Exhibition: ‘Faking It: Manipulated Photography Before Photoshop’ at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Exhibition dates at the MMA: 11th October 2012 – 27th January 2013

Unidentified American artist
Two-Headed Man
c. 1855
Daguerreotype
The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri, Gift of Hallmark Cards, Inc.

What a fascinating subject. Having completed multiple exposure work under the black and white enlarger I can attest to how difficult it was to get a print correctly exposed. I was using multiple negatives, moving the piece of photographic paper and printing in grids. Trying to get the alignment right was quite a task but the outcomes were very satisfying. Of course today these skills have mainly been lost to be replaced by other technological skills within the blancmange that is Photoshop. Somehow it’s not the same. My admiration for an artist like Jerry Uelsmann will always remain undimmed for the undiluted joy, beauty and skill of their analogue imagery.

I will post different photographs in this exhibition from the National Gallery of Art hang when I receive them!

See the second posting on this exhibition.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

Many thankx to the The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

George Washington Wilson (Scottish, 1823-1893)
Aberdeen Portraits No. 1
1857
Albumen silver print from glass negative
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation Fund, through Joyce and Robert Menschel, 2011

Henry Peach Robinson (English, 1830-1901)
Fading Away
1858
Albumen silver print from glass negatives
The Royal Photographic Society Collection at the National Media Museum, Bradford, United Kingdom

Unidentified artist
De Torbechet, Allain & Cie (publisher)
Man Juggling His Own Head
c. 1880
Albumen silver print from glass negative
Collection of Christophe Goeury

Maurice Guibert (French, 1856-1913)
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec as Artist and Model
c. 1900
Gelatin silver print
Philadelphia Museum of Art

F. Holland Day (American, 1864-1933)
The Vision (Orpheus Scene)
1907
Platinum print
The Royal Photographic Society Collection at the National Media Museum, Bradford, United Kingdom

Unidentified American artist
Man on Rooftop with Eleven Men in Formation on His Shoulders
c. 1930
Gelatin silver print
Collection of George Eastman House, International Museum of Photography and Film, Rochester

Unidentified American artist
Dirigible Docked on Empire State Building, New York
1930
Gelatin silver print
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Twentieth-Century Photography Fund, 2011

While digital photography and image-editing software have brought about an increased awareness of the degree to which camera images can be manipulated, the practice of doctoring photographs has existed since the medium was invented. Faking It: Manipulated Photography Before Photoshop at The Metropolitan Museum of Art is the first major exhibition devoted to the history of manipulated photography before the digital age. Featuring some 200 visually captivating photographs created between the 1840s and 1990s in the service of art, politics, news, entertainment, and commerce, the exhibition offers a provocative new perspective on the history of photography as it traces the medium’s complex and changing relationship to visual truth.   The exhibition is made possible by Adobe Systems Incorporated.   The photographs in the exhibition were altered using a variety of techniques, including multiple exposure (taking two or more pictures on a single negative), combination printing (producing a single print from elements of two or more  negatives), photomontage, overpainting, and retouching on the negative or print.   In every case, the meaning and content of the camera image was significantly transformed in the process of manipulation.

Faking It is divided into seven sections, each focusing on a different set of motivations for manipulating the camera image. “Picture Perfect” explores 19th-century photographers’ efforts to compensate for the new medium’s technical limitations – specifically, its inability to depict the world the way it looks to the naked eye. To augment photography’s monochrome palette, pigments were applied to portraits to make them more vivid and lifelike. Landscape photographers faced a different obstacle: the uneven sensitivity of early emulsions often resulted in blotchy, overexposed skies. To overcome this, many photographers, such as Gustave Le Gray and Carleton E. Watkins, created spectacular landscapes by printing two negatives on a single sheet of paper – one exposed for the land, the other for the sky. This section also explores the challenges involved in the creation of large group portraits, which were often cobbled together from dozens of photographs of individuals.   For early art photographers, the ultimate creativity lay not in the act of taking a photograph but in the subsequent transformation of the camera image into a hand-crafted picture.

“Artifice in the Name of Art” begins in the 1850s with elaborate combination prints of narrative and allegorical subjects by Oscar Gustave Rejlander and Henry Peach Robinson. It continues with the revival of Pictorialism at the dawn of the twentieth century in the work of artist-photographers such as Edward Steichen, Anne W. Brigman, and F. Holland Day.   “Politics and Persuasion” presents photographs that were manipulated for explicitly political or ideological ends. It begins with Ernest Eugene Appert’s faked photographs of the 1871 Paris Commune massacres, and continues with images used to foster patriotism, advance racial ideologies, and support or protest totalitarian regimes. Sequences of photographs published in Stalin-era Soviet Russia from which purged Party officials were erased demonstrate the chilling ease with which the historical record could be falsified. Also featured are composite portraits of criminals by Francis Galton and original paste-ups of John Heartfield’s anti-Nazi photomontages of the 1930s.

“Novelties and Amusements” brings together a broad variety of amateur and commercial photographs intended to astonish, amuse, and entertain. Here, we find popular images of figures holding their own severed heads or appearing doubled or tripled. Also included in this light-hearted section are ghostly images by the spirit photographer William Mumler, “tall-tale” postcards produced in Midwestern farming communities in the 1910s, trick photographs by amateurs, and Weegee’s experimental distortions of the 1940s.   ”Pictures in Print” reveals the ways in which newspapers, magazines, and advertisers have altered, improved, and sometimes fabricated images in their entirety to depict events that never occurred – such as the docking of a zeppelin on the tip of the Empire State Building. Highlights include Erwin Blumenfeld’s famous “Doe Eye” Vogue cover from 1950 and Richard Avedon’s multiple portrait of Audrey Hepburn from 1967.

“Mind’s Eye” features works from the 1920s through 1940s by such artists as Herbert Bayer, Maurice Tabard, Dora Maar, Clarence John Laughlin, and Grete Stern, who have used photography to evoke subjective states of mind, conjuring dreamlike scenarios and surreal imaginary worlds.   The final section, “Protoshop,” presents photographs from the second half of the 20th century by Yves Klein, John Baldessari, Duane Michals, Jerry Uelsmann, and other artists who have adapted earlier techniques of image manipulation – such as spirit photography or news photo retouching – to create works that self-consciously and often humorously question photography’s presumed objectivity.

Press release from The Metropolitan Museum of Art website

William Mortensen (American, 1897-1965)
Obsession
c. 1930
Gelatin silver print
18.4 x 14.5cm
The Elisha Whittelsey Collection, The Elisha Whittelsey Fund, 1975

Maurice Tabard (French, 1897-1984)
Room with Eye
1930
Gelatin silver print
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Elisha Whittelsey Collection, The Elisha Whittelsey Fund, 1962

Wanda Wulz (Italian, 1903-1984)
Io + gatto (Cat + I)
1932
Gelatin silver print
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Ford Motor Company Collection, Gift of Ford Motor Company and John C. Waddell, 1987
Alinari / Art Resource © Wanda Wulz

John Paul Pennebaker (American, 1903-1953)
Sealed Power Piston Rings
1933
Gelatin silver print
1934 Art and Industry Exhibition Photograph Collection, Baker Library Historical Collections, Harvard Business School, Boston, Mass.
© John Paul Pennebaker

George Platt Lynes (American, 1907-1955)
The Sleepwalker
1935
Gelatin silver print with applied media
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Ford Motor Company Collection, Gift of Ford Motor Company and John C. Waddell, 1987
© The Estate of George Platt Lynes

Barbara Morgan (American, 1900-1992)
Hearst over the People
1939
Collage of gelatin silver prints with applied media
The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri, Gift of Hallmark Cards, Inc.

Grete Stern (Argentinian born Germany, 1904-1999)
Dream No. 1: Electrical Appliances for the Home
1948
Gelatin silver print
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Twentieth-Century Photography Fund, 2012
Courtesy of Galería Jorge Mara – La Ruche, Buenos Aires

Erwin Blumenfeld (American born Germany, 1897-1969)
“Doe Eye” Vogue cover
1950

Yves Klein (French, 1928-1962)
Photographed by Harry Shunk (German, 1924-2006) and János (Jean) Kender (Hungarian, 1937-2009)
Leap into the Void
1960
Gelatin silver print
Purchase, The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation Gift, through Joyce and Robert Menschel, 1992
© Yves Klein / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris
Photograph Shunk-Kender © Roy Lichtenstein Foundation

Weegee (Arthur Fellig) (American, 1899-1968)
Judy Garland
1960
Silver gelatin photograph
Copyright Weegee/International Center of Photography/Getty Images

Weegee (Arthur Fellig) (American, 1899-1968)
Draft Johnson for President
c. 1968
Gelatin silver print
International Center of Photography, Bequest of Wilma Wilcox, 1993
Copyright Weegee/International Center of Photography/Getty Images.

Richard Avedon (American, 1923-2004)
Audrey Hepburn, New York, January 1967
1967
Collage of gelatin silver prints, with applied media, mylar overlay with applied media

Jerry N. Uelsmann (American, 1934-2022)
Untitled
1969
Gelatin silver print
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Twentieth-Century Photography Fund, 2011
© Jerry N. Uelsmann

Martha Rosler (American, b. 1943)
Red Stripe Kitchen
1967-1972, printed early 1990s
From the series “House Beautiful: Bringing the War Home”
Chromogenic print
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Purchase, Anonymous Gift, 2002
© Martha Rosler

The Metropolitan Museum of Art
1000 Fifth Avenue at 82nd Street
New York, New York 10028-0198
Phone: 212-535-7710

Opening hours:
Sunday – Tuesday 10am – 5pm
Closed Wednesdays

The Metropolitan Museum of Art website

National Gallery of Art
National Mall between 3rd and 7th Streets
Constitution Avenue NW, Washington

Opening hours:
Daily 10.00am – 5.00pm

National Gallery of Art website

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Exhibition: ‘The Mind’s Eye, 50 Years of Photography by Jerry Uelsmann’ at the Harn Museum of Art, Florida

Exhibition dates: 14th June – 11th September 2011

Jerry Uelsmann (American, 1934-2022)
Apocalypse II
1967
Gelatin silver print
10 3/4 x 13 5/8 in (27.2 x 34.5cm)
Collection of the artist
© Jerry Uelsmann

Uelsmann is one of my favourite artists. His unique vision and the skill required to execute that vision using multiple exposure of negatives in the darkroom (remember, this is all done with no Photoshop!) is outstanding. Observe the sensitivity to subject matter and the placement of disparate elements in the surrealist landscape. His photographs have real allegorical power and lodge in the viewer’s psyche. My particular favourites are the library and the house on the tree stump. Uelsmann achieves wonderful resolution to inner visions and then makes the dream-like tableaux accessible to the viewer. As one who started as a black and white photographer and who experimented with multiple exposures on one piece of silver gelatin paper in the darkroom, I can attest to how enormously difficult this process is.

The text on Wikipedia states:

“Uelsmann is a master printer producing composite photographs with multiple negatives and extensive darkroom work. He uses up to a dozen enlargers at a time to produce his final images … Uelsmann is a champion of the idea that the final image need not be tied to a single negative, but may be composed of many … he does not seek to create narratives, but rather allegorical surrealist imagery of the unfathomable … Today, with the advent of digital cameras and Photoshop, photographers are able to create a work somewhat resembling Uelsmann’s in less than a day, however, at the time Uelsmann was considered to have almost “magical skill” with his completely analog tools.”

I thank him for having the creative energy to be a magician.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

See another posting on this exhibition.

Many thankx to the Harn 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.

Jerry Uelsmann (American, 1934-2022)
Magritte’s Touchstone (first version)
Nd
Gelatin silver print
Collection of the artist
© Jerry Uelsmann

Jerry Uelsmann (American, 1934-2022)
Mechanical Man #2
1959
Gelatin silver print
Collection of the artist
© Jerry Uelsmann

The first critical retrospective of American photographer Jerry Uelsmann’s work will open at the Harn Museum of Art at the University of Florida on June 14, 2011. Uelsmann, known for his iconic, surreal style and his innovative composite printing techniques, has spent more than 50 years challenging and advocating for the acceptance of photography as an experimental art form. The Mind’s Eye, 50 Years of Photography by Jerry Uelsmann, organised by the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts will feature 89 works from every phase of the artist’s wide-ranging career, including a selection of rare pieces that have never before been on public view. Additional works from the artist’s collection will be on view only during this leg of the exhibition, open through September 11, 2011.

“The Harn Museum of Art is delighted to welcome this important exhibition of photographic works by the University of Florida’s own Jerry Uelsmann, a graduate research professor in the art department from 1960 to 1998,” said Rebecca Nagy, director of the Samuel P. Harn Museum of Art. “Jerry has been, and continues to be a leader in the field and we are delighted to celebrate and look back on such a long, important, and innovative career.”

The exhibition will emphasise Uelsmann’s profound influence on the field of photography through his revolutionary mastery of composite photography. Through the presentation of images from different stages of his works, viewers will gain a new understanding of the artist’s creative process and the evolution of Uelsmann’s ideas throughout his career. The pieces on view will be drawn from the artist’s personal archive of vintage materials, and are the definitive prints of the images. A few examples of the artist’s photo sculptures, artist’s books and albums will give viewers first-hand insight into Uelsmann’s creative process.

“From the beginning of his career, Uelsmann has advocated for the acceptance of photography as an experimental art form,” said Phillip Prodger, curator of photography at the Peabody Essex Museum. “Uelsmann’s photography provides a valuable touchstone for understanding new trends in photographic art. His ideas and work have become even more relevant as photography embraces Photoshop and other computer technologies for altering and manipulating photographic pictures.”

Beginning in the late 1950s, Uelsmann succeeded in combining negatives in the darkroom to create synthetic compositions that conjure the illusion of photographic truth. Although these pictures are visually convincing, they depict scenes that often have no analogue in the real world. Evocative, unsettling, and often humorous, Uelsmann’s photographs are seldom easily resolved, inviting reflection without obvious resolution. His most famous technique, seamlessly fabricating photographs from unrelated negatives to create imaginary scenes, helped build his reputation as an experimental photographer, and cemented his standing as a leader of non-literal photography.

“My visual quest is driven by a desire to create a universe capable of supporting feelings and ideas,” said Jerry Uelsmann. “I am drawn to art that challenges one’s sense of reality.”

Press release from the Harn Museum of Art website

Jerry Uelsmann (American, 1934-2022)
Untitled
1964
Gelatin silver print
13 3/4 x 10 1/4 in (34.9 x 26.1cm)
Collection of the artist
© Jerry Uelsmann

Jerry Uelsmann (American, 1934-2022)
Untitled
1976
Gelatin silver print
19 5/8 x 14 1/4 in (49.9 x 36.3cm)
Collection of the artist
© Jerry Uelsmann

Jerry Uelsmann (American, 1934-2022)
Untitled
1982
Gelatin silver print
13 1/4 x 10 3/8 in (33.8 x 26.4cm)
Collection of the artist
© Jerry Uelsmann

Jerry Uelsmann (American, 1934-2022)
Untitled
2003
Gelatin silver print
19 3/8 x 15 in (49.1 x 38cm)
Collection of the artist
© Jerry Uelsmann

Jerry Uelsmann (American, 1934-2022)
Dream Theater
2004
Gelatin silver print
Collection of the artist
© Jerry Uelsmann

Samuel P. Harn Museum of Art
SW 34th Street and Hull Road
Gainesville, Florida 32611-2700

Opening hours:
Tuesday – Saturday 10am – 5pm
Sunday 1 – 5pm
The museum is closed on Mondays and state holidays.

Samuel P. Harn Museum of Art website

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Exhibition: ‘LE MONDE v. DER MOND’ by Matthew Hale at The Narrows, Melbourne

Exhibition dates: 18th June – 11th July, 2009

Matthew Hale. Installation view of DER MOND v LE MONDE at The Narrows, Melbourne

Installation view of LE MONDE v. DER MOND by Matthew Hale at The Narrows, Melbourne with n.n. (2008) centre bottom, and Page 93 of MIRIAM DIVORCEE (2008) centre right

Below is the only text I could find on the work – some of which was displayed in London earlier this year.

Many thankx to Warren from The Narrows for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image. Photographs 1, 4 and 6 are © Tobias Titz 2009.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

DER MOND v LE MONDE is Mathew Hale’s first solo exhibition in London for five years. It consists of five works: one two-projector and one three-projector slide piece; a constructed painting (that could equally be described as a wall-mounted sculpture); and two large collage works …

Hale’s work has many possible points of departure: a found photograph, a scrap of paper, a page torn from an instructive and obscure book, a bit of out-moded pornography, some anachronistic advertising from the 1970s or 1980s and so forth. Once plucked from a huge collection of such material amassed in his domestic studio space, the work evolves like an unplanned journey – both moving away and turning back on itself … The path of discovery in Hale’s work is the subject of his work, providing it with narrative and process.

With its roots in the collage traditions of political photomontage, dadaist assemblage and free associative surrealism, Hale’s work prioritises process over methodology or style. It activates a complex web of references that takes in history, politics, literature, and philosophy, as much as it does sex, religion, art, architecture and popular culture. To engage with the work is to become carried along by clues that lead to other clues and then circuitously lead somewhere else unexpected yet somehow familiar. Sometimes the clues are visual, sometimes they are language based, often they are both. Even when the work is finished and exhibited it is in a state of flux, the meaning is not fixed. Hale likes slippage of meaning and this constant state of ambiguity and openness for (mis)interpretation or confusion. He explains the title of the show as follows: ‘[in German] … and strikingly weirdly, “der Mond” means “The Moon” and, as we all know, “Le Monde” means “The Earth”. How can a word flip so totally by crossing a border? I am making a work for the show which hinges on their being apparently identical (almost) and yet meaning precisely the opposite – I wonder how it happened.’

Text from the London exhibition of this work (note with title reversed!), on the Peer website [Online] Cited 23/06/2009. No longer available online

Matthew Hale (British, b. 1962)
Page 93 of MIRIAM DIVORCEE
2008
Paper collage
69 x 103cm

Matthew Hale (British, b. 1962) 'Page 150 of MIRIAM DIVORCEE' 2008 (detail)

Matthew Hale (British, b. 1962)
Page 150 of MIRIAM DIVORCEE (detail)
2008
Paper collage

Matthew Hale (British, b. 1962)
n.n.
2008
Rifle, paper collage
69 x 153cm

Matthew Hale (British, b. 1962)
Page 145 of MRS. GILLRAY
2009
Paper collage

Matthew Hale (British, b. 1962)
Page 48 of DIE NEUE MIRIAM
2008
Paper collage

Review in Art Monthly, June 2009 from the Peer website [Online] Cited 23/06/2009. No longer available online

The Narrows

This gallery has now closed

The Narrows website

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Two exhibitions by photographer John Wood: ‘On the Edge of Clear Meaning’ at Grey Art Gallery, New York and ‘Quiet Protest’ at the International Center of Photography, New York

Exhibition dates: Grey Art Gallery, 12th May – 18th July, 2009; International Center of Photography, 15th May – 6th September, 2009

Fantastic to see such a talented artist, a truly ground breaking artist, get the recognition he so richly deserves!

Grey Art Gallery

John Wood (American, 1922-2012)
Untitled
1986-1989
Stained gelatin silver print from paper stencil

John Wood (American, 1922-2012) 'Beach Drawing' 1983 from the exhibition 'On the Edge of Clear Meaning' at Grey Art Gallery, New York, May - July, 2009

John Wood (American, 1922-2012)
Beach Drawing
1983
Gelatin silver print
14 15/16 x 19 1/8″ (37.8 x 48.5cm)

John Wood: On the Edge of Clear Meaning, on view at the Grey Art Gallery from May 12 through July 18, 2009, is the most comprehensive exhibition of the artist’s work to date. Featuring the full range of his career from the 1960s to the present, the show includes over 150 photographs, mixed-media works, and artists’ books. A selection of Wood’s photomontages, Quiet Protest, will be on view concurrently at the International Center of Photography.

John Wood (born 1922) has consistently challenged traditional photography, often incorporating painting, drawing, and collage as well as cliché verre, solarisation, and offset lithography. The artist emphasises the role of drawing in his work: “Mark making, calligraphy, the kinetic motion of the movement of the hand, are very important to me; probably more important than anything else.” Transgressing the boundaries of “pure photography,” his eclectic practice has helped usher in alternative approaches to the medium. With their adroit manipulations of picture and text, his diaristic, multi-media compositions anticipate today’s digital imagery. On the Edge of Clear Meaning is Wood’s first museum retrospective, spanning his career from the early 1960s to the present.

His early childhood was marked by the Depression, and his family moved frequently. After serving in the Army Air Corps as a B-17 pilot during World War II, he enrolled at the Institute of Design in Chicago. Wood trained as a visual designer and photographer, studying with Harry Callahan and Art Sinsabaugh to hone both conceptual and formal issues in his work. He left Chicago to teach photography and printmaking at the School of Art and Design at Alfred University in Alfred, New York, where he would live for thirty-five years. He now resides in Baltimore, Maryland with his wife, Laurie Snyder, who teaches photography at the Maryland Institute College of Art. They migrate each summer to their home and studio in Ithaca, New York.

In keeping with the Grey Art Gallery’s tradition of presenting the work of under-represented artists, this exhibition introduces John Wood as a master of various multi-media processes and testifies to his insatiable curiosity about new materials and repeated use of favourite sources. Through disciplined but lively investigation of different media, the artist eroded traditional definitions of photography and produced work that is both powerful and subtle. As Lynn Gumpert, Director of the Grey, notes, “John Wood has been a life-long teacher, inspiring and training numerous students, artists, and arts professionals. We are honoured to bring the breadth of his work to New York City, home to many art schools, colleges, and universities.”

Text from the Grey Art Gallery website and press release [Online] Cited 10/05/2009. No longer available online

John Wood (American, 1922-2012)
Eagle Pelt
1985
Gelatin silver print
20 1/8 x 15 3/8″

John Wood (American, 1922-2012)
Pear Tree, Cooling Tower, and Apples
1991
Collage, gelatin silver print, Polaroid SX70, and paper
19 1/4 x 15 3/8″

John Wood (American, 1922-2012)
Blackbird, Some Have Hunger
1986
Collage, cyanotype, and graphite
20 x 24″

International Center of Photography

Quiet Protest is a series of photographic works by the noted mixed media artist and educator John Wood, spanning a period from the 1960s through the 1990s. Part of a larger retrospective at New York University’s Grey Art Gallery, the “Quiet Protest” series explores political and social issues of the day through thoughtful photo montage pieces that exist in marked contrast to more traditional aggressive documentary photography. Rather than offering explanations or promoting solutions, Wood’s manipulated photographs present contemplative routes into issues ranging from the Vietnam War to domestic gun violence to ecological concerns. As Wood wrote in 1970, ” …maybe the time has come for creative photography to encompass the large problems without propaganda or journalism…”

Text from the International Center of Photography website [Online] Cited 10/05/2009. No longer available online

John Wood (American, 1922-2012)
Rifle, Bullets and Daises
1967

John Wood (American, 1922-2012)
Triangle in the Landscape: Eleven Second 90 Degree Turn of a Paper Triangle
August 6, 1985 (Hiroshima Day)

John Wood (1922-2012)

John Cheney Wood (July 10, 1922 – July 20, 2012) was an American artist and educator who challenged traditional photography and often incorporated other mediums into his work. He was born in California in 1922. In 1943 he volunteered for the Army Air Corps, where he served as a B-17 pilot until 1945. At the time of his death he lived in Baltimore, Maryland, with artist Laurie Snyder.

Wood had the ability to work across a variety of artistic forms, from straight photography, collage, cliché verre, solarization, mixed media, offset lithography to drawing. Wood moved freely between conceptual and visual exploration, not adhering to a single style. Although he often raised questions about political, social and environmental issues, he avoided promoting personal solutions or adding narratives to the images. The artist instead preferred to focus on the viewer’s interpretation and the possibility for multiple meanings.

Text from the Wikipedia website

John Wood (American, 1922-2012)
Loon, Drawer and Bomb
1987
Collage, cyanotype, and toned silver gelatin print

John Wood: On the Edge of Clear Meaning book cover

Book

In his introductory essay to this monograph – featuring the diverse photo practice that has characterised John Wood’s nearly 50-year career – David Levi Strauss states, “In photo-historical terms, Wood is thought of as one of those renegades who went against ‘pure photography’ by incorporating drawing, painting, collage and every other technique he could get his hands on (not to mention explicit political content), into his practice, thus ushering in the multi-media of the 1960s that caused crisis in ‘straight photography.’ Long before it became the signal medium of the avant-garde, collage was a folk art, practiced by children, lovers and grandmothers.” This comprehensive volume accompanies a retrospective that begins in Rochester, New York at The George Eastman House, The Memorial Art Gallery and the Visual Studies Workshop, then travels to The International Center for Photography and The Grey Art Gallery in New York before concluding at Syracus’ Light Work gallery.

John Wood: On the Edge of Clear Meaning by David Strauss et al (Hardcover) 2008

Available from the Amazon website

Grey Art Gallery
New York University
100 Washington Square East

Opening hours:
Monday – Friday: 12.00 – 5.00pm
Closed weekends

Grey Art Gallery website

International Center of Photography
79 Essex Street New York, NY 10002
between Delancey Street and Broome Street

Opening hours:
Wednesday – Monday: 11.00am – 7.00pm
Closed Tuesdays

International Center of Photography website

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Exhibition: ‘Czech Photography of the 20th Century’ at the Exhibition Hall of the Federal Republic of Germany, Bonn

Exhibition dates: 13th March – 26th July, 2009

Jindřich Štreit (Czech, b. 1946) 'Arnoltice' 1985 from the exhibition 'Czech Photography of the 20th Century' at the Exhibition Hall of the Federal Republic of Germany, Bonn, March - July, 2009

Jindřich Štreit (Czech, b. 1946)
Arnoltice
1985
From the Village Life series
Gelatin silver print

Jindřich Štreit (born 5 September 1946 in Vsetín) is a Czech photographer and pedagogue known for his documentary photography. He concentrates on documenting the rural life and people of Czech villages. He is considered one of the most important exponents of Czech documentary photography.

Looks like an interesting exhibition. I wish I had been able to see it. Wouldn’t it be such a grand job flying around the world, reviewing photography exhibitions and bringing you my thoughts. I can only wish…

Dr Marcus Bunyan

Many thankx to the Exhibition Hall of the Federal Republic of Germany for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

František Drtikol (Czech, 1883-1961) 'Wave' 1925 from the exhibition 'Czech Photography of the 20th Century' at the Exhibition Hall of the Federal Republic of Germany, Bonn, March - July, 2009

František Drtikol (Czech, 1883-1961)
Wave
1925
Gelatin silver print

Czech photography produced and produces leading figures in all areas of photography – from classical documentary photojournalism to surrealism, realism or avant-garde works. From 13 March 2009 on, the Art and Exhibition Hall of the Federal Republic of Germany is presenting over 400 photographic works, a historical mosaic of Czech photography from 1900 until the late 20th century that underlines the international reputation enjoyed by Czech photography today. That reputation is not only apparent in the outstanding contributions by such renowned artists as Josef Sudek, Karel Hájek, Václav Jírů, Vilém Reichmann, Jan Reich, Jindřich Štreit, Frantisek Drtikol, Jaromír Funke, Jaroslav Rossler, Josef Koudelka and Jan Saudek, but also in works from a host of younger photographers. The exhibition does not only showcase famous names but also less well-known photographers, providing an overall impression of the variation and innovation in Czech photography.

From Surrealism and other avant-garde experimentation to realism and classic photo reportage, Czech photographers have long played a key role in all areas of photography and continue to do so to this day.

This exhibition is the first in Germany to present the history and development of Czech photography from 1900 to the turn of the millennium. Beginning with Art Nouveau-inspired Pictorialism, the comprehensive survey traces the rise of avant-garde photography and the development of photo montage in the 1920s to the 1940s. It examines the influence of ideological pressure on photography during the Second World War, the Stalinist 1950s and the period of Communist ‘normalisation’ after the occupation in 1968 and introduces the visitor to the multifaceted range of contemporary trends.

Text from the Exhibition Hall of the Federal Republic of Germany website [Online] Cited 10/04/2009. No longer available online

František Drtikol (Czech, 1883-1961)
Nude
1927
Gelatin silver print

František Drtikol (3 March 1883, Příbram – 13 January 1961, Prague) was a Czech photographer of international renown. He is especially known for his characteristically epic photographs, often nudes and portraits.

From 1907 to 1910 he had his own studio, until 1935 he operated an important portrait photostudio in Prague on the fourth floor of one of Prague’s remarkable buildings, a Baroque corner house at 9 Vodičkova, now demolished. Jaroslav Rössler, an important avant-garde photographer, was one of his pupils. Drtikol made many portraits of very important people and nudes which show development from pictorialism and symbolism to modern composite pictures of the nude body with geometric decorations and thrown shadows, where it is possible to find a number of parallels with the avant-garde works of the period. These are reminiscent of Cubism, and at the same time his nudes suggest the kind of movement that was characteristic of the futurism aesthetic.

Text from the Wikipedia website

Eugen Wiskovsky (Czech, 1888-1964)
Lunar Landscape or Collars
1929
Gelatin silver print

The oeuvre of the leading Czech avant-garde photographer Eugen Wiskovsky (1888-1964) is not large in size or subject range, but it is noteworthy in its originality, depth of ideas, and mastery. Wiskovsky’s early New Objectivist works, from the late 1920s and early 1930s, sought artistic effect in apparently non-aesthetic objects: His inventive lighting and cropping allowed their elementary lines to stand out, to lose their worldly associations and take on potential metaphorical meanings. In his dynamic diagonal compositions, Wiskovsky was among the most radical practitioners of Czech Constructivism. His landscape work is similarly distinctive.

Jaroslav Rössler (Czech, 1902-1990)
Untitled
1931
Gelatin silver print

Jaroslav Rössler (25 May 1902, Smilov – 5 January 1990, Prague) was a pioneer of Czech avant-garde photography and a member of the association of Czech avant-garde artists Devětsil (Butterbur).

Rössler was born to the Czech-German father, Eduard Rössler, and a Czech mother, Adela Nollova. From 1917 to 1920, Rössler studied in the atelier of the company owned by renowned Czech photographer František Drtikol. Subsequently, he worked with the company as a laboratory technician. As a 21 years old, he began collaboration with the art theorist Karel Teige, who assigned him to create typographic layout for magazines Pásmo, Disk, Stavba and ReD (Revue Devětsilu). While working on these tasks, Rössler deepened his knowledge of photographic methods. In his works he utilised and combined the techniques of photogram, photomontage, collage and drawing. The beginnings of his photographic work were influenced by Cubism and Futurism, but he also attempted to create the first abstract photographs. In 1923, he became a member of the avant-garde association Devětsil.

In 1925, he went on a six-month study visit to Paris. The same year he began working as a photographer in the Osvobozené divadlo in Prague. Before his second departure to Paris, he co-worked as a commercial photographer with the pictorial magazine Pestrý týden.

In 1927, Rössler moved to Paris together with his wife, Gertruda Fischerová (1894-1976). Initially, he focused on commercial photography. He collaborated with the experimental studio of Lucien Lorell, and worked on commissions for notable companies such as Michelin and Shell. However, later he found an interest in the “street life” of Paris, which influenced his future stay in the city. During a demonstration, he encountered the protesters and took photographs of the event. Shortly after that he was arrested, and after a six-month imprisonment he was expelled from the country, in 1935. The alleged reason for his expulsion was his German-sounding surname.

After his return from Paris, Rössler and his wife resided in Prague, Žižkov. He opened a small photographic atelier, but difficulties associated with the management of the studio caused a significant gap in his artistic work, lasting for almost two decades.

In the 1950s, he resumed his previous activities and again began experimenting with the camera and photographic techniques. He created so-called “prizmata” (prisms), photographs taken through a birefringent prism. Additionally, he experimented with solarisation and explored the possibilities of the Sabatier effect.

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Jindřich Štyrský (Czech, 1899-1942)
From the Man with Blinkers series
1934
Museum of Decorative Arts, Prague

Eugen Wiskovsky (Czech, 1888-1964)
Disaster
1939
Gelatin silver print

Josef Sudek (Czech, 1896-1976) 'The Last Rose' 1956

Josef Sudek (Czech, 1896-1976)
The Last Rose from the Rose series
1956
Gelatin silver print

Josef Sudek (17 March 1896, Kolín, Bohemia – 15 September 1976, Prague) was a Czech photographer, best known for his photographs of Prague.

Sudek was originally a bookbinder. During the First World War he was drafted into the Austro-Hungarian Army in 1915 and served on the Italian Front until he was wounded in the right arm in 1916 which led to the limb being amputated at the shoulder. After the war he studied photography for two years in Prague under Jaromir Funke. His army disability pension gave him leeway to make art, and he worked during the 1920s in the romantic Pictorialist style. Always pushing at the boundaries, a local camera club expelled him for arguing about the need to move forwards from ‘painterly’ photography. Sudek then founded the progressive Czech Photographic Society in 1924. Despite only having one arm, he used large, bulky cameras with the aid of assistants.

Sudek’s photography is sometimes said to be modernist. But this is only true of a couple of years in the 1930s, during which he undertook commercial photography and thus worked “in the style of the times”. Primarily, his personal photography is neo-romantic.

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Josef Sudek was a Czech photographer best known for his elegiac black-and-white images of Prague, interiors, still lifes, and the landscapes of Bohemian forests. Many of Sudek’s most memorable images were taken from the window of his small studio, documenting his humble courtyard during changing weather and light conditions. “Everything around us, dead or alive, in the eyes of a crazy photographer mysteriously takes on many variations,” he explained, “so that a seemingly dead object comes to life through light or by its surroundings.”

Text from the artnet website [Online] Cited 10/01/2019