looking Up
c. 1867
From the album Photographs of the Pacific Coast
Albumen print
Lent by Department of Special Collections, Stanford University Libraries

 

Carleton Watkins (American, 1829-1916) 'Devils' Cañon Geysers, Looking Up' (detail) c. 1867

 

Carleton Watkins (American, 1829-1916)
Devils’ Cañon Geysers, Looking Up (detail)
c. 1867
From the album Photographs of the Pacific Coast
Albumen print
Lent by Department of Special Collections, Stanford University Libraries

 

Carleton Watkins (American, 1829-1916) 'Alcatraz from North Point' 1862-1863

 

Carleton Watkins (American, 1829-1916)
Alcatraz from North Point
1862–1863
From the album Photographs of the Pacific Coast
Albumen print
Lent by Department of Special Collections, Stanford University Libraries

 

Carleton Watkins (American, 1829-1916) 'The Wreck of the Viscata' March 1868

 

Carleton Watkins (American, 1829-1916)
The Wreck of the Viscata
March 1868
From the album Photographs of the Pacific Coast
Albumen print
Lent by Department of Special Collections, Stanford University Libraries

 

Carleton Watkins (American, 1829-1916) 'Magenta Flume Nevada Co. Cal.' c. 1871

 

Carleton Watkins (American, 1829-1916)
Magenta Flume Nevada Co. Cal.
c. 1871
From the album Photographs of the Pacific Coast
Albumen print
Lent by Department of Special Collections, Stanford University Libraries

 

Carleton Watkins (American, 1829-1916) 'Flour and Woolen Mills, Oregon City' 1867

 

Carleton Watkins (American, 1829-1916)
Flour and Woolen Mills, Oregon City
1867
From the album Photographs of the Columbia River and Oregon
Albumen print. Lent by Department of Special Collections, Stanford University Libraries

 

Carleton Watkins (American, 1829-1916) 'Cape Horn, Columbia River' 1867

 

Carleton Watkins (American, 1829-1916)
Cape Horn, Columbia River
1867
From the album Photographs of the Columbia River and Oregon
Albumen print
Lent by Department of Special Collections, Stanford University Libraries

 

Carleton Watkins (American, 1829-1916) 'Mt. Hood and the Dalles, Columbia River' 1867

 

Carleton Watkins (American, 1829-1916)
Mt. Hood and the Dalles, Columbia River
1867
From the album Photographs of the Columbia River and Oregon
Albumen print
Lent by Department of Special Collections, Stanford University Libraries

 

Carleton Watkins (American, 1829-1916) 'Cape Horn, near Celilo' 1867

 

Carleton Watkins (American, 1829-1916)
Cape Horn, near Celilo
1867
From the album Photographs of the Columbia River and Oregon
Albumen print
Lent by Department of Special Collections, Stanford University Libraries

 

Carleton Watkins (American, 1829-1916) 'The Yosemite Valley from the "Best General View"' 1866

 

Carleton Watkins (American, 1829-1916)
The Yosemite Valley from the “Best General View”
1866
From the album Photographs of the Yosemite Valley
Albumen print
Lent by Department of Special Collections, Stanford University Libraries

 

Carleton Watkins (American, 1829-1916) 'Cathedral Rocks, 2630 ft., Yosemite' 1865-1866

 

Carleton Watkins (American, 1829-1916)
Cathedral Rocks, 2630 ft., Yosemite
1865-1866
From the album Photographs of the Yosemite Valley
Albumen print
Lent by Department of Special Collections, Stanford University Libraries

 

Carleton Watkins (American, 1829-1916) 'Pompompasos, the Three Brothers, Yosemite 4480 ft.' 1865-1866

 

Carleton Watkins (American, 1829-1916)
Pompompasos, the Three Brothers, Yosemite 4480 ft.
1865-1866
From the album Photographs of the Yosemite Valley
Albumen print
Lent by Department of Special Collections, Stanford University Libraries

 

Carleton Watkins (American, 1829-1916) 'Mirror View of the North Dome, Yosemite' 1865-1866

 

Carleton Watkins (American, 1829-1916)
Mirror View of the North Dome, Yosemite
1865-1866
From the album Photographs of the Yosemite Valley
Albumen print
Lent by Department of Special Collections, Stanford University Libraries

 

 

Born in upstate New York, Carleton Watkins (1829-1916) ventured west in 1849 to strike it rich. But instead of prospecting for gold, Watkins developed a talent for photography – a medium invented only 22 years before. He documented the remote Pacific Coast in the 1860s and 1870s, capturing its vast scale and spirit with a custom-built camera that created “mammoth” 18 x 22-inch glass-plate negatives. In June 1864, his stunning photographs of Yosemite’s valley, waterfalls and peaks proved instrumental in convincing President Abraham Lincoln and the 38th U.S. Congress to pass the Yosemite Valley Grant Act, legislation that preserved the land for public use and set a precedent for America’s National Park System.

As the nation celebrates the 150th Anniversary of the Yosemite Grant, the Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University presents Carleton Watkins: The Stanford Albums, an exhibition featuring more than 80 original mammoth prints from three unique albums of Watkins’s work: Photographs of the Yosemite Valley (1861 and 1865-66), Photographs of the Pacific Coast (1862-76), and Photographs of the Columbia River and Oregon (1867 and 1870). The exhibition will be on view April 23 through August 17, 2014. Also featured will be cartographic visualisations developed in collaboration with Stanford’s Center for Spatial and Textual Analysis and the Bill Lane Center for the American West, which provide dynamic context for the geography and natural history of Watkins’s photographs. A fully illustrated publication will accompany the exhibition.

“The Cantor is thrilled to be leading such an innovative, interdisciplinary effort to look at Watkins’s work anew,” says Connie Wolf, the Cantor’s John & Jill Freidenrich Director. “These extraordinary albums from Stanford University Libraries’ singular collection provide us with an unparalleled opportunity to examine Watkins’s place in the history of photography, and to more fully understand the critical role photography played in the preservation, promotion, and development of the West. It is fascinating to note that Watkins and Leland Stanford were contemporaries. Watkins even photographed Stanford’s family, making this university a proud and apt home for these albums.”

The Albums

Photographs of the Yosemite Valley (1861 and 1865-1866)

In 1861, Watkins loaded up a team of mules with nearly a ton of photographic equipment including a mobile darkroom tent, a dangerous assortment of flammable chemicals, and an enormous custom-built camera that produced “mammoth” 18 x 22-inch glass-plate negatives. He headed 75 miles into the rugged and remote Yosemite Valley on a sometimes perilous journey to capture the natural wonders of the Sierra Nevada. The technical challenges of creating wet-plate negatives in the field were immense. Dust and grit could easily ruin the work as the plates were coated, exposed for up to an hour, and developed. Water had to be carried great distances. The sun warped and shrank camera parts. But the resulting suite of photographs became an international sensation – not only because they provided virtual access to one of America’s grandest wilderness areas but also for their extraordinary beauty. The New York Times declared in 1862 that “as specimens of the photographic art they are unequaled.”

Watkins’s album Photographs of the Yosemite Valley is sequenced to replicate the experience of entering the Mariposa Grove trail and traveling into the valley. From Cathedral Rocks to Half Dome, Watkins captures the quiet majesty of Yosemite’s natural monuments. The album contains images from both his initial expedition in 1861 and a subsequent visit as an ad hoc member of the California State Geological Survey team in 1865-66. Throughout his career, Watkins maintained close relationships with geologists as well as botanists who were deeply interested in his documentation of native tree species.

In Yosemite, Watkins found a spectacular natural laboratory for testing and refining his approach to landscape photography. His compositional choices were unique. In The Yosemite Valley from the “Best General View” (1866), for instance, Watkins cropped off the top of the lone tree in the foreground instead of framing it, lending a painterly quality to the image. By manipulating focus and perspective, Watkins also achieved an unusual balance of crispness against softer tonalities.

Watkins’s technical achievements under adverse conditions were unmatched and astonished his peers. The resolution of his photographs still rivals that of the high-end digital cameras of today. After 1861, capitalising on the success of his Yosemite pictures and his reputation as a landscape photographer, Watkins renamed his studio at 425 Montgomery Street in San Francisco the “Yo-Semite Gallery.” The exhibition features more than 30 photographs from the album Photographs of the Yosemite Valley including various views of Yosemite Valley; mountains and rock formations such as Cathedral Rocks, Half Dome, and El Capitan; waterfalls and water views such as Mirror Lake and Yosemite Falls; and photographs of Yosemite’s majestic trees.

Photographs of the Pacific Coast (1862-1876)

Watkins made his living mostly as a field photographer for hire, accepting commissions from logging companies and mining operations up and down the coast. Early in his career, Watkins’s photographs were often used to attract investors or as documentation in court evidence for land disputes. In the fast-developing West, photography was a means of establishing ‘truth claims’ to property and resource rights. And in a region where vast swaths of territory were rarely traveled by city dwellers, photography filled in the gaps.

Watkins added images from these underwritten trips to an album he called Photographs of the Pacific Coast. Along with his commercial photographs of smelting works at the New Almaden Mine in Santa Clara County and the hydraulic North Bloomfield mine in Nevada County, the album contains remarkable vistas of San Francisco including a dramatic photograph of the shipwreck Viscata on Ocean Beach, also images of the Devil’s Canyon geysers in Sonoma County and the Farallon Islands.

The album also includes images commissioned by California’s sixth governor, Milton Slocum Latham, of Latham’s mansion on San Francisco’s Rincon Hill. It was, in fact, Latham’s wife, Mollie, who commissioned the three albums now at Stanford. One of the original bindings is on display so visitors can appreciate its massive size and ornate details. With the Civil War raging in the eastern part of the country until 1865, Watkins’s images of the pristine Pacific Coast must have provided Americans a welcome alternative to the images of carnage issuing from the battlefield.

In the exhibition, there are more than 20 California photographs from the album Photographs of the Pacific Coast including scenes of San Francisco neighbourhoods, homes, and natural sites including the Farallon Islands; commissioned images of mining operations; and views of Mt. Shasta, Mendocino County, and Sonoma County.

Photographs of the Columbia River and Oregon (1867 and 1870)

While Watkins’s name is most closely associated with Yosemite, photographers often cite Watkins’s album Photographs of the Columbia River and Oregon as his crowning artistic achievement. No longer a novice, Watkins demonstrates mastery of his craft and a keen eye for composition in these images. A friend at the Oregon Steam Navigation Company arranged for Watkins to travel by rail up and down the Columbia River to photograph the company’s rail portages and scenic beauty to document the company’s progress. Watkins was the first to photograph this area and traveled for four months to do so.

In the resulting views of Portland, Oregon City, rail portages, river industry, and scenery, Watkins made art of the river landscapes and the railroad laid alongside it. Cape Horn, Near Celilo (1867), taken at the final point of his journey where the tracks ended, shows a stark horizon, suggesting both the far edge of the world and the determination of early industrial pioneers. In Mt. Hood and the Dalles, Columbia River (1867), a spectacular view of Mt. Hood and of the meandering river at the base of basalt cliffs is disrupted by the object of greatest focus – a tiny white outbuilding for the railroad.

The exhibition features more than 15 photographs from the album Photographs of the Columbia River and Oregon including views along the Columbia River of Cape Horn, Castle Rock and Mt. Hood; and images of Portland, Oregon City, and smaller towns and industries along the railroad.

Exploring Watkins’s Photographs with Digital Technology

Stanford’s Center for Spatial and Textual Analysis, the Bill Lane Center for the American West, the Branner Earth Sciences Library, and the Cantor worked together to create an innovative cartographic digital accompaniment for each album.

For Photographs of Yosemite Valley, the team – including select students – generated “viewsheds” of several of Watkins’s photographs that enable visitors to see where each was likely taken and what topographical elements are either illuminated or obscured in them. With Photographs of the Pacific Coast, fascinating before-and-after visualisations illustrate the incredible changes in the landscape of San Francisco over the last century and a half. Lastly, a cartographic accompaniment to Photographs of the Columbia River and Oregon details the early railroad routes Watkins traveled to take his photographs.

Carleton Eugene Watkins (1829-1916)

Born in upstate New York in 1829, Watkins ventured west to look for opportunities and settled in the Bay Area in 1852. While working for a photography studio, he was asked to step in for a photographer who had unexpectedly quit. Watkins quickly learned the daguerreotype process and within two years he was making ambrotypes and wet-plate collodion photographs.

Throughout his career, Watkins documented the remote American West, generating more than 7,000 photographs of its most majestic wilderness sites as well as the dramatic transformation of isolated territories caused by logging and mining industries. His photographs won awards throughout the United States and abroad. With his early success, he established a gallery in San Francisco on prestigious Montgomery Street in 1861.

But Watkins’s fortunes took a turn with the 1874 failure of the Bank of California and the resulting economic panic. Heavily in debt at the time, Watkins had to declare bankruptcy and lost both the gallery and the majority of his negatives to a competitor. Watkins rebuilt his inventory, continuing to travel and work into the 1890s, but never recovered financially. At one point he and his family lived in a rail car in Oakland. Watkins’s health also declined, and by 1903 he was nearly blind. Watkins died tragically. The 1906 earthquake and fire destroyed his studio and his life’s work, and he never got over the shock. His family eventually had him committed to Napa State Hospital. He died there in 1916.

Press release from the Cantor Arts Center website

 

Carleton Watkins (American, 1829-1916) 'Cape Horn, Columbia River' 1867

 

Carleton Watkins (American, 1829-1916)
Cape Horn, Columbia River
1867
From the album Photographs of the Columbia River and Oregon
Albumen print
Lent by Department of Special Collections, Stanford University Libraries

 

Carleton Watkins (American, 1829-1916) 'Arch at the West End, Farallones' 1868-1869

 

Carleton Watkins (American, 1829-1916)
Arch at the West End, Farallones
1868-1869
From the album Photographs of the Pacific Coast
Albumen print
Lent by Department of Special Collections, Stanford University Libraries

 

Carleton Watkins (American, 1829-1916) 'Multnomah Falls, Columbia River, Oregon' 1867

 

Carleton Watkins (American, 1829-1916)
Multnomah Falls, Columbia River, Oregon
1867
From the album Photographs of the Columbia River and Oregon
Albumen print
Lent by Department of Special Collections, Stanford University Libraries

 

Carleton Watkins (American, 1829-1916) 'Multnomah Falls, Cascades, Columbia River' 1867

 

Carleton Watkins (American, 1829-1916)
Multnomah Falls, Cascades, Columbia River
1867
From the album Photographs of the Columbia River and Oregon
Albumen print
Lent by Department of Special Collections, Stanford University Libraries

 

Carleton Watkins (American, 1829-1916) 'Pohono, the Bridal Veil, Yosemite 900 ft.' 1865-1866

 

Carleton Watkins (American, 1829-1916)
Pohono, the Bridal Veil, Yosemite 900 ft.
1865-1866
From the album Photographs of the Yosemite Valley
Albumen print
Lent by Department of Special Collections, Stanford University Libraries

 

Carleton Watkins (American, 1829-1916) 'The Lower Yosemite Fall, Yosemite' 1865-1866

 

Carleton Watkins (American, 1829-1916)
The Lower Yosemite Fall, Yosemite
1865-1866
From the album Photographs of the Yosemite Valley
Albumen print
Lent by Department of Special Collections, Stanford University Libraries

 

Carleton Watkins (American, 1829-1916) 'The Yosemite Falls, 2634 ft.' 1865-1866

 

Carleton Watkins (American, 1829-1916)
The Yosemite Falls, 2634 ft.
1865-1866
From the album Photographs of the Yosemite Valley
Albumen print. Lent by Department of Special Collections, Stanford University Libraries

 

Carleton Watkins (American, 1829-1916) 'Mirror View of El Capitan, Yosemite' 1865-1866

 

Carleton Watkins (American, 1829-1916)
Mirror View of El Capitan, Yosemite
1865-1866
From the album Photographs of the Yosemite Valley
Albumen print
Lent by Department of Special Collections, Stanford University Libraries

 

Carleton Watkins (American, 1829-1916) 'Washington Column, 2082 ft., Yosemite' 1865-1866

 

Carleton Watkins (American, 1829-1916)
Washington Column, 2082 ft., Yosemite
1865-1866
From the album Photographs of the Yosemite Valley
Albumen print
Lent by Department of Special Collections, Stanford University Libraries

 

Carleton Watkins (American, 1829-1916) 'The Ponderosa, Yosemite' 1866

 

Carleton Watkins (American, 1829-1916)
The Ponderosa, Yosemite
1866
From the album Photographs of the Yosemite Valley
Albumen print
Lent by Department of Special Collections, Stanford University Libraries

 

Carleton Watkins (American, 1829-1916) 'Section of the Grizzly Giant, 33 ft. diameter' 1865-1866

 

Carleton Watkins (American, 1829-1916)
Section of the Grizzly Giant, 33 ft. diameter
1865-1866
From the album Photographs of the Yosemite Valley
Albumen print. Lent by Department of Special Collections, Stanford University Libraries

 

 

Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University
328 Lomita Drive at Museum Way
Stanford, CA 94305-5060
Phone: 650-723-4177

Opening hours:
Wednesday – Sunday 11am – 5pm
Closed Monday and Tuesday

Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University website

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Exhibition: ‘Emmet Gowin’ at the Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson, Paris

Exhibition dates: 14th May – 27th July, 2014

Curator: Carlos Gollonet

 

Emmet Gowin (American, b. 1941) 'Nancy, Danville (Virginia)' 1969 from the exhibition 'Emmet Gowin' at the Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson, Paris, May - July, 2014

 

Emmet Gowin (American, b. 1941)
Nancy, Danville (Virginia)
1969
Gelatin silver print
© Emmet Gowin
Courtesy Pace/MacGill Gallery, New York

 

 

Emmet Gowin is a superlative photographic artist. His images possess a unique sensuality that no other artist, save Frederick Sommer, dare approach.

His own family was an early significant subject matter, one to which only he had ready access. “I was wondering about in the world looking for an interesting place to be, when I realised that where I was already interesting.”1

I feel (imperative word) that the photographs of his family are his strongest work for they image an intimate story, and Gowin is nothing if not a magnificent storyteller. Look at the beauty of images such as Nancy, Danville (Virginia) (1969, above) or Ruth, Danville (Virginia) (1968, below) and understand what awareness it takes – first to visualise, then capture on the negative, then print these almost mystical moments of time.

As Gowin observed in his senior thesis, which was predicated upon the necessary co-ingredients of art and spirituality, “Art is the presence of something mysterious that transports you to a place where life takes on a clearness that it ordinarily lacks, a transparency, a vividness, a completeness.”2 He complemented this understanding of art and spirituality with an interest in science. He was in harmony with the physicists and the scientists, finding them to be the most poetic people of the age.3 Inspired by Sommer, Gowin perfected his printing technique through a respect for the medium, respect for the materials and conviction as to what the materials were capable of doing.4

“Sommer freely shared with Gowin his knowledge of photographic equipment, materials, chemicals and printing techniques and Gowin often repeats Sommer’s admonition to him: “Don’t let anyone talk you out of physical splendour.” Over the years Gowin developed methods of printing born from patient experimentation and a love of craft. His background in painting and drawing taught him that there are many solution to making a finished work of art… which he often builds to achieve the most satisfying integration of elements: “The mystery of a beautiful photograph really is revealed when nothing is obscured. We recognise that nothing has been withheld from us, so that we must complete its meaning. We are returned, it seems directly, to the sense and smell of its origin… A complete print is simply a fixed set of relationships, which accommodates its parts as well as our feelings. Clusters of stars in the sky are formed by us into constellations. Perhaps I feel that this constellation has enough stars, and doesn’t need any more. This grouping is complete. It feels right. Feeling, alone, tells us when a print is complete.””5

His later more universal work, such as the landscapes and aerial photographs, are no less emphatic than the earlier personal work but they are a second string to the main bow. The initial impetus of this work can be seen in the book Emmet Gowin Photographs as a development from still life photographs such as Geography Pages, 1974 (p. 62). This second theme took Gowin longer to develop but his photographs are no less powerful for it. His photographs of Petra possess the most amazing serenity of any taken at this famous site; his photographs of Mount St Helens after the volcanic eruption and the aerial photographs of nuclear sites and aeration ponds are among the strongest aerial photographs that I have ever seen. Gowin’s experimentation with the development of the negative, using different times and developers; his experimentation with the development of the print, sometimes using multiple developers and monotones or strong / subtle split toning (as can be seen in the photographs below) is outstanding. His poetic ability rouses the senses and is munificent but for me these photographs do not possess the “personality” or significance of his earlier family photographs. But only just, and we are talking fractions here!

“These photographs of the tracings of human beings reveal mankind not as a nurturer but as a blind and godlike power. Even his latest aerial agricultural landscapes made on route to nuclear sites have a magnificent indifference to human scale. For Gowin, confrontation of man’s part in the creation of ecological problems would seem to require the most transcendental point of view, and as his subjects have become more difficult and frightening, he has created his lushest and most seductive prints.”6

Gowin is an artist centred in a space of sensibility. An understanding of the interrelationships between people and the earth is evidenced through aware and clearly seen images. Gowin digs down into the essence of the earth in order to understand our habituation of it. How we fail to change the course we are on even as we recognise what it is that we are doing to the world. When the stimulus is constantly repeated there is a reduction of psychological or behavioural response and this is what Gowin pokes a big stick at. As he observes,

“We are products of nature. We are nature’s consciousness and awareness, the custodians of this planet… We begin as the intimate person that clings to our mother’s breast, and our conception of the world is that interrelationship. Out safety depends on that mother. And now I’m beginning to see that there’s a mother larger than the human mother and it’s the earth; if we don’t take care of that we will have lost everything.”7

I was luck enough to meet Emmet Gowin when he visited Australia in 1995. He had an exhibition in the small gallery in Building 2 in Bowens Lane at RMIT University, presented a public lecture and held a workshop with about 20 students. I remember I was bowled over by his intensity and star power and I admit, I asked a stupid question. The impetuousness of youth with stars in their eyes certainly got the better of me. Now when I look at the work again I am still in awe of the works sincerity, spirituality, sensuality and respect for subject matter. No matter what he is photographing.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

 

1/ Gowin, Emmet quoted in Chahroudi, Martha. “Introduction,” in Emmet Gowin Photographs. Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1990, p. 10.
2/ Ibid., p. 9.
3/ Ibid., p. 11.
4/ Ibid., p. 11.
5/ Gowin quoted in Kelly, Jain (ed.,). Darkroom 2. New York, 1978, p. 43 quoted in Chahroudi, Martha. “Introduction,” in Emmet Gowin Photographs. Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1990, p. 11.
6/ Chahroudi, Op. cit., p. 15.
7/ Ibid., p. 15.


Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

 

 

“For me, pictures provide a means of holding, intensely, a moment of communication between one human and another.”

“There is a profound silence that whines in the ear, a breathless quiet, as if the light or something unheard was breathing. I hold my breath to make certain it’s not me. It must be the earth itself breathing.


Emmet Gowin

 

 

Emmet Gowin (American, b. 1941) 'Edith and Ruth, Danville (Virginia)' 1966 from the exhibition 'Emmet Gowin' at the Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson, Paris, May - July, 2014

 

Emmet Gowin (American, b. 1941)
Edith and Ruth, Danville (Virginia)
1966
Gelatin silver print
© Emmet Gowin
Courtesy Pace/MacGill Gallery, New York

 

Emmet Gowin (American, b. 1941) 'Barry, Dwayne and Turkeys, Danville, Virginia' 1970

 

Emmet Gowin (American, b. 1941)
Barry, Dwayne and Turkeys, Danville, Virginia 
1970
Gelatin silver print
© Emmet Gowin
Courtesy Pace/MacGill Gallery, New York

 

Emmet Gowin, the catalog accompanying a retrospective now touring in Spain, is a great introduction to the artist’s works and a great keepsake for a fan. The writings by Keith Davis, Carlos Gollonet and Gowin himself identify the photographer’s humanist and spiritual roots and detail his journey from 1960’s-era people pictures focused on his wife, Edith and family in Danville, VA, to aerial photographs of ravaged landscapes, like the nuclear test grounds in Nevada, and his most recent project  archiving tropical, nocturnal-moths.

While his disparate bodies of work may look like geologic shifts in subject matter, Gowin talks in the book about the spiritual quest he’s on, and his realisation that humankind inhabits the land, and that the land is a vital part of who we are. To my eye, what holds all the works together is Gowin’s never-ceasing focus on non-conventional beauty. His way of photographing both people and the wasted landscapes plays up the dark sublime. These are not traditional pretty pictures, but they are exquisitely beautiful. All Gowin photos smoulder with emotion and feel like they were snapped with a breath held, bated with desire.

Roberta Fallon. “Emmett Gowin – From family of man to mariposas nocturnas at Swarthmore’s List Gallery,” on The Artblog website, March 22, 2012 [Online] Cited 05/07/2014. Used under fair use conditions for the purposes of education and research

 

Emmet Gowin (American, b. 1941) 'Edith, Noël, Danville (Virginia)' 1971

 

Emmet Gowin (American, b. 1941)
Edith, Noël, Danville (Virginia)
1971
Gelatin silver print
© Emmet Gowin
Courtesy Pace/MacGill Gallery, New York

 

Emmet Gowin (American, b. 1941) 'Edith, Danville (Virginia)' 1971

 

Emmet Gowin (American, b. 1941)
Edith, Danville (Virginia)
1971
Gelatin silver print
7 3/4 x 9 7/8″ (19.7 x 25.1cm)
Gift of Judith Joy Ross
© Emmet Gowin
Courtesy Pace/MacGill Gallery, New York

 

Emmet Gowin (American, b. 1941) 'Edith, Danville (Virginia)' 1970

 

Emmet Gowin (American, b. 1941)
Edith, Danville (Virginia)
1970
Gelatin silver print
© Emmet Gowin
Courtesy Pace/MacGill Gallery, New York

 

Emmet Gowin (American, b. 1941) 'Edith, Newtown (Pennsylvania)' 1974

 

Emmet Gowin (American, b. 1941)
Edith, Newtown (Pennsylvania)
1974
Gelatin silver print
© Emmet Gowin
Courtesy Pace/MacGill Gallery, New York

 

Emmet Gowin (American, b. 1941) 'Ruth, Danville (Virginia)' 1968

 

Emmet Gowin (American, b. 1941)
Ruth, Danville (Virginia)
1968
Gelatin silver print
© Emmet Gowin
Courtesy Pace/MacGill Gallery, New York

 

Emmet Gowin (American, b. 1941) 'Edith, Chincoteague Island (Virginia)' 1967

 

Emmet Gowin (American, b. 1941)
Edith, Chincoteague Island (Virginia)
1967
Gelatin silver print
© Emmet Gowin
Courtesy Pace/MacGill Gallery, New York

 

 

From May 14th to July 27th 2014, Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson will hold an exhibition of the American photographer Emmet Gowin. This important retrospective is showing 130 prints of one of the most original and influential photographer of these last forty years. This exhibition shows on two floors his entire career: his most famous series from the end of the sixties, the moths’ flights and the aerial photographs. The exhibition organised by Fundación MAPFRE in collaboration with Fondation HCB is accompanied by a catalogue published by Xavier Barral edition.

Born in Danville (Virginia) in 1941, Emmet Gowin grows up in Chincoteague Island, in a religious family. His father, a Methodist minister gives him a righteous discipline and a strict education, while his mother, musician, was a gentle, nurturing presence. During his spare time, Emmet encounters the surrounding landscape and begins drawing.

He completes his high school education and enrols in a local business school in 1951 and works at the same time at the design department of Sears, the multinational department store chain. In 1961, Gowin enters in the Commercial Art Department at Richmond Professional Institute, where he studies drawing, painting, graphic design, and history of Art. After a few months, he realises that photography is the best mean of expression and gives him the possibility to seize the Fate and the Unexpected.

Gowin’s early photographic influences came in the form of books and catalogues such as Images à la Sauvette by Henri Cartier-Bresson, History of Photography by Beaumont Newhall or Walker Evans’s American Photographs. Emmet Gowin acquires his first Leica 35mm in 1962 and after two years spent observing the Masters of photography, he finally feels ready to affirm his own photographic style. In 1963, he goes for the first time in New York and meets Robert Franck who encouraged him.

The first Gowin’s portfolios realised in 1965, is technically simple in approach. While the subjects vary considerably, all are drawn from everyday life: kids playing outdoors, Edith’s family, adults in the streets or squares, cars and early pictures of Edith. They get married in 1964. Edith Morris and Emmet Gowin are born in the same city but they grew up in totally different families. Edith’s one, was more exuberant and emotionally close than Emmet’s. As we can discover in the first floor of the exhibition, Edith and her family are the heart of the photograph’s creative universe. As mentioned by Carlos Gollonet, curator of the exhibition, Gowin’s work, seen cumulatively, is a portrait of the artist.

In 1965, they move to Providence, and Emmet begins his studies with Harry Callahan at Rhode Island School of Design. He begins to consistently use a 4 x 5 inch view camera from this time on. This bigger negative produced prints with beautiful transparent details and correspondingly finer and smoother tonal scale.

Just before his first son’s birth, Elijah, in 1967, Emmet and Edith moved to Ohio, where he begins teaching at the Dayton Art Institute. This marks the start of a teaching career that spans more than four decades. He concentrates his work on Edith and let us going through his private life and proposes a very personal artistic vision of this work: I do not feel that I can make picture impersonally, but that I am affected by and involved with the situations which lead to, or beyond, the making of the pictures. In these years, he met Ralph Eugene Meatyard and Frederik Sommer, who would become his close friend and mentor.

At the end of the 1960’s, Gowin begins making circular images of Edith, her family, and their own household, both indoors and out. The Gowin’s second son, Isaac, born in 1974, was the subject – both before and after birth – of many of these circular 8×10 inch photographs, which give the impression of looking through a keyhole. At the beginning of the 1970’s, the exhibitions at the Light Gallery and MoMA mark a significant step toward his American success. In 1973, he’s appointed Lecturer at Princeton University. He is later appointed Full Professor, a position he will hold until his retirement in 2009. He inspired a new generation of photographers such as Fazal Sheikh, David Maisel or Andrew Moore.

From 1973, Gowin goes back to sources, nature and landscape and introduces the idea of Working Landscapes in which the contributions of many generations, overtime, shape the use and care of the land. He travels in Europe, Ireland and Italy, where he discovered the ancient Etruscan city of Matera. His first monograph, Emmet Gowin: photographs, is published in 1976. In 1982, the Queen Noor of Jordan, one of Gowin’s students at Princeton, invites him to photograph the archeological site of Petra. Some of these photos are exhibited on the second floor of the foundation. Later, he continues making views of nature and traveled overseas, reverting to a traditional rectangular format. His interest in gardens and the historical balance between nature and human culture stimulates a dedication to a larger landscape, recorded first from the ground and then from the air. He photographs the incredible destruction of the Mount St. Helens volcano, Washington, and spent years recording the inhabited – and often scarred – face of the American West. Gowin is not an environmental activist. Nonetheless, once he comes to know and experience these landscapes his acute moral and intellectual sense is also conveyed in his images. He wants to show the conflict that exists in our relationship with nature. “It is not a call for an action … It’s a call for reflection, meditation and consideration to be on a more intimate basis with the world.”

Over the past few years, Gowin has constantly photographed nocturnal moths. His scientific interest has led him to catalog thousands of species working alongside with biologists in tropical jungles. By chance, he traveled with a cutout silhouette of Edith in his wallet or luggage and produced a series of photographs in which Edith is once again the principal subject, in this case through her silhouette. They recall the instrument known as the physionotrace, a forerunner of the earliest photographs which was used to male silhouette reproducing the images of loved ones. Those images, printed on handmade paper with the silver image gold toned confirm that Emmet Gowin is one of the finest photographers of any period.

Press release from the Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson website

 

Emmet Gowin (American, b. 1941) 'Old Handford City Site and the Columbia River, Handford Nuclear Reservation, near Richland (Washington)' 1986

 

Emmet Gowin (American, b. 1941)
Old Handford City Site and the Columbia River, Handford Nuclear Reservation, near Richland (Washington)
1986
Gelatin silver print
© Emmet Gowin
Courtesy Pace/MacGill Gallery, New York

 

The aerial photos, taken while flying over bomb test sites and waste water catchment basins and other scenes of industrial/military destruction are almost abstract to the eye. They are also very beautiful. Getting nose to nose with these works and reading the title card, however, allows the slowly-dawning realisation that you are looking at a full blown horror. This suite of works dates from 1980 when Gowin took to the air to view the aftermath of the Mt. St. Helens volcanic eruption in Washington state and was taken with the way things not visible from “human” space below revealed themselves from above. In 1986 he started exploring man-made industrial inroads into the land from the air, flying over Hanford Reservation, for one, where nuclear reactors and chemical separation plants made scars on the land like nothing nature had done. These are truly devastating pictures, and what makes them more so is the thought that this is the tip of the iceberg and that many other sites on earth bear the scars of man-made intrusion.

Roberta Fallon. “Emmett Gowin – From family of man to mariposas nocturnas at Swarthmore’s List Gallery,” on The Artblog website, March 22, 2012 [Online] Cited 05/07/2014. Used under fair use conditions for the purposes of education and research

 

Emmet Gowin (American, b. 1941) 'Aeration Pond, Toxic Water Treatment Facility, Pine Bluff, AK (Arkansas)' 1989

 

Emmet Gowin (American, b. 1941)
Aeration Pond, Toxic Water Treatment Facility, Pine Bluff, AK (Arkansas)
1989
Toned gelatin silver print
© Emmet Gowin
Courtesy Pace/MacGill Gallery, New York

 

Emmet Gowin (American, b. 1941) 'Golf Course under Construction (Arizona)' 1993

 

Emmet Gowin (American, b. 1941)
Golf Course under Construction (Arizona)
1993
Gelatin silver print
© Emmet Gowin
Courtesy Pace/MacGill Gallery, New York

 

Emmet Gowin (American, b. 1941) 'Aerial view: Mt. St. Helens rim, crater and lava dome' 1982

 

Emmet Gowin (American, b. 1941)
Aerial view: Mt. St. Helens rim, crater and lava dome
1982
Gelatin silver print
© Emmet Gowin
Courtesy Pace/MacGill Gallery, New York

 

 

Every Time less than the pulsation of the artery

Is equal in its period & value to Six Thousand Years.


For in this Period the Poet’s Work is Done, and all the Great

Events of Time start forth & are conceiv’d in such a Period

Within an Moment, a Pulsation of the Artery. …


For every Space larger than a red Globule of Man’s blood,

Is visionary, and is created by the Hammer of Los:

And every Space smaller than a red Globule of Man’s blood opens

Into Eternity of which this vegetable Earth is but a shadow…


William Blake. From “Milton”

 

Emmet Gowin (American, b. 1941) 'The Khazneh from the Sîq, Petra (Jordan)' 1985

 

Emmet Gowin (American, b. 1941)
The Khazneh from the Sîq, Petra (Jordan)
1985
Gelatin silver print
© Emmet Gowin
Courtesy Pace/MacGill Gallery, New York

 

Emmet Gowin (American, b. 1941) 'Edith, Newtown (Pennsylvania)' 1994

 

Emmet Gowin (American, b. 1941)
Edith, Newtown (Pennsylvania)
1994
Gelatin silver print
© Emmet Gowin
Courtesy Pace/MacGill Gallery, New York

 

Emmet Gowin (American, b. 1941) 'Edith, Danville (Virginia)' 1963

 

Emmet Gowin (American, b. 1941)
Edith, Danville (Virginia)
1963
Gelatin silver print
© Emmet Gowin
Courtesy Pace/MacGill Gallery, New York

 

Emmet Gowin (American, b. 1941) 'Edith and Moth Flight' 2002

 

Emmet Gowin (American, b. 1941)
Edith and Moth Flight
2002
Digital ink jet print
19 x 19cm (7 1/2 x 7 1/2 in.)
National Gallery of Art, Washington, Charina Endowment Fund
© Emmet and Edith Gowin
Courtesy Pace/MacGill Gallery, New York

 

 

Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson
79 rue des Archives
75003 Paris

Opening hours:
Tuesday – Sunday 11am – 7pm
Closed on Mondays

Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson website

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Exhibition: ‘In the Looking Glass: Recent Daguerreotype Acquistions’ at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City

Exhibition dates: 25th January – 20th July, 2014

Curator: Jane Aspinwall, Associate Curator of Photography

 

Attributed to: Tsukamoto, Japanese. 'Portrait of a man in samurai armor' mid 1870s

 

Attributed to:
Tsukamoto (Japanese)
Portrait of a man in samurai armour
mid 1870s
Ambrotype
5 x 3 1/2 inches
Gift of the Hall Family Foundation
© Nelson Gallery Foundation

 

 

OMG some of these images are SO beautiful and others SO bizarre. Please enlarge the detailed shots of Lady in Costume (c. 1850, below) and Traveling Minstrels – banjo and bones (c. 1850, below) – my two favourites – so you can see the costumes and the people. The clothes of the bones player are incredible… I wonder what they did with their lives, where they went and how they lived. How old do you think they are? And what is that on the front of his hat, a watch?

Dr Marcus Bunyan


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.

 

 

Unknown maker (American) 'Woman telegrapher' c. 1850 from the exhibition 'In the Looking Glass: Recent Daguerreotype Acquistions' at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, January - July, 2014

 

Unknown maker (American)
Woman telegrapher
c. 1850
Daguerreotype, quarter plate
Image size: 4 1/4 x 3 1/4 inches
Gift of the Hall Family Foundation
© Nelson Gallery Foundation

 

Augustus Washington (American, 1820-1875) 'John Brown' c. 1846-1847 from the exhibition 'In the Looking Glass: Recent Daguerreotype Acquistions' at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, January - July, 2014

 

Augustus Washington (American, 1820-1875)
John Brown
c. 1846-1847
Quarter plate daguerreotype
4 x 3 3/16 inches
Gift of the Hall Family Foundation
© Nelson Gallery Foundation

 

John Brown (American, 1800-1859)

John Brown (May 9, 1800 – December 2, 1859) was a white American abolitionist who believed armed insurrection was the only way to overthrow the institution of slavery in the United States. During the 1856 conflict in Kansas, Brown commanded forces at the Battle of Black Jack and the Battle of Osawatomie. Brown’s followers also killed five slavery supporters at Pottawatomie. In 1859, Brown led an unsuccessful raid on the federal armoury at Harpers Ferry that ended with his capture. Brown’s trial resulted in his conviction and a sentence of death by hanging.

Brown’s attempt in 1859 to start a liberation movement among enslaved African Americans in Harpers Ferry, Virginia, electrified the nation. He was tried for treason against the Commonwealth of Virginia, the murder of five men and inciting a slave insurrection. He was found guilty on all counts and was hanged. Southerners alleged that his rebellion was the tip of the abolitionist iceberg and represented the wishes of the Republican Party to end slavery. Historians agree that the Harpers Ferry raid in 1859 escalated tensions that, a year later, led to secession and the American Civil War.

Text from Wikipedia website

 

(Pierre) Victor Plumier (French, active 1840s-1850s) 'Lady in Costume' c. 1850

 

(Pierre) Victor Plumier (French, active 1840s-1850s)
Lady in Costume
c. 1850
Daguerreotype, half-plate
Plate: 5 1/2 x 4 1/2 inches (13.97 x 11.43cm)
Mount (open): 8 1/8 x 6 5/8 inches (20.64 x 16.83cm)
Gift of the Hall Family Foundation
© Nelson Gallery Foundation

 

(Pierre) Victor Plumier, French, active 1840s-1850s 'Lady in Costume' c. 1850 (detail)

 

(Pierre) Victor Plumier, French, active 1840s-1850s
Lady in Costume (detail)
c. 1850
Daguerreotype, half-plate
Plate: 5 1/2 x 4 1/2 inches (13.97 x 11.43cm)
Mount (open): 8 1/8 x 6 5/8 inches (20.64 x 16.83cm)
Gift of the Hall Family Foundation
© Nelson Gallery Foundation

 

Unknown photographer. 'Traveling Minstrels – banjo and bones' c. 1850

 

Unknown photographer
Traveling Minstrels – banjo and bones
c. 1850
Daguerreotype, sixth plate
Plate: 3 1/4 x 2 3/4 inches (8.26 x 6.99cm)
Case: 3 3/4 x 3 3/8 x 5/8 inches (9.53 x 8.59 x 1.6cm)
Gift of the Hall Family Foundation
© Nelson Gallery Foundation

 

 

The bones are a musical instrument (more specifically, a folk instrument) which, at the simplest, consists of a pair of animal bones, or pieces of wood or a similar material. Sections of large rib bones and lower leg bones are the most commonly used true bones, although wooden sticks shaped like the earlier true bones are now more often used…

They have contributed to many music genres, including 19th century minstrel shows, traditional Irish music, the blues, bluegrass, zydeco, French-Canadian music, and music from Cape Breton in Nova Scotia…

They are typically about 5″ to 7″ in length, but can be much longer, and they are often curved, roughly resembling miniature barrel staves. Bones can also be flat, for example by the cutting of a yardstick. They are played by holding them between one’s fingers, convex surfaces facing one another, and moving one’s wrist in such a way that they knock against each other…

While North American players are typically two-handed, the Irish tradition finds the vast majority of bones players using only one hand, a distinction in method that has a strong impact on musical articulation. The comparison of the function of banjo rolls with that of bones within an ensemble suggests that stereotypically a subdivided accompaniment pattern is played on the bones.

Text from Wikipedia website

 

Unknown photographer. 'Traveling Minstrels – banjo and bones' c. 1850 (detail)

 

Unknown photographer
Traveling Minstrels – banjo and bones (detail)
c. 1850
Daguerreotype, sixth plate
Plate: 3 1/4 x 2 3/4 inches (8.26 x 6.99cm)
Case: 3 3/4 x 3 3/8 x 5/8 inches (9.53 x 8.59 x 1.6cm)
Gift of the Hall Family Foundation
© Nelson Gallery Foundation

 

David C. Collins (American, 1825-1909) 
Thomas P. Collins (American, 1823-1873) 'Portrait of Frances Amelia Collins Mitchell' c. 1850

 

David C. Collins (American, 1825-1909)
Thomas P. Collins (American, 1823-1873)
Portrait of Frances Amelia Collins Mitchell
c. 1850
Daguerreotype, half plate
Plate: 5 1/2 x 4 1/2 inches (13.97 x 11.43cm)
Case: 6 x 4 7/8 x 3/4 inches (15.24 x 12.37 x 1.91cm)
Gift of the Hall Family Foundation
© Nelson Gallery Foundation

 

David C. Collins (American, 1825-1909) 
Thomas P. Collins (American, 1823-1873) 'Portrait of Frances Amelia Collins Mitchell' c. 1850 (detail)

 

David C. Collins (American, 1825-1909)
Thomas P. Collins (American, 1823-1873)
Portrait of Frances Amelia Collins Mitchell (detail)
c. 1850
Daguerreotype, half plate
Plate: 5 1/2 x 4 1/2 inches (13.97 x 11.43cm)
Case: 6 x 4 7/8 x 3/4 inches (15.24 x 12.37 x 1.91cm)
Gift of the Hall Family Foundation
© Nelson Gallery Foundation

 

Unknown photographer. 'Portrait of Three Girls' c. 1850s

 

Unknown photographer
Portrait of Three Girls
c. 1850s
Daguerreotype, half plate
Plate: 5 1/2 x 4 1/2 inches (13.97 x 11.43cm)
Gift of the Hall Family Foundation
© Nelson Gallery Foundation

 

 

An exhibition featuring more than 50 daguerreotypes acquired by The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art since 2007 opened on Jan. 24. In the Looking Glass: Recent Daguerreotype Acquisitions is a fascinating look at an early photographic process that was introduced in 1839. “In the 19th century, daguerreotypes seemed to be magical bits of reality,” says Jane Aspinwall, associate curator of Photography. “Now, more than a century later, they still hold that kind of wonder and appeal.”

A precursor of printed photography, the daguerreotype image is formed on a highly polished silver surface that is exposed to iodine fumes. The fumes produce a light sensitive coating. The plate is then covered with a protective dark slide and placed into a camera. An image is projected through the lens and onto the plate; the image is then developed using heated mercury. The distinguishing visual characteristics of a daguerreotype are that the image is on a bright, mirror-like surface of metallic silver and it appears either positive or negative depending on the lighting conditions and whether a light or dark background is being reflected in the metal.

Important additions to the Nelson-Atkins American collection include portraits by major makers, including possibly the earliest of only six known daguerreotypes of noted abolitionist John Brown. In the French holding, lively portraits, cityscapes, and archaeological images are highlighted. A 170-year-old daguerreotype from Egypt transports viewers to the shimmering banks of the Nile River, a place few would have been able to travel to at the time. British pieces are distinguished by elaborate hand-colouring.

Small, intimate American daguerreotypes, most housed in jewel-like velvet or silk-lined cases, were made to be held close and scrutinised. Because they are reflective, the Nelson-Atkins designed more than two dozen cases with special lighting features to provide optimal viewing conditions, bringing each detailed image to life. A daguerreotype of a young girl clutching a shawl around her bare shoulders seems to float; another sharply detailed, rare Gold Rush image [second image, below] depicts a small group of men standing in front of their grocery store located in a California frontier town.

“It’s an amazing experience to view these precious, one-of-a-kind daguerreotypes,” said Aspinwall. “Once you see one, you never forget it. It takes you back in time to share a mid-19­th century moment with the sitter.”

The Nelson-Atkins is recognised as having one of the top five American daguerreotype collections in the U.S. and loaned more than 80 to the Taft Museum in Cincinnati for the 2013 exhibition Photographic Wonders. Daguerreotypes are an internationally significant cornerstone of the museum’s photography holdings.”

Press release from the  Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art website

 

Unknown photographer. 'St. Anthony Falls' c. 1852

 

Unknown photographer
St. Anthony Falls
c. 1852
Daguerreotype, half plate
Plate: 5 1/2 x 4 1/2 inches (13.97 x 11.43cm)
Case: 6 x 4 3/4 x 1/2 inches (15.24 x 12.07 x 1.27cm)
Gift of the Hall Family Foundation
© Nelson Gallery Foundation

 

Unknown maker, American. 'Bond & Mollyneaux Groceries and Provisions' c. 1850

 

Unknown maker, American
Bond & Mollyneaux Groceries and Provisions
c. 1850
Daguerreotype, whole plate
Image size: 8 1/2 x 6 1/2 inches
© Nelson Gallery Foundation

 

Unknown photographer. 'Three carpenters in their workshop' c. 1848-1850

 

Unknown photographer
Three carpenters in their workshop
c. 1848-1850
Daguerreotype, quarter plate
Plate: 4 1/4 x 3 1/4 inches (10.8 x 8.26cm)
Case (open): 4 3/4 x 7 1/2 inches (12.07 x 19.05cm)
Gift of the Hall Family Foundation
© Nelson Gallery Foundation

 

David C. Collins (American, 1825-1909) Thomas P. Collins (American, 1823-1873) 'Portrait of Annie M. Collins' c. 1847

 

David C. Collins (American, 1825-1909)
Thomas P. Collins (American, 1823-1873)
Portrait of Annie M. Collins
c. 1847
Daguerreotype, quarter plate
Plate: 4 1/4 x 3 1/4 inches (10.8 x 8.26cm)
Case: 4 5/8 x 3 3/4 inches (11.76 x 9.53cm)
Gift of the Hall Family Foundation
© Nelson Gallery Foundation

 

Unknown photographer. 'Genushe (animal post-mortem)' c. 1845-1846

 

Unknown photographer
Genushe (animal post-mortem)
c. 1845-1846
Daguerreotype, sixth plate
Plate: 3 1/4 x 2 3/4 inches (8.26 x 6.99cm)
Case: 3 3/4 x 3 1/4 x 1/4 inches (9.53 x 8.26 x 0.64cm)
Gift of the Hall Family Foundation
© Nelson Gallery Foundation

 

Unknown photographer. 'Untitled (eagle facing left)' c. 1850

 

Unknown photographer
Untitled (eagle facing left)
c. 1850
Daguerreotype, sixth plate
Case: 3 3/4 x 3 3/4 x 3/4 inches (9.53 x 9.53 x 1.91cm)
Gift of the Hall Family Foundation
© Nelson Gallery Foundation

 

 

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

Opening hours:
Thursday – Monday 10am – 5pm
Closed Tuesdays and Wednesdays

The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art website

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Exhibition: ‘Robert Mapplethorpe’ at the Grand Palais, Paris

Exhibition dates: 26th March – 13th July, 2014

Curator: Jérôme Neutres

 

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

 

Robert Mapplethorpe (American, 1946-1989) 'Milton Moore' 1981

 

Robert Mapplethorpe (American, 1946-1989)
Milton Moore
1981
50.8 x 40.6cm / 50.8 x 40.6cm
Silver gelatin prints
New York, Fondation Robert Mapplethorpe
© Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation. Used by permission

 

 

“I have boundless admiration for the naked body. I worship it.”

“I was a Catholic boy, I went to church every Sunday. A church has a certain magic and mystery for a child. It still shows in how I arrange things. It’s always little altars.”

“I am looking for perfection in form. I do that with portraits. I do it with cocks. I do it with flowers.”


Robert Mapplethorpe

 

 

Robert Mapplethorpe (American, 1946-1989) 'Milton Moore' 1981 (detail)

 

Robert Mapplethorpe (American, 1946-1989)
Milton Moore (detail)
1981
50.8 x 40.6cm
Silver gelatin print
New York, Fondation Robert Mapplethorpe
© Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation. Used by permission

 

Installation view of the exhibition 'Robert Mapplethorpe' at the Grand Palais, Paris 2014

Installation view of the exhibition 'Robert Mapplethorpe' at the Grand Palais, Paris 2014

Installation view of the exhibition 'Robert Mapplethorpe' at the Grand Palais, Paris 2014

Installation view of the exhibition 'Robert Mapplethorpe' at the Grand Palais, Paris 2014

 

Installation views of the exhibition Robert Mapplethorpe at the Grand Palais, Paris 2014
© Didier Plowy pour la Réunion des musées nationaux-Grand Palais, Paris 2014

 

 

The exhibition will present over 250 works making it one of the largest retrospective shows for this artist ever held in a museum. It will cover Mapplethorpe’s entire career as a photographer, from the Polaroids of the early 1970s to the portraits from the late 1980s, touching on his sculptural nudes and still lifes, and sadomasochism.

The focus on his two muses Patti Smith and Lisa Lyon explores the theme of women and femininity and reveals a less known aspect of the photographer’s work. The challenge of this exhibition is to show that Mapplethorpe is a great classical artist, who addressed issues in art using photography as he might have used sculpture. It also puts Mapplethorpe’s art into the context of the New York art scene in the 1970-1980s.

In his interview with Janet Kardon in 1987, Mapplethorpe explained that photography in the 1970s was the perfect medium for a fast-paced time. He did not really choose photography; in a way it was photography that chose him. Later in the same interview, he said “If I had been born one hundred or two hundred years ago, I might have been a sculptor, but photography is a very quick way to see, to make a sculpture. Lisa Lyon reminded me of Michelangelo’s subjects, because he did muscular women.”

Mapplethorpe positioned himself from the outset as an Artist, with a capital A. Unlike Helmut Newton, who as a teenager already wanted to be a fashion photographer, and imposed his vision of the world and photography, making it an art in its own right, Robert Mapplethorpe is a sculptor at heart, a plastic artist driven by the question of the body and its sexuality and obsessed by the search for perfect form.

Like Man Ray, Mapplethorpe wanted to be “a creator of images” rather than a photographer, “a poet” rather than a documentarist. In the catalogue for the Milan exhibition which compared the two artists, Bruno Cora recalls the parallels in their lives and works: “Before becoming masterly photographers, Man Ray and Mapplethorpe had both been painters and sculptors, creators of objects; they both lived in Brooklyn in New York; they both made portraits of the intellectuals of their time; and they were both incisive explorers of the nude form, its sculptural qualities and the energy emanating from it.”

Mapplethorpe was an artist before being a photographer. His images come from a pictorial culture in which we find Titian (The Flaying of Marsyas / Dominick and Elliot), David, Dali, and even the great artists of the Italian Renaissance, Michelangelo, Piero della Francesca, Bernini …

As in Huysmans’s novel, the exhibition is a countdown for this other dandy from the end of another world, Robert Mapplethorpe. It starts with his self-portrait with a skull-headed cane, the image of a young man already old, the tragedy of a life cut down in full flight by AIDS. But his almost royal final posture, as if beyond death, still (just) alive but already in the posterity of his oeuvre, seems to beckon us with a gesture of his pastoral cane to follow him into the world that he constructed in twenty years of photography. The exhibition continues with statuary, a dominant theme in Mapplethorpe’s last years, photos of statues of the gods in his personal pantheon: Eros, of course, and Hermes … The artist always said he used photography to make sculptures, and he ended his oeuvre with photographs of sculptures. His nudes were already photographic sculptures.

Works are not created just anywhere. To be fully appreciated, Mapplethorpe’s art must be put into the socio-cultural context of arty New York in the 1970s and 80s, and the underground gay culture there at that time. Two permeable and equally radical worlds. To take the measure of the libertarian explosion of the time, we need to watch Flesh, Warhol’s film with Joe Dalessandro, which narrates 24 hours in the life of a young New York male prostitute. To understand the violence and passion of gay sexuality for young New Yorkers fighting for freedom in a repressive period, we must read Edmund White’s The Beautiful Room is Empty, the story of a young gay in the years of riots and demonstrations and extreme emancipation; and Andrew Holleran’s Dancer from the Dance (1978), to plunge into the sexual experiments of Fire Island in the 1970s.

Mapplethorpe is hailed as one of the world’s greatest photographers and the exhibition aims to give a broad view of his work.

Press release from the Grand Palais website

 

Robert Mapplethorpe (American, 1946-1989) 'Ken Moody' 1983

 

Robert Mapplethorpe (American, 1946-1989)
Ken Moody
1983
50.8 x 40.6cm
Silver gelatin print
New York, Fondation Robert Mapplethorpe
© Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation. Used with permission

 

Introductory text

Robert Mapplethorpe was an artist with an obsessive quest for aesthetic perfection.

A sculptor at heart, and in his imagination, he wanted “people to see [his] works first as art and second as photography.”1 An admirer of Michelangelo, Mapplethorpe championed the classical ideal – revised and reworked for the libertarian New York of the 1970s – and explored sophisticated printing techniques to create unique works and mixed compositions, which he framed in unusual ways.

Like the novel by Joris-Karl Huysmans, this exhibition has been organised “À rebours” [against the nap] and examines the work of another dandy, living at the end of another world. It opens with Mapplethorpe’s self-portrait with the skull-head cane: the image of a young man, already old, tragically cut down in the prime of life by AIDS, it also reveals how the master of the realm of shadows – photography – gave free rein to his imagination. Like a modern day Orpheus, beyond death, he seems alive – although only just – yet already in the afterlife of his work, beckoning us with his satanic cane to follow him into the underworld of his life, in search of his desire.

“Photography and sexuality have a lot in common,” explains Mapplethorpe. “Both are question marks, and that’s precisely what excites me most in life.”2 Exploring the photography of the body, he pushed it to the limits of pornography, perhaps like no other artist before him. The desire we see in these images – often the photographer’s own desire – also reflects life in New York, as lived by some, in the 1970s and 80s, at the height of the sexual liberation movement. “I’m trying to record the moment I’m living in and where I’m living, which happens to be in New York. I am trying to pick up on the madness and give it some order.”3

This retrospective of Mapplethorpe’s work – the first in France since he passed away – features some two hundred and fifty images exploring a range of themes. They cover every aspect of Mapplethorpe’s art – bronze bodies and flesh sculptures, geometric and choreographic, still lives and anatomical details, bodies as flowers and flowers as bodies, court portraiture, night photography, and eroticism, soft and hard – interspersed with self-portraiture in all its forms. The works from the photographer’s early career, which close the exhibition, reveal how the path taken by his art was already mapped out in his first Polaroids. The sign of a great artist.

1/ Inge Biondi, “The Yin and the Yang of Robert Mapplethorpe,” in The Print Collector’s Newsletter, New York, January 1979, p. 11
2/ Mark Thompson, “Mapplethorpe,” in The Advocate, Atlanta, 24 July 1980
3/ Sarah Kent, “Mapplethorpe,” in Time Out, London, 3-9 November 1983

 

Robert Mapplethorpe (American, 1946-1989) 'Thomas' 1987

 

Robert Mapplethorpe (American, 1946-1989)
Thomas
1987
61 x 50.8cm
Silver gelatin print
New York, Fondation Robert Mapplethorpe
© Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation. Used with permission

 

Robert Mapplethorpe (American, 1946-1989) 'Calla Lily' 1986

 

Robert Mapplethorpe (American, 1946-1989)
Calla Lily
1986
92.7 x 92.7cm
Silver gelatin print
© Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation. Used with permission

 

Robert Mapplethorpe (American, 1946-1989) 'The Sluggard' (Le Paresseux) 1988

 

Robert Mapplethorpe (American, 1946-1989)
The Sluggard (Le Paresseux)
1988
61 x 50.8cm
Silver gelatin print
New York, Fondation Robert Mapplethorpe
© Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation. Used with permission

 

Robert Mapplethorpe (American, 1946-1989) 'Self-portrait (Autoportrait)' 1988

 

Robert Mapplethorpe (American, 1946-1989)
Self-portrait (Autoportrait)
1988
61 x 50.8cm
Platinum print
© Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation. Used with permission

 

 

Grand Palais, Galeries Nationales
3, Avenue du Général Eisenhower
75008 Paris

Opening hours:
Wednesday – Saturday 10am – 10pm
Monday and Sunday 10am – 8pm
Closed every Tuesday

Grand Palais website

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Photographs and text: George Platt Lynes and the male nude

June 2014

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

 

Man Ray (American, 1890-1976) 'George Platt Lynes' 1927

 

Man Ray (American, 1890-1976)
George Platt Lynes
1927

 

 

The greatest photographer of the male nude the world has ever seen – George Platt Lynes (American, April 15, 1907 – December 6, 1955).

Lynes worked as a fashion photographer in his own studio in New York (which he opened in 1932) before moving to Hollywood in 1946 where he took the post of Chief Photographer for the Vogue studios. Although an artistic success the sojourn was a financial failure and he returned to New York in 1948. Although continuing his commercial work he became disinterested in it, concentrating his energies on photographing the male nude. He began a friendship with Dr Alfred Kinsey of the Kinsey Institute in Bloomington, Indiana and helped with his sex research. Between 1949 and 1955, Lynes sold and donated much of his erotic nudes to Kinsey.1 By May 1955 he had been diagnosed terminally ill with lung cancer. He closed his studio. He destroyed much of his print and negative archives particularly his male nudes. However, it is now known that he had transferred many of these works to the Kinsey Institute. After a final trip to Europe, Lynes returned to New York City where he died.2

Since the early 1930s Lynes had photographed male nudes and distributed the images privately to his circle of friends. He was reluctant to show them in public for fear of the harm that they could do to his reputation and business with the fashion magazines, for he was a gay man “passing” in a homophobic society. Generally his earlier male nude photographs concentrate on the idealised youthful body or ephebe. As Lynes became more despondent with his career as a fashion photographer his private photographs of male nudes tend to take on a darker and sharper edge. After a period of residence in Hollywood he returned to New York nearly penniless. His style of photographing the male nude underwent a revision. While the photographs of his European colleagues still relied on the sun drenched bodies of young adolescent males evoking memories of classical beauty and the mythology of Ancient Greece the later nudes of Platt Lynes feature a mixture of youthful ephebes and heavier set bodies which appear to be more sexually knowing. The compositional style of dramatically lit photographs of muscular torsos of older, rougher men shot in close up were possibly influenced by a number of things – his time in Hollywood with its images of handsome, swash-buckling movie stars with broad chests and magnificent physiques; the images of bodybuilders by physique photographers that George Platt Lynes visited; the fact that his lover George Tichenor had been killed during WWII; and the knowledge that he was penniless and had cancer. There is, I believe, a certain sadness but much inner strength in his later photographs of the male nude that harnesses the inherent sexual power embedded within their subject matter.

This monumentality of body and form was matched by a new openness in the representation of sexuality. There are intimate photographs of men in what seem to be post-coital revere, in unmade beds, genitalia showing or face down showing their butts off (see Untitled [Charles ‘Tex’ Smutney, Charles ‘Buddy’ Stanley, and Bradbury Ball] c. 1942, below). Some of the faces in these later photographs remain hidden, as though disclosure of identity would be detrimental for fear of persecution or prosecution. However, this photograph is quite restrained compared to the most striking series of GPL’s photographs which involves an exploration the male anal area (a photograph from the 1951 series can be found in the book titled George Platt Lynes: Photographs from The Kinsey Institute). This explicit series features other photographs of the same model – in particular one that depicts the male with his buttocks in the air pulling his arse cheeks apart. After Lynes found out he had cancer he started to send his photographs to the German homoerotic magazine Der Kries under the pseudonym Roberto Rolf, and in the last years of his life he experimented with paper negatives (see below), which made his images of the male body even more grainy and mysterious.

Further, when undertaking research into GPL’s photographs at The Kinsey Institute as part of my PhD I noted that most of the photographs had annotations in code on the back of them giving details of age, sexual proclivities of models and what they are prepared to do and where they were found. This information gives a vital social context to GPL’s nude photographs of men and positions them within the moral and ethical framework of the era in which they were made. Most of the photographs list the names of the models used but we are unable to print them due to an agreement between GPL and Dr. Kinsey as to their secrecy.

I believe that Lynes understood, intimately, the different physical body types that gay men find desirable and used them in his photographs. He visited Lon of New York (a photographer of beefcake men) in his studio and purchased photographs of bodybuilders for himself, as did the German photographer George Hoyningen-Huene. It is likely that these images of bodybuilders influenced his later compositional style of images of men; it is also possible that he detected the emergence of this iconic male body type as a potent sexual symbol, one that that was becoming more visible and sexually available to gay men.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

 

1/ Brown, Elspeth. “Queer Desire and Cold War Homophobia,” on the In The Darkroom blog May 2013 [Online] Cited 24/06/2014. No longer available online

2/ “He clearly was concerned that this work, which he considered his greatest achievement as a photographer, should not be dispersed or destroyed…We have to remember the time period we’re talking about – America during the post-war Red Scare… “

Quotation from George Platt Lynes, The Male Nudes. Rizzoli International Pub, 2011 cited on “George Platt Lynes” on the Wikipedia website [Online] Cited 24/06/2014.


Many thankx to Associate Professor Elspeth H. Brown for allowing me to publish her text “Queer Desire and Cold War Homophobia”. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

 

 

“The depth and commitment he had in photographing the male nude, from the start of his career to the end, was astonishing. There was absolutely no commercial impulse involved – he couldn’t exhibit it, he couldn’t publish it.”


Allen Ellenzweig

 

 

George Platt Lynes (American, April 15, 1907 - December 6, 1955) 'Untitled (male nude with tattoo)' 1950-1955

 

George Platt Lynes (American, April 15, 1907 – December 6, 1955)
Untitled (male nude with tattoo)
1950-1955
Silver gelatin photograph
24.5 x 19.5cm

 

George Platt Lynes (American, April 15, 1907 - December 6, 1955) 'Untitled' Nd [c. 1951]

 

George Platt Lynes (American, April 15, 1907 – December 6, 1955)
Untitled
Nd [c. 1951]
Silver gelatin photograph

 

George Platt Lynes (American, April 15, 1907 - December 6, 1955) 'Jack Fontan' c. 1950

 

George Platt Lynes (American, April 15, 1907 – December 6, 1955)
Jack Fontan
c. 1950
Silver gelatin photograph

 

Samuel M. Steward,. "George Platt Lynes," in 'The Advocate', No. 332, December 10, 1981, p.22

Samuel M. Steward,. "George Platt Lynes," in 'The Advocate', No. 332, December 10, 1981, p.23

Samuel M. Steward,. "George Platt Lynes," in 'The Advocate', No. 332, December 10, 1981, p.24

 

Samuel M. Steward. “George Platt Lynes,” in The Advocate, No. 332, December 10, 1981, pp. 22-24

 

George Platt Lynes (American, April 15, 1907 - December 6, 1955) 'Untitled [Charles 'Tex' Smutney, Charles 'Buddy' Stanley, and Bradbury Ball]' c. 1942

 

George Platt Lynes (American, April 15, 1907 – December 6, 1955)
Untitled [Charles ‘Tex’ Smutney, Charles ‘Buddy’ Stanley, and Bradbury Ball]
c. 1942
Silver gelatin photograph

 

According to David Leddick the models are Charles ‘Tex’ Smutney, Charles ‘Buddy’ Stanley, and Bradbury Ball. The image comes from a series of 30 photographs of these three boys undressing and lying on a bed together. Leddick, David. Naked Men: Pioneering Male Nudes 1935-1955. New York: Universe Publishing, 1997, p. 21.

 

George Platt Lynes (American, April 15, 1907 - December 6, 1955) 'Ted Starkowski (standing, arms folded)' c. 1950

 

George Platt Lynes (American, April 15, 1907 – December 6, 1955)
Ted Starkowski (standing, arms folded)
c. 1950
Silver gelatin photograph from a paper negative

 

George Platt Lynes (American, April 15, 1907 - December 6, 1955) 'Ted Starkowski (standing, arms behind back)' c. 1950

 

George Platt Lynes (American, April 15, 1907 – December 6, 1955)
Ted Starkowski (standing, arms behind back)
c. 1950
Silver gelatin photograph from a paper negative
22.9 x 19.1cm

 

George Platt Lynes (American, April 15, 1907 - December 6, 1955) 'Untitled' 1952

 

George Platt Lynes (American, April 15, 1907 – December 6, 1955)
Untitled
1952
Silver gelatin photograph

 

George Platt Lynes (American, April 15, 1907 - December 6, 1955) 'Untitled (male nude study)' Nd

 

George Platt Lynes (American, April 15, 1907 – December 6, 1955)
Untitled (male nude study)
Nd
Silver gelatin photograph

 

Queer Desire and Cold War Homophobia

Associate Professor Elspeth H. Brown

This photograph [above] archives queer, illicit desire in Cold War America. It was made by George Platt Lynes, and is part of a set of male nudes that the photographer made in the decades leading to his death, from lung cancer, in 1955. Because exhibiting these photographs was a impossibility during Lynes’s lifetime due to Cold War homophobia, he circulated them privately among his queer kinship networks.

Lynes was part of a closely connected circle of elite gay men who dominated American arts and letters in the interwar and early post-war years. For 16 years, Lynes lived with the writer Glenway Wescott and museum curator Monroe Wheeler, who were a couple for over fifty years; they had a variety of other sexual partners throughout, including Lynes, who shared a bedroom with Wheeler during their years together. All three of them, as well as friends and colleagues Lincoln Kirstein, Paul Cadmus, and other leading figures, participated in sex parties in the 1940s and 1950s, as documented in their personal papers. However, in the context of 1950s-era red scares, which particularly focused on homosexuals, the more open sexual subcultures of the 1930s and 1940s were driven even further underground.

In April of 1950, Glenway Wescott wrote George Platt Lynes that while the erotic explicitness of George’s nudes didn’t personally concern him, he was worried for Monroe Wheeler, since Wheeler held a public position as a curator at the Museum of Modern Art. “I really don’t mind scabrousness, etc., on my account, as you must know,” he wrote. “Only that our poor M [Monroe] must conclude his career with good effect and honor, I am anxious not to involve him in what is now called (in the nation’s capital) ‘guilty by association’ (have you been reading the columns and columns in the newspapers upon this and correlative points?).”

Although McCarthyism is often understood as the effort to purge suspected communists from the State Department and other branches of the federal government, the Red Scare equally targeted homosexuals, who were forced out of public service and into the closet. Wescott may well have been referring to the front page of the New York Times on March 1, 1950, where Secretary of State Dean Acheson testified about the Alger Hiss trial and the loyalty program at the State Department. Although the article purportedly concerned communism, it shows that the red scare mainly affected homosexuals, as Wescott clearly understood. Senator Bridges asked John E. Peurifoy, Deputy Under-Secretary of State in charge of the security program, how many members of the State Department had resigned since the investigations began in 1947. “Ninety-one persons in the shady category,” Mr. Peurifoy replied, “most of these were homosexuals.” This was not necessarily newsworthy in and of itself, so far as the New York Times was concerned in 1950, and the remainder of the article detailed the testimony relating to other aspects of the hearings.

Lynes continued to make and circulate his portraits, despite this climate of homophobia. He was very concerned that the work find an audience, and published it in several issues of the German homosexual journal Der Kreis in the 1950s. He also became an important informant for Alfred Kinsey’s research, as did Glenway Wescott and other members of their circle. Between 1949 and 1955, Lynes sold and donated much of his erotic nudes to Kinsey, where they are now part of the Kinsey Institute collections in Bloomington, Indiana.

© Elspeth H. Brown 2013
Associate Professor of History
University of Toronto

Reproduced with permission of the author.

Elspeth H. Brown website

 

George Platt Lynes (American, April 15, 1907 - December 6, 1955) 'Untitled' 1951

 

George Platt Lynes (American, April 15, 1907 – December 6, 1955)
Untitled
1951
Silver gelatin photograph

 

George Platt Lynes (American, April 15, 1907 - December 6, 1955) 'Untitled (Charles Romans in the artist's apartment)' 1953

 

George Platt Lynes (American, April 15, 1907 – December 6, 1955)
Untitled (Charles Romans in the artist’s apartment)
1953
Silver gelatin photograph
19.5 x 24.5cm

 

George Platt Lynes (American, April 15, 1907 - December 6, 1955) 'Don Cerulli' 1952

 

George Platt Lynes (American, April 15, 1907 – December 6, 1955)
Don Cerulli
1952
Silver gelatin photograph

 

George Platt Lynes (American, April 15, 1907 - December 6, 1955) 'Male nude study' 1951

 

George Platt Lynes (American, April 15, 1907 – December 6, 1955)
Male nude study
1951
Silver gelatin photograph

 

 

George Platt Lynes (American, April 15, 1907 - December 6, 1955) 'Untitled' 1951

 

George Platt Lynes (American, April 15, 1907 – December 6, 1955)
Untitled
1951
Silver gelatin photograph
22.9 x 19.1cm

 

George Platt Lynes (American, April 15, 1907 - December 6, 1955) 'Untitled' 1936

 

George Platt Lynes (American, April 15, 1907 – December 6, 1955)
Untitled
1936
Silver gelatin photograph

 

George Platt Lynes (American, April 15, 1907 - December 6, 1955) 'George Tooker' 1945

 

George Platt Lynes (American, April 15, 1907 – December 6, 1955)
George Tooker
1945
Silver gelatin photograph

 

George Tooker (American, 1920-2011)

George Clair Tooker, Jr. (August 5, 1920 – March 27, 2011) was an American figurative painter. His works are associated with Magic realism, Social realism, Photorealism, and Surrealism. His subjects are depicted naturally as in a photograph, but the images use flat tones, an ambiguous perspective, and alarming juxtapositions to suggest an imagined or dreamed reality. He did not agree with the association of his work with Magic realism or Surrealism, as he said, “I am after painting reality impressed on the mind so hard that it returns as a dream, but I am not after painting dreams as such, or fantasy.” In 1968, he was elected to the National Academy of Design and was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Tooker was one of nine recipients of the National Medal of Arts in 2007.

Text from the Wikipedia website

 

George Platt Lynes (American, April 15, 1907 - December 6, 1955) 'Tex Smutney' 1943

 

George Platt Lynes (American, April 15, 1907 – December 6, 1955)
Tex Smutney
1943
Silver gelatin photograph

 

Chronology by Jack Woody

1907-1924 Born April 15, 1907, East Orange, New Jersey. Raised in comfortable circumstances and privately educated. Schoolmate Lincoln Kirstein described the young Lynes as “precocious,” crediting him with a subsequent introduction to George Balanchine.

1925 Makes first trip to Europe. Meets lifetime companions Glenway Wescott and Monroe Wheeler. Befriends Gertrude Stein, Pavel Tchelitchew and Jean Cocteau during his stay. Returns to New York City, works at Brentano’s Bookstore for a short time.

1926 Publishes the As Stable Pamphlets in his parents’ house, Englewood, New Jersey. Includes Gertrude Stein’s DESCRIPTIONS OF LITERATURE and Ernest Hemingway’s first published play TODAY IS FRIDAY with cover designs by Pavel Tchelitchew and Jean Codeau. Enters Yale University in Autumn, leaves in December.

1927 Opens Park Place Book Shop in Englewood. The gift of a view camera encourages Lynes to make a career of photography.

1928-1930 During 1928 Lynes exhibits his celebrity portraits at Park Place Book Shop to launch a portrait business in the shop. Continues travelling to Europe, teaching himself by trial-and-error a technical understanding of the medium.

1931 Introduced to Julien Levy. Together they experiment with photographing surrealistic still-lifes. Levy arranges to include Lynes in Surrealism exhibition at Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut. Visits and photographs Gertrude Stein at Bilignin.

1932 First important exhibition at the Julien Levy Gallery in tandem with Walker Evans. The death of his father forces Lynes to take up photography as a means of economic support.

1933 Opens first New York City studio on East 50th Street. Continued public showings of his work and interest in his celebrity portraits attracts a large clientele of New York socialites and their families.

1934 Begins publishing his fashion and portrait work in such magazines as Town and Country, Harpers’ Bazaar and Vogue magazines.

1935 Invited by Lincoln Kirstein and George Balanchine to document the repertoire and principal dancers in their fledgling American Ballet (now New York City Ballet), a collaboration that will continue until Lynes’ death in 1955.

1936 Surrealistic composition The Sleepwalker included in New York Museum of Modern Art’s exhibition, Fantastic Art, Dada and Surrealism. Lynes undertakes an extensive project to photographically interpret mythological situations.

1937-1940 Continues involvement with mythology series. Successful commercial career now headquartered in a large studio at 604 Madison Avenue. Commercial fashion accounts include Hattie Carnegie, Henri Bendel, Saks Fifth Avenue and Bergdorf Goodman.

1941-1945 Photographs airfield activities for First Air Force’s publicity and documentation. Begins to lose interest in commercial work, a process accelerated by the death of George Tichenor in 1942. Disillusioned with New York and his private life Lynes closes his studio and leaves for Los Angeles to head Vogue Magazine‘s Hollywood studio.

1946-1947 Lynes begins to photograph in his rented Hollywood Hills home, experimenting with effects achieved with minimal amounts of available light. Photographs Christopher Isherwood, Igor Stravinsky, Thomas Mann and Aldous Huxley.

1948-1950 Friends sponsor the financially troubled Lynes’ return to New York where he is uninterested in and unable to repeat his earlier commercial successes. Economics force Lynes to experiment with cheaper photographic tools. He is particularly interested in the paper negative. Meets sex researcher Alfred Kinsey; impressed with Lynes’ work, Kinsey arranges to purchase hundreds of photographs for his Bloomington, Indiana institute.

1951-1954 Publishes his male nudes in homoerotic magazine Der Kries using the pseudonyms Roberto Rolf and Robert Orville. Declares bankruptcy. Lives in a succession of apartments and studios as illness becomes apparent.

1955 In May diagnosed terminally ill with cancer. Last portrait sitting is June 16 with Monroe Wheeler. Closes studio and undergoes radium and drug therapy. Lynes begins to destroy large portions of his negative and print archives. In the Autumn he leaves for Europe, returning to New York in November to be hospitalised. At night Lynes leaves the hospital to attend the theatre and ballet. He dies on December sixth, forty-eight years old.

 

George Platt Lynes (American, April 15, 1907 - December 6, 1955) 'Mel Fillini' 1950

 

George Platt Lynes (American, April 15, 1907 – December 6, 1955)
Mel Fillini
1950
Silver gelatin photograph

 

George Platt Lynes (American, April 15, 1907 - December 6, 1955) 'Robert McVoy' c. 1941

 

George Platt Lynes (American, April 15, 1907 – December 6, 1955)
Robert McVoy
c. 1941
Silver gelatin photograph

 

 

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Exhibition: ‘Bill Cunningham: Facades’ at the New York Historical Society, New York

Exhibition dates: 14th March – 15th June, 2014

Curator: Dr. Valerie Paley, who was then the New-York Historical Society Historian and Vice President for Scholarly Programs

 

Unknown artist. 'Bill Cunningham Photographing Three Models at New York County Court House' c. 1968-1976 from the exhibition 'Bill Cunningham: Facades' at the New York Historical Society, New York, March - June, 2014

 

Unknown artist
Bill Cunningham Photographing Three Models at New York County Court House
c. 1968-1976
Gelatin silver photograph
New-York Historical Society, Gift of Bill Cunningham

 

 

Now this is more like it!

If you want fabulousness with flair, and a dash of savoir-faire; if you want architecture with fashion, history with panache, you need look no further. Camp, kitsch, OTT but with poise, aplomb, grace and sophistication – here is the artist for the job. Oh, what fun he and his muse Editta Sherman must have had with this project.

But behind it all is a damn good photographer, with a great eye for composition. Look at the hat, the building and the “attitude” of the hands in Guggenheim Museum (c. 1968-1976, below). This is how you make people smile and think (about the city, conservation and creativity), not with some overblown frippery like the photographs of Lagerfeld in the last posting.

It’s a pity the press images were initially so poor. I had to spend hours cleaning up the images they were so badly scratched to present them to you in a viewable state. Be that as it may, these are a joy, I love them…

Dr Marcus Bunyan


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

 

 

Bill Cunningham (American, 1929-2016) 'Gothic bridge in Central Park (designed 1860)' c. 1968-1976 from the exhibition 'Bill Cunningham: Facades' at the New York Historical Society, New York, March - June, 2014

 

Bill Cunningham (American, 1929-2016)
Gothic bridge in Central Park (designed 1860)
c. 1968-1976
Gelatin silver photograph
New-York Historical Society, Gift of Bill Cunningham

 

Bill Cunningham (American, 1929-2016) 'Editta Sherman on the Train to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden' c. 1972

 

Bill Cunningham (American, 1929-2016)
Editta Sherman on the Train to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden
c. 1972
Gelatin silver photograph
New-York Historical Society, Gift of Bill Cunningham

 

Bill Cunningham (American, 1929-2016) 'Guggenheim Museum (built 1959)' c. 1968-1976

 

Bill Cunningham (American, 1929-2016)
Guggenheim Museum (built 1959)
c. 1968-1976
Gelatin silver photograph
New-York Historical Society, Gift of Bill Cunningham

 

 

This spring, the New-York Historical Society presents a special exhibition celebrating the creative intersection of fashion and architecture through the lens of a visionary photographer. Bill Cunningham: Facades, on view from March 14 through June 15, 2014, explores the legendary photographer’s project documenting the architectural riches and fashion history of New York City.

Beginning in 1968, Bill Cunningham scoured the city’s thrift stores, auctions and street fairs for vintage clothing and scouted architectural sites on his bicycle. The result was a photographic essay entitled Facades (completed in 1976), which paired models – most particularly his muse, fellow photographer Editta Sherman – posed in period costumes at historic New York settings.

Nearly four decades after Cunningham donated 88 gelatin silver prints from the series to the New-York Historical Society in 1976, approximately 80 original and enlarged images from this whimsical and bold work are being reconsidered in a special exhibition curated by Dr. Valerie Paley, New-York Historical Society Historian and Vice President for Scholarly Programs. The exhibition offers a unique perspective on both the city’s distant past and the particular time in which the images were created, examining Cunningham’s project as part of the larger cultural zeitgeist in late 1960s-70s New York City, an era when historic preservation and urban issues loomed large.

“We are thrilled to feature these important photographs by New York Times photographer Bill Cunningham, who captured an uncertain moment in our city’s history, when New York seemed on the brink of losing its place of privilege as a capital of the world. Cunningham’s vivid sense of New York’s illustrious past and his unfettered optimism about its future make the photographs among the most dramatic and important documentation of the city’s social history,” said Louise Mirrer, President and CEO of the New-York Historical Society. “The exhibition is especially timely, as Mrs. Editta Sherman, Bill Cunningham’s muse for his project and the famed ‘duchess of Carnegie Hall,’ passed away last November 2013 at the age of 101. Mrs. Sherman’s indomitable spirit, humour and creativity are powerfully felt through the photographic images. We are gratified that many of her family members will be with us for our opening exhibition event.”

Over eight years, Bill Cunningham collected more than 500 outfits and photographed more than 1,800 locations for the Facades project, jotting down historical commentary on the versos of each print. The selection of 80 images on view evoke the exuberance of Cunningham and Sherman’s treasure hunt and their pride for the city they called home. Cunningham’s images are contextualised with reproductions of original architectural drawings from New-York Historical’s collection.

During the years that Cunningham worked on Facades, New York City was in a municipal financial crisis that wreaked havoc on daily existence, with crime, drugs, and garbage seemingly taking over the city. However, the 1970s also was an era of immense creativity, when artists and musicians experimented with new forms of expression. While Cunningham’s photographs offer an unsullied version of the tough cityscape during this chaotic time, his vision was part of a larger movement towards preserving the historic heritage of the built environment to improve the quality of urban life.

Most images in Facades feel timeless, such as Gothic Bridge (designed 1860), featuring Editta Sherman strolling through a windswept Central Park, framed by the wrought-iron curves of a classic bridge. However, at least one will offer a peek behind the scenes of the project. Cunningham and Sherman often traveled to locations by public transportation to avoid wrinkling the costumes, and Editta Sherman on the Train to the Brooklyn Botanical Garden (c. 1972) captures the jarring juxtaposition of Sherman sitting primly in a graffiti-covered subway car.

Other exhibition highlights include Sherman dressed in a man’s Revolutionary War-era hat, powdered wig, overcoat and breeches at St. Paul’s Chapel and Churchyard (built c. 1766-1796), the oldest surviving church in Manhattan, where George Washington worshipped. In Federal Hall (built c. 1842), Cunningham paired the Parthenon-like architectural details of the building with a Grecian-style, 1910s pleated Fortuny gown. For Grand Central Terminal (built c. 1903-1913), Cunningham drew on his millinery background to create a voluminous feathered hat that echoes the spirit of the “crown of the Terminal,” the ornate rooftop sculpture with monumental figures of Mercury, Minerva, and Hercules.

Bill Cunningham (1929-2016) was a fashion photographer for the New York Times, known for his candid street photography. Cunningham moved to New York in 1948, initially working in advertising and soon striking out on his own to make hats under the name “William J.” After serving a tour in the U.S. Army, he returned to New York and began writing for the Chicago Tribune. While working at the Tribune and Women’s Wear Daily, he began taking photographs of fashion on the streets of New York. The Times first published a group of his impromptu pictures in December 1978, which soon became a regular series. In 2008 Cunningham was awarded the title chevalier dans l’ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture. He is the subject of the award-winning documentary film Bill Cunningham New York (2010). Bill Cunningham and Editta Sherman were neighbours in the Carnegie Hall Studios, a legendary artists’ residence atop the concert hall, for 60 years.

Press release from the New York Historical Society website

 

Bill Cunningham (American, 1929-2016) 'St. Paul’s Chapel and Churchyard (built c. 1766-1796)' c. 1968-1976

 

Bill Cunningham (American, 1929-2016)
St. Paul’s Chapel and Churchyard (built c. 1766-96)
c. 1968-1976
Gelatin silver photograph
New-York Historical Society, Gift of Bill Cunningham

 

Bill Cunningham (American, 1929-2016) 'Grand Central Terminal (built c. 1903-1913)' c. 1968-1976

 

Bill Cunningham (American, 1929-2016)
Grand Central Terminal (built c. 1903-1913)
c. 1968-1976
Gelatin silver photograph
New-York Historical Society, Gift of Bill Cunningham

 

Bill Cunningham (American, 1929-2016) 'Federal Hall (built c. 1842, costume c. 1910)' c. 1968-1976

 

Bill Cunningham (American, 1929-2016)
Federal Hall (built c. 1842, costume c. 1910)
c. 1968-1976
Gelatin silver photograph
New-York Historical Society, Gift of Bill Cunningham

 

Bill Cunningham (American, 1929-2016) 'Bowery Savings Bank (built c. 1920)' c. 1968-1976

 

Bill Cunningham (American, 1929-2016)
Bowery Savings Bank (built c. 1920)
c. 1968-1976
Gelatin silver photograph
New-York Historical Society, Gift of Bill Cunningham

 

Bill Cunningham (American, 1929-2016) 'Club 21' (founded c. 1920s; costume c. 1940) c. 1968-1976

 

Bill Cunningham (American, 1929-2016)
Club 21 (founded c. 1920s; costume c. 1940)
c. 1968-1976
Gelatin silver photograph
New-York Historical Society, Gift of Bill Cunningham

 

Bill Cunningham (American, 1929-2016) 'Associated Press Building at Rockefeller Center (built c. 1939)' c. 1968-1976

 

Bill Cunningham (American, 1929-2016)
Associated Press Building at Rockefeller Center (built c. 1939)
c. 1968-1976
Gelatin silver photograph
New-York Historical Society, Gift of Bill Cunningham

 

Bill Cunningham (American, 1929-2016) 'Paris Theater (built 1947)' c. 1968-1976

 

Bill Cunningham (American, 1929-2016)
Paris Theater (built 1947)
c. 1968-1976
Gelatin silver photograph
New-York Historical Society, Gift of Bill Cunningham

 

Bill Cunningham (American, 1929-2016) 'General Motors Building' c. 1968-1976

 

Bill Cunningham (American, 1929-2016)
General Motors Building
c. 1968-1976
Gelatin silver photograph
New-York Historical Society, Gift of Bill Cunningham

 

 

The New York Historical Society

170 Central Park West
at Richard Gilder Way (77th Street)
Phone: (212) 873-3400

Opening hours:
Monday CLOSED
Tuesday – Sunday 11am – 5pm

The New York Historical Society
 website

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