Exhibition dates: 26th October, 2018 – 7th April, 2019
Curator: Keith F. Davis, Senior Curator, Photography
Ralston Crawford (American, 1906-1978) Unloading the Cargo c. 1942 Gelatin silver print 4 1/2 × 7 inches Gift of Neelon Crawford
Fascinated as he was “by the purified geometry of man-made things,” the best of these photographs from Ralston Crawford evidence a disciplined eye in the quest to portray a structured vision of the industrial world. While photographically there is nothing ground breaking here, these are strong images of abstract spaces – “precise and geometric, emphasising bold, simple forms.” What is of more interest is how “he applied a painter’s eye to the challenge of making interesting photographs.”
It is still amazing to me to think that anyone can just pick up a camera and call themselves a photographer, especially in today’s media saturated environment where everyone has a camera attached to their phone. You wouldn’t think of calling yourself a painter without years of experimentation and exploration of the medium and it’s abilities. And the same applies to being a photographic artist. To me, being an image maker takes years of looking, of understanding the medium, its history and its abilities, the construction of the picture plane, the light, the physicality of the print, the aura of the object.
Are these photographs well seen, framed and printed? Yes.
Are they memorable? Do they impinge on the consciousness like great photographs do and take you to a different plane of existence? No they don’t.
These are experiments, sketches, in light and form, static in their painting, immobile in their resilience.
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.
Structured Vision: The Photographs of Ralston Crawford
Fascinated by the purified geometry of man-made things, Ralston Crawford (1906-1978) worked in a consistently formal, or abstract, manner across a variety of mediums. His photographs provide an essential look at a vital era of abstraction in American art, and at the cultural scenes and subjects from which that creative sensibility arose.
Crawford used the camera as a tool of both documentary and artistic expression. Some photographs served as studies for later paintings or prints. Most, however, were created and appreciated purely as photographs. His subjects ranged from urban and industrial themes to ships and sailing, jazz, the people and culture of New Orleans, bullfighting and religious processions in Spain, and the destructive power of the atomic bomb.
Ralston Crawford (American, 1906-1978) Dock Workers 1938 Gelatin silver print 6 1/2 × 8 15/16 inches Gift of Hallmark Cards, Inc.,
Ralston Crawford (American, 1906-1978) Grain Elevators, Buffalo c. 1942 Gelatin silver print 6 5/16 × 9 1/2 inches Gift of Neelon Crawford
Ralston Crawford (American, 1906-1978) Staging Area, Coulee Dam 1972 Gelatin silver print 13 × 19 1/8 inches Gift of Hallmark Cards, Inc.,
Ralston Crawford (American, 1906-1978) Grain Elevators with Shadows c. 1942 Gelatin silver print 9 1/8 × 7 3/16 inches Gift of the Hall Family Foundation
Ralston Crawford (American, 1906-1978) Flower Vases on Tomb, New Orleans c. 1959 Gelatin silver print 9 11/16 × 7 13/16 inches Gift of Neelon Crawford
Ralston Crawford (American, 1906-1978) Third Avenue Elevated 1948 Gelatin silver print 13 7/16 × 9 1/16 inches Gift of Hallmark Cards, Inc.,
Ralston Crawford (American, 1906-1978) Door with Striped Pole and Striped Wall, New Orleans 1967 Gelatin silver print 13 5/16 × 8 15/16 inches Gift of Neelon Crawford
Ralston Crawford, who celebrated the modern American industrial landscape in a precisionist style and captured the vitality of New Orleans jazz culture, is the subject of a photography exhibition opening at The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City Oct. 26 through April 7, 2019. Structured Vision: The Photographs of Ralston Crawford, showcases the museum’s deep holdings of his work.
“Ralston Crawford’s photographs have a profound energy,” said Julián Zugazagoitia, Menefee D. and Mary Louise Blackwell CEO and Director of the Nelson-Atkins. “Throughout his career he juxtaposed creation and destruction, form and chaos. His body of work is wonderfully varied and reflects how complicated and rich one artistic sensibility can be.”
George Ralston Crawford (1906-1978) was born in Canada but grew up in Buffalo, New York, where his interest in docks, shipyards, bridges, and grain elevators blossomed. He was a sailor as a young adult and began studying art in the late 1920s, painting characteristically American subjects such as highways, bridges, and machines. His work was precise and geometric, emphasising bold, simple forms.
“Ralston Crawford is an important artist in the Nelson-Atkins collection because he applied a painter’s eye to the challenge of making interesting photographs,” said Keith F. Davis, Senior Curator, Photography. “There is enormous variety in his work, from industrial subjects to street life and cemeteries of New Orleans. Some of his pictures are about pure geometry; others celebrate the improvisational vitality of everyday life. Ultimately, all of Crawford’s work is about the interrelationship of structure and change.”
Crawford worked actively from the 1930s through the 1970s. He absorbed and expressed the basic energies of the mid-twentieth century, from the era’s industrial might to the destructive power of war and the atomic bomb. He celebrated the most basic of forces: creation, decay, time, and change. He travelled extensively throughout his life to paint, produce lithographs, take photographs, and teach. In addition to key gifts from the Hall Family Foundation, the artist’s son, Neelon Crawford, was instrumental in increasing the Nelson-Atkins’s holdings of his father’s photographs.
The exhibition is accompanied by a new book, The Photographs of Ralston Crawford, written by Davis, providing a fresh, comprehensive look at Crawford’s photographs from 1938 through the mid-1970s, including both well-known works and previously unpublished images. This volume, published by Yale University Press, is distributed for the Hall Family Foundation in association with the Nelson-Atkins.
Press release from The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
Ralston Crawford (American, 1906-1978) John “Papa” Joseph, Outside Barbershop, New Orleans 1958 Gelatin silver print 7 11/16 × 9 9/16 inches Gift of Neelon Crawford
Ralston Crawford (American, 1906-1978) Dancer and Meyer Kennedy at the Caravan Club, New Orleans 1953 Gelatin silver print, 9 1/2 × 7 9/16 inches Gift of Neelon Crawford
Ralston Crawford (American, 1906-1978) Tuxedo Brass Band, New Orleans 1959 Gelatin silver print 6 7/16 × 9 1/2 inches Gift of Neelon Crawford
Ralston Crawford (American, 1906-1978) Women in Sunday School Parade, New Orleans 1958 Gelatin silver print 6 3/16 × 9 9/16 inches Gift of Neelon Crawford
Ralston Crawford (American, 1906-1978) Bow and Rope 1972 Gelatin silver print 11 3/16 × 16 5/8 inches Gift of Neelon Crawford
Je l’adore cette femme. Je pense que je suis en amour.
I absolutely love this women’s art. Everything she touches is inventive, vibrant, made with panache. The light, the hands, the angles, the objects – cranes and barges, brooding ancient architecture hanging in time – and then, to top it all off, the sensuality!
Left-wing convictions, lesbian love affairs, “the love of cars and road trips, the interest in women (whether writers or workers), the fascination with hands, and the free, maverick spirit that drove her work and kept her outside schools and sects.”
If I had to name one period above all others that I enjoy looking at most in the history of photography, the avant-garde period of the 1920s-30s would be up there near the very top. Especially the female photographers.
Dr Marcus Bunyan
Many thankx to Jeu de Paume for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.
Germaine Krull: A Photographer’s JourneyÂ
Michel Frizot, curator of the exhibition, talks about Germaine Krull, her life, her works and her publications.
Germaine Krull (Wilda-PoznaÅ„, East Prussia [after 1919: Poland], 1897 – Wetzlar, Germany, 1985) is at once one of the best-known figures in the history of photography, by virtue of her role in the avant-garde’s from 1920 to 1940, and a pioneer of modern photojournalism. She was also the first to publish in book form as an end in itself.
Germaine Krull (Wilda-PoznaÅ„, East Prussia [after 1919: Poland], 1897 – Wetzlar, Germany, 1985) is at once one of the best-known figures in the history of photography, by virtue of her role in the avant-garde’s from 1920 to 1940, and a pioneer of modern photojournalism. She was also the first to publish in book form as an end in itself.
The exhibition at Jeu de Paume revisits Germaine Krull’s work in a new way, based on collections that have only recently been made available, in order to show the balance between a modernist artistic vision and an innovative role in print media, illustration and documentation. As she herself put it – paradoxically, in the introduction to her Études de nu (1930) –, ‘The true photographer is the witness of each day’s events, a reporter.’
The exhibition at Jeu de Paume focuses on the Parisian period, 1926-1935, and more precisely on the years of intensive activity between 1928 and 1933, by relating 130 vintage prints to period documents, including the magazines and books in which Krull played such a unique and prominent role. This presentation gives an idea of the constants that run through her work while also bringing out her aesthetic innovations. The show features many singular but also representative images from her prolific output, putting them in their original context.
An energetic figure with strong left-wing convictions and a great traveller, Krull’s approach to photography was antithetical to the aesthetically led, interpretative practice of the Bauhaus or Surrealists. During the Second World War, she joined the Free French (1941) and served the cause with her camera, later following the Battle of Alsace (her photographs of which were made into a book). Shortly afterwards she left Europe for Southeast Asia, becoming director of the Oriental Hotel in Bangkok, which she helped turn into a renowned establishment, and then moving on to India where, having converted to Buddhism, she served the community of Tibetan exiles near Dehra-Dun.
In her photojournalism, Krull began by focusing on the lower reaches of Parisian life, its modest, working population, the outcasts and marginal of the “Zone,” the tramps (subject of a hugely successful piece in VU), Les Halles and the markets, the fairgrounds evoked by Francis Carco and Pierre Mac Orlan (her greatest champion). The exhibition also explores unchanging aspects of her tastes and attachments: the love of cars and road trips, the interest in women (whether writers or workers), the fascination with hands, and the free, maverick spirit that drove her work and kept her outside schools and sects.
Germaine Krull (1897-1985) A Photographer’s Journey
A famous figure of the avant-garde in the 1920-1940s, Germaine Krull (Wilda, Poland, 1897 – Wetzlar, Germany, 1985) was a pioneer of modern photojournalism and of the photographic book. Produced mainly between 1928 and 1931, her innovative work cannot be understood outside the context of her chaotic and poorly educated childhood and her activist youth, which saw her become involved in the Spartacist uprising in Germany in 1919.
Often disconcerting and seemingly casual, these images taken with a hand-held Icarette were nevertheless well received by a number of illustrated magazines. Krull innovated even more as sole author of books and portfolios, which were a novelty at this time: 100 x Paris (1929), Études de nu (1930), Le Valois (1930), La Route Paris-Biarritz (1931), Marseille (1935), and the first photo-novel (phototexte) with Georges Simenon, La Folle d’Itteville (1931). Taken together, these publications represent some five hundred photos.
A woman of action and initiative, Krull had a great love of cars and road travel (which inspired several books), and was particularly interested in behaviour, gesture and the work of women, as well as in the expressiveness of hands. Her free, maverick spirit was always in evidence, as if taking a fresh look at the world also meant constantly rising to new challenges in her photography. “Germaine Krull,” noted Pierre Mac Orlan, “does not create easy anecdotes, but she makes visible the secret details that people do not always see.”
Berlin and Paris: early days
After a free adolescence, Germaine Krull studied photography in Munich, later contributing to a portfolio of female nudes. Her involvement with the Spartacist uprising of 1919 led all the way to prisons in Moscow in 1921. Returning to photography in 1923, she produced more female nudes, with strong erotic connotations (one series shows two women “friends”). Moving to Paris in 1926, she worked as a fashion photographer, mainly for Sonia Delaunay’s textile studio.
Krull’s greatest contribution was in the field of reportage, which she pioneered in March 1928 for the magazine VU. Her favourite subject was Parisian popular culture – fairgrounds and flea markets, bars and dance halls, tramps. Her approach was free and spontaneous, favouring closeness to the subject, photographed at eye height (as enabled by her 6 x 9 Icarette), rather than elegance and balance of composition. Her idiosyncratic and highly evocative images were appreciated by the bolder magazines, which published some six hundred of them between 1928 and 1934.
Paris, Paris!
For a determined photographer like Krull, the big city represented a unique set of opportunities with real potential: department stores, shop window mannequins, effects of lighting at night and the banks of the Seine were among the subjects. Enthusiastic about the book format, she published 100 x Paris, a book of a hundred unusual views of Paris, in 1929, and contributed to Visages de Paris by Warnod (1930), and Paris by Adolf Hallman (1930). Her images gave visual expression to the “social fantastic” explored by her friend, writer Pierre Mac Orlan (Quai des Brumes, 1927).
As a woman photographer, Krull took an interest in artistic women such as Colette, the actress Berthe Bovy who played in La Voix humaine by Cocteau, and the singer Damia. She was especially keen to do social reportage on women’s themes, a notable example being her series on working women in Paris, published by VU in 1931-1932. Her Études de nu (1930) was an aesthetic manifesto by virtue of its fragmented and unstructured vision of the female body. Another innovation was her photography for La Folle d’Itteville, a ground-breaking photographic version of a Simenon story, featuring an enigmatic Mrs Hubbell.
“My collection of hands”
Krull was fascinated by hands, which she photographed with a blend of imagination and invention. Her “collection” included Cocteau with his hand in front of his eyes or mouth, and Malraux with his cigarette. In her reportage, she homed in on gestures and postures in which the hands were signally expressive. Shown on their own, they became portraits, intriguing the viewer.
The second issue (April-May-June 1930) of this ephemeral magazine contained an astonishing  portfolio of Krull’s work, with 24 photos over 17 pages. The rather emphatic presentation showed her as a true artist, and as part of the avant-garde of the day. A letter from Cocteau was reprinted by way of an introduction. In it, the poet, Krull’s friend, expresses his surprise at her striking photos, both of Berthe Bovy in La Voix humaine and of his own hands.
In 1940 Krull took the boat to Brazil, aiming to work for Free France. In 1942 she was sent to Brazzaville to set up a propaganda photography service. She also produced reportage around French Equatorial Africa. In 1943 she travelled to Algiers as a reporter, then sailed with the troops of De Lattre, arriving in the South of France and heading up to Alsace, where she witnessed the Battle of Alsace and the liberation of the Vaihingen concentration camp.
Asia
Keen to continue working as a reporter in Southeast Asia, in 1946 Krull settled in Bangkok. Not long after, she became manager of the Oriental Hotel there, which she turned into a highly renowned establishment. Drawn to Buddhism, she photographed its temples and statues in Thailand and Burma. Leaving her position at the hotel, she travelled to India, where she took up the cause of the Tibetan exiles (Tibetans in India, 1968). Ill, impecunious, and having lost most of her prints, Krull returned to Germany, where she died on 30 July 1985.
Exhibition dates:Â 7th February – 7th September 2014
Bruce Davidson (American, b. 1933) Untitled from the Brooklyn Gang series
1959
Gelatin silver print
Danny Lyon (American, b. 1942) Crossing the Ohio River, Louisville, 1966
1966
Silver gelatin print
This exhibition does not reflect our opinion of who’s cool. Each cool figure was considered with the following historical rubric in mind and possesses at least three elements of this singular American self-concept:
an original artistic vision carried off with a signature style
cultural rebellion or transgression for a given generation
iconic power, or instant visual recognition
a recognised cultural legacy
Every individual here created an original persona without precedent in American culture. These photographs capture the complex relationship between the real-life person, the image embraced by fans and the media, and the person’s artistic work.
What does it mean when a generation claims a certain figure as cool? What qualities does this person embody at that historical moment? American Cool explores these questions through photography, history, and popular culture. In this exhibition, cool is rendered visible, as shot by some of the finest art photographers of the past century.
When less – less famous, less obvious – is more
I don’t know about you, but the photographs chosen to represent American “cool” in this exhibition – 39 of which are shown in the posting out of a total of 108, but the rest are mainly of the same ilk – seem to me to be a singularly strange bunch of images to choose for such a concept. Personally, I find very few of them are “cool”, that is a mixture of a social charge of rebellious self-expression, charisma, edge and mystery with a certain self-made sense of style.
The only images that I find definitely “cool” among this bunch are, firstly Bob Dylan, closely followed by Jackson Pollock (notice the skull lurking behind him) and Susan Sontag. There is no proposition of cool in these three photographs, the people in them just are. The rest of the photographs, and there really are some atrociously plain and boring portraits among this lot (including a poor portrait of James Dean), really don’t speak to me of cool, don’t speak to me of anything much at all. How you could ever think that the portrait of Willie Nelson, 1989 (printed 2009, below) is cool is beyond me… and what is it with the reprints of the photographs, not originals but modern prints made years later? Perhaps the National Portrait Gallery needed to look beyond their own collection for a more rounded representation of American cool.
The two photographs I have included above are my top picks of American cool, and neither are in the exhibition. These iconic American images don’t feature famous people, they are not “posed” for the camera, and yet there is that ineffable something that makes the people in them absolutely, totally cool. THIS IS AMERICAN COOL: their own style, their own rebelliousness and mystery without possibly realising it = a naturalness that comes from doing their own thing, making their own way. Perhaps that is the point that this exhibition misses: you don’t have to be famous to be “cool”. A portrait is not just a mug shot. And an original persona does not have to come with fame attached.
This exhibition just doesn’t cut the mustard. The whole shebang needed a bloody good rethink, from the concept (does a generation have to “claim” someone is cool? is it necessary or desirable to portray American Cool through media images? do they have to be famous or instantly recognisable people to be “cool”) to the choice of images which could better illustrate the theme. Surely the qualities that person embodies changes from moment to moment, from photographer to photographer, from context to context (just look at the portraits of a haggard James Dean). To attempt to illustrate three elements in a single photograph – good luck with that one!
Dr Marcus Bunyan
PS I have added the videos to add a bit of spice to the proceedings… in them you can, occasionally, feel the charisma of the person.
Many thankx to the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.
Bob Willoughby (American, 1927-2009) Billie Holiday
1951 (printed 1991)
Gelatin silver print
25.2 x 35.3cm (19 15/16 x 13 15/16″)
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution
Rare live footage of one of the first anti-racism songs.
Elvis Presley Jailhouse Rock 1957 colour
Colourised version of the song from the film
Herman Leonard (American, 1923-2010) Frank Sinatra
c. 1956
Gelatin silver print
16.5 x 24.1cm (6 1/2 x 9 1/2″)
Institute of Jazz Studies at Rutgers University
Marcia Resnick (American, b. 1950) David Byrne
1981
Gelatin silver print
21.8 x 32.5cm (8 9/16 x 12 13/16″)
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution
Julian Wasser (American, b. 1938) Joan Didion
1970
Gelatin silver print
24.3 x 34cm (9 9/16 x 13 3/8″)
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution
Joan Didion (born December 5, 1934) is an American author best known for her novels and her literary journalism. Her novels and essays explore the disintegration of American morals and cultural chaos, where the overriding theme is individual and social fragmentation.
Roy Schatt (American, 1909-2002) James Dean
1954
Gelatin silver print
34.7 x 42.2cm (13 11/16 x 16 5/8″)
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution
William Claxton (American, 1927-2008) Steve McQueen
1962
Gelatin silver print
40 x 58.7cm (15 3/4 x 23 1/8″)
Fahey Klein Gallery
Martin Schoeller (American, b. 1968) Tony Hawk
1999 (printed 2010)
Archival pigment print
58.5 x 58.6cm (23 1/16 x 23 1/16″)
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution
What do we mean when we say someone is cool? Cool carries a social charge of rebellious self-expression, charisma, edge and mystery.
Cool is an original American sensibility and remains a global obsession. In the early 1940s, legendary jazz saxophonist Lester Young brought this central African American concept into the modern vernacular. Cool became a password in bohemian life connoting a balanced state of mind, a dynamic mode of performance, and a certain stylish stoicism. A cool person has a situation under control, and with a signature style. Cool has been embodied in jazz musicians such as Miles Davis and Billie Holiday, in actors such as Robert Mitchum, Faye Dunaway, and Johnny Depp, and in singers such as Elvis Presley, Patti Smith, and Jay-Z. American Cool is a photography and cultural studies exhibition featuring portraits of such iconic figures, each of whom has contributed an original artistic vision to American culture symbolic of a particular historical moment. They emerged from a variety of fields: art, music, film, sports, comedy, literature, and political activism. American Cool is the zeitgeist taking embodied form.
American Cool is captured by a roll call of fine-art photographers from Henri Cartier-Bresson to Annie Leibovitz, from Richard Avedon to Herman Leonard to Diane Arbus. This exhibition is accompanied by an illustrated catalogue with essays by Joel Dinerstein, the James H. Clark Endowed Chair in American Civilization and Director of the New Orleans Center for the Gulf South at Tulane University, and Frank H. Goodyear III, co-director of the Bowdoin College Museum of Art and former curator of photographs at the National Portrait Gallery.
Unidentified Artist Jack Nicholson in “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”
1975
Gelatin silver print
17.3 x 25.1cm (6 13/16 x 9 7/8″)
The Kobal Collection
John Cohen (American, 1932-2019) Jack Kerouac
1959
Gelatin silver print Image: 15.9 x 24.1cm (6 1/4 x 9 1/2″) Sheet: 20.2 x 25.4cm (7 15/16 x 10″)
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution
William Paul Gottlieb (American, 1917-2006) Thelonious Monk at Minton’s Playhouse, New York City
1947
Gelatin silver print Sheet: 25.4 x 20.3cm (10 x 8″)
Estate of William Gottlieb
Thelonious Monk Quartet – Round Midnight
Thelonious Monk(p) Charlie Rouse(ts) Larry Gales(b) Ben Riley(ds)
Recorded in Norway 1966 dvd “LIVE in ’66”
Peter Hujar (American, 1934-1987) Susan Sontag
1975
Gelatin silver print
37.1 x 37.6cm (14 5/8 x 14 13/16″)
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution
Michael O’Brien (American, b. 1950) Willie Nelson
1989 (printed 2009)
Chromogenic print
38.1 x 38.1cm (15 x 15″)
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution
Introduction
What do we mean when we say someone is cool? To be cool means to exude the aura of something new and uncontainable. Cool is the opposite of innocence or virtue. Someone cool has a charismatic edge and a dark side. Cool is an earned form of individuality. Each generation has certain individuals who bring innovation and style to a field of endeavour while projecting a certain charismatic self-possession. They are the figures selected for this exhibition: the successful rebels of American culture.
The legendary jazz saxophonist Lester Young created the modern usage of “cool” in the 1940s. At first it meant being relaxed in one’s environment against oppressive social forces, but within a generation it became a password for stylish self-control. This exhibition does not reflect our opinion of who’s cool. Each cool figure was considered with the following historical rubric in mind and possesses at least three elements of this singular American self-concept:
1/ an original artistic vision carried off with a signature style
2/ cultural rebellion or transgression for a given generation
3/ iconic power, or instant visual recognition
4/ a recognised cultural legacy
Every individual here created an original persona without precedent in American culture. These photographs capture the complex relationship between the real-life person, the image embraced by fans and the media, and the person’s artistic work.
What does it mean when a generation claims a certain figure as cool? What qualities does this person embody at that historical moment? American Cool explores these questions through photography, history, and popular culture. In this exhibition, cool is rendered visible, as shot by some of the finest art photographers of the past century.
The Roots of Cool: Before 1940
The stage was set for the emergence of cool as a cultural phenomenon in the early 1940s by a series of sweeping transformations in the first decades of the twentieth century. The figures in this first section were not called cool in their day but were leading exemplars of new energies that were changing the social contours of American life. A fresh rebelliousness was revealed in the new film capital of Hollywood, in modernist literature and art, in emerging youth entertainments, and in a new music called jazz. The advent of technologies such as radio, film, and the automobile and the increasing diversity in America’s booming cities accelerated the pace of change. Though Prohibition in the 1920s sought to regulate American morality by ending the consumption of alcohol, this period saw the expression of a new independence among young people and others historically on the margins of public life. In particular, both African Americans and women sought and began to attain freedoms long denied. Cool has long denoted a person’s sense of calm and composure. Charismatic individuals such as those featured here contributed greatly to the changing mores in American society before World War II. Cool would ultimately serve as the term that would describe this new rebel.
The Birth of Cool: 1940-1959
Being cool was a response to the rapid changes of modernity: it was about maintaining a state of equipoise within swirling, dynamic social forces. The legendary jazz saxophonist Lester Young disseminated the word and concept of cool into jazz culture in the early 1940s, and it quickly crossed over as a rebel masculine sensibility. When Young said, “I’m cool,” he meant, first, that he was relaxed in the environment and, second, that he was keeping it together under social and economic pressure as well as the absurdity of life in a racist society. This mask of cool emerged as a form of American stoicism and was manifested in jazz, film noir, Beat literature, and abstract expressionism. In jazz, a generation of younger musicians rejected big-band swing entertainment to create bebop, a fast, angular, virtuosic style that moved jazz out of dance halls and into nightclubs. In Hollywood, film noir represented postwar anxiety through crime dramas shot through with working-class existentialism and the fear of women’s sexual and economic power. Among Beat writers and abstract painters, cool referred to a combination of wildness and intensity in men unconcerned with social conformity. Starting from jazz, cool was a rebel sensibility suggesting that an individual’s importance could be registered only through self-expression and the creation of a signature style. By 1960 cool was the protean password of a surging underground aesthetic.
Cool and the Counterculture: 1960-1979
In the 1960s and 1970s, to be cool was to be antiauthoritarian and open to new ideas from young cultural leaders in rock and roll, journalism, film, and African American culture. Cool was a badge of opposition to “the System,” by turns a reference to the police, the government, the military-industrial complex, or traditional morality. Using drugs such as marijuana or even LSD was an indicator of risk taking and expanding one’s consciousness; not experimenting with drugs suggested a fear of opening one’s mind or perspective, of being “uptight” or “square.” The same was true of sexual exploration, social protest, and ethnic politics. The aesthetic of stylised understatement still held power, yet cool itself morphed under the era’s social upheavals. The counterculture valued being authentic and emotionally naked: being cool meant a person was “out-front” with others and comfortable in his or her own skin. For African Americans, what had once been suppressed under the mask of cool transformed into defiant civic engagement in music, sports, and politics. “Cool” meant to communicate a set of emotions without losing control, and rock and roll was the art form (and forum) best suited for this shift, especially for women. Patti Smith, Bonnie Raitt, Deborah Harry, and Chrissie Hynde all carved out new iconic stances, styles, and voices for independent women who were sexy on their own terms. Cool became the supreme compliment for creative public figures who broke new cultural ground and maintained their personal integrity over time.
The Legacies of Cool: 1980-Present
In 1980s America, the selling of rebellion as style became ingrained in cool. From highbrow fashion to mass-culture video games, product designers, advertisers, and consumers embraced the cool aesthetic. For many during this era, selling out was no longer a curse, as youth culture increasingly embraced the pursuit of wealth. And though some might proclaim that cool was dead, the concept stayed alive and grew in many quarters. From hip-hop to Seattle grunge, from skateboarding to the Internet, from street graffiti to MTV, cool became central to many of these new cultural forms. While its popularisation tended to whiten this phenomenon, African American culture remained central to its growth. By the 1980s cool also had an easily recognisable history, and many figures from its past – like heroes from a bygone era – continued to resonate widely. Indeed, new icons of cool often built careers that owed much to these earlier exemplars. Throughout the twentieth century, cool was America’s chief cultural export. With the rapid growth of global communication and markets, it plays an even larger role both in the world’s understanding of America and in Americans’ own sense of national identity. The figures in this final section are representative of the legacies of cool as a distinct form of American expression.
Press release from the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery website
Martin Munkacsi (Hungarian, 1896-1963) Fred Astaire
1936
Gelatin silver print
24.1 x 19cm (9 1/2 x 7 1/2″)
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution
Swing Time – Rogers and Astaire
In this Swing Time clip, Lucky, Astaire, saves Penny’s, Rogers, job by showing how much she has taught him.
Philippe Halsman (American, 1906-1979) Audrey Hepburn
1955
Gelatin silver print Image/Sheet: 34.9 x 27cm (13 3/4 x 10 5/8″)
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution
Dmitri Kasterine (British, b. 1932) Jean-Michel Basquait 1986
Gelatin silver print
38.3 x 37.7cm (15 1/16 x 14 13/16″)
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution
Cass Bird (American, b. 1974) Benicio Del Toro
2008 (printed 2012)
Inkjet print
45.3 x 35.3cm (17 13/16 x 13 7/8″)
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution
Carl Van Vechten (American, 1880-1964) Bessie Smith
1936
Gelatin silver print
Image/Sheet: 25.2 x 18.6cm (9 15/16 x 7 5/16″)
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution
Bessie Smith (April 15, 1894 – September 26, 1937) was an African-American blues singer widely renowned during the Jazz Age. Nicknamed the “Empress of the Blues”, she was the most popular female blues singer of the 1930s. Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1989, she is often regarded as one of the greatest singers of her era and was a major influence on fellow blues singers, as well as jazz vocalists.
Born in Chattanooga, Tennessee, Smith was young when her parents died, and she and her six siblings survived by performing on street corners. She began touring and performed in a group that included Ma Rainey, and then went out on her own. Her successful recording career with Columbia Records began in 1923, but her performing career was cut short by a car crash that killed her at the age of 43.
ST. LOUIS BLUES. Blues Legend Bessie Smith’s only film appearance. Uncut 1929Â
This is not only a landmark because it contains Bessie Smith’s only known film appearance but also for being one of the very first talkies ever made. This is the complete film co-starring Jimmy Mordecai as her gigolo boyfriend.
Robert Mapplethorpe (American, 1946-1989) Deborah Harry
1978
Gelatin silver print Image: 34.9 x 34.9cm (13 3/4 x 13 3/4″)
Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation
Philippe Halsman (American born Latvia, 1906-1979) Humphrey Bogart
1944
Gelatin silver print Image: 11.3 x 8.6cm (4 7/16 x 3 3/8″) Mat: 45.7 x 35.6cm (18 x 14″)
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution
Samuel Hollyer (British, 1826-1919) Leaves of Grass, 1st Edition Copy after: Gabriel Harrison
1855 Book (closed): 28.9 x 20.6 x 1cm (11 3/8 x 8 1/8 x 3/8″)
Private Collection
Unidentified Artist Frederick Douglas
1856
Quarter-plate ambrotype Image: 10.6 x 8.6cm (4 3/16 x 3 3/8″) Case (open): 11.9 x 19.1 x 1.3cm (4 11/16 x 7 1/2 x 1/2″)
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution
Linda McCartney (American, 1941-1998) Jimi Hendrix
1967 (printed later)
Platinum print
51.3 x 35.3 cm (20 3/16 x 13 7/8″)
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution
The Jimi Hendrix Experience – Voodoo Child (Slight Return) (Live In Maui, 1970)
An incredible live performance of Voodoo Child (Slight Return) by Jimmy and his band in Maui, 1970.
William Paul Gottlieb (American, 1917-2006) Duke Ellington
c. 1946 (printed 1991)
Gelatin silver print
34.1 x 26.7 cm (13 7/16 x 10 1/2″)
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution
Duke Ellington & His Orchestra live in Tivoli Garden 1969
Fantastic performance footage of one of Jazz’s greatest stars – Duke Ellington.
Duke Ellington may have turned 70 in 1969, but he was never short of energy, creativity and innovations. At the time of this Nov. 2, 1969 concert in Copenhagen, Ellington had been leading his orchestra for 44 years, but he still never really looked back in time or sought to recreate the past. Even when he performed older favorites, they were rearranged and full of surprises, and Duke’s own piano playing was modern, percussive and unpredictable. Twelve soloists are heard from during this 83-minute set including such veterans as trumpeters Cootie Williams and Cat Anderson, trombonist Lawrence Brown, altoist Harry Carney and Paul Gonsalves on tenor. Along with exciting versions of “C Jam Blues,” “Rockin’ In Rhythm” and “Take The ‘A’ Train,” the highlights include a three-song Johnny Hodges medley, a haunting “La Plus Belle Africaine,” and a tenor battle among Gonsalves, Harold Ashby and Norris Turney on “Diminuendo And Crescendo In Blue.” Filmed in colour and with close-ups that give listeners the experience of being onstage with the Duke Ellington Orchestra.
Mark Seliger (American, b. 1959) Kurt Cobain
1993 (printed 2013)
Platinum Palladium print
46.7 × 35.5cm (18 3/8 × 14″)
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution
Nirvana – Smells Like Teen Spirit (Official Music Video)
Philippe Halsman (American, 1906-1979) Marlon Brando
1950 (printed later)
Gelatin silver print
34.4 x 26.8cm (13 9/16 x 10 9/16″)
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution
Charles H. “Chuck” Stewart (American, 1927-2017) Muddy Waters
c. 1960
Gelatin silver print
25.4 x 18.4cm (10 x 7 1/4″)
Institute of Jazz Studies at Rutgers University
Muddy Waters – Got My Mojo Workin’
Alfred Eisenstaedt (American, 1898-1995) Lauren Bacall
1949 (printed 2013)
Pigmented ink jet print
40.3 x 27.9cm (15 7/8 x 11″)
Aram Avakian (American, 1926-1987) Miles Davis
1955 (printed 2012)
Modern print made from original negative
34.6 × 24.1cm (13 5/8 × 9 1/2″)
Miles Davis – So What (Official Video)
Unidentified Artist Bix Beiderbecke
c. 1920
Gelatin silver print
19.1 x 11.4cm (7 1/2 x 4 1/2″)
Institute of Jazz Studies at Rutgers University
At the Jazz Band Ball – Bix Beiderbecke and His Gang, 1927
Royal Garden Blues – Bix Beiderbecke 1927
Leon Bismark “Bix” Beiderbecke (March 10, 1903 – August 6, 1931) was an American jazz cornetist, jazz pianist, and composer.
With Louis Armstrong and Muggsy Spanier, Beiderbecke was one of the most influential jazz soloists of the 1920s. His turns on “Singin’ the Blues” and “I’m Coming, Virginia” (both 1927), in particular, demonstrated an unusual purity of tone and a gift for improvisation. With these two recordings, especially, he helped to invent the jazz ballad style and hinted at what, in the 1950s, would become cool jazz. “In a Mist” (1927), one of a handful of his piano compositions and one of only two he recorded, mixed classical (Impressionist) influences with jazz syncopation.
Leon Bismark “Bix” Beiderbecke (March 10, 1903 – August 6, 1931) was an American jazz cornetist, jazz pianist, and composer. A native of Davenport, Iowa.
Bix Beiderbecke was one of the great jazz musicians of the 1920’s; he was also a child of the Jazz Age who drank himself to an early grave with illegal Prohibition liquor. His hard drinking and beautiful tone on the cornet made him a legend among musicians during his life. The legend of Bix grew even larger after he died. Bix never learned to read music very well, but he had an amazing ear even as a child. His parents disapproved of his playing music and sent him to a military school outside of Chicago in 1921. He was soon expelled for skipping class and became a full-time musician. In 1923 Beiderbecke joined the Wolverine Orchestra and recorded with them the following year. Bix was influenced a great deal by the Original Dixieland Jass Band, but soon surpassed their playing. In late 1924 Bix left the Wolverines to join Jean Goldkette’s Orchestra, but his inability to read music eventually resulted in him losing the job. In 1926 he spent some time with Frankie Trumbauer’s Orchestra where he recorded his solo piano masterpiece “In a Mist”. He also recorded some of his best work with Trumbauer and guitarist, Eddie Lang, under the name of Tram, Bix, and Eddie.
Bix was able to bone up on his sight-reading enough to re-join Jean Goldkette’s Orchestra briefly, before signing up as a soloist with Paul Whiteman’s Orchestra. Whiteman’s Orchestra was the most popular band of the 1920’s and Bix enjoyed the prestige and money of playing with such a successful outfit, but it didn’t stop his drinking. In 1929 Bix’s drinking began to catch up with him. He suffered from delirium tremens and he had a nervous breakdown while playing with the Paul Whiteman Orchestra, and was eventually sent back to his parents in Davenport, Iowa to recover. It should be noted that Paul Whiteman was very good to Bix during his struggles. He kept Bix on full pay long after his breakdown, and promised him that his chair was always open in the Whiteman Orchestra, but, Bix was never the same again, and never rejoined the band.
He returned to New York in 1930 and made a few more records with his friend Hoagy Carmichael and under the name of Bix Beiderbecke and his Orchestra. But mainly, he holed himself up in a rooming house in Queens, New York where he drank a lot and worked on his beautiful solo piano pieces “Candlelight”, “Flashes”, and “In The Dark” (played here by Ralph Sutton; Bix never recorded them). He died at age 28 in 1931 during an alcoholic seizure. The official cause of death was lobar pneumonia and edema of the brain.
Arnold A. Newman (American, 1918-2006) Jackson Pollock
1949
Gelatin silver print
46 x 36.7cm (18 1/8 x 14 7/16″)
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution
Lynn Goldsmith (American, b. 1948) Patti Smith
1976 (printed 2012)
Digital inkjet print Image: 46.9 x 30cm (18 7/16 x 11 13/16″)
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution
Philippe Halsman (American, 1906-1979) Clint Eastwood
1971
Gelatin silver print
34.3 x 27.3cm (13 1/2 x 10 3/4″)
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution
From the Hard to Handle concert film. Bob Dylan, backed by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers during their Australian tour in 1986.
Eli Reed (American, b. 1946) Tupac Shakur
1992 (printed 2013)
Digitally exposed chromogenic print
34.6 x 27.3cm (13 5/8 x 10 3/4″)
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution
William Paul Gottlieb (American, 1917-2006) Gene Krupa at 400 Restaurant, New York City
June 1946
Gelatin silver print Sheet: 35.6 x 27.9cm (14 x 11″)
Estate of William Gottlieb
Eugene Bertram “Gene” Krupa (January 15, 1909 – October 16, 1973) was an American jazz and big band drummer, actor and composer, known for his highly energetic and flamboyant style. In the 1930s, Krupa became the first endorser of Slingerland drums. At Krupa’s urging, Slingerland developed tom-toms with tuneable top and bottom heads, which immediately became important elements of virtually every drummer’s setup. Krupa developed and popularized many of the cymbal techniques that became standards. His collaboration with Armand Zildjian of the Avedis Zildjian Company developed the modern hi-hat cymbals and standardised the names and uses of the ride cymbal, the crash cymbal, the splash cymbal, the pang cymbal and the swish cymbal. One of his bass drums, a Slingerland inscribed with Benny Goodman’s and Krupa’s initials, is preserved at the Smithsonian museum in Washington, D.C. In 1978, Krupa became the first drummer inducted into the Modern Drummer Hall of Fame.
Gene Krupa having A good time
Gene Krupa – Big Noise From Winnetka
Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery
8th and F Sts NW
Washington, DC 20001
![Germaine Krull (European, 1897-1985) 'Étalage: les mannequins [Display: mannequins]' 1928](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/gkrull_09-web.jpg "Germaine Krull (European, 1897-1985) 'Étalage: les mannequins [Display: mannequins]' 1928")
![Germaine Krull (European, 1897-1985) 'Étude pour La Folle d’Itteville [Study for The Madwoman of Itteville]' 1931](https://artblart.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/gkrull_14-web.jpg "Germaine Krull (European, 1897-1985) 'Étude pour La Folle d’Itteville [Study for The Madwoman of Itteville]' 1931")
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