“Photography for me is not looking, it’s feeling. If you can’t feel what you’re looking at, then you’re never going to get others to feel anything when they look at your pictures”
“You do not go away from here without carrying a huge burden, if you are a decent human being and you have a conscience.”
“I photograph the humble, the anonymous, who are spontaneous and mirror all of us.”
Don McCullin, Sleeping With Ghosts: A Life’s Work in Photography
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Many thankx to the National Gallery of Canada for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.
For the first time ever, the National Gallery of Canada is organising an monographic exhibition dedicated to the work of a contemporary British photographer. Don McCullin: A Retrospective features a collection of 134 exceptional black-and-white photographs taken by McCullin, an unflinching photojournalist best known for his coverage of the world’s most dangerous conflict zones. His photographs have been published in major newspapers and magazines, including The Observer, The Sunday Times and The Daily Telegraph. McCullin has also created an important body of social documentary work and a series of lyrical landscapes in his native Britain. Several of these photographs are included in the exhibition, which will be on display until April 14, 2013 in the NGC’s Prints, Drawings and Photographs Galleries. “McCullin’s photographs belong in an art gallery because they consistently bring clarity and compositional grace to their compelling subject matter. These pictures are both hard to look at and hard not to,” said NGC director and CEO Marc Mayer.
Don McCullin: A Retrospective highlights works from all of McCullin’s major series: portraits of the poor and the homeless in London and northern England (1950s to 1980s); the construction of the Berlin Wall (1961); war and famine in Cyprus, the Congo, Biafra, Vietnam, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Lebanon and Northern Ireland (1964-1982); peoples of Southeast Asia and Africa (1988-2004); and landscapes in Somerset, England, and northern France (1970-2011). In this exhibition, the artist’s journey from working class England to the killing fields and to the landscape of Arthurian myth reveals his searing outrage and profound compassion. Also included are magazines and newspapers relating to past assignments.
McCullin covered war zones on four continents, primarily from the 1960s to the 1980s. His photographs from the battlefields belong to a tradition of war art practiced by Francisco de Goya, Otto Dix and photographer Robert Capa, artists who, like himself, sought to communicate in images the horrors of human conflict. Particularly compelling for their narrative depth, sombre lighting and powerful composition, McCullin’s photographs convey the intensity and intimacy of his human encounters. His landscapes, although also dark and brooding, speak to his desire to distance himself from the subject of human suffering.
Although, McCullin did travel to Syria recently for The Times on one final war assignment (these photographs are not included in the exhibition), his exposure to the worst human atrocities took such a toll on him that he more or less retreated from conflict zones beginning in the 1980s. McCullin does not like being called a war photographer. Nor does he think of himself as an artist, but rather as a photojournalist, or simply, a photographer. In her insightful essay in the exhibition catalogue, Sobey Curatorial Assistant Katherine Stauble writes of the war photographs: “Likely (these images) were not meant to hang on a gallery wall, but rather, to communicate information, to reveal truths and to mobilise action. Now that McCullin has escaped the battlefield and for the past twenty years has been focusing his lens on landscape and still life, one might expect the artist moniker to sit more comfortably with him.”
Press release from the National Gallery of Canada website
Curators: Anne Wilkes Tucker, the Gus and Lyndall Wortham Curator of Photography; Will Michels, collections photographer and exhibition co-curator; Natalie Zelt, curatorial assistant
**Please be aware that there are graphic photographs in this posting.**
Anonymous photographer Under blue & gray – Gettysburg July 1913 Photo shows the Gettysburg Reunion (the Great Reunion) of July 1913, which commemorated the 50th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C.
Part 4 of the biggest posting on one exhibition that I have ever undertaken on Art Blart!
As befits the gravity of the subject matter this posting is so humongous that I have had to split it into 4 separate postings. This is how to research and stage a contemporary photography exhibition that fully explores its theme. The curators reviewed more than one million photographs in 17 countries, locating pictures in archives, military libraries, museums, private collections, historical societies and news agencies; in the personal files of photographers and service personnel; and at two annual photojournalism festivals producing an exhibition that features 26 sections (an inspired and thoughtful selection) that includes nearly 500 objects that illuminate all aspects of WAR/PHOTOGRAPHY.
I have spent hours researching and finding photographs on the Internet to support the posting. It has been a great learning experience and my admiration for photographers of all types has increased. I have discovered the photographs and stories of new image makers that I did not know and some enlightenment along the way. I despise war, I detest the state and the military that propagate it and I surely hate the power, the money and the ethics of big business that support such a disciplinarian structure for their own ends. I hope you meditate on the images in this monster posting, an exhibition on a subject matter that should be consigned to the history books of human evolution.
**Please be aware that there are graphic photographs in all of these postings.**Part 1, Part 2, Part 3
Dr Marcus Bunyan
Many thankx to the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston for allowing me to publish some of the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.
Memorials
25. Photographs in the “Memorials” section range from the tomb of an unknown World War I soldier in England, by Horace Nicholls; and a landscape of black German crosses throughout a World War II burial site, by Bertrand Carrière; to an anonymous photograph of a reunion scene in Gettysburg of the opposing sides in the Civil War; and Joel Sternfeld’s picture of a woman and her daughter at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, DC, in 1986. (8 images)
In order to commemorate the many soldiers with no known grave, it was decided to bury an ‘Unknown Warrior’ with all due ceremony in Westminster Abbey on Armistice Day in 1920. The photograph shows the coffin resting on a cloth in the nave of Westminster Abbey before the ceremony at the Cenotaph and its final burial.
Bertrand Carrière (Canadian, b. 1957) Untitled 2005-2009 From the series Lieux Mêmes [Same Places]
In 2005, Carrière and historian Guth Desprez started to investigate the deeper history surrounding the found photo album. They travelled to Europe, with the photo album as their guide, in order to retrace the path of the Canadian Expeditionary Force. By photographing the locations in the soldier’s images, Carrière explores the themes of memory and history through the changing landscape. They visited the long list of places marked by the horrendous battles of The Great War: the Somme in Picardy, Artois in the North Pas-de-Calais and up to the vast fields of Flanders in Belgium. Carrière’s photographs document the sites which appear in the soldier’s album along with others on the Western Front, offering a contemporary view approximately 90 years after the infamous events, which continue to stigmatise these locations to this very day. The incredible light of the regions of northern France and the flatness of the land helps Carrière build a sense of mystery. The photographs initiate dialogue about how the landscape was affected and the ways in which it has recovered. It is not only what is there or the evidence that remains, but also what is not there and the evidence of what no longer exists.
26. The last gallery in the exhibition is “Remembrance.”Most of these images were taken by artists seeking to come to terms with a conflict after fighting had ceased. Included are Richard Avedon’s picture of a Vietnamese napalm victim; a survivor of a machete attack in a Rwandan death camp, by James Nachtwey; a 1986 portrait of a hero who rescued Jews during the Holocaust, by Houston native Gay Block; and Suzanne Opton’s 2004 portrait of a soldier who survived the Iraq War and returned to the United States to work as a police officer, only to be murdered on duty by a fellow veteran. The final wall features photographs by Simon Norfolk of sunrises at the five D-Day beaches in 2004. The only reference to war is the title of the series: The Normandy Beaches: We Are Making a New World (33 images)
Gay Block (American, b. 1942) Zofia Baniecka, Poland 1986 From the series Rescuers: Portraits of Moral Courage in the Holocaust, a record of non-Jewish citizens from European countries who risked their lives helping to hide Jews from the Nazis Chromogenic print, printed 1994 Courtesy of Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, gift of Clinton T. Wilour in honour of Eve France
Zofia Baniecka (born 1917 in Warsaw – 1993) was a Polish member of the Resistance during World War II. In addition to relaying guns and other materials to resistance fighters, Baniecka and her mother rescued over 50 Jews in their home between 1941 and 1944.
A Hutu man at a Red Cross hospital in Nyanza, Rwanda. His face was mutilated by the Hutu ‘Interahamwe’ militia, who suspected him of sympathising with the Tutsi rebels.
Liberated from a nearby Hutu camp, where mainly Tutsis were incarcerated, starved, beaten, and killed, this man did not support the genocide and was thus subjected to the same treatment. Starved and attacked with machetes, he had managed to survive, though he was unable to speak and could barely walk or swallow when this photo was made.
Alexander Gardner (American, 1821-1882) Scouts and Guides to the Army of the Potomac, Berlin, MD, October, 1862 October 1862 Albumen silver print Photograph by Alexander Gardner, from “Incidents of the War. Guide to the Army of the Potomac,” from Gardner’s Photographic Sketch Book of the War, Washington Records of the War Department General and Special Staffs, Record Group 165, National Archives Still Picture Branch, College Park, Maryland
Alexander Gardner (American, 1821-1882) The Home of a Rebel Sharpshooter / Dead Confederate soldier in the devil’s den, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania July 1863 Albumen paper print copied from glass, wet collodion negative Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division
Josiah Barnes (Australian, 1858-1921) Embarkation of HMAT Ajana, Melbourne, July 8, 1916 1916 Gelatin silver print from original glass half-plate negative (printed 2012) On loan from the Australian War Memorial
Wesley D. Archer (American, d. 1952) Just as he left the burning plane 1933 From the publication Death in the Air: The War Diary and Photographs of a Flying Corps Pilot
The typewritten script of a First World War pilot’s diary with a large number of photographs was submitted to the publishers William Heinemann and published by them in 1933. Heinemann stated on the book’s jacket that the diary contained no names, dates, or anything that could reveal the identity of the writer or the squadron in which he served. The publishers understood that the diarist was killed in action in 1918 and that it was in deference to the wishes of those who were close to him that his diary should be published.
So remarkable were the photographs that their veracity was immediately questioned, but no proof of their authenticity or otherwise could be ascertained. It was not until 1983 that a collection of documents, photographs and artifacts was presented to the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum. Some of the photographs were recognized as being those of the mystery diarist and the truth was soon revealed.
The author was Wesley Archer, an American with Canadian parents who served with the RFC in the First World War, and the photographs and diary had been faked.
Anonymous photographer U.S. Department of Defense US Coast Guard crew of cutter Spencer watched as a depth charge exploded near U-175, North Atlantic, 500nm WSW of Ireland, 17 Apr 1943 17 April 1943 Public domain
Joseph Schwartz (American, 1913–2013) Hold the Phone – Two Marine wiremen on Iwo Jima race across an open field, under heavy enemy fire to establish field telephone contact with the front lines February 19, 1945, printed early 1950s Gelatin silver print mounted on board 18 13/16 x 14 15/16 in. (47.8 x 37.9cm) The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston Museum purchase funded by Knox Nunnally at “One Great Night in November, 2009,” in honor of Houston trial lawyer Joe Reynolds, a U.S. Marine who fought on Iwo Jima
Anonymous photographer U.S. Department of Defense / USMC Official Photograph PLASMA WARD – Navy doctors and corpsmen administer to wounded Marines at an aid station established in a gully on Iwo Jima. The high casualty rate in this operation required the use of gallons of plasma and whole blood sent by air from the West Coast 1945 Gelatin silver print Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic
U.S. Navy Photographic Team U.S. and British Warships Anchored in Sagami Wan, Outside of Tokyo Bay, Japan, on the Day the Allied Ships Entered Japanese Waters 27th August 1945 Gelatin silver print The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, museum purchase funded by Laura and Tony Visage in honor and memory of William A. Visage and his fellow soldiers in Battery “E” of the 2nd Battalion, 131st Field Artillery, U.S. Army Air Corps
Unknown photographer A pair of M-40 155mm Gun Motor Carriages of Battery B, 937th Field Artillery Battalion, providing fire support to U.S. Army 25th Infantry Division, Munema, Korea 26 November 1951 Gelatin silver print U.S. Department of Defense
Her pictures from Vietnam were stunning. Her photos from Battle of Hill 881 evoked “ghosts of Iwo Jima and Pork Chop Hill,” Time magazine wrote in May 1967. Her photos of corpsman Vernon Wike during the battle was a triptych of an all-too-familiar scene: in the first, Wike has two hands on his friend’s chest, trying to staunch the wound; in the second, he tries to find a heartbeat; in the third frame, “Corpsman In Anguish”, he realised the man is dead.
LeRoy herself came very close to death two weeks later. Her Nikon barely stopped a piece of mortar shrapnel that ripped open her chest. She said that she thought the last words she would ever hear were, “I think she’s dead, sarge.” During the Tet offensive in 1968, LeRoy was briefly captured by the North Vietnamese during the battle for Hue. LeRoy’s photos of her captivity later made the cover of Life, ‘A Remarkable Day in Hue: the Enemy Lets Me Take His Picture’. She was the first person to take photos of North Vietnamese Army Regulars behind their lines.
Anonymous. “Corpsman In Anguish | Cathy LeRoy,” on the Iconic Photos website January 13, 2014 [Online] Cited 27/07/2024. Used under fair use conditions for the purposes of education and research
A licensed parachutist, Leroy jumped with the U.S. 173rd Airborne Brigade into combat during Operation Junction City in February of 1967. It was in this action, the battle for Hill 881, that Leroy photographed U.S. Navy Corpsman Vernon Wike as he rushed to the aid of a fallen comrade. “Corpsman in anguish” is the third frame of a series that Leroy shot, capturing the unimaginable grief of war. Later, in an interview for the documentary “The Hill Fights”, Wike recounted the moment that Leroy photographed.
“I know there was chaos going on around me, but there was no sound,” she says. “… I knew he didn’t have a chance, but I still got p—–d off when he died.” Leroy describes the aftermath as the corpsman “lost in this nightmare landscape” grabbed the fallen marine’s M16 and charged a Viet bunker alone in a hail of obscenities. The fallen marine was a man called “Rock”, a New Yorker from Puerto Rico. Earlier that day he had told Wike that he only had 60 days left “in country” – his deployment in Vietnam.
Anonymous. “Giving War a Face: Catherine Leroy,” on the Dismal Nitch website September 04, 2020 [Online] Cited 27/07/2024. Used under fair use conditions for the purposes of education and research
Rafael Wollmann (Argentinian, b. 1958) British Marines surrender to Argentinean troops in Malvinas/Falklands April 2, 1982, printed 2012 Inkjet print 15 7/8 × 20 in. (40.4 × 50.8cm) The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston Gift of Rafael Wollmann
David Leeson (American, b. 1957) Death of a Soldier, Iraq March 24, 2003 Inkjet print, printed 2012 Courtesy of the artist
Goran Tomasevic (Serbian, b. 1959) /Reuters SHOOTING. Sgt. William Olas Bee, a US Marine from the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, has a close call after Taliban fighters opened fire near Garmser in Helmand Province of Afghanistan May 18, 2008. The Marine was not injured. 2008
TomaÅ¡ević began photographing the war that followed the breakup of Yugoslavia from 1991 for daily newspaper Politika. In 1996 he joined the world’s largest news agency, Reuters, covering the simmering political tensions in Kosovo and the anti-MiloÅ¡ević demonstrations in his hometown of Belgrade since mid-1990s. During three-month NATO bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999, TomaÅ¡ević was the only photographer working for foreign press to spend the duration of the conflict in Kosovo.
TomaÅ¡ević moved to Jerusalem in 2002, covering the second Palestinian intifada. During the U.S. led invasions of Iraq in 2003, his picture of a U.S. Marine watching the toppling of a Saddam Hussein statue became one of the most memorable images of the war. He often returned to Iraq as sectarian violence escalated and regularly photographed America’s other war in Afghanistan. His sequence of photographs of U.S. Marine Sergeant Bee narrowly escaping Taliban bullets became an iconic image in U.S. war history.
TomaÅ¡ević moved to Cairo in 2006 and was at the heart of Reuters’ coverage of the Arab Springs. In Libya, his image of a fireball that spewed up after an air strike on pro-Gaddafi fighters became an iconic image of the Libyan war, gracing the front pages of more than 100 newspapers around the globe. He stayed in Cairo until 2012. His raw pictures of rebel fighters battling pro-Assad forces among the ruins of Aleppo and Damascus during the Syrian Civil War have won international acclaim, as did his coverage of the bloody siege on a Nairobi shopping mall in Kenya. TomaÅ¡ević worked for Reuters until 2022.
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