TIBURON LIBRARY

3 1111 01842 0099

HSSO:

mm

Icons of

Prp<fpl
 Icons of
PHOTOGRAP
THE 20TH-CENTURY

Edited by Peter Stepan

With contributions by Erika Billeter, A. D. Coleman,

Ludger Derenthal, Klaus Honnef, Reinbold Misselbeck,
Herbert Molderings, Ulrich Pohlmann, Anne W. Tucker,
and Peter Stepan

200 pages with go duotorie and 148 black-and-white

illustrations

More than ninety of the century’s best photographers

are presented in this richly illustrated volume with some
160 icons of the genre. Following the outstanding
success of the two Prestel publications Icons of Art and
Icons of Architecture, this selection focuses not only on
universally famous and artistically stunning images by
renowned photographers, but also on the discovery of
lesser known pictures of exquisite quality.

■ A chronologically arranged overview of famous

icons of photography from 1900 to the present
■ The best in photography by pioneers such as Henri
Cartier-Bresson, Alfred Stieglitz, Man Ray, and Robert
Mapplethorpe
■ Groundbreaking photographers such as Helen Levitt,
Tina Modotti, Martin Munkacsi, and Garry Winogrand
■ Breathtaking and accomplished shots by Ansel Adams,
Alfred Eisenstaedt, Mario Giacomelli, and Edward Weston
■ Powerful images by Robert Capa, Dorothea Lange,
Sebastiao Salgado, and David Seymour
r Concise texts by internationally acclaimed authors,
with informative biographical sketches and portraits of
the photographers

The range of subject material, from the portrait to po¬

litical or social reportage, from genre images to abstract
or subjective photography, is matched only by the stylis¬
tic variety of the selected works. These reflect the multi¬
plicity of this century’s artistic movements and lend
them new expression through their clarity and focus.
More than any other artistic medium, photography has
changed the way we view our world at the close of the
twentieth century, a fact that is clearly reflected in this
invaluable volume.

The Editor
Peter Stepan is an art historian and a freelance
editor specializing in photography, ethnography, and
twentieth-century art.
 BEL-TIB NEW BOOKS
778.9 Icons 1999
Icons of photography : th
20th century
31111018420099

3/

DATE DUE
APR Jt Q mt
WAY % O :0uy
fjell yah 10
SEP Zw 2000
“OCT 2 77002
-tlFP o
2 8 '2002
MAR 1 9 2003

MAY
If 1H i & U ?L nn^
trod

Brodart Co. Cat. #55 137 001 Printed in USA

 Digitized by the Internet Archive
in 2019 with funding from
Kahle/Austin Foundation

https://archive.org/details/iconsofphotograp0000unse_q8z4
 Icons of
PHOTOGRAPHY
THE 20TH CENTURY
W&w*-

| {li'VXyC'wV
Icons of
PHOTOGRAPHY
THE 20TH CENTURY

Edited by Peter Stepan

With contributions by:

Erika Billeter, A. D. Coleman, Ludger Derenthal,
Klaus Honnef, Reinhold Misselbeck, Herbert Molderings,
Ulrich Pohlmann, Anne W. Tucker, and Peter Stepan

Prestel Munich • London • New York

 . the fleeting moments... "

Front cover: Ralph Gibson, Infanta (p. 183), August Sander With contributions by
(p. 21), Nan Goldin (p. 195), Robert Hausser (p. 163), Martin
Munkacsi (p. 47), Cecil Beaton (p. 147) E. B. Erika Billeter
Back cover: David Hockney (p. 177) a.d.c. A. D. Coleman
Frontispiece: Wanda Wulz (1903-1984), Ich und Katze, 1932. l.d. Ludger Derenthal
The Bokelberg Collection, courtesy of Hans P. Kraus, Jr., Inc., k.h. Klaus Honnef
New York; copyright by Archivi Alinari/Archivi Wulz
r . M. Reinhold Misselbeck
h . M. Herbert Molderings
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data u.p. Ulrich Pohlmann
is available. p.s. Peter Stepan
a.w.t. Anne W. Tucker
Die Deutsche Bibliothek - ciP-Einheitsaufnahme
Icons of photography: the 20th century/ed. by Peter Stepan. Biographies compiled by Ulrilce Lehmann
With contributions by Erika Billeter ... Munich • London •
New York: Prestel, 1999 isbn 3-7913-2001-7 Texts by Erika Billeter, Ludger Derenthal, Klaus
Honnef, Ulrike Lehmann, Reinhold Misselbeck, Ulrich
© Prestel Verlag, Munich ■ London ■ New York, 1999
Pohlmann, and Peter Stepan translated from the
German by Jenny Marsh, Dorset
Prestel Verlag
Texts by Herbert Molderings translated from the
Mandlstrasse 26, D-80802 Munich, Germany
German by John Brogden, Dortmund
Tel. +49 (89) 3817 09-0, Fax +49 (89) 3817 09-35
4 Bloomsbury Place, London WCiA 2QA
Tel. +44(171) 323-5004, Fax +44(171) 636-8004
and 16 West 22nd Street, New York, NY 10010, USA
Tel. +1 (212) 627-81 99, Fax +1 (212) 627-98 66

Prestel books are available worldwide.

Please contact your nearest bookseller or write to any
of the above addresses for information concerning
your local distributor.

Compiled and coordinated by Peter Stepan and Irene Unterriker

English edited by Judith Gilbert

Design and production: Matthias Hauer, Munich

Production editing: Danko Szabo, Munich
Typeset in Monotype Apollo and Berthold Akzidenz Grotesk
Lithography: Fotolito Longo, Bolzano
Printing: Passavia Druckservice, Passau
Binding: Buchbinderei Conzella, Munich

Printed in Germany on acid-free paper

isbn 3-7913-2001-7 (English edition)
ISBN 3-7193-2076-9 (German edition)
Contents

Foreword 6

Photography of a Century: Three Views 7

Berenice Abbott 104 Ansel Adams 96 Robert Adams 168 Diane Arbus 158

Eugene Atget 12 Ellen Auerbach 36 Richard Avedon 148 Herbert Bayer 54

Cecil Beaton 146 Bernd and Hilla Becher 156 Ilse Bing 38 Werner Bischof 118

Karl Blossfeldt 24 Edouard Boubat 132 Margaret Bourke-White 102 Bill Brandt 88

Brassai 52 Manuel Alvarez Bravo 48 Rene Burri 138 Robert Capa 68

Henri Cartier-Bresson 58 Martin Chambi 60 Chargesheimer 124 Imogen Cunningham 1

John Deakin 112 Robert Doisneau 106 William Eggleston 170 Alfred Eisenstaedt 62

Ed van der Elsken 140 Touhami Ennadre 184 Hugo Erfurth 40 Walker Evans 72

Andreas Feininger 86 Gisele Freund 90 Lee Friedlander 144 Mario Giacomelli 134

Ralph Gibson 182 Nan Goldin 194 Ernst Haas 100 Robert Hausser 162

Heinz Hajek-Halke 56 Lewis W. Hine 18 David Hockney 176 Horst P. Horst 80

Lotte Jacobi 42 Yousuf Karsh 126 Andre Kertesz 30 William Klein 120

Alberto Korda 142 Josef Koudelka 166 Dorothea Lange 70 Jacques-Henri Lartigue 22

Helen Levitt 84 Sally Mann 188 Robert Mapplethorpe 180 Will McBride 160

Joel Meyerowitz 172 Lisette Model 82 Tina Modotti 44 Laszlo Moholy-Nagy 28

Stefan Moses 150 Martin Munkacsi 46 Arnold Newman 92 Helmut Newton 178

Paul Outerbridge, Jr. 78 Gordon Parks 132 Irving Penn 128 Walter Peterhans 34

Eliot Porter 114 Man Ray 26 Albert Renger-Patzsch 76 Alexander Rodchenko 64

Thomas Ruff 190 Sebastiao Salgado 186 Erich Salomon 50 August Sander 20

David Seymour 66 Cindy Sherman 174 Malick Sidibe 154 W. Eugene Smith 122

Edward Steichen 16 Otto Steinert 108 Alfred Stieglitz 14 Paul Strand 116

Josef Sudek 164 Yevgeny A. Tschaldey 98 Umbo 32 Jeff Wall 192 Weegee 94

Edward Weston 74 Garry Winogrand 136 Wols no Heinrich Zille 10

List of Illustrations 196 Photo Credits 200

Foreword

Photography, which celebrates its 160th anniversary in also those by the other two or three hundred who are just as
1999, has exerted a great fascination from the very begin¬ important? Rest assured that this restriction of scope is found¬
ning: it records motion, aids our memory (so quick to forget ed in purely technical reasons; the desire to cover "all" the
the impressions left by people and objects), and realistically major names and pictures at some point in the future remains.
shows us places where we ourselves have never been. Classical photography has received splendid recognition
A magical thing, the camera! It has been credited with the recently and is meeting with growing interest from the
power to steal a person's shadow, and the mysterious inter¬ general public. The reasons for this are manifold. One is that
action of silver and salt made it seem akin to alchemy. we see the genre, as such, as belonging increasingly to a
As early as the nineteenth century, there was a scientific past age. The apparently simple world of our grandparents
explanation for all this, and yet photography has lost noth¬ and great-grandparents is brought back to life before our
ing of its original magic if we look at the pictures which may eyes through photographs; this is photography as a nostal¬
be considered its masterpieces ... and the last hundred years gic experience. But there is also another factor. Since the
have produced a surprisingly large number of these. For this twenties, the novel pictures taken by photojournalists have
book, one major work each from the oeuvre of more than given readers of the major daily papers the feeling of being
ninety of the most important photographers was chosen. "right there," at the pulse of world affairs. Such topicality
Altogether they form a "musee imaginaire," a Louvre, so to is today provided less by photographs than by specialized
speak, of photography. Yet no museum or gallery in the news broadcasts—the technology of moving pictures. Pho¬
world owns all of these “icons." tography is thus falling behind television. Since the inven¬
The selection process was first applied to the overall tion of color television, at the latest, "old" photography has
oeuvre of a photographer. Then, against the background of begun to acquire the patina of history. Although itself born
an impressive corpus of work, a single outstanding photo from the craving for pictures, by comparison with today's
was selected. In the history of photography there have natu¬ flood of images it has become rather a quiet, poetic medium.
rally also been many anonymous masterpieces or less exten¬ Black-and-white, and static, it forms a restful contrast to
sive bodies of work, but these were not taken into consider¬ the wildly rotating vortex of video clips and television
ation for this volume. The result of this process is not an images. Its slow chemistry has been overtaken by digital¬
assemblage of “photos of the century"—sensational pictures ized image production.
from the spheres of politics, contemporary history and space In the face of the newly emerging visual habits of the
travel, culture and show business. However paradoxical it twenty-first century, the photographic masterpieces of the
might sound, in these latter cases it is the subject of the pho¬ nineteenth and twentieth centuries are beginning to take on
tograph, not the photograph itself, that is the primary inter¬ the qualities of painting, closer to Corot, Monet, and Matisse.
est. Nor is photography by "artists" in the narrower sense Like them, they are full of content, the expression of a con¬
the main focus of our interest here, even if—especially templation of reality. Their static nature demands concentra¬
toward the end of the book—several examples of free, tion, unlike the distracting flow of moving pictures, where
creative work are included in order to display the additional the status of the individual image has been reduced almost to
facets that photography has gained as an artistic medium the meaningless. What a wealth of "colors" an older photo¬
over the last few years. It has become unfashionable to graph printed on paper offers in the broadly orchestrated
attempt to make any distinction between classical and scale between black and white! Although deliberately
“artistic" photography, and, indeed, it is barely justifiable in restricted, the values and tonal nuances exhibited here stop
view of the change in way the photo-artists see themselves, the eye from missing bright colors.
as well as the multiple links between genres. Although Many people have contributed to the production of Icons of
frequently regretted by art theorists, such a distinction is, Photography. Our thanks to the photographers and copyright
however, feasible for long stretches of the twentieth cen¬ holders, who readily gave permission to reproduce their
tury, since, in one case, it is a matter of photography as pho¬ works, and especially to all the authors with whom I had the
tography, and in the other, of its artistic instrumentalization. pleasure of conducting a lively and intellectually stimulating
The selection of masterworks presented here demonstrates exchange during the preparation of the volume and who
the beauty of pure photography, which is why photography supported me by word and deed. Thanks, too, to the collec¬
of the “old school" takes center stage. tions—both private and public—for the loan of print ma¬
Given the countless millions of photos and negatives that terial. And, lastly, thanks to my colleagues at Prestel, who
are preserved in public and private collections or in photog¬ joined forces to bring this project successfully to fruition.
raphers' archives, is it not presumptuous to wish to raise
ninety individual examples to "icon" status? Why only
include works by these particular photographers and not

6
Photography of a Century: Three Views

Time and Life

The intensity of the moment: no other visual medium can rolls of film are taken before the desired—better said, the
give us this with such immediacy as photography. Instant unexpected—result is achieved. The wastage rate is enor¬
photos are spontaneous, vital, and direct. Life seems to be mous, as attested by stacks of contact prints. Happy is the
concentrated, condensed, in a special way, especially in photographer who, looking back over his or her life's work,
photographic masterpieces. It is as though the gap of a few has succeeded in producing a handful of truly first-class
hundredths of a second which records the flow of things works. Only a few geniuses are granted a richer harvest.
suddenly gives insight into a structure of life which is But is the situation any different in the case of painters?
otherwise never so clearly perceived, indeed is hidden from Both those photographers who have worked according
visual access. That technical miracle, the camera, with its to a system as well as photographers in specialist fields
polished and precisely focused lenses, allows us a glimpse have managed to produce fascinating pictures, as have those
"behind the mirror," behind the facade. Precisely by who steadfastly hunted the inspiration of the moment. Bloss-
"freezing" all movement, it often seems to succeed in feldt concentrated on the outward appearance of plants,
revealing the secret formula of all activity. Sander, Erfurth, Avedon, and Goldin on human countenance,
One of the greatest misapprehensions since the invention in order to capture their subject in a consistent, gradual
of photography in the first half of the nineteenth century is progression. For Atget, Abbott, and the Bechers, architec¬
that it merely reproduces reality. Both its technical equip¬ ture has been the basso continuo of their visual interest. They
ment and its visual interests, differing as times change, have held fast to their themes and explored the secrets those
reflect the attitude and mentality of the photographer and themes had to offer. Renger-Patzsch mastered several fields
his audience rather than reality. "We do not see what is simultaneously. Things have always been different for the
'real,' we see what we are," as the French photographer photojournalists and the free spirits among photographers:
Willy Ronis poignantly remarked. Like all art, photography they press the trigger whenever something seems inter¬
creates its own reality. And the best photos are not those esting and noteworthy—an urban impression, a human
which succinctly record what has been seen, but those situation, here a still life, there a portrait, and so on. Their
which understand how to structure this according to rules oeuvres, so to speak the records of their wanderings, em¬
and laws specific to the genre. anate a sense of great freedom: Munkacsi, Brassai, Doisneau,
The great thing about it is that the photographic result Weston, Bischof, Koudelka—to name just a few. Their life's
cannot generally be calculated down to the last detail. In work is a stream of intensive vision, a journey of discovery
photography, coincidence often plays a role. Whereas the to the realms that lie behind our customary ways of seeing
Surrealists first had to develop strategies in order to create things.
access via the artistic process to the uncalculated, the not Professional training does not seem to be one of the pre¬
rationally controlled, the subconscious, and ultimately to the requisites for great achievements, as a glance at the biog¬
accidental or coincidental, photography by its very nature raphies of twentieth-century photographers will reveal.
offers a platform for the latter. It is the accidental medium Many of them, probably the majority, were amateurs who
par excellence. And only that photographic combination taught themselves the necessary skills or—gifted with a
which is open to this chance factor presents the opportunity quick grasp of the subject—learned by watching someone
for a unique work. Only when all the parameters of an else. Photography is the Eldorado of the self-taught. This
image—balance and movement, controlled and diffuse light, may also be one of the reasons why the course of its history
restraint and emotion—miraculously come together in a is so dynamic (or perhaps, conversely, may explain why
resonant relationship can a masterpiece be produced. And other arts have remained so static and monotonous through
masters themselves often appear to have no influence over too much training). From this aspect again, photography
this, even when they strive to furnish the right conditions. reveals itself to be a "spontaneous art." Easily learned, it
Edouard Boubat (see p. 132) did not hesitate to speak of has also always been open to those who shunned a long
a "blessing" in this context. and—from an artistic point of view—debatable training or
"Only when the models are exhausted," runs one of the could not afford it. Orthodox doctrines have never been
maxims of fashion photography, "do the best pictures get adhered to for long, since, aside from the guild-like system
taken." The controlling mind must first be out of action, of on-the-job training (from apprentice to journeyman to
the all too carefully thought-out pose relaxed, before at¬ master of photography), there have always been people
mosphere can envolve. A good picture must be allowed to who just started experimenting with a camera on their own
happen. The accidental, therefore, is simultaneously photog¬ and who —particularly favored by the Muses—have had
raphy's blessing and its curse. Dozens, often hundreds, of the best ideas.

7
 In times when a professional system created by men for case that his pictorial trophies were subsequently presented
men was dominant, photography recommended itself to in magazines or newspapers as works of art. Even "icons" of
women as a free space that was not yet fossilized through photojournalism that established the fame of many photog¬
structures centuries old or barred to women as a male raphers were originally shoved onto a page in a patchwork
domain. Photography has made the names of many women with a dozen other photos by the picture editor.
famous—more than any other branch of art. This relatively The commission structure, which largely governs most
high percentage of female creativity has also contributed twentieth-century photography, and the consequent way
to the vivacity of twentieth-century photography, as well in which photographers regard their status as a trade have
as to that of the previous century. contributed to the fact that, within the orchestra of the arts,
photography has had to be content with an instrument
among the back rows. Exceptions confirm the rule: photog¬
Renaissance of Photography
raphers from affluent families who were able to photograph
For decades, photography was primarily considered a trade, exactly as they liked (Lartigue, for example), and others who
and its representatives saw themselves as artisans, not art¬ understood themselves a priori as artists and utilized a cam¬
ists. Photography was a commercial art which had to serve era in this capacity (Man Ray). To the first, we owe Arcadian
different purposes, sometimes clearly demarcated from one visions of the lightness of being, to the latter, pioneering
another. For example, portraiture: it has always been the experimental achievements and technical innovations.
photographer's task to make portraits of people. From the Yet its time spent in the shadow of the fine arts was not
time of Daguerre, portraits comprised the greater part of necessarily detrimental to photography. There was no partic¬
overall photographic output. Generations of photographers ular market for it outside the commission structure. Galleries
have earned their living from them. In the twentieth cen¬ were not yet interested in it, and prices were moderate, or
tury, too, portraitists such as August Sander, Hugo Erfurth, a private matter. Producing for the market, taking photo¬
Gisele Freund, Arnold Newman, Cecil Beaton, and Yousuf graphs for museums, galleries, and collectors—none of this
Karsh have carried on this tradition. Like composers of music happened to a large extent. Until recently, photography was
inspired by and based on works of literature, portrait spared the sort of art production which produces strange
photographers have performed a definite task in which they artistic trends and is frequently explicable only as something
have had to fulfill certain expectations and observe certain arising from the conditions of the "art" market itself. If
rules. And as this is the field in which photography has been today, for instance, the format of photographs is no longer
most lastingly the heir of painting, the traditions of painting measured in centimeters but in meters, this quantum leap in
have been able to continue without a break, to an extent size does not necessarily mean any increase in quality. For a
not found elsewhere. Compare the portraits produced by Er¬ long time, there was no interest in photography as a medi¬
furth, for instance, with those of Hans Holbein the Younger. um, so it was able to develop along its own lines and produce
Who does not recall the classical portrait situations: bap¬ innovative work. Art's loss of innocence, the discovery of
tisms, confirmations, class photos, team pictures, graduations, itself as "art," only occurred in the case of photography—
weddings, and so forth, not to mention passport photos. with some exceptions and regional differences—at a fairly
These are the rites of passage in all our lives at which the pho¬ late date.
tographer is always present. Those masterly portraits—in The laurels of the artist have only been extended to the
statistical terms, an infinitesimal fraction—which one credits photographer in our time. Whereas previously, at auctions,
with having something to say about the human condition in photography ranked as subordinate to print graphics, today
general stand out like solitaire diamonds from the great mass it enjoys an independent status, with the achievement of
of portraits which, free of any artistic pretensions, serve prices to match. Exhibitions devoted to the great names of
solely to register a person's likeness on a given (ceremonial) photography can, in the meantime, expect the same sort of
occasion. attendance figures as those for major painters. In the United
Other branches of photography have serviced commis¬ States, developments in this respect were ahead of those in
sions from industry—machines, products, factory build¬ Europe by some decades. When, in 1977, "documenta 6"
ings—as well as from the fashion business and advertising. allocated photography a section all to itself, this led to a split
Even photojournalism, which started its triumphal progress in the organizing body. The renaissance of photography is
in the twenties, was an "applied" trade. When commissioned not merely the result of newly won self-assurance. Artists,
by a magazine, the photographer left his studio with its neo¬ too, have made a considerable contribution to this emanci¬
baroque backdrops and turned into a reporter who had to pation from the outside by making increasing use of photog¬
get his lens close to the political focal points and—most raphy ever since the sixties. From the time of Pop and Con¬
importantly of all—do it quickly. It was by no means the ceptual Art, art has continually had recourse to photography,
drawn inspiration from it, and thus has contributed essen¬ Seymour created two of the most moving photos in the
tially to photography's establishment. The leap into the history of photography (pp. 67—68), both produced during
museum—in America earlier, in Europe later—took place the Spanish Civil War. Capa himself lost his life during
at a time when classical photography had been sidelined by a photo campaign in Indochina, Seymour in Egypt.
more recent developments in media technology and had The spontaneous use of the camera even in eventful,
thus acquired the aura of a museum exhibit. turbulent scenes was a great step forward which opened
up new subjects and thereby extended the range of themes.
With the development of the mechanics of lighting, even
Image and Technology
bullets shooting through an apple could be recorded photo¬
To a much greater extent than painting (which is based on graphically (there is a famous picture of this by Harold
a comparatively simple "technology" of oil and pigments or Edgerton). Nowadays, suitably high-performance equip¬
egg tempera), photography has been a child of technology ment can deliver the remotest star in the universe before our
ever since it was patented in 1839. The constant advances in eyes, just like the tiniest particles of a microcosm. Beyond
the development of light-sensitive emulsions, equipment, its scientific applications and practical uses, however, the
and optics opened up new worlds in rapid succession. In the camera as a prestigious technological object has also turned
mid-nineteenth century, exposure times were still measured into a fetish.
in minutes. It is obvious that subjects had to be selected or Many photographers scorn the most recent technological
treated in a correspondingly static fashion. This is why developments and instead deliberately "go archaic" by turn¬
Maxim DuCamp's pictures of Egypt show almost only build¬ ing to the simplest types of camera, using heavy equipment
ings and rarely people. He could hardly expect people to —big plate-backed cameras made of wood—and, as in the
stand motionless for minutes at a time (yet a skillful painter early days of photography, making their own emulsions.
could complete a detailed sketch in seconds). DuCamp Modern technology is felt to be pure ballast, its ready-made
traveled through the countryside along the Nile with a quan¬ papers and products constricting. Subjectivity is creating
tity of baggage inconceivable to us today, loaded down with space for itself by going back to the basics. The highly sophi¬
chemicals and glass plates, a darkroom, and other heavy sticated technology of this century is not necessary to capture
equipment. the "simple truths" of life. Examples of such a rejection of
When, in 1924, the small-format Leica camera started technical perfectionism are to be found everywhere in con¬
production, a new profession—that of the photojournalist— temporary photography. Iconographically, too, there is a
was born. Equipped with high-powered lenses, rock-steady noticeable tendency to draw new qualities of expression from
pictures were now possible with very short exposures, which earlier formulae: Jeff Wall's work recalls Japanese colored
made photography a metaphor for the hunt. The photogra¬ wood-block prints or the cinema, Thomas Ruff's a prototype
pher now "lay in wait" in order to take "snapshots." Erich of the ID or passport photo, while Cindy Sherman takes pho¬
Salomon's Ah, le voila! Le roi des indiscrets (see p. 51) takes tographs in the style of Hollywood films. It is the "artists" in
us back vividly to this era of the early paparazzi, although particular who playfully permit transitions to other genres
indiscretion then was cultivated not for its own sake but and other eras. But Christian Schad's "Shadographs,"
for the purpose of providing valid visual documentation of Moholy-Nagy's photograms, and Man Ray's "rayographs"
important political events. At the same time, Salomon's pho¬ from the twenties were already attempts to allow the imagi¬
tographs are masterpieces because, perhaps for the first time nation considerable freedom from the camera. In the case of
in the history of photography, although they were intended Zille or Wols, it is precisely the apparent lack of professional¬
as instant pictures of a particular occasion, they are effective ism that gives their pictures their special aura.
over and beyond that instant, purely as pictures of human Peter Stepan
beings.
Photojournalists were soon traveling all over the world.
Henri Cartier-Bresson went to China several times, spending
many months there each trip. Werner Bischof, Margaret
Bourke-White, Ed van der Elsken, Rene Burri, and many
others were at home all around the globe. And there were
no longer limits to the locations where photographers could
operate. Photo-reportages were made from high in the Andes
(Bischof), from the mines of South Africa (Bourke-White),
even from crisis-hit regions and war zones. Robert Capa
became the exemplary war photographer. He and David

9
Heinrich Zille Nine Boys Practicing Handstands before 1900

Heinrich Zille in Berlin, like Eugene Atget in Paris worthy. Like no other, he recorded the life of old
(see p.12), retained in his photographs something of Berlin in living rooms, backyards, and alleyways, at
that atmosphere of the “old" nineteenth century that fairgrounds and markets, in his drawings and photo¬
was drawing to a close and that would very shortly graphs. His handling of the camera, then still a cumber¬
vanish from these great cities under the impact of mod¬ some piece of equipment, retained the charm of amateur
ern industry and technology. Atget did this encyclo¬ photography—for which we should be thankful, since
pedically and at times officially, for documentational the fuzziness, inadequate lighting, and careless arrange¬
purposes, Zille privately and unsystematically in addi¬ ment of people contribute considerably to the impres¬
tion to his work as a lithographer and draftsman. sion of spontaneity invoked by these scenes. Zille's
The latter recorded with the camera what everyday "clumsiness" seems almost modern today, and, through
life set before his lens; no subject was too "slight." the freshness of his gaze, proved to be ahead of his time,
Whether it was junk behind a house, a rubbish heap compared to the standards of professional photography
in Charlottenburg, or a laundry drying area—Zille's back then. He avoided poses and stylizations, and the
eye found everything equally interesting and picture- faces of the people he photographed could sometimes
hardly be more ordinary.
In the picture opposite, nine boys—including his
son Hans—are performing handstands on a sandy
slope. The protagonists form an oblique line toward
the top of the picture, while the foreground remains
empty and is taken up by the play of light and shadow
in the hollows in the sand. The row of boys, some al¬
ready upside down, some still preparing to take posi¬
tion, stands out against the light gray of the sky as a
richly varied sequence of movement. It would be dec¬
ades before children's games of this type were again
recorded photographically with a similar directness
and freshness (see pp. 85, 133).
The second picture, made around the same time,
takes us into the heart of Berlin. It depicts a cobbler,
his apprentices, helpers, and family in the close quar¬
Cobbler Shop, 1899 ters of his shop. Zille never earned money with his
photography and eventually gave it up. It was only
sixty years later that his negatives and prints were
discovered again, in the attic of his house. p. s.

B 1858 Born in Radeburg near Dresden. 1872 Trains as a lithogra¬

pher with Fritz Hecht in Berlin; various jobs, 1877 Active in the
Photographische Gesellschaft. in whose studio his first self-por¬
traits are taken in 1882.1887 First portraits of family members.
1901 Participates for the first time in the black-and-white exhibition of the Berlin
Secession. 1902 Decreasing photographic activity. 1905-06 Last photographed
series, on family subjects 1907 Dismissed from the Photographische Gesell¬
schaft, 1924 Full member and professor of the Preussische Akademie der Kunste
1895-96 Landscape photos and first series in Berlin. 1897 Starts in Berlin. 1929 Dies in Berlin.
intensive work with a 9 x 12 cm instant camera with interchangeable magazine Further Reading; Kaufhold. Enno. Heinrich Zille: Photograph der Moderoe. Verzeichois
1898-99 First engravings and aquatints, adopting motifs from photography. des photographischen Nachlasses. Munich, 1995.

10
Eugene Atget The Organ-Grinder and the Singing Girl 1898-99

being left to deteriorate in the name of industrial prog¬

ress. Although Atget started working in what was the
most modern visual medium at that time—even if his
equipment was no longer up-to-date—he was not at¬
tracted to the present but, almost magically, to the past,
to the fragile, to what was threatened by decay. He
was interested in architecture and the urban environ¬
ment, but not only in that. The artists of Surrealism dis¬
covered in his work phenomena of the unconscious
with which they themselves were preoccupied, and the
writer Camille Recht spoke of "scene of crime" photog¬
raphy in connection with Atget's pictures. Rather, in
his straight, flat style, he was documenting the tradi¬
tional customs and practices that were becoming ever
rarer in the pulsating big city, and naturally also the
people, whose smiles, in the awareness of their being
out of place and time, evoke a gentle melancholy.
Sometimes, too, motorcars strayed into his field of
vision—but his technical skills were no match for the
accelerated tempo of the metropolis of Paris. Instead,
Versailles, Brothel, Petite Place, March 1921 he showed the chateau of Versailles in a desolate con¬
dition; at that time there was serious consideration
They produce a very touching effect in this well-known whether it should be demolished. The prostitute stand¬
picture, the barrel organ-grinder and the singing girl, ing in the center of the picture Versailles, Brothel,
somewhere in Paris, but around them blows the icy Petite Place, without dominating it, so to speak like a
breath of melancholy. Even at the time that the photog¬ showpiece in the middle of a window display, pro¬
rapher asked them to strike their demonstrative poses, claims a world that no longer existed.
they no longer belonged to the real world, no more Atget occasionally placed his talent at the service
than the man with the old-fashioned camera which of the French authority for the protection of historical
had already been superseded technically. Eugene monuments, which initially asked the photographer
Atget had struggled through life as an itinerant actor to record anything that was left that had any architec¬
before he discovered photography for himself and tural substance. He gradually evolved a strikingly
chose a theme which radiated an aura that Walter Ben¬ modern system of working. Thus, paradoxically, his
jamin described as "near and far at the same time": the concepts point to the future of photographic aesthet¬
old quarters of rapidly developing cities which were ics, regardless of his subjects. k.h .

1857 Born in Libourne near Bordeaux, 1879-81 Studies at the Con¬ his photographs by Berenice Abbott, who buys his estate following his death,
servatoire d’Art Dramatique, Paris. 1881 -97 Work as an actor in and publishes and exhibits the photographs with the assistance of Julian Levy
Paris and Bordeaux, 1897-98 Freelance painter, Paris, From 1898 and Andre Calmette, 1927 Dies in Paris,
Teaches himself photography in Paris, 1898-1925 Works as a
commercial and topographical photographer, 1926 Discovery of Further Reading: Eugene Atget: 1857-1327. Munich, 1981 (4 vols.),

12
Alfred Stieglitz Steerage 1907

No other artist influenced the development of art in of photography, that it should devote itself to the
the United States at the beginning of the twentieth unspectacular and concentrate on creative possi¬
century to such a degree as Alfred Stieglitz. With his bilities appropriate to the medium. Steerage is often
gallery, 291, opened in 1905, he made the European described as the first genuine reportage photo. Cer¬
avant-garde known in New York through his exhibi¬ tainly it fulfills the criteria, at least in regard to con¬
tions of works by Matisse, Rodin, Picasso, Picabia, tent and form. It shows immigrants on the steerage
Brancusi, Severini, and others, and thus inaugurated deck of a ship, where they stand cheek by jowl and
the modern era on the East Coast. With Photo-Secession, have to fend for themselves. No attempt was made to
a society founded in 1902 by himself, Edward Steichen, pose the photo; it gives the impression of being a
and Alvin Langdon Coburn, as well as the journal chance snapshot, although it has been very carefully
Camera Work, new artistic demands were formulated composed. The picture is taken slightly from above,
for photography, based not on its qualities of repro¬ the people in the lower part of the deck being clearly
duction but on spiritual expression. Camera Work unaware of the photographer. Despite the photogra¬
became the mouthpiece for Symbolism and Pictorial- pher's distant position, the closely packed crowd of
ism, but with it Stieglitz also introduced the beginning people opposite, some of whom are watching him,
of a new epoch in photography, no longer oriented give the impression of being in the middle of the
toward painting but aware of its own potential. action. Given this closeness to the action, the sponta¬
No photograph represents this radical change as well neity that the picture emanates, and the dominance
as Steerage. It meets the demands that Stieglitz made of the content, obvious at first glance, the photograph
does in fact fulfill three of the major criteria for report¬
age photography.
Yet this picture did not lead to any great turning
point in Stieglitz's work, although he did pursue the
principle of directness, the veracity that is particularly
evident in the innumerable photos of Georgia O'Keeffe,
later his life companion.
Stieglitz always had a polarizing influence, both as
a man and as an artist. He had determined opponents,
but also unconditional admirers. There is no doubt that
he made things happen, and that as a photographer he
was among the pioneers of the modern era. r.m.

Exhibition in the 291 gallery, New York, 1915

1864 Born in Hoboken, New Jersey. 1881 Moves to Germany. 1897-1902 Founder and publisher of Camera Notes and in 1903-07 of Camera
1882-90 Studies mechanics and engineering, then photography Work. 1902 Founder and director of Photo-Secession, New York. 1905 Founder
with H.W. Vogel in Berlin. 1883 First photographs taken in Berlin. (with Edward Steichen) of the 291 gallery, New York; honorary member of the
1885-86 Active as a freelance photographer for various Berlin Royal Photographic Society. 1915-16 Publisher of 291 Magazine. 1922-23
magazines. 1890-95 Works as a photo-engraver in New York. Publisher of MSS Magazine. New York. 1925-29 Director of the Intimate Gallery,
1892-94 Freelance photographer in New York. 1893 Honorary member of the 1929-45 Director of An American Place Gallery, New York. 1946 Dies in New York.
London Linked Ring. 1893-96 Publisher of American Amateur Photographer. Further Reading: Alfred Stieglitz: An American Seer. New York, 1973.

14
 Edward Steichen Richard Strauss 1904

and printing on gelatin silver paper with far less ma¬

nipulation in his printing process. Between 1923 and
1937, Steichen worked as a portraitist and fashion pho¬
tographer for Conde Nast publications, defining the
mode of "celebrity portraits" in America. He retired
from Conde Nast at age fifty-eight, and four years later
assumed command of a photographic unit in Naval
Aviation for the duration of World War II. Steichen's
career as a curator began when he joined the Photo-
Secession in New York in 1902. He helped design
Alfred Stieglitz's magazine Camera Work (originally
intended as the journal of the Photo-Secession) and
in 1905 transformed his portrait studio at 291 Fifth
Charlie Chaplin, 1931 Avenue into the Little Galleries of the Photo-Secession
(later known as 291). Then living in Europe, Steichen
Edward Steichen's careers as a photographer and curator worked with Stieglitz (p. 14) to introduce modern
spanned the first six decades of the twentieth century. European art to America. Among the artists exhibited
In each of these roles, his creative accomplishments at 291 were Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, Constantin
yielded enormous influence. He was foremost a photog¬ Brancusi, Paul Cezanne, and Henri Matisse. During
rapher who began working in the Pictorial style, World War II, Steichen resumed his curatorial career
producing some of the most stunning examples of Pic- by directing two exhibitions for the Museum of Modern
torialist master-prints. Between 1900 and World War Art. In 1947, he assumed the position as director of the
I, his photographs were included in every major inter¬ photography department at the Museum of Modern
national exhibition of Pictorial photography. Whether Art. In 1955, Steichen opened the exhibition The Family
photographing landscapes or portraying intellectuals of Man, the most universally popular photography exhi¬
and artists, such as Richard Strauss, Steichen preferred bition ever organized. The catalogue is still in print forty
highly dramatic scenes and poses. After the war, he years later. He retired from his position at the Museum
adopted a modern style, sharpening the picture's focus of Modern Art in 1962 at age eighty-three. a.w. t.

t ...
1879 Bom Eduard Steichen in Luxembourg 1881 Emigrates to the 1918 Changes his forename to "Edward." 1923 Abandons painting in favor of
U.S.A. with his parents. 1894-98 Studies art with Richard Lorenz photography. 1923-37 Chief photographer at Conde Nast for Vogue and Vanity
and Robert Schade at the Milwaukee Art Students League, followed Fair. Sideline activity for the J. Walter Thompson agency. 1931 Honorary mem¬
by training in lithography, 1895 Self-taught, takes photographs in ber of the Royal Photographic Society. 1945 Honorary member of the Photo¬
artistic style. 1990-22 Freelance artist in New York (including graphic Society ot America. 1945-46 Director of the Naval Photographic Insti¬
1902-06) and Europe, mainly Paris. 1901 Member of the London Linked Ring tute of the U.S. Navy. 1947-62 Director of the photography department at the
1902 Founding member of the Photo-Secession in New York. Together with Museum of Modern Art, New York; organizes over forty-five exhibitions, includ¬
Alfred Stieglitz sets up the photo studio 291. From 1905 Organizes exhibitions ing The Family of Man. 1973 Dies in West Redding, Connecticut.
for the 291 gallery. 1906-14 European travel; encounter with avant-garde Euro¬
pean painting. From 1908 Also active as horticulturist in Voulangis, France Further Reading: Edward Steichen. Milan, 1993. Gedrim, Ronald J. Edward Steichen:
and in Connecticut. 1917-19 Photographer with U.S, aerial reconnaissance. Selected Texts and Bibliography. Oxford, 1996.

16
Lewis W. Hin6 Sunday Noon, Some of the Newsboys Returning Sunday Papers 1909

The rubber stamp Lewis Hine used on the back of his taxonomically, so that we can compare their heights
photographs up through the 1920s read "Lewis W. and physiques—driving home the small size and
Hine/Social Photography." Sponsored in his efforts by tender age of them all, especially the youngest.
public and private organizations concerned with the Hine shows us neither the beginning nor the end
welfare of the poor and the working class, Hine be¬ of the line; by implication, then, these boys represent
lieved that photographic evidence of social conditions only part of a much larger group waiting patiently
could help to effect social change. And, at least in his here, who in turn symbolize countless others in this
own day, he proved himself right; his images served occupation across the country. Hine has used a dry-
to convince voters and politicians to enact laws against goods store and a carpentry shop as his backdrop
child labor and oppressive working conditions for for this group portrait, indicating that the setting is
manual laborers in many industries. a light-industrial area of the city. The boys' clothing,
This image of "newsies" or "newsboys"—young and the snow on the street, tell us that it is winter,
children who earned money by selling newspapers and cold—hardly the place or conditions anyone
on the street (in clearly defined and fiercely defended would feel are best suited for children on a Sunday
territories) throughout the urban United States— morning. To the city dwellers of that era, however,
typifies his approach. Hine's style was straightforward they would have been commonplace, taken for
and without elaborate artifice; he believed in eloquent granted, ignored—until Hine forced the citizens
understatement. Here he has depicted one section of to look closely at what went on daily, right under
a line of boys waiting to return for credit their unsold their noses. A.D.C.

copies of the Sunday edition of the newspaper.

He views them frontally, and formally, ensuring that
they all face the camera and attend to the photo¬
graphic moment. They are thus rendered as recogniz¬
able individuals, each with his distinctive expression
and body language. But they are also presented

1874 Born in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. 1900-05 Begins training as a 1919-20 Begins to photograph people working. 1922-29 Commissions
teacher at the University of Chicago. 1901 Teaches natoral history for various industrial concerns, including the National Consumers League.
and geography at the Ethical Culture School, New York. Continues 1932 Publishes Men at Work. New York, 1933 Participates in the World Fair.
studies at New York University. 1903 Begins to take photographs 1936-37 Chief photographer of the Works Project Administration in Holyoke,
and starts the photo project Immigrants on Ellis Island. 1905 Massachusetts. 1937 Publishes Technological Change with David Welntraub
Studies completed. From 1906 Apart from teaching, also active as a freelance 1939 First retrospective at the Riverside Museum, New York. 1940 Dies in
photographer. First commissions from the National Child Labor Committee Hastings-on-Hudson, New York.
(N.C.L.C.), 1908-18 Regular work for the N.C.L.C. From 1909 Work for the jour¬
nal The Survey. 1918-19 Photographic documentation of the consequences of Further Reading: Lewis W. Hine: The Empire State Building. Munich/London/
war for people in the Balkans, commissioned by the American Red Cross, New York, 1998.
August Sander Young Farmers in Their Sunday Best, Westerwald 1913

There they stand, on their way to church or the local he, equally fortuitously, was strolling along with his
inn, halting on their way across the open fields in heavy camera over his shoulder. The picture must
order to give the photographer a chance to take a undoubtedly have been staged, and this is why it is
quick picture. They are photographed slightly from so ingenious. We have the impression that the three
behind, as if to show that they were actually scolded farmers are standing still for us, as though time has
to move on quickly, and only the photographer was stopped for a brief moment to allow us to participate
preventing them from doing so. All three have their in the action.
heads turned and are gazing straight at the camera but It was Sander's achievement that he adapted the
hold their sticks ready to continue on their way as traditional method of carefully arranging portraits
soon as the photograph has been taken. We know that to the new photographic task of documentation. He
August Sander planned and staged his photographs, reconciled the studio portrait with the documentary
that he had farmers pose for the family album on photo. This gains particular importance because of
chairs brought out from the parlor and placed at the the documentary system that he followed in his work.
edge of the forest. Thus it seems unlikely that these Today it is regarded as an early example of Conceptual
three young men crossed his path by accident just as Art, and it was also not without influence on other
developments within the fine arts. Thus Sander and his
work in portraiture made an important contribution to
the recognition of photography as art. Internationally,
he is considered the most famous German photographer
of the twentieth century. It seems inconceivable that,
after World War II, this artist was almost forgotten,
even in his home town of Cologne, until L. Fritz Gruber
showed his work at "photokina" in 1951 and again
drew attention to his achievements. R. M.

Baker, 1928

B 1876 Born in Herdorf, Siegerland, Germany, 1897-99 Works for

the photographer Georg Jung in Trier. 1899-1901 Spends years
traveling as a photographer's assistant, including in Berlin, Mag¬
deburg, Halle, Leipzig, and Dresden, 1901 Employed as first opera¬
Moves to Cologne, 1920-25 Important friendships with the "Cologne progressives."
Develops overall concept of forty-five picture folders separated into seven
groups. First folder on the "peasant as prototype,” created within the framework
of his Menschen im 20. Jahrhundert (Citizens of the Twentieth Century).
tor in the Photographische Kunstanstalt Greif in Linz, which he 1939 Moves to Kuchhausen. 1946 Fire in the cellar of his Cologne apartment
takes over with Franz Stuckenberg in 1902 and renames Sander & Stuckenberg. destroys 30,000 negatives. 1951 Presentation of his work by L. Fritz Gruber at
After parting company with Stuckenberg in 1904, renamed Photographische the first "photokina" in Cologne. 1964 Dies in Cologne.
Kunstanstalt 1, Ranges (First-rank photographic art institute). 1904 First color Further Reading: Sander, GOnther (ed.). August Sander: Citizens of the Twentieth
photographs, 1905 First solo exhibition at the Landhaus-Pavillon in Linz, 1910 Century: Portrait Photographs. 1892-1952. Cambridge, 1986,

20
Jacques-Henri Lartigue

The picture is the epitome of speed. It is practically bursting with the pres¬
sure of the tempo it shows. Jacques-Henri Lartigue took this photograph
when he was still very young, a child prodigy of photography. The laconic
title, Grand Prix of the Automobile Club of France, merely indicates the type
of event, without any explanation of what is happening. A racing car flashes
by, the hood already out of view, the back wheels deformed to an egg shape,
while the spectators lining the racetrack appear to lean in the other direction
(these optical distortions are due to the camera shutter). Tension of the high¬
est degree fills the entire picture, which is dominated by diagonals; nothing
remains stationary, and the only visual support is provided by the virtual
grid of intersecting angles.
By comparison with this photo, most Futurist paintings seem like labored
illustrations. Lartigue created an incunabulum of photography. When he
shot—in the truest sense of the word—this picture, instant photography
as we know it today had not yet been invented. Fragile glass plates, un¬
wieldy cameras, "slow" lenses, and complicated developing procedures
made it difficult to get to grips with the new technology. But this presented
no particular problem for the talented boy who had been given his first
camera by his father.
As a painter, Lartigue was reasonably successful, but his photographic
work only received its deserved recognition very late. His enchanting picto¬
rial world draws its incomparable charm from the state of confusion of the fin
de siecle, combining a sense of elegance with an unconcealed enthusiasm for
technology. Cars, airplanes, and airships were the vehicles involved. Refined
society ladies balanced entire botanical gardens on their heads while exposing
at most a tiny amount of foot. Gentlemen wrapped themselves up like mum¬
mies when they raced along dusty roads in their precarious motorcars, and
kept their bowler hats on while posing in front of flying machines assembled
through adventurous carpentry. The photographer was one of them; he por¬
trays his peers with complete approval and an occasional hint of irony.
Nothing clouded the happiness of "good" society, with its aristocratic fea¬
tures, and the whole of existence was like a never-ending cocktail party in
gentle sunshine. The contradictions between the advanced technology and
the extravagant fashions were evident, nonetheless. But it was precisely this
that gave Lartigue's pictures their quality and significance. K. h .

1894 Bom in Courbevoie, Seine. 1902 First interest in photography; self-taught. 1914-18 Volunteers
for military service in the French Army. 1915-16 Studies painting with J.-P. Laurens. Decheneau.
and Baschet at the Academie Julian in Paris. 1922-78 Active as a freelance painter. Countless
painting exhibitions. Photographic diaries. 1963 Solo exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art,
New York 1966 Participates in "photokina," Cologne. 1986 Dies in Nice.

Further Reading: Jacques-Henri Lartigue: Le cholx du bonheur. Besangon, 1992,

22
Karl Blossfeldt Adlantum peclatum, Maidenhair Fern 1920-30

Karl Blossfeldt's plant photographs are the best examples We appreciate its natural form—more than we could
of photography following the precepts of Neue Sach- ever do in nature itself. The photograph allows its
lichkeit. This is best evidenced in his work devoted form to speak, while Blossfeldt himself stands back.
solely to plants, a microcosm which, enlarged many The secret lies in the way that he has rendered his
times, confronts us with monumental beauty. In a subject as a unique living thing.
photograph such as Maidenhair Fern, one of thousands This photograph in particular makes it clear how
he took, we find a world of its own—for that is what much Art Nouveau imitated natural forms. Albrecht
it is—captured in a minimalistic style. The fern in its Durer wrote: "Art lies in nature. Whoever can tear it
simple, but living, rhythmic form fills the picture out, has it." What Art Nouveau artists achieved by
space. Neither background nor lighting distract from borrowing from plant forms, Blossfeldt succeeds in
the simplicity of its natural form. The photographer doing by means of precise, direct observation. The
records "objectively" what the plant provides him maidenhair fern presents itself naked before the cam¬
with. Yet there is more to this admirable simplicity. era lens. As a result, the formal beauty of the plant is
By making the plant the exclusive theme of his picture, identified plainly. The concentration on the essential,
Blossfeldt also simultaneously approaches its very being. that Blossfeldt allows to govern every photograph, also
defines the overall concept of his photographic work.
In 1928, his book Natural Art Forms appeared, which
today still represents his photo-artistic legacy and at
the same time has become a great paradigm of the serial
concept in photography.
Walter Benjamin was one of his first contemporaries
to recognize Blossfeldt's contribution to the history of
photography. "From every calyx and every leaf inner
visual necessities spring out at us which, as metamor¬
phoses, have the last word in all phases and stages of
what is generated." Blossfeldt himself saw in plants
the same artistic/architectural form that determines
every work of art. For him, art and nature correspond
to each other in their structural regularity. E. B.

Papaver orientale, Oriental Poppy, 1915-25

1865 Born in Schielo in the Harz region, Germany. 1881-84 an archive of plates with plant photographs 1926 First exhibition at the Galerie
Trains as a sculptor in an art foundry. 1884-89 Studies at the Meumann-Mierendorf, Berlin. 1928 Urformen der Kunst (Natural Art Forms)
Konigliche Kunstgewerbemuseum school in Berlin. 1889-96 published by Ernst Wasmuth. 1932 Publication of second book, W under garten
Study visit to Rome: works there on plant reproductions for teach¬ der Natur (Art Forms in the Plant World). Dies in Berlin.
ing purposes; first photographs of plants. 1898 Teaches at the
Further Reading: Karl Blossfeldt: Natural Art Forms. Reprinted edition, New York, 1998.
Kunstgewerbliche Lehranstalt in Berlin. 1921 Appointed full professor: establishes Karl Blossfeldt: Art Forms In the Plant World. Reprinted edition. New York, 1986.

24
Man Ray Kiki-Le Violon d'lngres 1924

Surrealism is accused of having been much more a art in two-dimensional form. Photography was in a
literary movement than having had anything to do position to preserve the ordinary and to unleash sur¬
with the visual arts. In Andre Breton it had a poet as real effects through simple confrontations. Le Violon
its spokesman, and so the poetic principle of Surreal¬ d'lngres illustrates an ancient vision of the cellist who
ism was stimulated by the meeting of contents from holds his anthropomorphic instrument like a woman
differing sources, and by the friction caused by their between his legs. The simple copying of the sound-box
encounters in text and picture. As it did not stipulate apertures on to the back, the framing of the form by the
form and shape, Surrealists remained individualists draped fabric below and the turban above, allows the
with regard to style. cellist's dream to become reality: the surreal transfor¬
Man Ray's work introduced a particular note, since mation is complete. In addition, Man Ray makes
he used photography and recognized early on that this another borrowing from art history, a back view of
medium could reproduce the effects of object-based a nude painted by Ingres, in other words provokes
a multiple encounter, including that of a famous paint¬
ing with the apertures in a cello's sound box.
Le Violon d'lngres is one of Man Ray's best-known
photographs, perhaps because it realizes not a new
fantasy but one that is as old as the instrument on
which it is based. With his photographic work Man
Ray provided some of the most important stimuli for
present-day photographers. Together with Lee Miller
he developed solarization, using the technique mainly
in portraits but also in nude photography. With his
photographs of models of mathematical formulae he
adopted a position somewhere between abstraction
and reproduction in photography and showed that
the one can be identical to the other. With his "rayo-
graphs" he also provided a major impetus for camera¬
less photography. One of the first artists whose photo¬
graphic oeuvre is more highly regarded than his
painting, he made a decisive contribution to raising
the artistic value of photography and paved the way
to this medium for many later artists. r. m .

Rayograph-Lee Miller, 1931

1890 Born Emmanuel Radnitzky in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1920 Co-founder of the Societe Anonyme 1921 Moves to Paris. Friendly with
1908-12 Studies at the National School of Design, New York, the most famous artists of his time, 1921-22 First "rayographs" published in
1915 First work with photography; also involved with film, the album Les champs delicieux. 1940 Moves to Hollywood, 1951 Returns to
painting, and sculpture. Meets Marcel Duchamp, From 1917 Paris. 1976 Dies in Paris.
Co-founder of the New York Dada movement. Publishes various
Further Reading; Man Ray. In Focus, Los Angeles, 1998. Man Ray. Self-Portrait.
Dada journals with Marcel Duchamp, including New York Dada in 1921, Boston, 1999,

26
 Laszlo Moholy-Nagy Self-Portrait. Photogram 1926

Color and light were the basic artistic aspects which is now in the photographic collection of the Museum
preoccupied the Hungarian Constructivist and Bau- Folkwang in Essen, Germany. Moholy-Nagy, recogniz¬
haus teacher Laszlo Moholy-Nagy throughout his life, able not least by his spectacles, first rested his cheek
whereby he saw light not only as a creative medium on the photographic paper and made an initial expo¬
but also as a metaphor of reason. In his essay "Direct¬ sure. Two transparent segments, produced by means of
ness of the Mind—Detours of Technology," written templates and successive exposures, overlap the face,
in 1926 and published in the magazine bauhaus, making it reminiscent of a planet in the night sky. Like
Moholy-Nagy wrote: "Limited and infinite relation¬ a plaster cast, the photographic paper shows traces of
ships are equally the result of cosmic determination. moisture from the skin, made visible and preserved
The chemical-physiological-transcendental influences by the photochemical process. Using the simplest
of interacting relationships materialize in different pictorial elements, and waiving all literal symbolism,
ways, according to their innate laws—once into blue Moholy-Nagy has created here a self-portrait which,
color, another time into an aggregate, and a third time in terms of immateriality and spirituality, is without
into a sublimation of the mind. Thought—as a func¬ parallel in the art of the twentieth century. The art¬
tional result of cosmos-body interaction—is, in its ist's head, the very seat of consciousness, appears as
manifestations, a constant emanation of human exist¬ a luminous figure in the cosmic darkness, a "constant
ence." It is in this context, perhaps, that Moholy- emanation of human existence," to use the artist's
Nagy's "head photograms," of which he produced own words. h.m.

a good dozen, can best be interpreted. Most of them

depict either Moholy-Nagy himself or his first wife,
Lucia, but in some cases Moholy-Nagy has also
"photogrammed" his friends. One of the most superb
works of this series is his Self-Portrait of 1926, which

1895 Born in Bacsborsod, Hungary. 1913 Studies law at the Uni¬ Stuttgart Werkbund exhibition Film 1wd Foto, at which he shows ninety-seven
versity of Budapest (and again in 1918). 1914 Called for military photos and photograms. Active as exhibition designer, set designer, promo¬
service in the Austro-Hungarian Army. First chalk and ink draw¬ tional graphic artist, and filmmaker, 1934 Emigrates to Amsterdam, then in
ings while in hospital in 1915.1920 Moves to Berlin. Contact, 1935 to London, Meets Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth, and Ben Nicholson.
among others, with Kurt Schwitters, Hannah Hoch. and Raoul Artistic consultant for the fashion store Simpson, as well as Royal Airlines and
Hausmann. 1922 First photograms with the collaboration of his wife Lucia London Transport. 1937 Moves to Chicago. Through Walter Gropius is appointed
Moholy. First solo exhibition at the gallery Der Sturm. 1923 Appointed teacher director of the New Bauhaus-American School of Design, 1939 Founds his own
at the Bauhaus in Weimar: head of metal workshop and introductory course. School of Design, which in 1944 becomes the Institute of Design. 1945 Contracts
Continues working at the Bauhaus in Dessau from 1925 to 1928.1925 Publishes leukemia. 1946 Dies in Chicago.
the standard work Malerei. Fotografie, Film as the eighth volume of the series
Further Reading: Laszlo Moholy-Nagy. Newark, 1995. Laszlo Moholy-Nagy: Fotogramme
Bauhausbiicher. First camera photographs. 1928 Moves to Berlin: work for the 1922-1943. Munich/Paris/London, 1996.

28
Andre Kertesz The Fork 1928

The idiom of this photograph is as laconic as its title. still life—as in an earlier photograph of the painter
The fork lies against the edge of a plate and, like the Piet Mondrian's spectacles and pipe. It is not the ob¬
latter, casts a deep shadow. Both objects are cut off by jects that are decisive but the manner in which they
the framing of the photo; only a very small portion of were perceived by the photographer. The aesthetic
the plate is visible. Andre Kertesz composed the image significance of the picture unfolds within the mode of
and recorded it from above, at an angle of around 40 perception, the specific view of the world.
degrees. In some versions of the photo, the location— Kertesz taught himself photography and develop¬
Paris—is also given, which is misleading to a certain ing techniques. However, he was anything but a tech¬
extent, since the picture represents one of the most nical enthusiast. While still living in Hungary, during
succinct examples of the photographic avant-garde World War I, he had recorded the Swimmer Under
which, at the end of the 1920s, was centered not in Water, a fleeting apparition in the heavily broken-up
Paris but in Berlin and Moscow. Yet Kertesz, born in surface of the swimming pool; so to speak, a photo¬
Budapest, was more an advanced photographer with graphic essay using photographic tools. His inclina¬
poetic talent and a tendency to use surreal effects than tion was towards the incidental, the things that are
a genuine representative of the avant-garde, like his frequently overlooked. He preferred to portray the
compatriot Laszlo Moholy-Nagy (see p. 28). Nonethe¬ drama of the small, unspectacular happenings of
less, the vision of the Neues Sehen (New vision) is everyday life. Although Kertesz's photos frequently
demonstrated in an exemplary manner in this simple appeared in magazines, photojournalism made him
uneasy: "They want documents, technique, not ex¬
pressive photographs." He felt at home in Paris. But
France's defeat forced him, an emigrant from Hun¬
gary, to emigrate further, to New York. There, with
the series View from My Window onto Washington
Square (1953), he made an influential contribution to
the development of photography. The square only
looks attractive, one critic noted, "when Kertesz looks
down on it." There could be no more fitting character¬
ization of his photographic art. ic. h .

Swimmer Under Water, 1917

1894 Born in Budapest, 1912 Diploma from the Business Academy Werkbund exhibition Film und Foto in Stuttgart. 1939-36 Works for the maga¬
in Budapest, Employed at the stock exchange. First street photog¬ zine Art et Medecine. 1933 First publication: Enfants. 1936 Emigrates to blew
raphy with middle-format camera (4,5 x G cm). 1917 Published York, First solo exhibition there in 1937, Freelance photographer for, among
several times in the magazine Erdekes Lljsag. 1918-25 Resumes others, Harper's Bazaar, Vogue, House & Garden, and The American Magazine.
activity at the stock exchange. 1925 Moves to Paris. Countless 1941-44 Forbidden to publish, 1949-62 Exclusive contract with Conde blast in
portraits of artists, street scenes, etc. Meets Brassai. 1926-36 Freelance blew York, Thereafter freelance photographer and artist. 1975-84 Countless trips
photographer for various magazines in France, Germany, and England. 1927 to France. 1979-81 Still-life series with Polaroid camera. 1985 Dies in blew York.
First solo exhibition at the gallery Au Sacre du Printemps. 1928 First Leica.
1928-35 Chief contributor to the magazine tu. 1929 Participates in the Further Reading: Andre Kertesz: His Life and Work. New York, 1997.

30
Umbo The Latest Offer-In Profile 1928

pose, namely the expression of a new female image

combining sentimentality and pragmatism, erotic sen¬
sitivity and cool calculation. Umbo's portraits came
to be regarded as the unglossed expression of modern
womanhood, the "New Woman" of the twenties.
In 1928, he joined forces with the erstwhile Expres¬
sionist coffee-house writer Simon Guttmann in found¬
ing the photographic agency dephot (Deutscher Photo-
dienst GmbH) in Berlin, which was to play a decisive
role in the development of modern photojournalism.
One of its most memorable photoreportages docu¬
mented the "secret life" of shopwindow dummies. It
was published under the title of A Dangerous Street
in the Frankfurt magazine Das Illustrierte Blatt. Here
Umbo breathes life into these motionless figures
through his photography: as Aphrodite once did with
Ruth. Her Hand, 1927 the statue of Pygmalion. With the utmost tenderness,
he lends these beautiful, anonymous figures, destined
Umbo was, beside Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, the most ultimately for the public life of the street, a hint of
significant photographer of the Bauhaus. Umbo's privacy. He achieved this effect by photographing
women's portraits of 1927 made photographic history, the dummies during an intermediate phase of their
even more so than his reportage photography. What existence, that is, neither during their manufacture
was new about Umbo's photography was not just the nor in their ultimate function in the shopwindow,
close-up effect, the extreme proximity of the subject's but in the warehouse, the place where they are still
face to the camera, but also the combination of ab¬ among themselves. What these waxen beauties, with
straction and realism, an unusual technique for photog¬ their dreamy gazes and seductive poses, actually do
raphy at that time. When rendering as many half-tones there is left to the imagination. Umbo may have been
as possible was the photographic ideal, Umbo waived inspired by the same experience which had prompted
the smooth transition from light to dark and proved Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (1907). Some of
that facial beauty could be expressed in pure black- the ladies are scantily dressed, with only silk stock¬
and-white contrasts. The graphic impression created ings or dainty shoes, while others are completely
by close-ups of the face and the balanced contrast naked, raising their arms and exposing their bodies
between light and dark was countered by the sensual without any shyness. Gazing at these photographs,
expression of the eyes and mouth. These seemingly one might feel transported into the nude drawing
diverging vocabularies of form served a common pur¬ class of an art academy. h.m.

1902 Born in Dusseldorf. 1921 -23 Studies at the Bauhaus closed down by the Nazis, freelance photographer and photojournalist.
in Weimar. 1923 Moves to Berlin. Works in the Werkstatten 1945 Moves to Hanover. Advertising and industrial photographer. Local
Bildender Kunst. Camera assistant for films. 1926 Photo mon¬ reporter for the Hannoversche Presse. 1947-51 Works for the magazines
tages for Walter Ruttmann's film Berlin, Die Sinfonie der Der Spiegel and Picture Post. From 1948 official photographer at the
Grossstadt. Takes up photography. First close-up portraits. Kestner-Gesellschaft. 1957-72 Teaches photography at the Werkkunst-
1928-30 Teaches photography at the Kunstschule Johannes Itten. schule in Hanover, 1980 Dies in Hanover.
1928 Founding photographer of the photo agency DEPHOT. 1928-33 Involved
in all major exhibitions of modern photography. 1933 After DEPHOT was Further Reading: Molderings, Herbert, UMBO. Otto Umbebr 1902-1380. DOsseldorf, 1996.

32
Walter Peterhans Portrait of the Beloved 1929

Walter Peterhans' position among the great teachers from which, in exemplary fashion, they worked out
in the history of photography is exceptional, since he the rules and laws of photography for themselves.
did not just train photographers but also used photog¬ Later, in Chicago, Peterhans taught exclusively as a
raphy as a means of aesthetic education. After studying professor of visual design, analysis, and art history.
at university and a further period of study as a repro¬ Peterhans worked with a peculiar characteristic of
duction photographer, he initially trained individual photography, its capacity to force three-dimensional
students in a private studio for advertising and portrait objects into two-dimensionality. From this resulted his
photography. He subsequently taught at the Bauhaus arrangements that looked like montages but were not.
and at well-known schools of photography in Berlin, The objects that he gathered together to form tableaux
were mostly of a transitory, unprepossessing nature:
scraps of fabric, twigs, leaves, flowers, and shimmering
fish-scales. He also liked to work with lenses and glass
discs. These compositions achieve beauty through the
photographer's ability to bring out and illuminate the
materiality of the things and to display them in a new,
objective, but often magical proximity to one another.
Portrait of the Beloved poses a puzzle. The objects—
fragments of a veil, feathers, curls, and tinsel—seem
to hover above the mysteriously glowing background.
Their arrangement may at first glance appear to be
accidental, but harmonious distribution was achieved
by laying them around the stone in the center. The
surface attractions are emphasized by clever lighting
(one even gains a sense of the consistency of the ob¬
Pythagorean Paradigm, 1929 jects), and material values are suggested. But it is only
through its title that the picture becomes a symbolic
then, after emigrating to the United States, at the Illi¬ portrait; the fragments merge into a cryptic declaration
nois Institute of Technology in Chicago. As a trained of love to a distant woman who embodies tender
mathematician, Peterhans preferred experimental, yet poetry. l.d.

comprehensible, photography to free, associative

works. As a consequence, he taught his students the
foundations of visual design in experimental structures.

1897 Born in Frankfurt am Main. 1920-23 Studies mathematics, schule, 1935-37 Independent photographer in Berlin; publishes several techni¬
philosophy, and art history at the Technische Hochschule, Munich, cal books on photography. 1938 Emigrates to the U.S.A. 1938-60 Professor at
and at the University of Gottingen. 1925-26 Studies reproduction the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago. 1953 Guest lecturer at the Hoch¬
photography at the Staatiiche Akademie fur Graphische KOnste schule fOr Gestaltung, Ulm, 1959-60 Guest professor at the Hochschule fur
und Buchgewerbe. Leipzig; examination for master photographer’s Bildende Kunste, Hamburg. 1960 Dies in Stetten, near Stuttgart,
diploma in Weimar. 1929-33 Director of the photo class at the Bauhaus in
Dessau and Berlin. 1929 Participates in the international Werkbund exhibition
Further Reading: Eskildsen, Ute (ed,). Walter Peterhans: Fotografien 1927-1938.
Film und Fato in Stuttgart, 1933-34 Teaches at Werner Graeffs Berlin Photo- Exh. cat,, Museum Folkwang. Essen, 1993,

34
 Ellen Auerbach Eckstein with Lipstick 1930

The strength of this image lies in the fact that it is masterpiece opposite. Nevertheless, it is true that she
several things at once. It is a portrait of the actress had only started photography around a year previ¬
and dancer Klare Eckstein: a photo of a fashionable ously. She rapidly abandoned the "art for art's sake"
woman in the smart style of the 1920s, with a page¬ philosophy of her private teacher Walter Peterhans
boy haircut, eyebrows plucked thin, and lace gloves. (see p. 34) in order to practice applied photography in
At the same time, however, it is a bravura piece of her newly established portrait and advertising studio,
constructive pictorial composition. The mirror's ringl + pit. This was the background against which
reflection is the reason for the wide, "architectural" Eckstein with Lipstick of 1930 came to be the first high
composition. Sometimes artists try to accomplish point of Auerbach's oeuvre. Her still-life skills, taught
several things at once in a work, and their attempts by Peterhans, and the portrait character merge imper¬
at doing so often fail. Here, however, Ellen Auerbach ceptibly here. Not least, this photograph reveals the Art
has been successful, since the various components Deco aesthetic as it also appears in the work of Umbo,
have a mutually intensifying effect. The "styled" Lewis W. Hine, and others. Almost programmatically,
head equates with the "design" of the pictorial compo¬ Auerbach later professed a form of profound vision:
sition. Despite all the rationality of approach—note, a picture like this, which pays homage to beauty and ap¬
for example, how demonstratively the laws of refrac¬ pearance, was therefore to remain an exception. p. s.
tion are presented at the right edge of the picture—
this saucy dialogue of a beautiful woman with her
own reflection contains its due portion of poetry.
The model, however, has clearly not been surprised
at her toilette. Rather, the session under the hot flood
lamps lasted so long that her lipstick was on the point
of melting.
If, in later years, Auerbach maintained she was
more of an amateur at that time, then this is a charm¬
ing understatement, and not just with regard to the

Slums, London, 1935

1906 Born in Karlsruhe. 1924-27 Studies sculpture at the Ba- the art collection of the lessing-Rosenwald family in Jenkintown, Pennsylvania.
dische Landeskunstschule under Paul Speck and Karl Hubbuch, Together with Walter Auerbach experiments with infrared and ultraviolet light
in 1928-29 at the Akademie der Bildenden KOnste (the Weissen- to make restorations and changes in prints visible. 1944 Moves to New York.
hof) in Stuttgart. Receives her first 9 x 12 camera 1929 Photo¬ Freelance work for Time Magazine and Columbia Masterworks (and again in
graphic training as a private student, together with Grete Stern, 1949-51 ). 1946-49 Works with a child psychologist at the Menninger Clinic
under Walter Peterhans in Berlin. Photo studio ringl + pit established with for Psychology, Topeka, Kansas. Photographs and two 16-mm films on infant
Grete Stern, specializing in promotional and portrait photography. 1930-31 behavior. 1953 Teaches photography at the Junior College of Arts and Crafts
Three short films (b/w, 16 mm): Heiterer Tag auf Riigen (Happy day on in Trenton, New Jersey 1955-56 Journey to Mexico with Eliot Porter. Color
Riigen), Cretchen hat Ausgang (Gretchen has the day off), and Bertold and black-and-white documentation on Mexican churches. Publishes Mexican
Brecht. 1933-35 Emigrates with Walter Auerbach to Tel Aviv. Together with Churches (1987) and Mexican Celebration (1990) 1965-84 Educational thera¬
him and Liselotte Grschebina founds the studio Ishon, for child photography. pist for children with learning disabilities at the Educational Institute for Learn¬
Commissions for the Women’s International Zionist Organization (W.I.Z.O.). ing and Research, New York. Lives in New York.
1937-44 Emigrates via blew York to Elkins Park, near Philadelphia. Works for Further Reading: Ellen Auerbach. Berlin, Tel Am. London, New York, Munich/New York, 1998.

36
Use Binp Self-Portrait with Leica 1931

Little has offered such a lasting challenge to photogra¬ succeeded in bringing the mirror to enigmatic speech.
phy as the mirror. There can hardly be a photographer The photo is divided austerely into vertical and hori¬
who has not been tempted to take a photograph of him- zontal lines, reminiscent of Bauhaus work, and yet
or herself in a shopwindow, induced by the fascination it gives the impression of being extremely light and
of seeing one's own self superimposed on what can be apparently accidental. Also, Bing appears in profile
seen through the window. Camera optics are ideal for through the use of a second mirror. Ultimately, this is
mixing different visual planes, thereby making the a photo about photographing, since we can see Bing's
resulting image impenetrable for the viewer. Looking right eye twice, directed towards her subject and cal¬
into a mirror, however, usually lacks such effects, and culating in a concentrated manner. Her left eye appears
so it has only been met with interest when it produced to be covered by the camera and yet is visible, merging
distortion—as in the work of Anton Stankowski or with the camera in the darkness. This "becoming one"
Albert Renger-Patzsch, for example in the latter's well- with the Leica is immediately put into proper context
known portrait of his own reflection in a car headlamp. by Bing's profile, since we realize that her eye and
In this self-portrait, which is her most famous pic¬ face do not even touch the camera. Quite clearly, pho¬
ture, Ilse Bing—"the queen of Leica" —has nevertheless tography is a procedure undertaken from a distance;
only the gaze links the photographer with her camera
equipment.
In addition, this picture is fascinating because we
seem to be stared at with such intensity. Even though,
at the time the photo was taken, that could not possibly
have been the intention, the photographer was aware
that her eye would inevitably be fixed on the person
looking at the completed image. Her searching gaze
disturbs and yet attracts the viewer, all the more so
when one realizes that this gaze—the most fascinating
element of all portraiture art—survives even beyond
the photographer's death. r.m.

Three Men on Steps at the Seine, 1931

1899 Born in Frankfurt am Main. From 1920 Studies mathematics others, /u. Arts et Metiers Graphigues, Le Monde, Harper's Bazaar, and
and physics, later art history at the University of Frankfurt. 1929 Vogue, 1941 Emigrates to the U.S.A. From 1957 Exclusively color photography.
Acquires a Leica (her camera for the next twenty years). Works 1993 Stops work following a severe car accident. 1998 Dies in New York.
foi the lllustnerte Blatt 1930 Moves to Pans: photography for the
journalist Heinrich Guttmann. From 1931 Freelance photo-reportage
Further Reading: Ilse Bing: Three Decades of Photography. Exh. cat., New Orleans
and architectural photography; fashion and advertising commissions for, among Museum of Art, New Orleans, 1985.

38
Hypo Erfurth Otto Dix with Brush 1929

The portrait Otto Dix with Brush is the most impressive to the rather severe expression. This work—a mixture
document of a long-standing artistic friendship, and, of the concepts of Neue Sachlichkeit and the aesthetics
at the same time, a testimony to the fruitful dialogue of artistic photography—is characteristic of Erfurth's
between photography and painting in the first half of style. It established his reputation as a portraitist of
the twentieth century. Presumably the German Expres¬ prominent people in the arts and sciences, as well as
sionist painter Dix and the successful court photogra¬ the bourgeoisie and nobility during the Weimar Repub¬
pher Hugo Erfurth, who had already made a name for lic. His photographs of the dancer Mary Wigman, the
himself before 1914 as a portraitist of renowned artists poet Gerhart Hauptmann, the architect Hans Poelzig,
and writers, first met in Dresden following Dix's return and the painters Oscar Kokoschka, Marc Chagall, Max
home from the war. Erfurth took the first photo¬ Beckmann, Paul Klee, and Max Liebermann are further
graphic portraits of the painter frontally and in profile examples of this. u.p.
around 1920, with subsequent extra portrait sessions
as well as photographs of Dix's wife Martha, his chil¬
dren (1927—33), and his parents in Gera (1926). Whereas
Erfurth's camera initially recorded the Dresden painter
with a grim expression and close-up (as a bogeyman of
the bourgeoisie), the later portraits speak a different
idiom. The photograph reproduced here corresponds
more to the classic type of representational portrait of
an artist; the painter, by then a professor at the Dres¬
den Kunstakademie, is presented as a doyen of his
field, in his smock and with brush and palette as attri¬
butes. Characteristic for the reproduction of the angular
physiognomy of innumerable Dix portraits is the meas¬
uring, piercing look with which the painter gazes at the
viewer—a symbol of the artist's precise, critical talent
for observation, which was expressed in the shocking
realism of his paintings.
Like many of his photographs, Erfurth printed this
portrait as an oleograph, which gives a painterly touch

Austrian Writer Franz Blei, 1914

1874 Born in Halle an der Saale, Germany. 1893 Participates in an portraits. 1929 Teaches photography for advertising at the Akademie fur Buch-
international exhibition of amateur photographs at the Kunsthalle, gewerbe und Graphische Kiinste, Leipzig. Participates in the exhibition Film
Hamburg. 1895 Trains with the court photographer Wilhelm Hoffert und Foto in Stuttgart. 1933 Moves to Cologne. 1943 Apartment, studio, and
in Dresden. 1898 Takes over the Dresden studio of the court pho¬ archives destroyed in bombing raid. Moves to Gaienhoten on Lake Constance.
tographer Schroder. 1906 Buys the Palais LOttichau in Dresden, 1948 Dies in Gaienhoten.
where he sets up Lichtbildnerei Erfurth, a studio “for modern and artistic pho¬ Further Reading: Drewitz, Bodo von and Schuller-Procopovici, Karin (eds). Hugo Erfurth
tography." From 1925 Photograms and photos for advertisements, in addition to (1874-1948): Photograph zwischen Tradition und Moderne, Cologne, 1992.

40
Lotte Jacobi Kathe Kollwitz 1929

Photography was more or less handed to Lotte Jacobi snapshots from their private lives, were in demand by
in her cradle, since her great-grandfather had earned many magazines of the Weimar Republic years.
his money with daguerreotypes. But she herself would In 1929, a portrait of the graphic artist and sculptor
only arrive at her studio on Berlin's Kurfurstendamm Kathe Kollwitz appeared on the cover of the first issue
in a roundabout way. She actually wanted to be in of the magazine Die schaffende Frau (Working woman).
films. Only when she was forced to make her own liv¬ Jacobi photographed her with a large-format plate-back
ing did she decide to follow the family tradition. In the camera and a special soft-focus portrait lens. The photo¬
twenties, it was easy for women to make themselves graph's strict frontality brings the viewer face-to-face
independent as photographers; hardly any other pro¬ with the artist's clear features. The close cropping of
fession offered such good opportunities for advance¬ the picture, the simple distribution of planes, the con¬
ment. As a specialist in theater and dance photography, tours softly merging into the neutral background; all
as well as a sought-after portraitist, Jacobi rapidly this focuses concentration on Kollwitz's firm, watchful
acquired a reputation as a photographer of prominent gaze. As someone who condemned social injustice and
people. Pictures of movie stars, portraits as well as war and as an artist, she impressed Jacobi as she did so
many women of her generation. The photograph and
its place of publication stylized Kollwitz as a leading
figure, whose commitment to social and political change
was considered to be as exemplary as her position as
an independent, creative woman.
Jacobi continued to work as a portrait photographer
after she was forced to emigrate by the National Social¬
ists in 1935. She left for the United States, where she
also attracted prominent people as her subjects: other
emigrants such as Albert Einstein and Thomas Mann,
but also Eleanor Roosevelt and J. D. Salinger. In doing
so, she created one of the most impressive portrait gal¬
leries of important personalities of the mid-twentieth
century. l.d.

Girl, Berlin, c. 1930

B 1896 Born Johanna Alexandra (known as Lotte) in Thorn, West

Prussia. 1908-09 Experiments with self-built pinhole camera;
first photos with a 9 x 12 Ernemann camera. 1914-16 Attends
courses in art history and literature at the Academy in Posen.
“Behm's Bilderdienst,” "Bender u. Jacobi," “Lloyds," 1935 Emigrates to New
York 1938 Gives lecture at the Photo League. Meets Berenice Abbott. 1947-55
Involved with cameraless photography; Fotogenics created. Moves to Deering,
New Hampshire. 1970-71 Sets up a photographic department at the Currier
1920 Moves to Berlin. 1925-27 Studies photographic and cine¬ Gallery in Manchester, New Hampshire. 1973 First retrospective at the Museum
matic techniques at the Staatliche Hohere Fachschule in Munich. First film Folkwang, Essen, organized by Otto Steinert. 1974 Awarded title of Honorary
camera. 1927 Returns to Berlin; works independently in her father’s studio. Doctor of Fine Arts by the University of Durham, North Carolina; further honors
1929 First Leica. Contact with John Heartfield. 1930-31 Works for the in the 1970s and 1980s. 1990 Dies in Concord, New Hampshire.
photo agency Press Clichee in Moscow. 1931 Meets Tina Modotti in Berlin.
1932-33 Journey to Moscow, Tadjikistan, and Uzbekistan, taking nearly 6,000 Further Reading: Beckers, Marion and Moortgat, Elisabeth. Metier Lotte Jacobi:
photos. 1933-35 Publishes in magazines under the names “Folkwang-Archiv,'’ Berlin/New York. Exh. cat., Das Verborgene Museum. Berlin, 1997.

42
Tina Modotti Workers’ Demonstration, Mexico, May 1 1929

In this photograph of a group of people demonstrat¬ tuous 1920s and 1930s that followed the Mexican
ing, all the qualities Tina Modotti strove to achieve in Revolution—of which she was an unconditional
her photographs are present: perfection of composi¬ advocate—in photographs that are unique contem¬
tion, emotion, movement, commitment, and topicality— porary documents. But each of her photographs goes
her mastery of which ensures the picture's timeless beyond the documentary; they are masterworks of
message. photography.
In the photo reproduced here, Mexican workers are
holding a demonstration. But we see only sombreros,
filling the picture to its edges. The hats are the symbol
of the workers, moving towards a target, in motion.
The way in which the light falls gives direction to this
movement. In this swaying sea of hats, everything
that Modotti wanted to say is obvious: people are claim¬
ing their due rights and doing so in a spirit of solidar¬
ity. Although it was taken in an instant, there is
nothing accidental about this photo. It is scanned and
composed by means of light and shade. The experience
of a moment has been given lasting stature. This par¬
ticular demonstration took place on May 1, 1929, in
Mexico, but all demonstrations in all countries of the
Worker's Hands, 1926 world are represented in this photograph. Despite the
fact that the location is clearly identified by the som¬
Modotti learned her trade from Edward Weston breros, Modotti has succeeded in producing an image
(see p. 74). The great master of “straight photography" that has become a symbol of the demand for human
awakened her talent to see clearly, to grasp an opti¬ rights, beyond time and beyond national boundaries.
mal situation quickly, and turn it into a valid picture. This imagery can sometimes become condensed in
Modotti wanted to do "honest photography." She Modotti's work into an emblem, for example in her
wanted truth, but truth supported by perfection of photo of two hands holding a spade. Here no words
form. In this respect, she was closer to life than Weston. are necessary to understand Modotti's credo. For her,
She was not a reportage photographer, but she was humanity was the supreme principle, governing the
linked with reportage through her work. She was also content of the photographic work which gave expres¬
one of the first women photographers to rove the streets sion to her political convictions. e . B.

with her camera in order to capture life in the raw.

During a stay in Mexico, she made the people of this
country her subject matter. She captured the tumul¬

1896 Born Assunta Adelaide Luigia Modotti in Udine, Italy, Mexico due to political agitation. Occasional photographer in Berlin. 1931 Meets
1908-13 Works in a textile factory in Udine, 1913 Emigrates Lotte Jacobi. 1931-34 Gives up photography while living in Moscow, then in
to the U.S.A, 1913-14 Works in a silk factory in San Francisco. 1934 in France, and in Madrid and Valencia between 1935 and 1938.1936-38
1914-17 Freelance dressmaker in San Francisco. 1920-21 Active Reporter for the republican newspaper Ayuda, Madrid. Works for various under¬
as an actress in Hollywood, including in Tiger Lady (1921). ground movements, as well as for the International Red Cross (Socorro Rojo)
1921-25 Studies photography with Edward Weston in Los Angeles and Mexico in Madrid. 1939-42 Lives in Mexico, 1942 Dies in Mexico City.
City. Works as an independent photographer. 1923 Emigrates to Mexico. 1927-30 Further Reading: Tina Modotti: Photographs. Exh. cat., Philadelphia Museum of Art.
Contributing editor to the magazine Mexican Folkways. 1930 Deported from New York, 1995.

44
Martin Munkacsi Boys on the Shore of Lake Tanganyika 1931

part of Romania. While still quite young he was suc¬

cessful as a journalist in Budapest. His extraordinarily
sharp yet sensitive powers of observation brought
him, logically, to photography. He taught himself the
technical requirements without professional assistance.
With a homemade wooden camera he photographed
everything his eye fell upon: scenes of everyday city
life, the arrival of a minister before the Hungarian
Parliament, dancing in the streets, a carriage in the
rain, a goalkeeper who, even as he falls, stares in dis¬
belief at the successfully positioned ball, or the poor
Uncle Robert’s Poor Being Served Lunch, 1926 being fed in a soup kitchen (opposite). In this photo¬
graph, the empty plates and spoons are in marked con¬
"Only one single photographic picture in existence trast to the full pot, the stooped recipients to the stout
has influenced me," declared Henri Cartier-Bresson, man doling it out. For the sake of an original viewing
in reference to the picture opposite. "Such zest for angle, Munkacsi scrambled up ladders, climbed high
life, such richness, the picture still overwhelms me walls, and took part in perilous motorcycle and auto¬
today," he added. We see three black boys racing into mobile races. In Berlin, the early capital of the dawn¬
the foaming surf of Lake Tanganyika. Photographed ing media age, his photographic idiom matured into
from behind, they form an arrow, while their intersect¬ an unmistakable style. He worked for the powerful
ing arms and legs produce the field of tension in this Ullstein publishing house, and as a photo-reporter
triangular composition. This picture appeared in 1932 for the Berliner lllustrirte Zeitung enjoyed a legendary
in the prestigious yearbook Das deutsche Lichtbild, a reputation. He traveled all over the world by car, ship,
mirror of achievements in German photography, one and plane, and during a stay in the United States he
year before Hitler wrote the book's foreword and one forged contacts with the press baron William Randolph
year before the creator of this photograph, Martin Hearst. When an issue of Harper's Bazaar containing
Munkacsi, was forced to emigrate. Munkacsi was the his famous pictures of Palm Beach hit the newsstands,
undisputed master of the snapshot; he cultivated the the world of fashion photography trembled.
quick snap as the aesthetic metaphor of modern life in Munkacsi dominated the fashion photography scene
the big city, in which energy and dynamism, restless¬ into the 1940s and influenced such photographers as
ness and a sense of being driven are evident—all Richard Avedon and William Klein (see pp. 148, 120),
expressed in an elegant perfection of form. It is no before the media star himself fell out of fashion. K. h .
coincidence that he revolutionized the rigid fashion
photography genre in the United States by giving it
the freshness of instant photography.
The Austro-Hungarian empire was still extant when
Munkacsi was born in a Hungarian region that is now

1896 Born Martin Marmorstein in the Hungarian city of Kolozsvar Bazaar, Das Deutsche Lichtbild, Photographie, and Modern Photography in
(now Cluj-Mapoca, Romania), Self-taught in photography, c. 1902 Berlin and New York. 1934 Emigrates to the U.S.A 1934-40 Contract as fashion
Family name changed to Munkacsi. 1911-13 Trains as a painter photographer with Hearst Newspapers, Inc. in New York, working for magazines
in Budapest, 1914-21 Reporter, writing for ti Est, Pesti Naplo, including Harper's Bazaar, Town and Country, Good Housekeeping, Life, and
Szinhazi in Budapest. 1921 -27 Sports photo editor at lz Est; Pictorial Review. 1940-46 Photographer under contract to Ladies' Home Journal,
active for the weekly magazine Theatre Life in Budapest 1927-30 Contract as New York, 1946-63 Freelance photographer. Works for King Features, Henry
photographer with the publishers Ullstein in Berlin; active there for the Berliner Ford, and the Reynolds Company. Also cameraman and lighting designer for TV
lllustrirte Zeitung, Die Dame, Koralle, and Uhu. 1930-33 Freelance magazine films in New York. 1963 Dies in New York,
and press photographer, working among others for The Studio, Harper's Further Reading: Martin Munkacsi. An Aperture Monograph. New York, 1992.

46
Manuel Alvarez Bravo The Dreamer 1931

were committed to a single great purpose: Mexico.

"Mexicanidad" became the leitmotif for their art. In
Bravo's work, too, we find a purely Mexican content.
At the center are the people he encountered every day,
in all walks of life, in the metropolis of Mexico City,
in the quiet countryside, or in the Pueblos, at that time
still untouched by tourism. It is primarily the Indian
population which dominate in Bravo's photographs.
The subject in The Dreamer is also an Indio. The
photographer saw a sleeping boy in the street, a to¬
tally unspectacular subject, and photographed him
exactly as he was. But, without Bravo changing any¬
thing at all, it has become a picture full of humanity.
Sunday Cyclists, 1966 The background is completely neutral. All we see is a
sleeping boy and the masonry of a wall. But, precisely
because of the hardness of the stone, it is made evident
that the living body is quite a different substance. The
Manuel Alvarez Bravo was the founder of the photo¬ sleeper is relaxed, at ease. His dream has transported
graphic modern era in Latin America. He learned his him into another world, one in which he forgets the
trade from the German photographer Hugo Brehme, hardships of his life. Shining patches of light fall on
who had chosen to live in Mexico. Bravo's awareness his face. It is a moment of peace and quiet such as is
of photography as an independent aesthetic medium granted to even the poorest; everybody can dream.
was schooled by Tina Modotti, whom he met in 1927. Bravo conveys all this in one silent picture. It is a silence
It was also through Modotti that he became acquainted that characterizes much of his work.
with European and American representatives of the Sunday Cyclists was produced more than thirty years
photographic avant-garde. He belonged to a circle of later. But the picture is again stamped by the unique
friends associated with the Mexican muralists, who fluidity that is common to the work of Mexican photog¬
were developing a genuine sense of their own culture raphers as a group. The cyclists seem tiny in the
for the first time, as a result of the Mexican Revolution. immensity of the flat, bright landscape and the end¬
He worked within the intellectual sphere of his painter less sky. They are people between heaven and earth,
colleagues Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo, David Alfaro who perhaps have no other goal than to experience
Siqueiros, and Jose Clemente Orozco, all of whom another piece of this world. e.b.

1902 Born in Mexico City, 1918-22 Studies painting and music at the Academia rapher, cameraman, and teacher at various universities in Mexico. 1959 Found¬
Nacional de Bellas Artes, Mexico City. From 1922 Self-taught involvement with ing member of the Publishers Fund for the Mexican Plastic Arts. 1972 Donates
photography; meets Hugo Brehme in 1923.1925-27 Lives in Oaxaca, 1927 his early works to the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes, thereby laying the
Meets Tina Modotti. From 1930 Works as a photographer for Diego Rivera, Jose foundation for a photographic collection in the Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico
Clemente Orozco, David Alfaro Siqueiros, and Rufino Tamayo. 1938-40 Meets City. 1990 Retrospective at the Museum of Photographic Art, San Diego. 1997
Andre Breton, Participates in several exhibitions initiated by Breton in Europe. Retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, Lives in Mexico City,
1943-59 Photographer of the Mexican film trade union; active as a photog¬ Further Reading: Bravo, Manuel Alvarez. Revelations: The Art of I/I A Bravo. San Oiego, 1990.

48
 Erich Salomon Ah, le voila! Le roi des indiscrets
(It's That Salomon Again!), Paris 1931

Any of today's paparazzi would consider it an honor he wished to photograph so that he could mix unob¬
to enjoy the start of a career that Dr. Erich Salomon had. trusively among them, place the camera somewhere
In 1928, Salomon secretly took photos at a trial with a in a corner and talk to them, and activate his shutter
hidden camera and thereby experienced his first major release via a long cable. He always hung around until
success. The Berliner Illustrirte Zeitung bought the people were used to him, and he was still there long
photos and paid him a sensational fee amounting to after other photographers had left. At the same time,
two months' salary. That sealed his decision to termi¬ he was treated with a certain amount of tolerance, as
nate his working relationship with the publisher his pictures did not seek to expose but to report au¬
Ullstein and work as a freelance photojournalist for thentically. In the end, politicians felt that Salomon's
Berliner Illustrirte Zeitung, the Munchner Illustrierte pictures presented them to the nation in a way that was
Zeitung, Fortune, Life, and other papers. Salomon had congenial to them. Nevertheless, even he was some¬
learned that the press was especially interested in pic¬ times forced to leave the room, and when the French
torial information that was considered secret. foreign minister Aristide Briand noticed during a meet¬
He discovered the advantages of the Ermanox cam¬ ing that Salomon, despite a general ban on journalists,
era as a working tool; it had a fast lens that allowed him was still there and taking photographs, he cried out:
to take photographs without a flash. In addition, he "Ah, le voila! Le roi des indiscrets." Salomon managed
developed methods to avoid drawing attention to him¬ to record the very moment when the finger was point¬
self. Thus he would dress exactly like the politicians ing at him.
Salomon justified his political photo-reportage on
the grounds of its factual interest and his own objectiv¬
ity. He gave the viewer the feeling of being right in
the middle of what was going on. Over and above
their topical relevance, however, the pictures he took
were "symbols" of his genre, pictures of political life
as such. r.m.

Night Session of the German and French Ministers at the War Debts
Conference in The Hague, January 1930

1886 Born in Berlin. 1906-09 Studies zoology and engineering 1931 Publication in Stuttgart of Beriihmte Zeitgenossen in unbewachten Augen-
^sJgjpiL in Berlin. 1909-18 Studies law al the universities of Munich and blicken (Famous contemporaries in unguarded moments). 1932-43 Resident in
; Berlin 1914-18 Military service and captivity. 1920-21 Works at The Hague, Holland. Continues to work as a press photographer for newspapers
the stock exchange, 1921-22 Works in a piano factory in Berlin. and magazines in Holland, London (The Daily Telegraph), and New York (Life).
1923-25 Sets up and runs a car and motorcycle rental company, 1943 Deportation to Scheveningen, then to Theresienstadt and Auschwitz,
1926-28 Publicity work for the publishers Ullstein in Berlin; contact with pho¬ 1944 Killed at Auschwitz,
tography. Buys his first camera (Ermanox); 1927 First photos. 1928 Takes pic¬
Further Reading: Erich Salomon 1886-1944: Aus dem Leben eines Photographen.
tures of a tribunal with a hidden camera-published in the Berliner Illustrirte Munich, 1981. Erich Salomon: Portrat einer Epoche. Berlin, Frankfurt, Vienna, 1963.
Zeitung. 1928-32 Freelance press photographer, works for various daily papers, Erich Salomons Fotos 1933-1940. Amsterdam, 1996.

50
Brassai Lovers in a Cafe on the Place d'ltalie, Paris 1932

Brassai saw the movement, saw the visual cnaracter of

the spontaneous act. In an instant, he chose the picture
and captured what was so special about this scene; the
fact that it is reflected in the mirrors on the wall inten¬
sifies its significance. Brassai has succeeded in combin¬
ing reality and fiction in a single image. The woman's
face appears twice. We see the man from behind, but
his face is also presented to us in the mirror. His head
forms the center of the picture and is simultaneously
at the intersection of vertical and horizontal. From the
spatially undefined flow of reality, Brassai has isolated
a situation and converted it into an image. The gesture
of the woman, born out of the moment, and her sponta¬
neous facial expression are in contrast to the still life
on the table, which looks as though it had been arranged
especially for the photographer. But here again, it was
chance that positioned the objects, and the photogra¬
Graffiti, “The Sun King," 1945-50 pher's eye captured them just as they were.
Always astonishing in Brassai's work is the strong
presence of people. They fill every setting with their
Henry Miller called Brassai the “eye of Paris." In fact, physical volume and reveal the photographer's genuine
no other photographer threw such light on to every¬ involvement. No photograph was taken just for its own
day life in this metropolis as did Brassai. Destinies sake. Despite all his transformation of life into a photo¬
seem to fan out through these photos. He combed the graphic image, Brassai's pictures were always a confes¬
streets and cafes of Paris for living images. Even before sion of humanity. He was, moreover, a pioneer in the
he pressed shutter the release, the picture was already discovery of new themes. He was the first to notice
there before him. "I invent nothing, but I imagine the graffiti in the streets of Paris and, as early as 1932,

everything." In every gesture that he observed, in took photographs of the city at night. But his particu¬
every situation that offered itself to him, he sought the lar interest lay in people, including his artist friends,
intensity of the moment. The pair of lovers in a cafe is especially Picasso. Brassai transposed the everyday
a thoroughly banal scene in a Parisian bistro. So why elements of human existence into pictures that are full
does this become a valid picture? Because Brassai of aesthetic value but also human warmth. e . B.

gave visual structure to the shapeless, the formless,

in the flow of time. He was less interested in the
actual situation, the man about to kiss the woman.

1899 Born Gyula Halasz in Brasso, Transylvania, Hungary (now nuit (1932). 1932 Starts photographing graffiti on Parisian walls. Forbidden to
Brasvo, Romania), 1918-19 Studies at the Academy of Art in Buda¬ practice his profession during the German occupation of France, he neverthe¬
pest, 1921-22 at the Akademische Hochschule in Berlin-Charlot- less photographs Picasso’s sculptures and drawings and writes the book
tenburg, 1924-30 Works as a painter, sculptor, and journalist in Conversations avec Picasso, From 1945 Resumes work as magazine photog¬
Paris, with links among others to Picasso, Dali, and Braque. 1925 rapher, including for Harper's Bazaar (until 1962), Lilliput, Picture Post
Contact with Eugene Atget. Assumes the pseudonym Brassai (derived from his Labyrinthe, and Pealites. 1945-50 Ballet designer, Paris 1962 Stops photo¬
birthplace, Brasso). 1926 Meets Andre Kertesz 1930 Begins to take photographs graphing. 1984 Dies in Beaulieu-sur-Mer, France.
with a Voigtlander camera, 1930-40 Freelance photographer for the magazines
Verve, Minotaure, and Harper's Bazaar (from 1937). Publication of Paris de Further Reading: Brassai. Chicago, 1977. Brassai: The Artists of My Life. New York, 1982.

52
Herbert Bayer Self-Portrait 1932

Herbert Bayer, head of the printing and advertising the most famous photomontage of this series, shows
department at the Bauhaus, Dessau, from 1925 until the artist looking at his own reflection in a mirror and
1928, was the archetype of the modern graphic design¬ seeing himself turn to stone. A piece has broken away
er whose work embraces the techniques of typogra¬ from his shoulder, revealing his petrified inside, and
phy, photography, and draftsmanship. Bayer's aim he holds the piece in his left hand, staring in amaze¬
was to translate Constructivism and Surrealism into ment at the gap which it has left. The narcissistic glance
the pictorial language of advertising and, by the same at the mirror has suddenly changed into a look of hor¬
token, into the aesthetics of everyday life. In 1926, ror. Such nightmare images are in the tradition of the
influenced by the Parisian school of Surrealism, Bayer photomontages—known as "double portraits" or "joke
began to create dream pictures through the medium portraits"—which became very popular in amateur
of the photomontage. His series Man and Dream, orig¬ circles at the turn of the century. They showed the
inally planned as a story in pictures but never fin¬ portrayed subjects meeting themselves in the street,
ished, was published in 1936 in a portfolio simply or carrying their heads under their arms.
entitled 11 Photomontages. His Self-Portrait of 1932, Herbert Bayer's photograph Lonely City Dweller is
meant to be a self-portrait, too, or in any case this is
how he designated the surviving print in the Bauhaus
Archive in Berlin. This photograph must be the most
remarkable and captivating metaphor ever to have
been devised by Bayer: a pair of hands held up
against the facades of city tenements, with a pair of
eyes staring out at us in the palms of the hands. What
Bayer visualizes here is the converse of a normal, every¬
day gesture. The very hands with which we shield
our closed eyes in an attempt to escape the hustle and
bustle of the outside world, to concentrate entirely
on ourselves, now stare at us. The act of seeing, of
perceiving the world from a distance, here conjoins
with the act of touching and feeling, of experiencing
the world at close range. But what does this have to
do with the loneliness of the city dweller? Is Bayer
perhaps trying to say that people living in the city
are just "eyes," rich in visual impressions, but poor
in human contacts? H. M.

Lonely City Dweller / Self-Portrait, 1932

1900 Born in Haag. Austria. 1921-25 Studies at the Bauhaus in Weimar. International in New York 1946-87 Design consultant for the Aspen Develop¬
1925-28 Head of the Bauhaus printing and advertising workshop in Dessau ment and Container Corporation of America in Aspen, Colorado. From 1964
and, among other things, responsible for designing Bauhaus printed material: Artistic consultant for the Atlantic Richfield Company. 1985 Dies in Montecito,
adopts the techniques of photomontage and collage for free and applied graphic California.
art. From 1928 Increasingly turns toward photography. Director of the advertis¬
Further Reading: Chanzit, Gwen Finkel. Herbert Bayer and Modernist Design in Ameri¬
ing agency studio Dorland in Berlin. Until 1930 art director of logue. 1929 Par¬
ca. Ann Arbor, 1987. Cohen, Arthur Allen. Herbert Bayer. Cambridge, 1984. Herbert
ticipates in the international Werkbund exhibition Film und Foto in Stuttgart. Bayer: Zisuelle Kommunikation, Architektor, Malerei. Das Werk des Kiinstlers in
1938 Emigrates to the U.S.A. Artistic director of the advertising agency Dorland Europa und USA. Ravensburg, 1967.

54
Heinz Kajek-Halke Black and White Nude 1936

This photograph—Black and White Nude, from 1936— speculations. The black figure represents the negative
is more famous than its creator. Whenever outstanding version of the white one and must, according to the
examples of photographic aesthetics are cited, this pic¬ logic of photographic technique, have preceded it. The
ture is regularly included among them. One of the rea¬ visual irritation is deliberate. Thus, as we perceive it,
sons is its conciseness of form. Two nude figures, the black nude overlaps the white one, although the
cropped above and below, the one on the right black, color black connotes depth in visual art. The reflections
that on the left white, curve their bodies against each of light on the dark body weaken this impression, as
other so that an “X" shape is produced in the structural does the unusually light ground. The perfect symme¬
reduction. The black overlies the white, which in reality try of the formal structure corresponds, moreover, to
the flat character of the overall concept of the picture.
Black and White Nude displays the rich “color" spec¬
trum of black-and-white photography in every conceiv¬
able nuance, subtly setting the picture plane in motion.
In reality, this is a visual essay on the aesthetic possibil¬
ities of black-and-white photography.
Although one of the four leaders in his field in Ger¬
many—the others being Renger-Patzsch, Blossfeldt,
and Sander—Heinz Hajek-Halke is a photographic
artist whose importance is only gradually becoming
clear. One reason for this is his primarily artistic grasp
of the photographic medium, characterized by experi¬
mentation. His photographic work is varied and versa¬
tile, and cannot be compared with that of any other
German photographer. It ranges from Neues Sehen to
“subjective photography." Film was one of his major
sources of inspiration, and its aesthetic principle, the
Eva-Changon, c. 1932 montage-like collision of individual moments of per¬
ception, determined the organization of his pictures.
is not white but a subtle gray that stands out clearly He fluctuated between the spheres of commercial and
against the neutral, almost white background. non-commercial art in Berlin in the twenties. After
The aesthetic perfection of the photograph is the the war, Hajek-Halke became the leading representa¬
result of extensive experimentation. What looks like a tive of an aesthetically oriented photography. He in¬
complete instant photo is, in fact, a montage. The vented “light graphics." Through photo-mechanical
black-and-white nudes are identical. It is not just the manipulation of the negative and through external
same model involved, it is a mirror image of the same effects such as scratches, patches of soot, and glue,
figure. Which of the two is authentic cannot be deter¬ he succeeded in producing images of worlds never
mined from the photo, although it gives rise to many before seen. k.h.

1898 Born in Berlin; raised in Argentina. 1915-17 Studies at the while in the German army. 1945 Held prisoner by the French. Sets up a snake
Konigliche Kunstschule, Berlin (and again from 1919). 1923-25 farm to produce venom for the pharmaceutical industry. From 1947 Resumes
Works as a fisherman in Hamburg. 1924 First attempts at photog¬ activity as a photojournalist and experimental photographer. 1949 Co-founder
raphy. 1925 First experimental works From 1927 Collaboration of the “fotoform" group in Saarbrucken. From 1955 Professor of graphic arts
with the publisher of Deutsches Lichtbild. From 1933 Scientific and photography at the Hochschule fur Bildende Kiinste, Berlin. 1983 Dies in
research into micro-organisms, use of macrophotography 1937 Journey to Bra¬ Berlin,
zil. Picture reportage on a snake farm and first abstract pictures and photo¬ Further Reading: Heinz Hajek-Halke, Her groBe Unbekannte. Introduction by Klaus
grams. From 1939 Industrial and aerial photographer for the Dornier works Honnef, Afterword by Michael Ruetz. Gottingen, 1997.

56
Henri Cartier-Bresson Alicante, Spain 1933

Henri Cartier-Bresson is the Raphael of twentieth-cen¬ Europeans, where it represents liberal Spain shortly
tury photographers. With apparent ease he succeeded before the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War.
in producing one masterpiece after another. In retro¬ Alicante is one of the most indiscreet, most direct
spect, hardly any other photographer has produced photographs by Cartier-Bresson, who in his later years
a greater number of bravura pieces. What is more, in discarded the audacious for a classical approach. He
his advanced years, he was able to afford the luxury was a Frenchman through and through, and his art
of declaring his photographic oeuvre complete, so that became an expression of high cultural taste. He gave
he could devote himself chiefly—as in his youth—to his pictures great constructive clarity, against the tec¬
drawing and painting. And that was some twenty tonics of which he brought out the uncalculated, the
years ago. human "coincidence" in contrapuntal fashion. Despite
Alicante was one of Cartier-Bresson's very first pic¬ the immediacy with which he recorded his contempo¬
tures, the work of a twenty-five-year-old genius who raries—full of charm, spirit, and irony—Cartier-Bresson
frequently recorded ladies of the streets on his journeys turned out to be a conscientious "constructor." In his
through Spain and Mexico. Here he has surprised his pictures he subjugated lines, surfaces, movements,
"models" at their toilette. The woman at the back is and the intermediate stages of gray between black
shaving the neck of the woman standing in front of and white, into a whole, according to almost musical
her, while the latter, who reacts to the young photog¬ patterns and laws.
rapher with a mixture of female pride, professional As an aesthete, Cartier-Bresson was primarily con¬
distrust, and curiosity, is arranging the hair of the cerned in the greater part of his work—even in his
woman sitting in front of her. Something between a reporting trips to China, India, or Cuba—with the
genre scene and a group portrait, this photograph— picture, and only afterwards with what was being por¬
a masterpiece of the grotesque—charms us with its trayed. Often the assembled persons are arranged and
wealth of ambivalent gestures and facial expressions. interwoven in a highly elaborate, decorative manner.
A display of full-blooded life, as fascinating as it could At the same time, as he admits, his concern all through
possibly be, the picture found its way twenty years his life was to penetrate "into the living heart of the
later into Cartier-Bresson's main work, the series The human being." p.s.

1908 Born in Canteloup, France. 1922-23 Studies painting with M.N.P.G.D. (French underground photographers' association). From 1945 Free¬
Cotenet and from 1927 to 1928 with Andre Lhote, Paris. lance photographer in Paris, 1946 in the U.S.A. 1947 Founding member of the
1928-29 Studies painting and literature at Cambridge University. photo agency Magnum, New York and Paris, together with Robert Capa, David
1931 Begins career as photographer. 1932 First exhibition in the Seymour, and George Rodger. 1948-65 Travels to Burma, Pakistan, Indonesia
Julian Levy Gallery, Mew York. 1934 Photographer for an ethno¬ (1948-50), Russia (1954), China (1958-59), Canada, Mexico, and Cuba (1960),
graphic expedition to Mexico. 1935 Freelance photographer. Studies film Japan and India (1965). From 1973 Gives up photography and returns to draw¬
with Paul Strand in New York. 1930 and again in 1939 Camera assistant to ing and painting. Lives in Paris.
Jacques Becker and Andre Zvoboda for Jean Renoir. 1937 Works on docu¬ Further Reading: Henri Cartier-Bresson. Boston, 1998, Cartier-Bresson, Henri. Jete a fete.
mentary films in Spain. 1940-43 In German captivity, 1943-45 Active in the Boston, 1998. Henri Cartier-Bresson: Seine Kunst-Sein Leben. Munich/Paris/London, 1997,

58
Martin Chambi Flute-Playing Indio with Llama 1933

Martin Chambi was the first Indian photographer in difficult conditions. At the same time, he recorded the
the history of photography in Latin America. When majesty of the landscape and the Indio's familiarity
he opened a photographic studio in Cuzco in 1920, he with it, who in this remote place has absentmindedly
quickly became the most famous portrait photogra¬ reached for his flute; a moving South American pasto¬
pher in his town. But he did not simply produce por¬ ral scene to which Chambi once gave the title Tristeza
traits from his commercial studio. Over the years he andina. The photographer was attempting to capture
created a photographic encyclopedia of society in the immense silence, peace, in an image. He himself
Cuzco and the villages in the Andean hinterland. As a was so closely connected with this landscape that he
result of his photographs we know quite a lot about knew how to make his people's feelings visible. He
the social structure of the country in the 1920s and was a committed follower of "Indigenismo," which
1930s. Chambi was a master of the group portrait, but first formed itself into a political movement during his
at the same time he was the first to photograph Machu lifetime, and it could hardly have wished for a better
Picchu, which had been discovered in 1911 by the interpreter than Chambi; the concerns of the Indios
Englishman Hiram Bingham. Chambi's splendid land¬ were also Chambi's. In the countless portraits that he
scape pictures revealed his particular love for the took in the course of his life, it was those of the Indian
Andes, but his main passion was reserved for the Indio. population that made him famous. Through his skill¬
The photograph here is typical for Chambi when ful rendering of man and landscape, but also through
he was working not in the studio but out in the field. the precision of his architectural photos, Chambi out¬
Here he could capture both the people and the splen¬ grew his contemporaries to become a novelty in Latin
dor of his natural surroundings. He came across the American photography. In his country, remote from
flute-playing Indio with a llama on one of the jour¬ the great cities of the world, he created in isolation an
neys that he liked to undertake even under the most oeuvre of timeless quality. e.b.

8 :
■T-t l
:
1891 Born in Coaza, Peru. From 1900 Works for the Santo Domingo
Mining Company in Carabaya. 1908 Moves to Arequipa; apprentice
to Max T, Vargas until 1917.1917 Moves to Sicuani. First exhibition
in the Centro Artistico in Arequipa. 1920 Moves to Cuzco. Estab-
Lima. 1936 Travel and photography in Chile. 1938 Opens a studio gallery in
order to exhibit studio portraits. 1964 Participates, together with his son Victor,
in the Primera Convencion de la Federacion de Arte Fotografico in Mexico City.
1973 Dies in Cuzco.
lishes a studio there, 1925 Participates in an international exhibi¬
tion in La Paz, Bolivia. 1934 Publication of his photographs in Cuzco Historico, Further Reading: Martin Chambi. Photographs 1920-1950. Washington/London. 1993.

60
Alfred Eisenstaedt

Alfred Eisenstaedt, one of the best known photojournalists of

the twentieth century, spent the first few years of his profes¬
sional life in Germany before emigrating to the United States in
1935. There, he was among the very first photographers for the
magazine Life, founded in 1936, for which he published more
than ninety cover pictures and carried out innumerable commis¬
sions. Owing to his mobility, Eisenstaedt was an ideal photo¬
reporter, constantly ready for action, who experienced things
as they happen, at the very pulse of time.
As Eisenstaedt reports in his book. The Eye of Eisenstaedt
(1969), the photograph of the Graf Zeppelin was taken in 1934

during a transatlantic flight to Rio de Janeiro and appeared in

his photo-reportage. Seven Days in a Zeppelin. Some damage to
the dirigible's outer skin had to be repaired, and Eisenstaedt
was only permitted to take a total of three photos of the inci¬
dent. At that time, the lz 127 Graf Zeppelin, which in 1929 had
undertaken the first flight around the globe, had already trav¬
eled across all the continents and would soon have crossed the
ocean for the hundredth time. The fascination of this marvel of
technology, which was always good for a newspaper story and
therefore accompanied on its travels by reputable photogra¬
phers, was also exploited by the Nazis. Thus, in 1933, the Graf
Zeppelin was an attraction at the National Socialists' party con¬
ference in Nuremberg and, decked out with an enormous swas¬
tika on its stabilizing surfaces, was misused for propaganda
purposes on its journeys around the world as a symbol of prog¬
ress of the Third Reich. Only the explosion of its successor,
the LZ 129 Hindenburg, at Lakehurst, New Jersey, in 1937

brought the construction of zeppelins, as well as the propa¬

ganda dreams, to an abrupt halt.
The unusual perspective of the picture, which ultimately we
owe to the photographer's adventurous spirit, gives an impres¬
sion of the exhilarating beauty and danger of a trip through the
air in the zeppelin. The photograph also arouses associations
with the heroic daring of the workers in Lewis W. Hine's pho¬
tos of the Empire State Building. u. p.

1898 Born in Dierschau, West Prussia (today Poland). 1913-16 Studies at the
University of Berlin. Self-taught in photography. 1916-18 Military service.
1919-21 Works as a belt and button vendor in Berlin 1927-29 Freelance
photographer for Weltsplegel. 1929 Decides to become a photographer.
1929 Works as a photojournalist for the Pacific and Atlantic Picture Agency
(later part of Associated Press). 1929-1935 Works for the Berliner lllustrlrte leitung.
among others, in Berlin and Paris. 1935 Emigrates to the U.S.A. Freelance photographer
in New York, including for Harper's Bazaar. Vogue, and Town and Country until 1936.
From 1936 Regular photographer for Life 1966 First publication: Witness to Our Time.
1995 Dies in Oak Bluffs, Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts.

Further Reading: Eisenstaedt: Germany. New York, 1980.

62
 The Dirigible Graf Zeppelin Being Repaired Over the South Atlantic on a Flight to Rio de Janeiro 1934

t
Alexander M. Rodchenko Somersault 1936

“In order to educate man to a new way of seeing, one pictures had never been seen previously in the Soviet
must show him everyday, familiar objects from totally Union, nor anywhere else for that matter.
unexpected perspectives and in unexpected situa¬ Somersault is a prime example of the recording of
tions," wrote Alexander M. Rodchenko in 1928. That a movement within an instant, isolating it in a way that
was the year he bought himself a Leica, having given is impossible to do with the naked eye. The eye per¬
up painting the previous year in favor of photog¬ ceives aerial acrobatics as a sequence of movements,
raphy and anxious put his ideas into practice. As in the phases of which we can describe afterwards, but
Alvin Langdon Coburn's photographs of New York, the details of which we are unable to record in our
the Leica allowed him to observe and react to situa¬ visual memory. Many of Rodchenko's photos revealed
tions more rapidly, to give visual expression to the the details of motion sequences for the first time, al¬
pulse-beat of the mechanized age. It allowed him to though, unlike Eadweard Muybridge (1830-1904),
take up unusual positions, greatly shorten perspec¬ he was concerned not with an analytical dissection
tives, delve into details, and record movement. Such of the phases of motion but with a culminating point
which would summarize the decisive characteristic
of the acrobatics in a picture. The concept of a human
ball soaring in the air is epitomized in Somersault. With
such works, Rodchenko enabled photography to take
its place among the artistic avant-garde of the era,
alongside Constructivism and Cubo-Futurism. He is
thus considered a pioneer in integrating the photo¬
graphic gaze into the fine arts, while preserving and
fostering photography's own qualities as a medium.
R.M.

Trumpet-Playing Pioneer. 1930

1891 Born in St, Petersburg. 1910-14 Studes at the Kasan Art from which he is excluded in 1931.1935 Is rehabilitated and participates in the
School, c. 1914/15 Moves to Moscow, with further study at the exhibition Masters of Soviet Photo Art in Moscow. 1933-41 Works for the maga¬
Stroganoff Art School, where he meets Vladimir Tatlin and zine SSSR na stroike. which he founded with Varvara Stepanova. From 1950
Kazimir Malevich. 1920-23 Creates the triptych Three Colors: Experiments with color photography and magazine design. 1956 Dies in Moscow.
Red. Yellow. Blue 1922-24 Involvement with photomontage,
Further Reading; Alexander Rodchenko: Painting, Drawing, Collage. Design. Photog¬
poster art, and book design. From 1924 Takes first photos with a large-plate
raphy. Exh. cat., The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1998. Dabrowski. Magdalena.
camera. From 1925 Works with a hand-held camera and develops characteristic
Aleksandr Rodchenko. New York, 1908. Noever, Peter. Aleksandr M. Rodchenko and
style with extreme angles of vision. 1930 Founding member of the group October, Zarvara F. Stepanova. Munich, 1991.

64
 BBfel
?■
§§ 1 ill | j'
:?;A V

PPM"-
" . '' -!e .-' ' .V .

^SuVyp'iWwSf’i ••:. '

„;4,

• E-V.r.H !‘V'. ■; . ’. ;< *;

.- _, !uV,» !?■*.% •*. ■ ■’■•'

- .'

-■'(-' Viv% ’ -:*.-'!.. \

■■■
Ms*
:&P fe
Iw

IB ‘ ..■^PPPP. w-% ■<

■ ‘ "'•: 't :i1U5^«'3^.V:->Tsfe:'' ' ' » ■ '■ .
 David Seymour

Even in non-belligerent countries, the Spanish Civil War mobilized

public opinion to a degree that few earlier military confrontations had
done. The modern media, film and photography, together with news¬
reels and magazines, contributed greatly to make this first conflict
between Communism and Fascism comprehensible as the start of a
struggle for world domination. Numerous photographers, including
Robert Capa, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Hans Namuth, and Gerta Taro,
went to Spain in order to support the republican government on the
propaganda front against Franco's rebellious troops. Their pictures
appeared in France in high-circulation magazines aimed at workers,
such as Vu and Regards, but also in the American magazine Life.
David Seymour's A Hand Grenade Attack—like Robert Capa's
photo of the republican soldier who has just been fatally hit by a bullet
(p. 68)—was among the first photos to report direct, "live," on death
in battle. Seymour—Chim, as his friends called him—was present at
the attack, was part of the war machine, as can be sensed at once. The
smudges, the coarse grain of the enlargement, the seemingly arbitrary
cropping; all these are tools of the photographic idiom that confirm this
witness quality. They make clear the strain felt by soldiers, the danger,
the brutality of war. Here there is no running away from violence, no
escape from death.
War refused to let Seymour go. In World War I, he worked as a
reporter for the United States Army, then took photographs for UNESCO
on the fate of children in war-torn Europe. It was also in a war that he
died. He took over the presidency of the Magnum photo agency from
Capa, who died in 1954 while reporting on the Vietnam War, only to
be shot dead himself during the Suez War in Egypt in 1956. l . d.

1911 Born David Szymin in Warsaw, 1929-31 Studies art and photography at the Staat-
liche Akademie fOr Graphische KOnste und Buchgewerbe, Leipzig, 1931 -33 Studies at
the Sorbonne. Paris 1933-39 Freelance photographer in Paris, Spain. Mexico, and North
1 E&t' - i Africa, among other places. Regular contributor to the magazine Regards, as well as to
I11, Ce Soir, and La Vie Ouvriere. Adopts the pseudonym “Chim," 1939 Moves to New
York, 1942-45 Photo reconnaissance and interpreter for the U.S. Army in Europe. 1946-56 Travels
on behalf of UNESCO to document the effects of war on children, to Poland, Greece, Italy, Hungary,
Czechoslovakia, and Germany, 1949 Children of Europe published through UNESCO, 1947 Founds
the photo agency Magnum together with Robert Capa, Henri Cartier-Bresson, and George Rodger,
1954-56 President of Magnum. 1956 Dies in Suez, Egypt.
Further Reading; Bondi, Inge. Chim: The Photographs of David Seymour. Boston, 1996

66
A Hand Grenade Attack, Spain 1936
Death of a Loyalist Soldier 1936
 Robert Capa

One of Robert Capa's very first pictures became one of his best known.
After finishing his training as a photographer with the publishers
Ullstein and the news agency dephot (Deutscher Photodienst), Capa
started documenting the Spanish Civil War as a freelance photojour¬
nalist. He included a photo of a collapsing soldier who had just been hit
by a bullet among the first pictures he offered to editorial offices. This
picture became famous under the title Death of a Loyalist Soldier. The
moment of death, recorded by a camera, fascinated the press and the
general public. It aroused the sensation of being close to the killing and
being killed. Never before had such a photograph been seen.
Of course, it also provoked discussion, primarily focusing on the
question of whether it was a genuine a snapshot or had merely been
posed, although the impact of the picture made the answer to this
irrelevant. Nevertheless, this picture and its consequences taught
Capa the principles for his future work. He realized that the aura of a
photo, its impact on the viewer, is all the greater, the more directly the
latter feels confronted by what is happening. Reportage photography
aims to produce an effect, and this cannot be done from a safe distance.
The photojournalist must therefore be right in the center of things if
he is to produce powerful images. Capa drew on this realization for his
guiding principle: "If your pictures aren't good enough, you aren't
close enough"—a maxim that cost him his life on May 25, 1954, in
Thai-Binh, Vietnam.
Capa's ability to concentrate violence, suffering, the fear of death,
and destruction on the battlefield into a single picture, without directing
his camera at the superficially spectacular, and without getting "too
close" to those who were suffering, was what made him a master photog¬
rapher. Although his photos show war zones, they are in fact docu¬
ments against war, injustice, and oppression. The Robert Capa Gold
Award has been presented in his honor ever since 1955, and he was the
initiator of the International Fund for Concerned Photography, r.m.

1913 Born Andre Friedmann in Budapest, Self-taught in photography. From 1930

Works as a photographer. 1931-33 Studies political science at the University of
Berlin. 1931 Works as a photo lab technician at the publishers Ullstein, Berlin.
1932- 33 Photo assistant at the agency dephot (Deutscher Photodienst),
1933- 39 Freelance photographer in Paris. From 1933 Calls himself “Robert Capa."
1935 Co-founder of the agency Alliance. 1939-41 Freelance photographer. War reporting during
World War II for Life. New York. 1941-46 With the U.S. Army in Europe. 1947 Founding member of
the photo agency Magnum, New York and Paris, together with Henri Cartier-Bresson, David Seymour,
and George Rodger. 1948-54 President of Magnum. War photographer in Indochina for Life.
1954 Fatal accident in Thai-Binh, Vietnam.

Further Reading: Robert Capa: Photographs. New York, 1996. Whelan, Richard. Robert Capa Lincoln, 1994.

69
Dorothea Lange Migrant Mother, Nipomo, California 1936

This picture is among the most famous in the literature United States searching for a living of some kind, no
of photography. Few photographs have been pub¬ matter how meager. Borrowings from the traditions
lished more frequently, and the image has become im¬ of European art history, images of the Madonna, are
bued with almost mythical qualities. It embodies the evident here and give the picture its decisive visual
self-confidence of a country whose spirit cannot be power. Lange photographed the woman from various
broken, even under adverse circumstances. The Ameri¬ angles, but only this particular picture caught the exact
can photographer Dorothea Lange took the picture moment that kindles the emotional impact.
at a time when the United States was in the throes of The United States Government, under President
an economic depression of never before experienced Franklin D. Roosevelt, had commissioned a select group
dimensions, and the international economic crisis of photographers, male and female, to document the
even proved to be traumatic for Europe. A woman misery of such people, who were not profiting from
who looks older than she is, her face with clear-cut New Deal politics. These documentary pictures, it was
hoped, would stir employers in the industrial regions,
by then once again prospering, as well as those in the
big cities. Migrant Mother became the model for such
endeavors. Its creator was a committed photographer.
Originally a teacher, Lange always used photography
as an educational tool. Yet, she was deeply wedded to
the myth of America, although this never clouded her
critical eye. The exhausted workers in Field Hands on
a Cotton Plantation, Greene County, Georgia are a good
example. They slave away all day for a few dollars,
only to start again the next morning. The vertical lines
dominate the picture structure, lightly countered by
the diagonal of the tool held by the black woman to the
Field Hands on a Cotton Plantation, Greene County, Georgia, 1937 right of center, with her back bent. In spite of the
hardships her subjects had to endure, the photog¬
features and wrinkled brow, gazes sceptically, a little rapher believed that only an individual's contribution
morosely, but with determination into an uncertain could change the world. Together with Margaret
future. With her left hand she holds a small child bun¬ Bourke-White (see p. 102), Dorothea Lange was the
dled up on her lap; two other children rest their heads most American of American photographers. K. H .
against her shoulders. The photographer caught her
in three-quarter view: one of the countless itinerant
laborers who roamed the west and the south of the

, 1895 Born in Hoboken, New Jersey, 1913 Decides to become a Paul Schuster Taylor; thereafter collaboration with the California Rural Rehabili¬
photographer, 1914-17 Studies at the Iraining School for Teachers tation Administration (Resettlement Administration), later Farm Security Admin¬
New York, Assistant in various photographic studios, including istration. 1965 Dies in Marin County, California.
that of Arnold Genthe. New York. 1918 Works as a photo-finisher
at Marsh’s Dry Goods and Photo Supply Store, San Francisco.
Further Reading: Dorothea Lange American Photographs. Exh. cat, San Francisco
1919-34 Freelance photographer with her own studio in San Francisco, 1934 Museum of Modern Art, 1994. Dorothea Lange: Photographs of a Lifetime. The Oakiand
Contacts with the “f-64" group. 1935 Moves to Berkeley, California. Marries Museum, 1982.

70
 pNf|R««N:

■
s&mI
Walker Evans Bud Fields and His Family, Hale County, Alabama 1936

On leave from his duties as a member of the Farm clear is that these six people have virtually nothing
Security Administration's photographic team in the but each other, and that they are terribly fragile,
summer of 1936, Walker Evans accompanied James frighteningly vulnerable, and in great peril.
Agee on an ostensibly journalistic assignment into Deemed unpublishable by the magazine that had
cotton country. It was the height of the Great Depres¬ sent them, the resulting document achieved book
sion; they had come to report on conditions in the form a few years later, sold a few hundred copies, and
rural south of the United States, and had decided to vanished for decades. Yet, arguably, no book except
do so not by surveying the broad scene but by Robert Frank's The Americans has had a more resonant
immersing themselves in the lives of a small group impact on the field of documentary photography than
of tenant farmers' families. their collaboration, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men.
This bleak, somber, formal study of the Fields Several researchers have revisited the Fields family
family at once epitomizes and denies its function. It in recent years, interviewing the still-living children
and their descendants about their recollections of Agee
and Evans, the experience of being photographed
during those difficult times, and the consequences to
them this picture and its companions have had as visual
archetypes of hardscrabble, rural, Depression-era
survival. Understandably, they are somewhat embar¬
rassed by these images today; they did come through,
after all, even if against the odds, and do not enjoy being
seen in such desperate straits. One can understand their
desire to forget such hardship; yet one must also feel
grateful that, at a time when they had nothing to offer
but the blunt fact of their own existence and the deter¬
mination to endure, they were willing to share that with
Agee and Evans and, through those two empathetic
strangers, with us. a.d.c.
Subway Portrait, New York, 1938-40

gives us everything such a portrait traditionally offers:

the nuclear family unit, several generations, emblems
of the home, possessions, and social status, as well
as a self-conscious, formal presentation to the lens for
posterity's sake. Yet what this picture makes all too

a 1903 Born in St. Louis, Missouri, 1922 Attends Phillips Academy,

Andover, Massachusetts. 1922-23 Studies literature at Williams
College, Williamstown, Massachusetts; teaches himself photog¬
raphy, 1923-25 Moves to New York, where he works in a library.
1926-27 Journey to Europe; studies at the Sorbonne, Paris.
Snapshots with a roll-film camera. 1928 Begins freelance activity in New York.
1935-37 Regular photographer for the Farm Security Administration (F.S.A.).
1938 Publication of Walker Evans: American Photographs. First photos of
the subway. 1941 Publication of Let Us Alow Praise Famous Men. 1945-65
Chief editor and photographer of the magazine Fortune. 1948 First retrospective
at the Art Institute of Chicago. 1964-74 Professor of graphic arts and design
at Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut; Professor Emeritus 1974-75,
From 1930 Uses a large-format camera (16.5 x 21.6 cm). First publications. 1975 Dies in New Haven.
1933 First solo exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Walker Evans: Further Reading: Walker Evans. Los Angeles, 1998. Thompson, Jerry L. The Last Years
Photographs of 19th-Century Houses. Photo campaign in Cuba. of Walker Evans. New York, 1997.

72
Edward Weston Oceano 1936

For Edward Weston, photography was the medium decades, while for Hans Finsler it was the egg whose
through which to approach the world as something perfection repeatedly drove him to convert it into the
complete, true, and unique. Like his friends from two-dimensionality of a picture. For Weston, it was the
the "f-64" group, to which Ansel Adams and Imogen dunes of Oceano; through his lens they become a hymn
Cunningham belonged (pp. 96, 130), he sought to expe¬ to the structure and movement of nature. He experi¬
rience the mystery of nature optically, to describe the ences them as a rhythmically moving sea of waves on
singularity of its structures through his pictures. to which the wind traces a fine, ornamental pattern. The
In 1934, during a visit to Oceano in California, sun throws its glistening light on to the light-colored
Weston noted in his diary: “I took a few photographs sand, producing deep shadows that make it dark and
there of the dunes, which herald a new epoch in my secretive. The infinite nature of a sand dune resonates
work. I must return there—the material is created for in the composition of the photograph. The dunes have
me." He photographed these sand formations over and no limits. They fill the entire picture space, leaving only
over again. Their silhouettes, constantly altered by the a narrow gap for the sky. The real view of the dunes
wind, and their surfaces shaped by the light prompted is broken up through the parallel layering of light
him to record natural phenomena in an absolute pic¬ and dark.
torial form. Oceano comes from those years of constant For Weston, photography was a "wonderful expan¬
work. Edward Steichen photographed clouds for sion of our vision." He believed in the "majesty of the
moment." He saw every photograph already complete
before his eyes, even before he started to make the ex¬
posure. He never cropped a photograph—his respect
for his subject was too great. But he conjured with his
camera the never before perceived, and this is part of
the fascination of his art, as evidenced by his famous
photo, Cabbage Leaf. In his work, a precise look at
reality is combined with the simultaneous recognizing
of its visual nature. Weston himself was well aware of
this capability, which he conceded to only a handful
of other photographers. e.b.

Cabbage Leaf, 1931

H
1886 Born in Highland Park, Illinois, 1902 Given a camera (Kodak clouds. 1927 Moves to Glendale, California, Meets Ansel Adams, 1928 Opens a
Bull’s-eye no. 2) by his father: subsequent involvement with pho¬ portrait studio with his son, Brett Weston, in San Francisco, 1929 Moves to Carmel;
tography, self-taught: particular interest in portrait photography. participates in the exhibition Film und Foto in Stuttgart, 1932-34 Founding
1906 First publication. 1907-08 Postcard photographer in Los member of the “f-64” group 1935 Opens a portrait studio with Brett Weston in
Angeles. 1908 Studies photography at the Illinois College of Santa Monica 1938-58 Wildcat Hill Studio in Carmel 1946 Retrospective at
Photography, Chicago. 1909 Assistant in the studios of George Steckel and the Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1951 Honorary member of the American
A. Louis Mojonier. 1911 Establishes his own studio in Tropico. 1917 Member of Photographic Society. 1958 Dies in Carmel.
the London Salon of Photography. 1920 Meets Imogen Cunningham and Doro¬
thea Lange in Los Angeles. 1921 Tina Modotti becomes his student 1923 They Further Reading: Mora, Gilles (ed.). Edward Weston. Forms of Passion-Passion of
go to Mexico, where they set up a photo studio together. First photographs of Forms. London, 1995.

74
Albert Renger-Patzsch Beech Wood 193G

No genre has stirred the emotions of the art scene as icons of factual photography. A few years ago, even
much as the question whether factual photography the juxtaposition of the terms "art" and "factual photog¬
is, or could be, art. Albert Renger-Patzsch regarded raphy" would have been considered inherently contra¬
himself all his life as a photographer with high formal dictory. But now that a young generation of artists,
and technical standards. In the 1920s, he had already conceptually motivated, is employing factual photog¬
rejected the tendency to want to make art with photog¬ raphy, Renger-Patzsch is claimed as the forefather of
raphy, as Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, Man Ray, and Christian the visual tools they use.
Schad were doing at that time. "Let us leave art to artists His late work, too, which he devoted to trees and
and try, with the tools of photography, to create photo¬ rocks, breaks with the tradition of the confrontation
graphs that can hold their own through their photogra¬ with nature (particularly the German variety), familiar
phic qualities," was how he put it in 1927 for the maga¬ since the paintings of Caspar David Friedrich. Renger-
zine Deutsche Lichtbildner. Today, after the lengthy Patzsch's photos of trees are not landscape pictures in
the traditional sense, as they are more closely cropped
and the photographer enters into the landscape he is
recording. However, they retain too much distance to
allow their interpretation as detailed views of nature.
Renger-Patzsch is no Romantic, although his nature
photos are anything but objective visual documents.
Probably the most appropriate term to describe the
feelings conveyed in his superb photographs of German
forests and woods would be Sublime. The eye of the
architectural photographer positions the tree-trunks as
though faced with the pillars of some Gothic cathedral.
His mastery as a photographer of objects is demon¬
strated again with regard to nature. His photos testify
to the inner order of things, their relationship to one
another. Whether, as in the present photograph, his
subject is woodland, whether he photographs plants or
rocks, glass cylinders, or parts of a spinning machine,
Renger-Patzsch takes care—either in front of the lens
or through the lens—to arrange his subjects in accor¬
dance with the dimensional proportions that, in the final
“Katharina” Colliery in Essen, 1954 analysis, give the image its structure. "I base this on
reality as space. This space should be cropped in such
debates of the seventies and eighties, his photographs a way that it produces a well-ordered picture when
are viewed as art; even his advertising and commis¬ projected onto the plane." This is the straightforward
sioned work is considered to be of high quality— description of the artist's approach. r.m.

1897 Born in Wurzburg, Germany, 1916-18 Serves in World War I, his first book, Das Chorgestiihl von Cappenberg (The choir stalls of Cappen-
1919-21 Studies chemistry at the Technische Hochschule in berg), 1928 Moves to Essen 1933-34 Teaches at the Folkwangschule, Essen.
Dresden 1922-23 Heads the photography departments of the 1944 Moves to Wamel near Soest. 1966 Dies in Wamel.
Folkwang-Archiv and the Auriga-Verlag in Hagen, Works as a
photographer on the book series Die Welt der Pflanze (The plant Further Reading: Wilde, Ann and Jurgen, and Thomas Weski (eds). Albert Renger-
world), 1925 Settles as an independent photographer in Bad Harzburg; publishes Patzsch. Meisterwerke. Munich/Paris/London, 1997.

76
Paul Outerbridge, Jr. Shower for Mademoiselle c. 1937

Paul Outerbridge, Jr., is probably best known for his We first see the seductive form of the bather, all
simple still life, a black-and-white image from 1922 warm flesh tones against a background of cool aqua¬
of a man's shirt-collar resting on a chess board. It is marine, her red-lipped mouth and white teeth drawing
an image that, though made on commission as an adver¬ attention from her sensual figure to her upturned face
tisement for Ide, a collar manufacturer, so resonated with its ecstatic expression. Yet she proves illusory,
with an elegant surrealism that the inveterate chess¬ diffused and dematerialized by the intervention of
player Marcel Duchamp viewed it as a "readymade," the patterned shower curtain, whose upper folds in
clipping it from a periodical to pin on his bulletin turn become a series of streaks of reflected light, none
board. of them ultimately any more tangible than the other.
That mix of the functional and the creative, the What begins as an erotic promise evolves into a medi¬
applied and the imaginative, remained a hallmark of tation on the extra-physical levels of sexuality.
Outerbridge's work throughout his comparatively Outerbridge took classes at the Clarence White
brief career. He enjoyed working with the most dif¬ School of photography in New York in the early 1920s,
ficult yet durable of the photographic printmaking where he encountered not only the pictorialist ideas of
processes—platinum for his monochrome work and White but also the modernist concepts of Paul Strand
Carbro (carbon printing) for his pioneering exploration and Max Weber; he also studied with the sculptor
of color. This image exemplifies his achievements in Alexander Archipenko, and conversed with Alfred
the latter form; it moves the eye, and with it the mind, Stieglitz. From there he went to Paris, where he worked
through three layers of insubstantiality. for French Vogue and met Duchamp, Dali, Picasso,
Braque, Man Ray, and other major figures. Next he
studied filmmaking in Germany in the late 1920s, ab¬
sorbing the influence of Bauhaus aesthetics, German
Expressionism, and cabaret theater before returning
to the United States. As a result, one can find virtually
all of the currents of early twentieth-century photog¬
raphy and art moving through his compact oeuvre,
which comprises a mere two decades. A. D. c.

Collar, 1922

1896 Born in New York. 1915 Studies at the Art Students League, New York. to New York. 1930 Opens his own studio; experiments with the carbon color
1916 Designs stage sets, together with Rollo Peters, 1917 Enters the Army. process. From 1936 Active as freelance photographer. 1947 Extensive travel and
Begins taking photos, From 1921 Training at the Clarence White School. picture reportages. 1958 Dies in New York.
1923 Meets Alfred Stieglitz: studies with Alexander Archipenko. Until 1925
Works as commercial photographer. Goes to Paris, where he meets Duchamp, Further Reading: Howe, Graham. Paul Outerbridge. Jr. New York, 1980. Paul Outer-
Man Ray, Brancusi, and Picabia. 1926 Freelance work for Vogue. 1929 Returns bridge: 71 Singular Aesthetic. Santa Barbara, 1981.

78
t
Horst P. Horst Mainbocher Corset, Paris 1939

Horst P. Horst set important markers in twentieth- boarded the Normandie. We all felt that war was
century photography, unforgettable images that even imminent. Too many weapons, too much talk. And
people who are not particularly knowledgeable about we knew that it would never be the same, whatever
photography find embedded in their memory. Main¬ happened. In Paris I had found a family, a way of life.
bocher Corset tops the list, but Odalisque (1943) and The clothes, the books, the apartment—everything was
Electric Beauty (1939) are also among them. And Horst's left behind. I myself had left Germany... experiencing
compositions created in cooperation with Salvador the same loss all over again. The photograph had some¬
Dali, such as Dali Costumes (1939) or Surrealistic Still thing quite unique—for me it is the quintessence of
Life (1941), are no less fascinating. that moment," he said.
Of all these pictures, Mainbocher Corset stands out In photojournalism, it is frequently the case that
particularly because it also marked a turning-point in important historical situations provoke the creation of
Horst's own life. "It was the last photo I took in Paris important images. It is not a matter of course that the
before war broke out. At four in the morning I left the tension of a historic moment may have a similar effect
studio, went back to my house, collected my luggage, on the fashion photographer, that the last photo taken
and at seven got into the train to Le Havre, where we three hours before departure is not made quickly and
absentmindedly, but with full concentration, absorb¬
ing the situation. In fact, Horst later that said he him¬
self could no longer understand how he had taken the
picture, and that he would be incapable of repeating
it. A woman fashion photographer once confided to
the author that, in her experience, the best photos
were produced when the models were exhausted.
Possibly it was such a situation that reigned in Horst's
studio when he took Mainbocher Corset. It is a great
work which can easily be ranked alongside historic
images of "rear views" from Ingres, by way of Degas,
to Man Ray. r.m.

Still Life, 1937

190B Born Horst Paul Albert Bohrmann in Weissenfels an der Works for the magazine Belvoir Castle. 1946 Again at Vogue, New York, until
Saale, Germany 1920-28 Studies architecture at the Kunst- studio closes in 1951.1951 Innumerable major journeys, including to South
gewerbeschule, Hamburg. 1930 Assistant to Le Corbusier in Paris America, Europe, Beirut, Israel. From 1952 Contributes to House & Garden,
Turns to photography, encouraged by George Hoyningen-Huene, New York, 1974 Solo exhibition at the Sonnabend Gallery, New York. 1977 Partici
1932-34 Photographer at Conde Nast's Vogue. Paris; from 1934 pates in "documenta 6,-' Kassel. 1984 First retrospective at the International
on the staff there. Works on commission for various fashion houses in Paris, Center of Photography, New York. Lives in Long Island, New York.
including Coco Chanel. 1939 Emigrates to the U.S.A. Staff photographer at
Further Reading: Horst: Photographien a us sechs Jahrzehnten Munich/Paris/London,
Vogue in New York 1943-45 Serves in the U.S. Army as army photographer 1991. Misselbeck, Reinhold (el). Horst-Magier des iichts. Heidelberg, 1997.

80
Lisette Model Coney Island Bather 1939-41

This picture of a stout woman in a bathing suit was fills the entire picture with life. As was her general
taken on Lisette Model's first commission for the New custom. Model enlarged the photo in such a way that
York magazine Harper's Bazaar. It was used in July the figure of the woman is barely contained within the
1941 to illustrate the article “How Coney Island Got boundaries of the picture on all sides. The simple vol¬
That Way" and was captioned: "Coney Island Today, umes are accentuated, and the movement of the body is
the Bathing Paradise of Billions—Where Fun is Still captured at the instant of greatest accumulated tension.
on a Gigantic Scale." In contrast to the superlatives of The black of the hair and bathing suit gives the picture
the caption, the photo shows not the teeming beaches an inner calm. The bare feet on sand washed by the
of “New York's bathing paradise" but an individual sea, the far horizon: Model succeeded here in visualiz¬
portrait of a middle-aged woman who—her back to ing an effervescent joie de vivre by using the tools
the sea — is happily waiting, hands propped on knees, offered by black-and-white photography.
either to catch a ball or for someone to join her. This is In her overall creative work. Model demonstrated
no foam-born Botticelli Venus who stands before us (she an interest in people in the street, whether these were
is more like one of Rubens' creations), but she never¬ idlers on the Promenade des Anglais in Nice (1934) or
theless radiates great charisma. With strong diagonals passersby on the Lower East Side (1939—45), many of
in the rectangular composition, her physical presence whom are social outcasts. Although Coney Island
Bather is a masterfully composed image—comparable
in its type with Henri Cartier-Bresson's most success¬
ful snapshots—Model avoided an overly strong degree
of aesthetization, resulting in the impression of great
truth to life in her photos. She showed people as they
were, not as they wished to be seen. This was one of the
reasons why she did not ultimately succeed in making
the breakthrough as a magazine photographer.
Also dating from her early New York period is the
series Running Legs, one example of which is shown
here. The formalization that dominates in this case
contrasts with the verism of many of her milieu depic¬
tions. The picture from the upper-class financial
district showing an elegantly clad lady's leg combines
American emblems such as the Ford and the flag from
a surprisingly novel perspective, making this a symbol
of tempo and a worldly way of life. p. s.

Running Legs, Fifth Avenue, 1940-41

1001 Born Elise Felicie (Lisette) Amelie Stern (later Seybert) in Arbus, who becomes one of her students. 1960 Takes over Berenice Abbott’s
Vienna 1020-25 Studies music with Arnold Schonberg in Vienna. class. Numerous workshops and seminars at other institutes, including in
1026-33 Studies singing with Marya Freund in Paris. 1033 Discovers Vienna, Arles (1978), Seattle Art Museum (1979), and Haverford College (1983).
photography through her sister Olga. After a conversation with 1967 Participates in Alexey Brodovich’s Design Laboratory, an experimental
Hanns Eisler, decides to become a professional photographer, workshop and conference for photography and design. 1968 Honorary member
1036 Marries the painter Evsa Model 1937 Emigrates to the U.S.A.; self-taught of the American Association of Magazine Photographers. 1981 Honorary doctor¬
in photography. 1940-41 Photographer, under Ralph Steiner, for the magazine ate from the New School for Social Research, New York. 1982 Retrospective at
PM. 1941-53 Freelance photographer, working among others for Harper's Bazaar the Museum Folkwang, Essen 1983 Dies in New York.
(until 1955), Look, and Ladies Home Journal. From 1951 Lecturer in photogra¬
phy at the New School for Social Research, New York. 1955-59 Meets Diane Further Reading: Lisette Model. Exh, cat., National Gallery of Canada, etc. Ottawa, 1990.

82
Helen Levitt

New York is a world of children—this is what is conveyed by the photographs L ’ L.i. ,, T I '■ ■
iL q*. v
of Helen Levitt, born in Brooklyn, herself only in her mid-twenties when she
began to take these pictures of a city that at the time already had a population M
,
of seven million. But it is not the sunny world of well-to-do children into which -

she takes us, but the everyday life of neighborhoods such as the Lower East Side,
where children literally grow up on the street, their playgrounds located between
the gutter and the fire escapes, in a no-man's-land of empty building lots and
backyards. The toys of middle-class children are replaced by what is available
on the street: trash and motor vehicles. The lounge is replaced by sidewalks in
front of laundries, shoe repair shops, and scrap-metal dealers. But this world
can be transformed in an instant into a paradise for children when, for instance,
the water hydrants are turned on in the summer and become fountains in an
aquatic park.
These pictures are not concerned with social criticism. Levitt recorded scenes
without sentimentality, as they were presented to her on the street. She used an
angled lens so her subjects would not notice they were being photographed. The
spontaneous liveliness and freshness of many of Levitt's pictures are due to this
ability not to become involved in what is happening, not even indirectly becom¬
ing visible as the photographer. Levitt has been able to capture games of "cops
and robbers," childish fights, dressing up at Halloween, or scenes of tenderness
between children, as though through the eyes of a child.
In this photo Levitt shows three children on a derelict piece of land. Although
each of them is armed with a stick, there does not appear to be anything too
dangerous about their game. The boys' springy movements have something
almost dance-like about them. The beauty of this moment is encapsulated in the
sadness of the surroundings, a background of an area strewn with rubbish, a fire¬
wall with white graffiti and—indicated on the right—an empty street. Children's
pleasure in playing and using their imagination appears to overcome even the
desolation of the city; that could be the message of this photo. Or, in the words
that preface Levitt's and James Agee's short film In the Street, produced in 1944:
"The streets of the poor quarters of great cities are, above all, a theater and
a battleground. There, unaware and unnoticed, every human being is a poet,
a masker, a warrior, a dancer and in his innocent artistry he projects, against the
turmoil of the street, an image of human existence." p. s.

1913 Born in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn. 1931 Works for a portrait photographer. Attends Photo League.
1935 Contact with Henri Cartier-Bresson in New York. 1936 First street photographs taken with a Leica.
1937 Teaches children for the Federal Art Project. First photographs of children playing. 1941 Cutting
assistant with Luis Buriuel. 1943 Solo exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, New York: Photographs
of Children, 1944 Short film In the Street with James Agee. 1944-45 Editorial assistant in the film
department of the Office of War Information. 1946-47 Film The Cuiet One with James Agee and Janice Loeb. 1959
Returns to photography, especially color. From mid-1970s Teaches at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. 1980s Returns to
black-and-white, 1991 -92 Major traveling exhibition 1997 Participates in "documenta X," Kassel. Lives in New York.

Further Reading: Weiermair, Peter (ed.). Helen Levitt, Munich/New York. 1998.

84
New York c. 1940
Andreas Feininger Hudson River Waterfront, New York 1942

“For me photography is a mirror of life, and every active within it. There is no doubt that form played an
photo that is even worth looking at must be a reflection important role in his photos, supplied an "architectural"
of life—of reality, nature, man and his activity, from order in the picture that was both framework and sup¬
art to war." Behind such a declaration, one would tend port for its content.
to assume, there must be a photographer of the type This is evident in Feininger's photographs of New
who delves deep into life, who creates photographs full York, his views of Brooklyn Bridge and the Manhattan
of emotion. One would not think of Andreas Feininger, skyline, which could also be read as abstract patterns
the rather cool photographer who composed his views of verticals and horizontals, of black, white, and grays.
of New York with great precision. However closely he Moreover, through the use of a telephoto lens, the depth
approached his clams and shells with the camera, of the space is compressed within the picture plane. The
however much he concentrated on the surface of sculp¬ photo opposite is particularly remarkable in the graphic
tures in close-up, he remained more the passive ob¬ contrasts of its composition. Thus, the thick smoke from
server recording events from a certain distance, and the ship, which has just passed through the picture,
especially so when he found himself amid the bustle of still visible on the right, creates an almost calligraphic
the city, when he delved into the streets of New York structure in front of the skyscrapers of Midtown
and watched people going about their daily business. Manhattan. This is paralleled by the ship's wake in the
He probably considered this distance necessary to pre¬ lower half of the picture. It is the clarity of the compo¬
vent a situation where the photographer suddenly sition that makes this such a suggestive photograph.
becomes part of the action and may influence events This, ultimately, is where Feininger's great skill
through his presence. lies: to overlay the coolly calculated visual construc¬
In order to describe a situation, the ambience—the tion with an aura, a veneer of atmosphere, which makes
loving recording of details in the vicinity—was always one forget what a rational mind it was that distilled such
just as important to Feininger as the people who were an image from reality. r.m.

Ik 1906 Born in Paris, son of the artist Lyonel Feininger, 1922-25 1941-42 War correspondent and photographer for the Office of War Information.
Studies at the Bauhaus in Weimar under Waiter Gropius and at 1943-62 Staff photographer at Life, New York. From 1962 Freelance photogra¬
the Bauschule, Weimar. 1926-28 Studies at the Staatliche Bau- pher in New York and Connecticut. 1972 Teaches creative photocommunications
schule in Zerbst, Self-taught in photography, 1928-31 Architect at New York University. 1999 Dies in New York.
jn Dessau and Hamburg. 1932-33 Assistant to Le Corbusier in
Paris. 1933-39 Architectural and Industrial photography in Stockholm. Further Reading, Andreas Feininger: Photographs 1928-1988. Exh. cat., Institut
1940-41 Freelance photojournalist for the photo agency Black Star, New York, fiir Kulturaustausch, Schaffhausen, 1997.

86
 ~^- / .• .,■ '^'-'[T9, v .* '*< — i* ~** *, ,-

-fc^as* i^«S^MBSS «eaE^4^A^—

9p3SR*^3:‘*‘ - — —5
“--^ -^s*-— ^ .gy—■-• ^==~ -r,
2*3vTO3«F *s****«2^ C^^Ne: Sg* sag* -o>"
— ■!
&&* ~ *"""**-~j: '"-1Siiii ,••—°Tr •'"' "S^--
•»•?' ■• ;■ '. • -■•'^swfc- ; ->“a>:' "—wmJiffaw»i»i,.W, T *'"•,-! - •-"—- "
Bill Brandt Drawing Room in Mayfair 1930s

and the poor, each inhabiting their respective residences.

The title was ironic, though tacitly so. Brandt did not
believe in any such unitary entity as "the English";
few societies are as conscious of class distinctions as
the British, and what Brandt explored in his project
were deep class differences, often dramatic ones, not
superficial, sentimentalized similarities.
This image of adults in evening dress socializing in a
drawing room registers all the quiet symbols of wealth
and power in the scene: high ceilings, elaborate mould¬
ings, a big fireplace, gilt-framed paintings and mirrors,
a backgammon board, fresh flowers, books, rich fabrics,
and oriental carpets. The people radiate the privilege
of those who take such surroundings for granted, as a
birthright. Yet Brandt has intensified the image's con¬
trast, replacing the room's probably cozy ambience
Halifax, c. 1940s with something harsher, slightly grim and gritty, even
a bit tawdry, as if the scene had been hit with a burst
When discussing Bill Brandt, it seems always advisable of light from a tabloid reporter's flashbulb.
to determine "which" Bill Brandt one is speaking about. Ultimately, this picture distills itself into a study of
There is Bill Brandt of the fragmented, distorted, oneiric hands—the soft, clean, well-groomed hands of people
nudes, and Brandt the portraitist, who gave us stun¬ who most probably have never had to perform any act
ning, more than slightly deranged portraits of Rene of manual labor, and may never have done an honest
Magritte, Henry Moore, Dylan Thomas, and a host of day's work in their lives. Hands rest on a knee, scratch
British writers. There is Bill Brandt the landscapist, a nose, ball into a loose fist, prop up a chin, move a
who showed us what the English mean by "blasted backgammon piece, hold a cigarette, and rattle dice in
heaths," and Brandt the urban observer, rendering the preparation for the next throw. All of this is overseen
cityscape of London in all its bleakness. by some progenitor in the painting in the upper left-
And then there is Bill Brandt the social commentator, hand corner, whose head Brandt has excluded from
who, in his 1936 classic book The English at Home, his picture but whose grasping hands tell us all we
looked at the rich, the middle class, the working class, need to know about him and his inheritors. A. d . c.

1904 Born in London, Self-taught In photography, 1929-30 Assis- photographer for the National Buildings Record, London. From 1945 Freelance,
tant to Man Ray. 1931-39 Freelance documentary photographer From 1959, second home in Provence. 1961 Publication of Perspective of
on the social life of the British. Work, among others, for Weekly Nudes. 1977 Honorary doctorate from the Royal College of Art, London.
Illustrated, Picture Post, and Verve in London. Publication of The 1980 Honorary member of the Royal Photographic Society of Great Britain.
English at Home (1936), A Night in London (1938). 1939-45 1983 Dies in London.
Photographer for the magazine Lilliput, London. 1940-45 Photographs bombing
raids on London and air-raid shelters for the British Home Office; documentary Further Reading: Bill Brandt: Photographs 1928-1983. London, 1994.

88
Gisele Freund Virginia Woolf 1939

This portrait has become so synonymous with the and written the very first dissertation in history on a
writer that nobody can now imagine that Virginia photographic theme, to Mexico. Her passionate inter¬
Woolf might have looked any different: the oval, est in literature and the socio-critical involvement of
rather long face, the melancholy gaze, the hair intellectuals brought her into contact with the leading
combed back severely, the pointed nose, full mouth writers and artists of the era. At the same time, she
gently pulled downwards. A soft strand of hair, turned her hobby, photography, into her profession.
drawn backwards, matches the undulating lines on She quickly became a highly sought-after photojour¬
the furrowed brow. nalist, with regular commissions for Life and other
Gisele Freund took this photograph of Virginia magazines. But her remarkable portraits of literati,
Woolf in the same year that Germany invaded Poland painters, and poets, usually in a 35 mm format and
and triggered World War II. The photographer had in color, long before color photography was common,
had to leave Germany before this, a few weeks after remained largely unknown. They belonged more to
Hitler was appointed Chancellor. She was doubly the private sphere. This intimate quality is in fact
threatened: as a critical student of sociology in Frank¬ Freund's most striking characteristic. Virginia Woolf—
furt, and as a Jew. She would soon have to emigrate like Andre Gide under Leopardi's Death Mask in his
even further, from Paris, where she had found refuge Apartment at Rue Vanneau and other portraits—was
taken by the photographer at a moment when the
subject apparently felt herself to be unobserved. The
majority of the portraits were taken in the subjects'
domestic surroundings. The camera functions as an
invisible onlooker, yet never gives the impression of
being indiscreet; convincing evidence of the high
quality of Gisele Freund's photographic skills, k . H.

Andre Gide under Leopardi’s Death Mask in

his Apartment at Rue Vanneau, Paris, 1939

1912 Born in Schoneberg near Berlin, 1920 First camera (Voigt- libraries commissioned for the World Fair in Paris, 1938 Works with first color
lander, 6 x 9 cm). 1929 First Leica. 1929 Studies sociology, eco¬ films, 1939 Stays in London 1942 Reporter in South America: camera assis¬
nomics, and art history at the University of Freiburg, 1930 Moves tant, 1947-54 Member of the photo agency Magnum. Reportages for Time and
to Frankfurt: continues sociology studies at the University of Life. 1950-52 Stays in Mexico, returning to Paris in 1952.1963 First photo
Frankfurt. 1931 Begins dissertation on the history of photography: exhibition in Paris, Reporter in Southeast Asia. 1974 Publication of Fotografie
one semester at the Sorbonne in Paris, Becomes acquainted with Surrealists und Gesellschaft, 1977 Participates in “documenta 6," Kassel. Lives in Paris.
in Louis Aragon’s circle, 1933 Moves to Paris, where she continues her studies. Further Reading: Gisele Freund: Photographer. New York, 1985. Gisele Freund: Photo-
1936 Publishes dissertation. Reportages for Life. 1937 Photographic series on graphien und Erinnertmgen. Munich/Paris/London, 1998,

90
Arnold Newman Max Ernst 1942

Newman's picture of Max Ernst shows an interior

with pictures on the wall and a sculpture on a side
table. The first thing we notice, however, is the huge
chair with a neo-baroque backrest in which the painter
is seated in a haze of cigarette smoke. Besides the
American Indian kachina figure, the smoking becomes
more than merely enjoyment of nicotine and allows us
to interpret the haze as a tool for expanding the con¬
sciousness, as is entirely appropriate in the case of a
Igor Stravinsky, 1946 Surrealist such as Max Ernst. The subject of the por¬
trait only takes up a modest portion of the picture,
which primarily depicts pieces from a private art col¬
Arnold Newman is a legend in the history of photog¬ lection. It is, in fact, that of Peggy Guggenheim, whom
raphy. The native New Yorker can look back over a Ernst had married the year before in New York, and
career that spans sixty years, as well as an incomparable the paintings shown are by Kandinsky, Picasso, Braque
body of work. At the age of twenty he was already [Tondo], and Duchamp (top left). Only the kachina
working in a portrait studio in Philadelphia, an activity figure belonged to Ernst. In Newman's work, the sur¬
that was to mark his later life and his creative output. roundings are not just a backdrop but a context. This
Alfred Stieglitz (see p. 14) and Beaumont Newhall is similar to a medieval depiction of a saint, where the
were impressed by his work and encouraged him, in associated story is what makes the saint figure convey
the course of various meetings in 1941, to continue what it is intended to represent in the picture. This
along the path on which he had already set out. New¬ was a brilliant visual concept that Newman developed
man then successfully ran a portrait studio in Miami and varied for every single individual of whom he made
Beach until he moved back to New York in 1946, where a portrait, and it was repeatedly successful precisely
he opened a studio on the West Side. He received com¬ because of its variety. Art critics called Newman's pic¬
missions from Life and Harper's Bazaar, whose direc¬ tures “environmental portraits," which is certainly
tor, Alexey Brodovich, fostered his subsequent career. suitable as a term with respect to the history of photog¬
Newman developed a specific portrait style that raphy, but nevertheless falls somewhat short as a
made him internationally famous. He broke with the valid description. Newton was not concerned with
classical tradition, based on painting, in which the pic¬ including his subject's surroundings purely as “decor,"
ture concentrates on the face, and the surroundings but with the interaction between the social surround¬
are usually included only as a background. Accord¬ ings and the person, and with the interpretation of
ing to Newman, the social, professional, or private personality via these elements. In the case of Max
surroundings of a portrait's subject are integral to Ernst, this meant that the ambivalent identity of an
and part of that person, and so he always incorpo¬ artist living in exile was expressed through paintings
rated them into his portraits as a basic component. that were not by his own hand. r.m.

1918 Born in New York, 1936-38 Studies art at the University of Miami, Florida. Newman Studios Inc,, New York. From 1965 Photography consultant to the Israel
1938- 39 Assistant portrait photographer with Leon Perskie, Philadelphia. Museum, Jerusalem From 1975 Guest professor in photography at Cooper
1939- 41 Manager of the Tooley-Myron Photo Studios, West Palm Beach. Florida, Union for the Advancement of Science and Art. New York. Lives in New York.
1942-45 Proprietor of Newman Portrait Studios, Miami Beach, From 1946 Arnold Further Reading: Arnold Newman's Americans, Boston, 1992.

92
Weegee The Critic 1943

It would be no surprise if Weegee recognized himself film. He was on the scene of a crime faster than the
in the form of the young man on the right in his famous guardians of the law, because he listened in on police
picture The Critic. The “critic" is making venomous radio. He witnessed many fires in the city before the fire
comments about the two ladies in elaborate evening brigade arrived. He kept no distance from human
garb who are advancing with stereotyped, persistent misfortune, the victims of which were his preferred, if
smiles, distorted into a grimace, plastered on their involuntary, heroes. He was a voyeur with a penetrat¬
faces. The discrepancy between the outfits of the ladies, ing gaze, and as a voyeur he uncovered exhibitionism—
who left their youth behind some time ago, and that of at the time still concealed—during the gradually devel¬
their tormentor is immediately obvious. The photogra¬ oping era of mass media. His searching gaze penetrated
pher has set the tense encounter in an appropriate light the carefully tended surface appearance, exposed the
by using a strong flash which makes the ladies' faces blatant contradictions of a materialistic society with
look like masks. mendacious morals. His best pictures have a decidedly
Weegee acquired a great reputation in New York as sarcastic tone. In these, it was not realism that he was
a sort of police photographer. Usually he was out and striving to achieve but the kind of projection that de-
about at night, and the shadowy sides of existence, familiarizes reality, like a distorting mirror, until it
everything that shunned the light, were his domain. becomes recognizable.
Crime fascinated him, but so did hidden pleasures. In Behind social relationships, with their gaping con¬
the cinema he would watch necking couples—Lovers flicts, he also tracked down the human desires which
at the Movies—and photograph them using infrared from time to time disrupt the beauty of the surface
appearance with primal force. The driver involved in
a car crash continues to grasp the steering wheel, even
in death—one of Weegee's most depressing photo¬
graphs. And yet he was no stranger to irony. He did
not even spare himself. On one occasion he photo¬
graphed himself as a rotund, piggy-eyed king in fake
ermine with a crown and scepter made from junk. It
was a long time before he was acknowledged as one
of the greats in his field. k.h.

Lovers at the Movies, c. 1940

1899 Born Arthur H. Fellig in Zioczew, Poland. 1910 Emigrates to board). Works for various daily papers. 1940-45 Regular photographer for PM.
the U.S.A. 1914-24 Assistant to studio and street photographers. New York. 1945 Publication of the book Naked City: filmed in Hollywood in 1947.
1924-28 Violinist for silent film performances. 1924-35 Works 1953-58 Film consultant and actor in Hollywood. The book Naked Hollywood
as photo lab technician. Employed by Acme New Pictures, New appears. 1958 Returns to New York. Travels through Europe and Russia: active
York (United Press International Photos); unofficial news photog¬ for the Daily Mirror, 1968 Dies in New York.
rapher. 1938 Freelance press photographer. First photographer permitted to
install police radio in his car. Adopts the name “Weegee" (derived from Ouija Further Reading: Weegee. Weegee's World. Boston: 1997.

94
Ansel Adams White House Ruin, Canyon de Chelly, Arizona 1942

Ansel Adams became famous as a result of his super¬ his pictures what Walt Whitman celebrated in his po¬
lative landscape photography. He photographed land¬ etry: the uniqueness of American landscape and nature.
scapes with razor-sharp precision and an incomparable The Canyon de Chelly is photographed from a per¬
eye for the structure and detail of his chosen subject spective that brings out superbly the monumentality
matter. There are never people in his pictures. The of the sheer drop in the canyon walls. The surface struc¬
canyons, mountains, and plains of the American West ture is emphasized by the light falling on to it, which
lie before us, pure and unsullied, as though on the first transforms it into a pattern of fine stripes of light and
day of creation. Adams had a particular love of canyons. shade that become rays. The stone ruins lie within a
Immovable and majestic, they rise, disturbed by not dark cavern; the protective character is emphasized.
the slightest spontaneous movement. All that changes Light, shadow, and silence make this a sacred place,
here is the light, which Adams incorporates into his a naturally created site, set outside time and space.
pictures with a touch of genius. It is light that he uses The second of the photos illustrated, Moonrise Over
to convey atmosphere and to give the pictures their Hernandez, has become a veritable photographic icon.
magical content. Every photo of a canyon reflects an Never before has such magical light been captured in
overwhelming natural experience. Edward Weston, a photograph. The light that the moon casts over the
Paul Strand, Imogen Cunningham—friends of Adams— landscape and the Pueblo has a cosmic quality. The
all photographed with an almost subservient respect world is acquiring something of the supernatural
for their subject. Adams himself elevated the act of under the black sky, which takes up half the picture
photography to a religious experience. He realized in and is marked only by the moon. Every bush, every
cross in the small cemetery is perfectly visible.
Adams exercised precise control—to a degree
achieved by few other photographers—over the ex¬
posure and development of a photograph, so that he
obtained the exact tonal scale that he had intended.
With this mastery of the photographic medium, he
succeeded in his personal interpretation of nature,
although he altered nothing in its actual appearance.
His aim was to show the "grandiose beauty of the
world," and he knew that his photography was suc¬
cessful in doing this. e.b.

Moonrise Over Hernandez, New Mexico, c. 1941

1902 Born in San Francisco, 1914-27 Trains as a pianist, New York, From 1941 Teaches photography at various universities, schools,,
1916-17 Trains as a photographer with Frank Dittmann. 1930 and institutes in the U.S.A.: founds and initiates countless photographic clubs
Meets Paul Strand, through whom he discovers photography as among other things. 1942-44 Photographic consultant for the Office of War
his true, expressive medium. 1931 Correspondent for the Fort¬ Information, Los Angeles, From 1949 Technical consultant for the Polaroid
nightly Review, San Francisco, 1932 Co-founder of the ,lf-64” Corporation, Cambridge, Massachusetts, From 1978 Honorary vice-president
group with Imogen Cunningham, John Paul Edwards, Sonya Noskowiak, Henry of the Sierra Club, San Francisco, 1962 Moves to Carmel, California.
Swift, Willard van Dyke, and Edward Weston 1933-34 Director of the Ansel 1984 Dies in Monterey, California.
Adams Photography and Art Gallery, San Francisco, 1937-62 Lives and works
in Yosemite Valley, California. 1940 Together with David McAlpin and Beaumont Further reading: Adams, Ansel. The American Wilderness. Philadelphia, 1997.
Newhall establishes a photography department at the Museum of Modern Art, Spaulding, Jonathan. Ansel Adams and the American Landscape. Berkeley, 1995,

96
Yevgeny A. Tschaldey The Reichstag 1945

at democracy, and when the building went up in

flames, the Brownshirts profited from this as a signal
to complete their seizure of power.
The picture taken by the experienced agency photog¬
rapher has a further story attached to it. While develop¬
ing it, Tschaldey discovered that the Red Army soldier
was wearing looted watches on his wrist, so he had to
touch up the photo before it could be published.
Tschaldey experienced the war from the very begin¬
ning. He photographed people in Moscow as they
heard Molotov, the Soviet prime minister at that time,
announcing over the loudspeakers in Red Square that
The Sea of War, Arctic Ocean, 1941 German troops had invaded the Soviet Union. He de¬
scribed the "great war of the fatherland" as an epic of
heroic battle against an implacable foe: The Sea of War
depicts a line of determined fighters in helmets and
The photographer Yevgeny A. Tschaldey often told long overcoats silhouetted against a bright sky.
the story of how the young Red Army soldier with the The atmosphere of the photo is ambivalent. Is the sky
Soviet flag pulled him up on to the pinnacles of the getting dark, or is this a new dawn breaking? Like
ruins of the Reichstag in Berlin. There the soldier hoist¬ all Soviet war photographers, Tschaldey was both a
ed the red flag, probably a more dangerous under¬ photographer and a soldier, usually to be found at
taking than the capture of the building, which had the front. His pictures and those of his colleagues—
burned down in 1933, while Tschaldey, in a series many of whom, unlike Tschaldey, were either repre¬
of quickly taken photos, condensed the scene into a sentatives or decided opponents of revolutionary
symbolic image. Another version of the story is less photography—had a definite aim: to mobilize the feel¬
dramatic. According to it, the photographer was flown ings of the population, to increase the fighting spirit
in after the conquest of Berlin, meaning of course that among the troops, to give an added solemnity to death
the whole picture was, in fact, a staged event. The in combat, and, finally, to demonstrate the superiority
most striking photo of the series, The Reichstag, became of the system. In the meantime, such images have
a symbol of victory, a triumphal fanfare. And yet the become divorced from their original context, and even
soldier and his reporter seem to have fallen prey to the historical substance is recalled more in terms of
confusion; the Reichstag was in no way a symbol of aesthetic quality than in the evidential nature of the
Nazi terror but rather of the earliest German attempt photographs. k.h.

1917 Born. From 1936 Photo-reporter for the Soviet news agency with interruptions, loses his job because of anti-Semitic bias. Until early 1990s
TASS. 1941-45 Documents the events of the war from the North Freelance photographers, 1998 Dies in Moscow.
to the Black Sea. 1945 Photo-reporter at the Potsdam Conference,
where he meets Robert Capa. 1946 Picture reportage of the Further Reading: Von Moskau nach Berlin: Bilder des russischen Fotografen Jewgenl
Nuremberg Trials. Until the mid-1970s Works for TASS and Pravda, Chaldej. Berlin. 1994.

98
Ernst Haas Homecoming Prisoners, Vienna 1947

Chile, people have searched for their relatives, using

photographs as this small, determined woman does
here, to serve as both visual evidence and a token of
hope. So it is also a picture about a picture, and a
particularly heart-wrenching one at that, for no one
in Haas' photograph—not the repatriated veteran, not
the onlookers, not even the young man's mother—is
actually paying attention to this portrait of the missing
man. The only one looking at him is the viewer.
Haas' extensive reportage on Vienna's postwar trau¬
mas and the drama of returning prisoners of war —
some of them published in Life magazine—made his
reputation in Europe and the United States. But he
had sickened of his homeland during the war, so he
left. "I would have become lazy in Vienna," he wrote
Mew York, 1966 decades later, "so I went to New York, the city which
makes you work and presses everything out of you....
New York, a real metropolis, a world within a world,
Ernst Haas studied painting as a young man in Vienna, a solution within a solution, growing, decaying." Many
then turned to photography, taking it up as a profes¬ of his images of that city, like the one of reflected sky¬
sion after the liberation of Vienna in 1945. The emo¬ scrapers inset here, became defining representations
tionally complex image, Homecoming Prisoners, Vienna, of Manhattan at mid-century.
one of the very first he ever published, contains a pic¬ Due perhaps to his early training in the arts, Haas
ture within a picture: a portrait of an unidentified sol¬ experimented diversely within his medium of choice,
dier held up by an anxious mother, hoping for some eventually abandoning black and white for color and
comrade's recognition and any news of his fate. becoming one of the first to push color photography
It is an act that has become emblematic of this cen¬ into the realm of the poetic. Yet he consistently hewed
tury in which warfare and civil repression have rip¬ closely to many of the traditions of small-camera photog¬
ped so many families apart. From Holocaust survivors raphy of his day, which are manifested in both these
to the families of the "disappeared" in Argentina and pictures. a.d.c.

1921 Born in Vienna. 1942-44 Studies medicine in Vienna, as film, 1950 Stills photographer for sundry films such as The Bible (1966), Little
well as photography at the Graphische Lehr- und Versuchsanstalt, Big Man (1970), and Hello Dolly! (1969), 1971 First publication: The Creation.
Vienna. 1946 Acquaintance with Werner Bischof: works for the From 1975 Lecturer at the Maine Photographic Workshop. Rockport, and the
agency Black Star 1947 Photographer for Heute. 1948-50 Free¬ Anderson Ranch Foundation, Aspen, Colorado, 1976 Opens the Space Gallery
lance photographer in Paris. From 1949-1961 Member of the for Color Photography with Jay Maisel and Peter Turner. 1986 Dies in Mew York.
Magnum photo agency. 1948-51 Moves to Mew York. Work for, among others,
Life, Paris Match, Esquire, Look, Vogue, and Holiday. First attempts with color Further Reading: Hughes, Jim (ed.). Ernst Haas: In Black and White, Boston, 1992.

100
Margaret Bourke-White Mahatma Gandhi, Delhi 1946

She was almost always the first, and she set all her am¬ particular day Gandhi was sworn to silence so she was
bitions on also being the best. Margaret Bourke-White unable to speak with him. She was only permitted to
was famous as a fearless photojournalist who took de¬ take three flash photos, to minimize any disturbance
cisive pictures on the forefront of world events. She to his reading. After two failed attempts, she succeeded
favored subjects that had previously been reserved for in obtaining the photograph illustrated here, which still
her male colleagues: she shot industrial reportages in stamps our image of Ghandi to the present day. He is
factories, reported on natural catastrophes, and even¬ sitting on a cushion, legs crossed, clad in nothing but
tually became a photographer for the United States Air a handwoven loincloth, immersed in his reading of
Force during World War II. Her work for Life started newspaper clips. His spinning wheel takes up almost
with the photograph of a dam in Montana which ap¬ the entire left half of the photograph; the symbolic
peared on the cover of the magazine's first issue. There¬ power of the archaic piece of equipment and its strong
after she was "Life’s Bourke-White." graphic effect force the elderly man somewhat into
In March 1946, Wilson Hicks, head of the photogra¬ the background. Yet Gandhi's concentrated bearing—
phy department at Life, sent her to India to document accentuated by the light streaming through a window,
the end of British colonial rule. Immediately after her creating a halo-like effect—seems to fill the simply
arrival Bourke-White tried to obtain an interview furnished room. A weak flash provided the neces¬
with the leader of the Indian independence movement, sary light, yet the prevailing impression is of a com¬
Mahatma Gandhi. Only after a lecture on the signifi¬ pletely natural situation. No picture expresses more
cance of the spinning wheel for the country's self- vividly Ghandi's ideals: simplicity and lack of violen¬
sufficiency, accompanied by practical demonstrations, ce, but also intransigence in the face of injustice and
was she allowed into Gandhi's room, but on that oppression. l.d.

1904 Born in New York City, 1922-27 Studies at various universi¬ for sundry advertising agencies in New York. From 1931 Own photo studio in
ties: Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey (1922); Uni¬ the Chrysler Building, New York. 1936 Founding member of Life: staff photog¬
versity of Michigan (1923); Purdue University, Lafayette, Indiana rapher, 1942-45 Official photographer for the U.S. Army Air Forces. From 1957
(1924); Western Reserve University, Cleveland. Ohio (1925); Semi-retirement due to illness. Numerous publications of her reportages.
Cornell University, Ithaca, New York (1926-27). 1927 Bachelor 1971 Dies in Stamford, Connecticut.
of Arts degree awarded. 1928 Freelance photographer in Cleveland. 1929-35
Further Reading; Goldberg, Vicki. Margaret Bourke-White; A Biography. New York. 1986.
Regular contributor to the magazine Fortune in New York, plus freelance work Callahan, Sean. Margaret Bourke-White: Photographer. London, 1998.

102
Berenice Abbott Designer's Window, Bleecker Street, New York 1947

first, that documentation of shopwindow displays

reveals a great deal about the cultural Zeitgeist; second,
that these mercantile constructions often contain
wonderfully surreal juxtapositions; third, that the
attentive photographer can make strategic use of the
reflections omnipresent in the urban envronment to
indicate the visual density of the metropolitan milieu.
So, in the complacent Gotham of the post-World
War II years, she generated an image that functions
at one and the same time as sociological evidence and
child's tranquil, expectant "night before Christmas"
dream. The column on the left, and the apartment¬
Lower East Side, Waterfront, South Street, 1935 building windows reflected in the storefront window's
plate glass, place us immediately in the urban context;
the reversed neon sign centered near the top of the
Berenice Abbott learned her craft in Paris in the 1920s, image, "Village Bowling," allows anyone who knows
apprenticing there to the surrealist Man Ray, befriend¬ the city to identify precisely the Greenwich Village
ing Eugene Atget (whose documentation of historic spot; and there, in the midst of all that, floats one of
Paris—a landmark in the evolution of photography— Santa's reindeer, aglow, astride in mid-air, a magical
she subsequently salvaged and preserved for posterity, vision in the midst of the mundane.
almost single-handedly). She later claimed that she did At the time she made this image Abbott was
not really consider New York a worthy subject for her almost two decades into her project, which by then
imagery until she returned to it in 1929 with fresh had turned into one of the most comprehensive one-
eyes. By that time she had concluded that realism was person photographic interpretations of any major
her chosen medium's greatest strength. Seeing the metropolis ever undertaken, and remains a distinctive
city's rapid renovation, the new structures replacing interpretation of New York as well as a priceless
the old, and inspired perhaps by Atget's archive document thereof. a.d.c.

which captured the City of Light in its transition to

modernity, she set out to depict in precise detail, and
at great length, what one of her many books called
"changing New York."
In this image, Designer's Window, Bleecker Street,
New York, she applies to New York several of the
lessons she had learned from Atget and Man Ray:

1898 Born in Springfield, Ohio, 1917-18 Studies at Ohio State among others, the magazine Fortune and the W.P.A. Federal Art Project.
University, Columbus, followed by study of journalism at Colum¬ 1935-58 Teaches photography at the blew School for Social Research,
bia University, Mew York. 1918-21 Independent studies in drawing blew York. 1958-61 Active for the Physical Science Study Committee of
and sculpture in blew York and from 1921-23 in Paris (under Educational Services Inc., blew York. 1968 Moves to Abbot Village, Maine.
Antoine Bourdelle). 1923 Studies at the Kunstschule in Berlin. 1972 Teaches at Smith College. Northampton, Massachusetts 1981 Teaches
1923-25 Assistant to Man Ray in Paris. 1925 Introduced to the work of Eugene at the blew School for Social Research, blew York. Dies in 1991.
Atget, Paris. Buys the Atget archive and promotes his work. 1926-29 Freelance
Further Reading: Berenice Abbott: Changing Hew York. The Museum of the City
portrait photographer with her own studio in Paris. 1929-68 Freelance portrait of New York/Munich/Paris/London, 1997. Yochelson, Bonnie. Berenice Abbott
and documentation photographer in blew York, Work from 1930 to 1939 for, at Work. New York, 1997

104
Robert Doisneau Kiss in front of the Hotel de Ville, Paris 1950

Robert Doisneau was the great chronicler of the Paris¬ from a cafe table by a crowded sidewalk: still walking
ian suburbs, the banlieue. There he found the appropri¬ along, the two snatch a quick, brief kiss. This tender
ate images to express his unflagging love for "ordinary moment of affection is noticed only by us, looking at it
people": the wedding couple, all alone, heading for a through the photographer's camera lens. It is this ges¬
bar; the tired worker in the Renault factory; the fisher¬ ture, caught in the picture as though by accident, that
man on the Seine hoping in vain for a catch. Doisneau sets us, along with the whole of Paris, dreaming of love.
observed people, he felt empathy with their lives, and The photo became famous in the mid-eighties when
tried to compress this sentiment into a single photograph. a poster of it was produced by a Parisian publisher. The
In early 1950, the great American magazine Life re¬ picture soon became regarded as a symbol of romance
quested photo agencies for pictures on a not very ori¬ as much as a nostalgic symbol of young love. It was
ginal theme: springtime romance in Paris. Doisneau had used in advertising campaigns and sold throughout
already developed a project on this very subject: he had the world as a pirated postcard. At the same time,
been hunting out lovers. He was able to get a double¬ several couples tried to cash in on the photograph's
spread of his pictures published in Life. All portray the late success, claiming to be the lovers caught by the
happiness of young couples kissing at picturesque photo-reporter. It was only in 1994 that Doisneau was
locations in the capital of love—oblivious to their able to provide evidence in court of his mode of work¬
surroundings and unnoticed by passersby. Even in the ing, an invoice from one of his models. The lawsuit
supposedly easygoing Paris of the postwar years such embittered the photographer's last year of life, but it
a reportage was rather risque. Doisneau therefore used did little to harm the picture's popularity. L. d .
young actors to re-enact the scenes he had observed.
One of the pictures, not even given a particularly
prominent position in Life, shows a couple near the
Hotel de Ville (the city hall of Paris), which is recog¬
nizable in the background. The scene is observed

1912 Born in Gentilly-sur-Seine, France. 1926-29 Studies lithog¬ From 1945 Member of the photo agency Alliance (Adep), Paris. From 1946 Ac¬
raphy in Paris. 1929-31 Works as an engraver and lithographer. tive for the agency Rapho, Paris 1949-52 Photojournalist for, among others,
1931-33 Photo assistant to Andre Vigneau in Paris, 1934-39 In¬ Excelsior. Point de Vue. Life. Fortune. Vogue. Paris Match. 1995 Dies in Paris.
dustrial photographer for the Renault works in Billancourt, Paris.
1939-40 Military service. 1940-45 Involved in the Resistance. Further Reading: Hamilton, Peter, Robert Doisneau: A Photographer's Life. New York, 1995.

106
 Otto Steinert Pedestrian’s Foot, Paris 1950

Otto Steinert was the most influential mentor of West and long exposures in order to give form to visual con¬
German photography after 1945. As a teacher of pho¬ cepts displaying formal affinities to the Tachist paint¬
tography at the Kunstschule in Saarbriicken, and later ing of the fifties. Emphasis on the autonomous tools
at the Folkwangschule in Essen, he trained a number of photography, derived from optics and chemistry,
of people who later became major photographers. As formed the basis for his creative work—a creed that
the organizer of the three major exhibitions in 1951, sounds almost scientific and was articulated in pictures
1954, and 1958, which featured “subjective photogra¬ that sometimes seem rather sterile but at the same time
phy" and that were preceded by the foundation of the are marked by an enormous formal tightness. In addi¬
group “fotoform" in 1949, he ensured that German tion, Steinert insisted on the highest technical standards.
photography was tied into the international context. Steinert's Pedestrian's Foot is not a photomontage
"Subjective photography" filled the artistic vacuum but one of several motion studies that the photogra¬
that the dark years of Nazi dictatorship had left in Ger¬ pher took from his Paris apartment. We can see the
many. Stylistically it was inspired by the tradition of shadowy trace of movement of a passerby, with only
the Neues Sehen, and by experimental photography one shoe and lower trouser leg actually. Although this
prior to 1933. Steinert also experimented with the tech¬ phenomenon of the photographic phantom, resulting
nique of the photogram, negative prints, solarization, from long exposure times, was already known in the
nineteenth century, Steinert's photo charms us with
its contrast between the hard focus of the sidewalk with
the protective iron grille and the soft, amorphous trace
of human movement.
Elere we have a human image recorded with a dis¬
tanced eye, which, in its dissolving of concrete physi-
cality, may represent a play on the transience of iden¬
tity of the modern big-city dweller. Steinert's other
photographs are on the classic themes of architecture,
still life, nature, portraits, and industrial landscapes;
they often emanate an aura of sadness and in their enig¬
matic nature come close to Magic Realism. u. p.

Children's Carnival, 1971

A 1915 Born in Saarbrucken. 1934-39 Studies medicine at the uni¬ Handwerk, Saarbrucken, Founding member of the Deutsche Gesellschaft fur
te^ versities of Munich, Marburg, Rostock, and Heidelberg and at the Photographie (DGPh). 1952-78 Director, and from 1954-78 professor, of the
Jp|rl Charite, Berlin. Self-taught in photography, 1939-45 Serves as photography department at the Staatliche Werkkunstschule, Saarbrucken.
a health officer in Germany, 1945-47 Intern at the Universitats- Member 1958-65, and in 1969, president of the entrance committee of the
klinik in Kiel, in 1947 at the Universitatsklinik des Saarlandes in Gesellschaft Deutscher Lichtbildner (GDL). 1959-78 Director and professor
Homburg. 1948-52 Director of the photography class at the Staatliche Schule of photography at the Folkwangschule, Essen; founding curator of the photog
fur Kunst und Handwerk, SaarbrOcken, 1949-55 Together with Peter Keetman, raphy collection at the Museum Folkwang. 1963-74 President of the GDL
Ludwig Windstosser. and others, founds the group "fotoform." 1951 Organizes 1978 Dies in Essen.
the exhibition subjective fotografie at the Staatliche Schule fOr Kunst und Further Reading: Sammlung Otto Steinert: Fotografien, Essen, 1981

108
Wols

Screws on a table top, crumbled sugar cubes, a rag in a mere objects. In reducing them to their naked ma¬
bucket—these subjects could hardly be more ordinary. teriality, the painter-photographer Wols was trying
Yet these are precisely the objects which ignited to "see right to the bottom of a thing."
Wols' visual imagination. "Where the beautiful and He placed the light bulb on a mirror, something he
the ugly become one," as he stated in one of his many normally did not do, thereby producing a contrast
aphorisms, that was the border zone where he sought between the black background and the milky sheen of
and found his subjects. He disabled their hierarchy the glass. The edge of the mirror can still just be iden¬
of value. Nothing seemed to him to be useless—and tified on the right, whereas on the left it is partly lost
nothing useful—when he arranged parts of a dismem¬ in the glare of the flood lamp illuminating the picture.
bered rabbit together with a button, a harmonica, a The bulb gives the effect of being "isolated": it has been
comb, and cigarette ash to form a still life. Most of his unscrewed from its socket, is deprived of electricity,
models were taken from the daily menu: vegetables, and is not lit. This icon of technology, Thomas Alva
mushrooms, meat, sardines, and so on. Radio tubes, Edison's genial invention, lies before us, having be¬
burning-glasses, or—as in the photograph here—elec¬ come a twin through its reflection—without any tech¬
tric light bulbs were rarely used props. He portrayed nical pathos whatsoever. Wols was not interested in
these groups of things without the aid of sophisticated forcing his subjects into a compositional framework, in
lighting techniques. The food ingredients are not styl¬ the sense—for instance—of the constructive aesthetic
ized as delicacies, but equated to screws and tubes as of the Bauhaus, nor in exposing them to our uncon¬
scious projections as ambiguous, obsessive constructs
of the type that the Surrealists loved. He let things
simply be, allowing them to come to an awareness of
themselves.
Another major group of Wols' photographs are por¬
traits of friends, but also of himself. Wols saw himself
as laconic and unpretentious—sometimes pictured in
a vest, or, as in this Self-Portrait, with a cigarette hang¬
ing from the corner of his mouth. He always placed
particular emphasis on the gaze of the subject in the
portrait, intensifying it almost into the realms of the
hallucinatory. If he deliberately photographed friends
with their eyes closed—a strategy of denying sight—
it is also testimony to his knowledge about the power
of the gaze. The eyes in Self-Portrait have a particular
magic, since only the temples and cheeks can be seen,
while the face itself is shrouded in darkness. p. s.

Self-Portrait, n.d.

1013 Born Alfred Otto Wolfgang Schulze in Berlin. 1920-22 Studies violin with illustrator and painter, Settles in Cassis, near Marseilles, 1942 Escapes from
dan Dahruen at the Staatsoper in Dresden. 1932 Brief training at the Bauhaus the National Socialists to Dieulefit near Montelimar, together with Grety Dabija.
in Berlin, then work as a freelance photographer in Paris, followed by occasional Meets the poet Henri-Pierre Roche, who buys a few works and, in 1945 and
work in Barcelona and on Ibiza until 1935. 1936 Returns to Paris: resumes 1947, organizes exhibitions in Paris of Wols' watercolors and drawings. 1946
activity as freelance photographer. 1937 Adopts the pseudonym “Wols.” Official Moves to Paris, 1951 Moves to Champigny-sur-Marne. Dies in Paris.
photographer in the Pavilion de I’Elegance at the World Fair in Paris. 1939-40
Imprisoned in various war camps in southern France. Works mainly as an Further Reading: Glozer, Laszlo. kko/s Photograph. Munich, 1988,

i io
John Deakin Francis Bacon 1952

The work of the painter and photographer John Deakin, Deakin's (psycho)analytical look at his models was
one of the most enigmatic figures of the English art one of unsparing, often brutal, directness and of a psy¬
scene, was only rediscovered a few years ago. Success¬ chological intensity that terrified as much as it fasci¬
ful as a painter, Deakin attempted a second career as a nated. “My sitters turn into my victims. But I would
fashion photographer and worked for the French and like to add that it is only those with a demon, however
English editions of Vogue between 1947 and 1954. Yet, small and of whatever kind, whose faces lend them¬
despite his enormous productivity, to which such selves to being victimized at all," Deakin said. Francis
superlative portraits as those of Dylan Thomas, Maria Bacon was so fascinated by the energy of Deakin's
Callas, Simone Signoret, Pablo Picasso, and Joy Parker photos that he commissioned him to make portraits
of his friends George Dyer, Henrietta Moraes, Muriel
Belcher, Isabel Rawthorne, Lucian Freud, and Peter
Lacy. It is known that Bacon greatly disliked paint¬
ing from a live model, and thus he would fall back on
photographs as the basis for his paintings. Apart from
Deakin's photographs, Bacon mainly used press photos
and Eadweard Muybridge's motion studies of animals
and people, the realistic representation of which he
converted and, at the same time, distorted in his
paintings.
Around forty of Deakin's photographs, mostly with
the color smudged and in parlous condition, are pre¬
served in the London studio of Bacon, who judged his
friend's work to be "the best since Nadar and Julia
Margaret Cameron." Though the poor state of these
photos may not be up to present-day museum curators'
standards, we can observe a rare phenomenon in that
the traces of material decay of Deakin's pictures do not
detract from their effect. Rather, it seems to increase still
Joy Parker, Actress, 1953 further the degree of psychological discomfort that
emanates from these photographs. u. p.
(pictured here) bear witness, he suffered throughout
his life from a lack of professional success and crip¬
pling poverty as a result of his unsettled way of life
and alcohol consumption.

1912 Born in Bebington, Cheshire, 1928 Leaves school, 1930 lishes London Today with sixty-three photos of the city at twilight. 1950 Por¬
Travels to Ireland (jobs include work as window-dresser) and to traits for the short-lived American magazine Flair. 1951 Freelance portraiture
Spain, in order to paint. Early 1930s Settles in London. Supported work for Vogue. From 1952 Employed by Vogue. Experiments with large formats
by the rich American art collector Arthur Jeffress; they travel (60 x 55 cm) 1954 Fired from Vogue for the second time. Years of contact with
together to the U.S., Mexico, and the South Seas, where Deakin Francis Bacon. 1956 Exhibitions John Deakin's Paris and John Deakin's Pome
continues to paint, 1938 First exhibition of his paintings at the Mayor Gallery, in David Archer's bookshop, Gives up photography, spends his time traveling.
London, 1939 Commences photography. Lives in Paris and photographs the city 1972 Dies of heart failure in Brighton. 1984 Posthumous exhibition The Salvage
and its inhabitants, especially social outsiders. When war breaks out, joins the of a Photographer in London's Victoria and Albert Museum.
army as a sergeant in the film and photography corps. 1947 Trial contract at
Vogue, London; contract soon terminated, 1948 Sets up his own studio. Pub¬ Further Reading: Muir, Robin (ed.). John Deakin: Photographs. Munich, 1996,

112
 Eliot Porter Pool in a Brook, Pond Brook, New Hampshire 1953

Encouraged early in his career by Alfred Stieglitz, a less intrusive surface than the few glossy, commer¬
Eliot Porter committed himself to what seemed in the cially produced papers then available for color print¬
1940s to be constricting, unpromising areas of explo¬ ing. As a picture-maker, he avoided the sensational
ration: nature as subject and color photography as and grandiose, working with delicate nuances of
medium. Neither was taken particularly seriously muted hues and emphasizing a close-up, intimate
then. Nature photography was thought of, at best, relationship with small patches of the natural world.
as a minor, quasi-scientific offshoot of landscape In effect, he composed chamber music instead of
photography, more concerned with data regarding symphonies, as in this joyous study of autumn leaves
flora and fauna than with formal issues or poetics. floating on the surface of a pond: a rich mix of diverse
Color was too closely associated with advertising, textures, surfaces and reflections therein, pinks,
oranges, and blues, all of which keep the eye engaged
in a continuous dance.
Following the example of Edward Weston and
Ansel Adams, Porter began in the 1950s to generate
a series of superbly reproduced monographs that
brought his photographs—and the intricate beauty
they described—before a much wider audience. That
color photography is now taken for granted as an op¬
tion by fine-art photographers is in part attributable
to the determination of Porter and a few others in his
generation, who persistently demonstrated through
their exhibits and publications that color not only had
a key role to play in photography's documentary func¬
tion but also could be used for expressive and highly
creative ends. And the fact that ecological issues have
Sculptured Rock, Grand Canyon, Arizona, 1967 taken center stage in global awareness is surely cred¬
itable in part to Porter and to those who came after
editorial, and applied photography; those who saw him, whose explorations of nature around the world
themselves as "creative" photographers mostly immersed us in the visual glories of what remains of
eschewed it on principle, considering black and untouched wilderness and persuaded us to begin its
white more pure and abstractive than color. preservation. a.d.c.

As a printmaker, Porter began utilizing the dye-

transfer process, which offered superior stability and
greater control over the print's color palette, and also

1901 Born in Winnetka, Illinois, Before 1913 First photos In Maine in radiation laboratory at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge.
with a Kodak box camera, 1920-24 Studies chemistry at Harvard 1944-46 Freelance landscape and wildlife photographer in Winnetka, from
University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, then at Harvard Engineer¬ 1946 in Santa Fe, Hew Mexico. 1955-56 Journey through Mexico with Ellen
ing School, 1924 Bachelor of Science degree; starts studying Auerbach, photographing church architecture, 1962-68 Member and chairman
medicine 1929 Doctor of Medicine degree from Harvard Medical of the Sierra Club, San Francisco, 1969 Honorary doctorate from Colby College,
School 1930 Acquires a Leica; self-taught in photography. 1929-39 Teaches Waterville, Maine. 1990 Dies in Santa Fe.
biochemistry and bacteriology at Harvard University and at Radcliffe College,
1937 First photographs of birds. From 1939 Career as photographer. 1939-42
Further Reading: Eliot Porter: Intimate Landscapes. Exh. cat., The Museum of Modern
Freelance photographer in Cambridge. 1942-44 Works on radar development Art. New York, 1979-80.
Paul Strand The Family, Luzzara, Italy 1953

While under self-imposed exile in Europe during the according to her statement in the book, died in child¬
McCarthy era, the American Paul Strand turned his hood). Whether by their own decision or Strand's,
attention from his homeland to other nations and other they demonstrate no sense of affection or connected¬
peoples. He had already experimented along those lines ness, despite their close proximity. Yet the distinct
with his 1940 publication, Photographs of Mexico, in personality of each seems registered in Strand's richly
which he manifested a stark, pared-down style that— detailed description of them. As a result, the frame
along with the work of Walker Evans—defined docu¬ feels as densely packed and tense with their strong
mentary in still photography for the next three dec¬ and not necessarily compatible energies as the house
ades and continues to have its advocates even today. behind them must have been when they occupied it.
From the 1950s through the mid-1970s, Strand pro¬ Strand worked with a view camera; although he
duced book-length studies of five very different coun¬ had absorbed the compositional lessons of Cubism his
tries and cultures: Italy, France, Scotland's Outer images were poised, formally rigorous, and committed
Hebrides, Ghana, and Egypt. This is one of his Italian to the realist tradition. As a filmmaker, he had been
studies, from the 1953 project he titled Un paese, on involved in several projects (Native Land, most nota¬
which he collaborated with the distinguished film¬ bly) that had strongly influenced filmic documentary
maker Cesare Zavattini. A formally posed family por¬ style in the 1930s and 1940s; and that approach, in
trait, it gives us everything we sense we need to know turn, especially in combination with the influence of
to imagine these people's story. The working-class his still photography, had been absorbed by the neo¬
milieu is established by the missing stucco on the wall, realist movement in post-World War II Italian film.
the scruffy clothing, the rusted drainpipe, the house¬ Thus there is both an irony and a rightness in Strand's
hold utensils on the lintel, and the ubiquitous bicycle, applying that approach to the Italians themselves in
the poor man's taxicab. Here the matriarch stands, sur¬ a magnum opus produced in partnership with one of
rounded by five of her fifteen sons (four of whom. the greatest of Italy's film directors. A. D. c.

1800 Born in New York. 1012-22 Freelance portrait photographer. Freelance photographer, New York, 1063 Honorary member of the American
1023-20 Also active as filmmaker, primarily in New York and Society of Magazine Photographers, 1073 Member of the American Academy
Mexico City. 1031-45 Mainly active in films, also in Mexico. of Arts and Science, 1076 Dies in Orgeval, France,
1043 Chairman of the Photography Committee independent Further Reading: Paul Strand circa 1916. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Voters Committee of Arts and Science for Roosevelt. 1045-50 New York, and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 1998.

116
 W' ~ mm ^jKj
Wl v

*
Werner Bischof On the Way to Cuzco, Peru 1954

This photograph of the little flute-player walking be¬ Twenty years lie between the creation of the two pho¬
tween the Andean village of Pisac and the town of Cuzco tos. Bischof arrived in South America as a foreigner and
is probably Werner Bischof's best known picture. It photographed as a foreigner. Chambi—a Peruvian—
has been published throughout the world and was one identified himself with the content of the picture. By
of the last photographs taken by Bischof, who died a setting the Indio at home in his landscape, Chambi was
few days later in a car crash in the Andes. There is a ultimately photographing himself. Bischof simply saw
photographic quality about this image that is singular the Indian boy and spontaneously recognized the charm
to the Swiss photographer. Bischof was a reporter- of the scene. This boy, too, is integrated into the land¬
photographer and had come from the field of factual scape, but he gives the impression of being an attrac¬
photography, which he had studied under Hans Fins- tive apparition. Identified as an Indio by his attire, he
ler at the Kunstgewerbeschule in Zurich. His first years represents the beautiful young human being. Through
of photography were thus devoted entirely to making the perfection of the image, Bischof elevates this Indio
beautiful pictures of objects. Later, he discovered peo¬ boy into a symbol of youth, happiness, and hope. And
ple in their environments, which fundamentally chan¬ it is precisely because of these qualities, radiating from
ged his subject matter; he photographed man and the Bischof's photograph, that it was acclaimed by viewers
world in which he lived. For Bischof, the beauty of the throughout the world. Photography as a vehicle of
image was always the basis of his vision. hope—this was one of the moving statements that made
It is not without interest to compare Bischof's flute- Bischof's work unique. He was attempting to create
player with the one by Martin Chambi (see p. 61). In a valid picture. He succeeded, and not just with the
both cases we have the same motif, the same region. image of the Peruvian flute-player. E. B.

Rural Tavern, Puszta, Hungary, 1947

1916 Born in Zurich, 1930-32 Studies, among other things, documentation of war damage. 1948 Freelance photographer for sundry
teaching and drawing at the Evangelische Lehranstalt, Schiers magazines, especially Life. 1949 Photographer under contract to Picture Post,
(Grisons). 1932-36 Studies photography with Hans Finsler at the Illustrated, and Observer. Joins the Magnum photo agency, blew York and Paris.
Kunstgewerbeschule in Zurich, 1936-38 Freelance photographer 1949-54 Works for magazines, including Life, Du, Epoca, Paris Match, and
and graphic artist in Zurich 1938-39 Photographer and designer Fortune, in India, Italy, Indochina, Mexico, South America, and the U.S.A.
for the Graphis Publishing House (Amstutz and Herdog), Zurich. 1939 Military 1954 Fatal car crash in the Peruvian Andes.
service in the Swiss Army, 1943-44 Works regularly as a fashion photographer Further Reading: Burri, Rene and Burri-Bischof, Rosellina (eds). Werner Bischof
for the magazine Du, Zurich. 1945 Travels through Europe, with photographic 1916-1954. New York, 1974.

118
 S-
■Jm,,
;

Jjp ,
 William Klein Heads, New York 1954

William Klein's photographs of the metropolis of New In the sphere of traditional photojournalism and
York are passionate, political criticisms of the Establish¬ life photography, Klein is a sort of outsider, a trouble¬
ment. They fend off the all too beautiful and elegant maker, an "anti-Cartier Bresson," as one critic de¬
with a violence that today's viewer can still sense scribed him. Whereas the photo-reporters of the fifties
through his explosive, ecstatic images—a mixture of and sixties were inspired by a humanistic vision, by
the nervy world of advertising and the hectic reality "human interest," Klein's unsentimental view of the
of street life. Klein's photos reflect a contradictory and world found its expression in hard, high-contrast
unheroic impression of the big city. They are far re¬ black-and-white prints. Spontaneity of observation
moved from pictures of New York that give it monu- is just as much a feature of his mode of working as
mentality, such as those by Edward Steichen or Alfred the aggressive provocation of reactions. As filmmaker,
Stieglitz. As a native New Yorker who later moved to book designer, and fashion photographer, he has always
Paris, Klein's vision is governed by his love/hate rela¬ retained an ironic distance from the world of beauty,
tionship with North America, on the one hand clearly allowing his actions to be guided by the power of the
rejecting consumerism, on the other looking for African subversive.
American "heroes," whom he found in the boxer Without ever wanting to be a photojournalist him¬
Muhammad Ali and in Eldridge Cleaver, leader of the self, Klein undoubtedly had an enormous influence on
Black Panthers. Thus Klein shows us an image of Amer¬ modern picture reportage and fashion photography.
ica that, despite all its dynamism, radiates desolation, Techniques, such as his use of excessive flash and
violence, and emptiness. It is hardly surprising that his wide angle lenses, leading to cropped compositions
photographic diary of New York, which appeared in and close-ups, have been frequently imitated, as well
1956 in Paris under the title Life is Good and Good as the extremely coarse grain of his prints. u.p.
for You in New York, was unable to find a publisher
in the United States, just like Robert Frank's The
Americans, (1954-58).

Jr 1928 Born in New York, 1945-48 Serves in the U.S. Army; works later art director of Vogue in Paris and freelance work for, among others,
j as a cartoonist tor the army magazine Stars and Stripes in Ger- Domus. 1965 Turns to film; less involvement with photography, Since 1980s
H|^jgifl| many and France, 1948 Studies social sciences at City College, Reconsiders photography. Early work rediscovered and appreciated. Lives in
® ' New York, and art at the Sorbonne, Paris, 1948-50 Studies paint Paris.
’ ing with Fernand Leger. Self-taught in photography, 1950-54 Further Reading: William Klein: New York 1954-55. Heidelberg, 1995. William Klein.
Freelance painter in Paris. 1955-65 Photographer under contract to Vogue: In & Out of Fashion. Heidelberg, 1994,

120
W. Eugene Smith

The word “heroic" is often used to describe W. Eugene Smith and his photo¬
graphic career. Writers discuss his heroic struggles with Life magazine
editors over the content of his photoessays, and over the time required to
complete an essay. Biographers detail his courageous efforts to recover from
on-the-job injuries that occurred during World War II, and again later, while
making the Minamata series in Japan. They label as valiant his multi-year
projects to chronicle life in Pittsburgh, and later, the life outside his window
in New York. Analyses of Smith's life and work reveal a colorful, complex,
self-destructive, and worthy character who made unforgettable single photo¬
graphs as well as highly successful and moving photographic essays. Smith
helped transform photojournalism at mid-century. The Country Doctor (1948),
Spanish Village (1951), Nurse Midwife (1951), and Man of Mercy (1954), to
mention only his most famous articles for Life magazine, were essays conceived
and executed by Smith to be cohesive and revelatory. In each essay, dramatic
single pictures, such as The Wake, build upon one another to establish the
story that Smith wanted to tell and the positions he wanted to take. He was
committed to the photoessay as a vehicle for social change. To maintain the
integrity of his concepts, he fought to exercise control over the cropping,
printing, selection, sequence, and layout of his photographs. As these deci¬
sions were the perogatives of the magazine's editors, Smith's success was
fugitive. However, his examples have remained as the standards by which
photoessays are still judged. Late in his life, Smith found two alternative
venues for his work: books and museums. Unlike other great humanist photog¬
raphers, including Jacob Riis, Dorothea Lange (see p. 70), and Brassai (see
p. 52)—all of whom Smith admired—he never produced a book in which
the whole matched the power of its parts. Yet the publication of Minamata
in 1975 elicited an extraordinary, worldwide response. Exhibitions gave him
new opportunities to sequence his prints as well as to showcase their extra¬
ordinary richness. In all venues, he sought to evoke strong emotional
responses from the viewers. That his pictures sustain power to reach sub¬
sequent generations is his lasting legacy. A.w. T.

1918 Born in Wichita, Kansas. 1930 First photographs: in 1933-35 under the guidance of the
news photographer Frank Noel. 1935-36 Part-time press photographer for the Wichita Eagle
and Wichita Beacon. 1936-37 Studies photography at the University of Notre Dame, Indiana.
1937-38 Photo-reporter for Newsweek. 1938-39 Works as freelance photographer for the agency
Black Star, New York, for Harper's Bazaar, New York Times, and Life. 1939-41 Employed at
Life: works for the magazine until 1977.1942-44 Photographer and war reporter for the Ziff-Davis Publishing
Company in the South Pacific. 1944-45 War reporter for Life. 1955-59 Member of the photo agency Magnum.
1958 Photography instructor at the New School for Social Research, New York 1960 Teaches photojournalism
to private classes. 1969 Teaches at the School of Visual Arts, New York, and in 1978 at the University of Arizona
in Tucson. 1978 Dies in Tucson.

Further Reading: William Eugene Smith: Master of the Photographic Essay. Millerton. 1981.

122
The Wake 1950

'/x-f-T:
Chargeshe imer Konrad Adenauer 1954

David Seymour (Chim) called him "the legendary the musicians of the group Can, in Cologne's jazz
Chargesheimer," an honorary title that remained there¬ scene, and among the experimenters of the West Ger¬
after. Chargesheimer's work of a lifetime stands in man Radio (WDR) studio for new music.
inverse proportion to the impetuous energy and lack In 1954, L. Fritz Gruber, who was preparing a book
of compromise of his creative activities. He started on Konrad Adenauer, arranged for Chargesheimer to
out as a sculptor shortly after the end of World War take a portrait of the "old man," as Adenauer was
II, did gelatin silver paintings, produced a contro¬ known, but Chargesheimer initially met with scepticism
versial work in 1949 on the ruins of Cologne, and from the venerable politician. Only when Gruber re¬
then became famous with two picture books on life marked that, in addition to the many ordinary photos
in that city. In the sixties, he again became active as a in the book, he would also like to include some that
sculptor with kinetic objects and produced a further captured Adenauer "like Lenbach painted Bismarck,"
series of abstract, cameraless photographs; work as a did Adenauer become receptive to the idea. The result¬
set designer and producer followed. ing portrait was impressive indeed—a head that is more
Chargesheimer was a restless spirit, a provocateur. sculpture than photograph, probably the best portrait
With his book on Germany's Ruhr District, he alienated ever taken of the first West German Chancellor. But a
city councillors from Castrop-Rauxel to Duisburg. He scandal erupted when the weekly magazine Der Spiegel
did not hesitate to reject a foreword for his 1970 book chose this photo of Adenauer for its cover during an
Kb In 5 Uhrgo (Cologne 5:30 a.m.) written by the writer election campaign (September 1957). Chargesheimer
Heinrich Boll, because it did not correspond to his ideas; enjoyed good contacts with the magazine; in 1961 he
yet, at the same time, he felt at ease in Cologne among published a book about it entitled Des Spiegels Spiegel
(in German a neat play on words meaning "Mirror of
Der Spiegel"—the magazine's name itself means "mir¬
ror"). There were massive protests about the cover
picture, since the Christian Democratic Party accused
Der Spiegel of wishing to portray Adenauer as an old
man whom one could no longer be confident would
survive a further period in office. This did no damage
to Adenauer's campaign, as he won his last election
battle. The headlines about the Spiegel cover, however,
made Chargesheimer's picture popular. r.m.

Before the Procession, Cologne, 1950s

1924 Born Karl Heinz Hargesheimer in Cologne. 1942 Studies exhibition, at a bookstore in Cologne. 1950-55 lecturer at the Anneliese and
photography at the Werkschule in Cologne. Calls himself Carl Arthur Gewehrs Bi-Kla-Schule, DOsseldorf. Subsequent series of photos in Paris.
Heinz Hargesheimer or signs himself "CHargesheimer,” with the From 1952 Freelance contributor to the Neue Post, Ousseldorf, and graphic
C and H linked. On the occasion of a reportage undertaken for artist at a firm in Cologne. First photocopies, which he also uses for stage sets.
Stern this becomes "Chargesheimer." 1943-44 Studies at the 1958 Advertisement photographer for Ford and Esso. 1980-66 Set designer and
Bayerische Staatslehranstalt fOr Lichtbildwesen, Assistant to the cameraman producer. 1967-71 Turns to creating kinetic objects; later returns to experimental
and photographer Carl Lamb, From 1944 Back in Cologne. 1947-49 Freelance photography. 1971 Dies in Cologne
activity as a stage photographer at theaters in Hamburg, Hanover, Cologne, Further Reading; Misselbeck, Reinhold. Chargesheimer: Photographien 1949-1970.
and Essen; first attempts as a set designer in Cologne and Hamburg. 1948 First Exh. cat., Museum Ludwig. Cologne. 1983.

124
Yousuf Karsh Pablo Casals 1954

Yousuf Karsh's oeuvre constitutes a form of what might characteristic and expected aspect of these men and
be called "meta-iconography," for he creates icons of women, their public facades. This style of formal
icons: definitive images of famous individuals whose portraiture involves few surprises; Karsh's subjects
appearances in the flesh have become iconic—instantly compose their own preferred self-presentation to the
recognizable, resonant with the denotations and conno¬ camera, and the photographer, like a court painter of
tations of their work and their prominent roles in our the Renaissance, describes them as they prefer to be
cultural life. seen and memorialized.
The two pictures here represent departures from
Karsh's usual method. In making the smaller, inset por¬
trait of Winston Churchill, Karsh overrode his subject's
decisions, snatching a cherished cigar from Churchill's
lips just before making this exposure—evoking a bull¬
dog glower emblematic of the toughness associated
with the steel-nerved Prime Minister who steered
England through World War II and the beginnings of
the Cold War.
To produce his classic study of Pablo Casals, Karsh
had to abandon his own signature style—and let go
of the presumed imperative of his metier—in order
to portray the visual quintessence of the late cellist.
Casals came to his musical maturity in the era before
television made great performers' faces as familiar to
us as their performances. His music was known to
millions around the world, through recordings and
radio; his face was known to only a few.
How do you represent such a man in a way that is
Winston Churchill, 1941 instantly recognizable? Karsh opted to observe him
from behind, a vantage point roughly akin to that of
an orchestra's first violinist, a position from which
As a portraitist of the renowned and celebrated, comparatively few had ever seen him. But it was also
Karsh attends primarily to his subjects' visages. Work¬ a pose in which every lover of classical music for sev¬
ing with controlled lighting under studio conditions, eral generations had imagined Casals; hunched over
he studies their physiognomies not to discover and his instrument, faceless and selfless, lost in the act of
disclose the unanticipated but, instead, to render the bringing someone else's music to life. A. D. c.

1908 Born in Mardin, Armenia, 1924 Emigrates to Canada, 1970 Photographic consultant for Expo 70 in Osaka, Japan, From 1970 asset
1926-28 First encounter with photography via his uncle, the manager at the Photographic Arts and Science Foundation, 1972-74 Guest
photographer George Nakash, 1928-31 Trains as a photographer professor of art at Emerson College, Boston, From 1975 Member of the Royal
with the portrait photographer John N. Garo, in Boston 1932 Canadian Academy of Arts, After many years in Ottawa, Canada, now lives
Own portrait studio in Ottawa 1941 International breakthrough in Boston,
with his portrait of Winston Churchill, which appears on the cover of Life.
1967-69 Guest professor of photography at Ohio University, Athens, Ohio Further Reading: Karsh: The Art of the Portrait. National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, 1989

126
Irving Penn Pablo Picasso 1957

For over fifty years Irving Penn shaped the prevailing in reproducing the surface in all the richness of its
ideals of fashion and beauty through his photos for black and white tones.
Vogue and other (fashion) magazines. But it was not At the same time as he was carrying out commis¬
just aesthetic appearance that he presented; he was sions for portraits and fashion photography, Penn was
also seeking to show the human side of his models, to also conducting initial experiments with nude photog¬
turn anonymous images into portraits. His highly ver¬ raphy in his New York studio, which would be
satile career as a photographer has therefore not only presented to the public only thirty years later under
been devoted to fashion but also to the artist's portrait, the title Earthly Bodies. As soon as he completed the
the ethnographic portrait, the nude, and the still life. series of nudes, Penn hid them in a box, fearing a nega¬
Thus Penn is the author of an impressive and masterly tive public opinion. The photographs portray female
gallery of memorable portraits that owe their existence torsos, the statuesque nature of which arouses associa¬
to his preoccupation with strong, creative personalities. tions with the sculptures of Henry Moore or Aristide
Between 1946 and 1949 he took portraits in his New Maillol. Rosalind Krauss once described these nudes as
York studio of artists such as George Grosz, Marcel a kind of voluntary kamikaze attack by Penn against
Duchamp, and Georgia O'Keeffe, composers such as his public identity as a fashion photographer, since the
Igor Stravinsky and John Cage, and the writer Truman rounded female nudes seem the exact opposite of the
Capote. In these portraits he forces them into a niche slender, angular forms of fashion models. Today it is
of whitewashed partitions and, against this neutral, clear that Penn's nudes do not so much exemplify an
rather existentialistic background, tempts them out anti-aesthetic of the ugly, but instead are directed by
of the usual poses. similar stylistic principles of beauty and simplicity of
This late portrait of the Spanish artist Pablo Picasso representation, and thus fit harmoniously and tune¬
is another icon of twentieth-century photography. lessly into his overall oeuvre. u. p.
The restriction of the picture to the face, while concen¬
trating on the eye, is testimony to the photographer's
captivating awareness of form and assured proficiency

1917 Born in Plainfield, New Jersey. 1934-38 Studies at the Phila¬ 1963 Begins series of photographic travel reports for Vogue; traveling exhibition
delphia Museum School of Industrial Art. Trains as a designer with through the U.S.A., commencing at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. 1964
Alexey Brodovich. 1938-40 Work as freelance designer in New First platinum prints, a technique he continues thereafter. 1969 Experiments with
York 1940-41 Works for a New York department store. 1941-46 color prints on steel plates coated with porcelain 1984 Major retrospective in the
Assistant to Alexander Libermann, the art director of Vogue, who form of a traveling exhibition, again starting at the Museum of Modern Art, New
encourages him to become a photographer. Series of portraits commissioned York, followed by further stops in the U.S.A., Europe, and Asia. 1985 Resumes
by Vogue. 1944 First fashion photography. 1944-45 War reporter in Italy and painting and drawing. Lives in New York.
India. 1952 First promotional photos for American and international clients, 1960
Publication of Moments Preserved. 1961 Begins series of photo essays for Look. Further Reading: Irving Penn: A Career in Photography. Boston, 1997.

128
Imogen Cunningham Pregnant Nude 1959

In the twenties, Imogen Cunningham became famous known nude photograph of a pregnant woman in the
for her photographs of plants, to which she gave the history of photography. Cunningham must therefore
German name Blumenformen (literally, flower forms), have had a lengthy session with her model, something
and with which she participated at the Werkbund she did quite frequently. The photographer was con¬
Exhibition in Stuttgart in 1929. Later, it was her por¬ cerned with the physical presence of the woman, with
traits and nude photographs which ensured her a the formal changes in her body, to which she gave some¬
place in the history of photography. A friend of Ansel thing of the quality of a sculpture. She concentrated
Adams and Edward Weston (see pp. 96, 74), she was completely on the center of the body, the round belly
interested in photography in which reality and form and the breasts, ignoring the head and limbs. In the
were united and which led to a new experience of see¬ eye of the camera, this all merges together and results
ing. The transformation of the object from reality into in a photograph in which truth and neolithic shaman¬
an aesthetic object created by photography was an act ism, reality and sculpture, correlate in a fascinating
of seeing, not of staging. The intention was to create a manner. The geography of the body is hinted at; is it
new aesthetic on the basis of the actual, natural event. to become an art object?
Several versions of Pregnant Nude exist —the first The photograph of the pregnant woman represents
the fundamental break between our normal way of
seeing and the way of seeing of a representative of
"straight photography." Advocacy of the latter led to
an aesthetization of the object that ultimately elevated
it above pure reality. e.b.

Nude, 1932

1883 Born in Portland, Oregon. 1901 Begins to take photographs, Sonya Noskowiak, John Paul Edwards, and Henry Swift. Guest lecturer in photog¬
1907-09 Works in the studio of Edward S. Curtis, Seattle. raphy at the California College of Arts and Crafts, Oakland, and at the San
1909-10 Studies chemistry at the University of Washington, Seattle, Francisco Art Institute. 1946-47 Lecturer at the California School of Fine Arts,
and photochemistry at the Technische Hochschule in Dresden. San Francisco (and again in 1950), 1958 Member of the Bay Area Photographers
1909-11 Own studio in Seattle. 1912 First solo exhibition at the Group. 1964 Honorary member of the American Society of Magazine Photogra¬
Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Science. New York. From 1917 Studio in San Fran¬ phers. 1967 Member of the National Academy of Arts and Science. 1968 Honorary
cisco until 1970.1918 First meets Dorothea Lange. 1922 Member of Pictorial doctorate in fine art from the California College of Arts and Crafts, Oakland,
Photographers of America. 1922-29 Series of plant studies. 1923 First double 1974 The Imogen Cunningham Trust is set up in San Francisco to preserve her
exposures. 1931 -36 Freelance activities for lanity Fair. 1932-35 Founding photographs. 1975 Dies in San Francisco.
member of the “f-64" group with Willard van Dyke, Ansel Adams, Edward Weston, Further Reading: Lorenz, Richard: Imogen Cunningham: Flora, Boston, 1996.

130
Edouard Boubat First Snow, Jardin du Luxembourg, Paris 1955

On first seeing this photograph of children playing in Boubat belongs to that generation of photographers
the park in freshly fallen snow, Jacques Prevert ex¬ who only began working professionally after World
claimed: “Ah! That's a Bruegel!" The association is im¬ War II. Their "humanistic photography," which rea¬
mediately obvious. It is true that the rustic background ched a peak in France at that time, had abandoned the
of the Flemish painter's village pictures is missing, but photojournalism of the prewar years, with its pictorial
the children, in multifarious patterns against the white narratives developing in series. Photographers now
snow, bring his winter scenes to mind. The stacked gar¬ tried to condense life into a single decisive photo¬
den chairs act as a barrier separating the photographer graph. In these pictures, great feelings were formulated
from the children; the only visual contact is with the eloquently, as were quiet, contemplative moments.
boy standing in the left foreground. Behind, frieze-like, Parisian photographers were offered opportunities to
the children's play unfolds in a strictly horizontal present their work that went beyond sensationalist
plane bordered by the zone of trees. We can see that journalism—not just in the major magazines but also,
the photo was the result of patient waiting. Only when increasingly, in galleries. Partly as a result of his train¬
everything was in place, when, as it were, a natural ing as a graphic artist, Boubat was more interested in
harmony had been established, was the release trig¬ the impressive visual formulation of an image than in
gered and the moment frozen. photography's narrative qualities. In an interview he
The Jardin du Luxembourg in the university quar¬ summarized it thus: “Whether you want it to or not,
ter of Paris was one of Edouard Boubat's favorite a photo reproduces an atmosphere." L. D.
locations. He liked to seek out squares and parks where
nothing much ever happened and, through careful
observation, exposed the surrealism hidden by their
ordinary appearance. In 1982, he devoted an entire
book to Parisian gardens and squares.

1923 Born in Paris. 1938-42 Studies painting, typography, and design at the From 1968 Freelance photojournalist and portrait photographer in Paris.
Ecole Estienne, Paris. 1942-45 Works as a photoengraving printer in Paris, Numerous trips around the world, Lives in Paris.
1946 First photographs in Paris, 1946-50 Freelance photographer, Paris,
1951-68 Regular photographic work for the magazine Realites. Paris, Further Reading: It's a Wonderful Life: Photographs by Edouard Boubat. Paris, 1996.

132
Mario Giacomeili Have l\lo Hands to Caress My Face 1961-63

Mario Giacomeili is one of those photographers who, does not interest him as untouched nature, but first
as artists, retire modestly behind their work. His series and foremost as a landscape that displays the traces of
of 1961-63 on the dance-like rompings of young semi¬ human endeavor. The land and the people of Senigallia,
narians, entitled I Have No Hands to Caress my Face, firmly anchored in tradition, present him with images
achieved international acclaim—but fame never affected of the daily struggle for existence.
him personally or professionally. Giacomelli's oeuvre For processing his photographs, Giacomeili prefers
revolves around a handful of themes: the Italian land¬ hard paper that suppresses the intermediate tones and
scape, primarily the hilly cultivated region of his birth¬ accentuates black and white contrasts. Line is impor¬
place and home, Senigallia, as well as the people who tant to him; he moves photography closer to drawing
live and work in this landscape: farmers and day labor¬ and graphic art. He is not afraid to correct negatives
ers, children, gypsies, and hospice inmates. If we dis¬ or make double exposures in order to realize his ideas.
regard for a moment the emphasis that he places on Thus he creates landscape pictures that, over and above
his home, then, from the manner in which he depicts the visual work, ultimately exhibit conceptual quali¬
people, it becomes clear that the actual subject matter ties that correspond to those of Land Art. In addition,
of his photography is the vision of the cycle of birth and this association of realistic interest and an aesthetic
death, work, celebrations, and illness. Even landscape of form produces images—such as that of the romping
seminarians—that in their weightless rhythms of
abstract shapes might remind us of Henri Matisse's
dancing figures.
In his photographs, Giacomeili manages simulta¬
neously to convey distance and closeness, the affect¬
ing and the metaphorical, commitment and graphic
picture formation, emotion and conceptuality. His real¬
ism, far-reaching symbolism, and perceptible human
involvement make him an outstanding personality
among photographers. r.m.

Scanno. 195/

1925 Born in Senigallia. Ancona, Italy. 1935 Begins to paint and Puglia, dating from 1958, appears on the cover of the English edition of the
write. 1938 Works for a typographer whose business he takes over book Conversation in Sicily by Elio Vittorim 1963 Participates in "photokina,"
in 1945.1952 First photographs: founds the photo club Misa Cologne. 1971 Participates in the Venice Biennale (again in 1993 and 1995).
together with Cavalli. Thereafter numerous photo series. Works as Lives in Senigallia.
freelance photographer, typographer, and illustrator in Senigallia
1958 First solo exhibition at the Galleria il Naviglio, Milan, 1961 His photograph Further Reading: Carli, Enzo. Giacomeili: La forma dentro. Fotografie 1952-1995. Milan, 1995.

134
Garry Winogrand

In his later years Garry Winogrand would cast an increasingly jaundiced and
sardonic eye on the public behavior of his fellow citizens. Early in his career,
however, though not exactly uncritical, he appears to have felt himself more
often in a celebratory mood, as manifested in this photograph.
The occasion for this image appears to have been a parade, possibly New
York City's traditional Thanksgiving Day extravaganza. Winogrand posi¬
tioned himself directly in front of or behind an elevated rolling float, as
indicated by the foil decoration that runs along the bottom edge of the pic¬
ture and the silhouette of a man holding a bunch of balloons at the far left.
The float incorporates a trampoline; one can glimpse its support struts along
the bottom right. Counterbalancing the figure on the left, we see three men in
band uniforms on the right, watching with amusement as the central figure—
clad, incongruously, in a suit and tie, and, even more improbably, holding
a cigarette between his lips—performs a somersault in mid-air.
Winogrand has caught him in mid-turn, almost exactly upside down,
limbs outthrust in this ecstatic moment of gravity-defying, controlled aban¬
don. It is a classic rendering of a classic street photographer's trope, straight
out of the tradition established by Robert Doisneau, Ruth Orkin, and others.
And it includes few of the visual devices that would become the notable and
much-imitated hallmarks of this influential photographer's mature style:
skewed horizon lines, more abrupt and seemingly random framing, and less
differentiation between the eventful and the incidental.
Yet, though Winogrand was still some years away from finding his own
voice, we can note here clues to the complex picture maker he would eventu¬
ally become: that fringed border running along the bottom like an aluminum
mountain range, its texture and highlights pulling the eye away from the
image's center and ostensible main subject, and the out-of-focus billboard in
the upper right corner, whose winged logo echoes the gesture of the acrobat's
legs, and which reads "Flamingo/frozen," evoking the apropos image of a bird
arrested in flight. Finally, it is a small miracle of precise timing, the suspended
animation of that central event and the contributory incidents surrounding it
exemplary of photographic seeing. A. D. c.

1928 Born in New York. 1947-48 Studies painting at City College of New York, and from 1948
to 1951 at Columbia University, New York. 1948 Starts taking photographs and working in the dark¬
room, 1949 Studies photography with Alexey Brodovich at the New School for Social Research,
New York. 1951 Contract with Pix Inc., New York. First commission for Harper's Bazaar. 1952 Links
with the American Society of Magazine Photographers, of which he is a member from 1963.
1954-55 Photographer under contract to Henrietta Brackman Associates, New York 1967 Teaches at the Parsons
School of Design, New York. 1968-71 Teaches at the School of Visual Arts, New York. 1971-72 Workshops at the
Center of the Eye, Aspen, Colorado, and Phoenix College, Arizona, followed by numerous teaching assignments
in the U.S.A. and Europe, as well as numerous exhibitions. 1984 Dies in Mexico,

Further Reading: Winogrand: Fragments From the Real World. Exh. cat., The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1988.

136
Untitled 1950s
Rene Burri

It has never been the idyllic places of our world that have interested Rene
Burri, the widely traveled photojournalist from the photo agency Magnum,
but rather the places where stark social rifts are apparent. When, at the end of
the fifties, he began his major work, the series Die Deutschen (The Germans),
published in 1962, he preferred this divided country to the delights of
France or Italy. Similar motives must have guided him, in 1959, when he
traveled for the first time to Brazil, already a country subject to acute social
and political tensions, with irreconcilable differences between rich and poor,
where extreme corruption—still continuing today—was part of ordinary
political life.
Sao Paulo is a prime example of Burri's multilayered approach to reality.
His aerial view of the city provides us with something like the stratigraphy
of a society. The clear structure of the picture, with vertical breaks defining
the canyon of the street, multistoried facades, and a roof terrace, seems to
correspond to the social division; below, the anonymous mass of people in
motorized vehicles, with a few pedestrians looking like ants, as opposed to
the few above. Yet it remains questionable if the group of "faceless" men on
the roof are members of the oligarchy, the state apparatus, or just a shift of
watchmen. Overall it is a panorama as though seen through a prism, drama¬
tized in its proportions, which would make an ideal backdrop for a spy film.
Compared to this, Berenice Abbott's views of New York (see p. 104) seem
almost welcoming.
In his film Metropolis, Fritz Lang conjured up the big city as Juggernaut,
an inhumanity that is also discernible in Burri's picture. The genre, rich in
tradition, of the streetscape—with people strolling, shopwindows, vehicles,
and so on—is here transformed into an allegory of the inhospitable: the city
as a scenario of anonymity and alienation.
Although Burri, with his photographic overview Die Deutschen, fits
into the tradition of Henri Cartier-Bresson (The Europeans, 1950—55) and
Robert Frank (The Americans, 1954-58), there are nevertheless very clear
differences between his approach and that of the Frenchman and his Swiss
compatriot. For him the reality of life in a particular country is no longer
encapsulated in scenes of encounters with people expressed with charm,
pithiness, and irony, nor in masterful arrangements of form, but in a kind
of photographic sociology which, as it soberly dissects, looks social reality
straight in the eye. p. s.

1933 Born in Zurich. 1949-53 Studies photography with Hans Finsler. Mainly self-taught in
photography, influenced by Werner Bischof. 1953-54 Studies film at the Kunstgewerbeschule in
Zurich. 1953 Camera assistant to Ernest A. Heininger. 1954 Serves in the Swiss Army. From 1955
Freelance photojournalist for Life, Look, Stern, Fortune, Epoca, the Sunday Times, Geo, Twen,
Du: since then also filmmaker. From 1959 Member of the Magnum photo agency, Paris and New
York. 1962 Publication of Die Deutschen/Les Allemands, Zurich and Paris. 1965 Involved in setting up Magnum
Films. 1982 Opening of the Galerie Magnum in Paris, together with Bruno Barbey. From 1988 Art director of the
Schweizer lllustrierte. Lives in Zurich.

Further Reading: Rene Burri: One World, Fotografien end Collagen 1350-1383. Berne, 1984.

138
Sao Paulo 1960
 Durban, South Africa 1959-60

/in. :.'

mmmw

'MMlm mmMi

mkmSM^MiSplpR^»

&?:V;::-~-;:\- r^-. -:- A':^-;f^ ^:..^-:.:r -. <r£$*M§.

W'?.:*'//' ' ..■:■■V ' •; '' ■:..'.v.y WW

mm.

;■ 1

■^isp

; 5:7 ;; :,v?..'‘.-' ,'Vii:A«.f

Ed van der Elsken

Hardly any other photographer in Europe understood as

well as Ed van der Elsken how to capture the sensation of
being alive that young people felt in the years after World
War II. In a series of books, which he himself designed and
produced, he traced the rebellion of adolescents against their
parents' generation. His book Love on the Left Bank (1956) is
structured like a documentary photo-novel about the young
people who spent their days and nights in “existentialist"
jazz cellars and in the hotels and cafes of Paris. He did not see
himself as an aloof observer but as a participant, as his
smudged, black-ground, yet romantically atmospheric photo¬
graphs reveal. Van der Elsken, who had hitchhiked to Paris
only a few years earlier, initially did occasional work for the
Magnum photo agency, but he preferred to work without
a client.
In 1959, he set out on a journey around the world which
took him to all the continents, to South Africa, India, the
Philippines, China, Japan, Mexico, and the United States. His
resulting photos were published in 1966 in the book Sweet
Life. This is a highly personal commentary on social and polit¬
ical realities throughout the world, which was readily com¬
prehensible everywhere; the book appeared simultaneously
in six countries. While he was in Durban, in South Africa,
van der Elsken photographed this laconic scene on a prome¬
nade beside the sea. The four elderly women deep in conver¬
sation on the weathered concrete bench and the man passing
them without a word are caught beneath a dark and threat¬
ening sky. Probably in the darkroom, van der Elsken light¬
ened the area around the man's head to make it stand out
against the coarse-grained background. The words on the
back of the bench are what gives the photo its political
significance, since they identify the women as white, as repre¬
sentatives of the apartheid system, beneficiaries of racial
segregation. l.d.

1925 Born in Amsterdam, where he later studies art. Self-taught in

photography. Attends courses at the Nederlandse Fotovakschool, The
Hague. 1947-50 Freelance photographer in Amsterdam 1950-53
Moves to Paris; training with a professional photographer, 1955 Returns to Holland.
1955-61 Produces the series Jazz. 1956 Publication of Love on the Left Bank 1959
Embarks on a journey around the world; makes films and takes photographs. From 1959
Active as a documentary filmmaker. 1966 Publication of Sweet Life. 1990 Dies in Edam.

Further Reading: Ed van der Elsken: Once Upon /I Time. Exh. cat., Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, 1991.

141
Alberto Korda Che Guevara 1960

Quite definitely, no other photo has been reproduced he offered it, showed no interest. When the Ttalian pub¬
so often, hung in so many apartments, been present to lisher Feltrinelli visited Korda while searching for a
such a degree, whether printed, sprayed, or painted, portrait of Guevara and liked the photo, Korda let him
on house walls, T-shirts, and posters as Alberto Korda's have it free of charge. In 1967, Guevara died in Bolivia,
portrait of Che Guevara. A symbol for the generation and with the first poster printed in Italy from Korda's
of the protest movements of the Left, above and photo, the triumphal progress of this image began. It is
beyond all factions and ideologies, it also epitomizes as though nobody else ever produced a portrait of Che
the romance of revolution. When Korda took the photo¬ Guevara.
graph, he had no idea that it would become his most The fascination that this likeness exudes dwells in
important work. There were two quite similar photos, the expression of the face, "a mixture of courage and
but the one that Korda actually preferred was unusable pain," as Korda himself expressed it. It shows the
because the head of another man was visible behind essential contradictions implicit in every revolutionary
Che Guevara's shoulder. Korda therefore decided to action: defiance, hardness, determination and, at the
use Guevara's head from the other photo, in a horizon¬ same time, sadness and melancholy. The revolutionary
tal format. Initially he had no success with this photo¬ is fighting for ideals, for a better world, but he is also
graph. The editors of the magazine Revolution, to whom fighting for others and is aware that he might die
while doing so; in the final analysis he is also doing
this for himself, for his own immortality. Korda's per¬
spective, slightly from below, raised Guevara on a
pedestal, made him a monument in his own lifetime,
without the revolutionary leader having the slightest
inkling of how close he already was to death.
Korda was the official photographer of the Cuban
revolution and worked for its magazine, Revolution.
In Cuba he was an important figure. Yet he gave away
the only picture he took in his life that could have
brought him not just international fame but also mil¬
lions of dollars. Under all the Che Guevara posters and
publications in Europe stands the phrase "Copyright
Feltrinelli." It is time that Korda's authorship of this
photograph was again publicly acknowledged, to give
him at least the fame. The photo opposite, which
shows the complete photo of i960, without cropping,
was printed by Korda himself from his original nega¬
tive, which is still in Flavana. R.M.

Quixote Atop a Lamppost, Havana, 1959

1928 Born in Havana, Cuba. 1948-47 Studies economics at Artistas de Cuba (UNEAC) in Havana 1968-80 Photographer at the Academia
Candler College. Havana 1947-50 At the Havana Business de Ciencias de Cuba, Havana. 1980 Active as freelance photographer, including
Academy. 1956-69 Founds the Estudios Korda in Havana together fashion photography. 1980-82 Photo director at Opina. Lives in Havana.
with Luis A. Pierce. 1959-62 Photographer for the magazine
Revolution, Havana 1959-69 Fidel Castro's photographer. Further Reading: Alberto Korda: Momenti della Storia. Exh. cat,, Centro Culturale
1961 Founding member of the photography branch of the Union de Escritores y Editoriale Pier Paolo Pasolini, Italy, 1982,

142
Lee Friedlander

Lee Friedlander loves anomalies, quirks, and examples of our "best

intentions" that have gone astray. He enjoys visual puns and conun¬
drums. His pictures are witty and, sometimes, unkind. He works
quickly. Like a star athlete, he senses in advance where the "play"
will happen, and lifts his camera at that moment. Being a photog¬
rapher, he said, was "all I ever wanted to do since I was a kid. Always."
He has produced one of the richest and most inventive bodies of
work in photography. Each of Friedlander's many series has a distinc¬
tive character. With equal skill, he can make tauntingly complex
and eloquently simple pictures. His images are most likely to be direct
and without asides when he is photographing children or plants.
Urban environments evoke him to create the most visually complex
compositions. In the 1960s, he worked with mirrors, reflections, signs,
and movie screens to capture images-within-images. He also recorded
the ubiquitous televisions in his motel rooms as he crossed the coun¬
try on assignment. City streets and highways were the richest sources
of these amply layered pictures about the visual cacophony of urban
life. In the 1970s, he photographed parties and chronicled the rote ges¬
tures of greetings and of disinterested acquaintance. Another Fried¬
lander series elucidated the types of memorial statues that have been
erected in American cities, and where they are usually situated. Often,
he noticed that an intention to honor had been subverted by chang¬
ing environments and values. In the 1980s, Friedlander investigated
how people look when they are working, mirroring the inverted gazes
captured by Walker Evans when Evans photographed subway riders
in the 1940s (see p. 72). Friedlander is also a searing portraitist and has
published four books of photographic portraits. He began his career
in the 1950s photographing for record companies. The portraits of
jazz and blues musicians that he made for himself, rather than for
clients, are both intimate and, at times, unflattering. He is hardest on
himself in the self-portraits made "on the road" in the 1960s. Some¬
times he portrays himself as a stalking shadow lying across the views
and people before him. For decades, he also photographed his wife
Maria and his children, Eric and Anna, as well as his friends and col¬
leagues. The pictures are informal; the subjects are often "at home,"
"at ease," and touchingly vulnerable. a . w. t.

1934 Born in Aberdeen, Washington, 1948 Begins to take photographs, 1953-55 Studies
photography with Edward Kaminski at the Art Center School, Los Angeles. From 1955
Freelance photographer working for, among others, Esquire, McCall's, Collier's, and Art
in America, 1968 Chair of the Artist in Residence program at the University of Minne¬
sota, Minneapolis. 1970 Guest lecturer at the University of California, Los Angeles, 1977
Chair at Rice University, Houston, Lives in New York,

Further Reading: lee Friedlander: The Desert Seen, New York, 1996,

144
 Galax, Virginia 1962

i
■
Cecil Beaton Edith Sitwell 1962

Cecil Beaton was perhaps one of the last baroque artists to a feudal—English—cult of hedonism that allowed
in England. He understood how to present people of a smooth transition from the Victorian to the post¬
rank—and he almost only made portraits of members modern age. However, from the fifties in particular,
of the nobility and the social circles in which he him¬ alongside the entertaining unreality of his portraits
self moved-—in such a way that clothing, figure, acces¬ (which reached their apogee in the portraits of the
sories, backdrop, and material qualities were combined British royal family), Beaton understood how to pro¬
into an enchanting extravaganza. He spoke of himself ject a cool objectivity, which is particularly evident
as a "fanatical aesthete." As set designer, costume de¬ in his portraits of artists and intellectuals.
signer, and portraitist, he ridiculed the modern principle Edith Sitwell, the English writer of noble birth, is
"less is more" with his sumptuous arrangements, un¬ seated wearing a white garment—more drapery than
like any other of the great figures of twentieth-century dress or coat—in front of a chair back swathed in white
photography. His pictures are homages to luxury and fabric near a light-colored wall. Her aristocratic profile
stands out prominently against the white ground,
richly modeled, owing to the folds of fabric. Her bear¬
ing is given an additional, rather blase, refinement by
the studied pose of her hands. The scarf, tied diadem¬
like into a turban, and the rings on her fingers are the
few, if eloquent, attributes of the ageing poetess, whose
face is mercilessly exposed, although she turns her
gaze away in a distinguished manner. At the time of
this portrait Edith Sitwell, made a Dame (DBE) in 1954,
was seventy-five years old. She continued to give
public readings, and the free rhythm of her lyric poetry
was still found liberating by the youth of the period.
The pioneer of literary modernism died two years
later. Beaton, who had been making portraits of her
since the 1920s and with whom she was friends, suc¬
ceeded here in creating a portrait which is a masterpiece
of psychology, its carefully calculated theatricality
allied with sophistication and a high level of artistic
sensitivity. p.s.

Self-Portrait in the Studio, 1951

1904 Born in London. 1922-25 Studies history and architecture at St. John's rapher at Conde Nast publications, mainly for Vogue in New York and London.
College, Cambridge. Teaches himself photography. 1925-70 Set designer, and Thereafter freelance until his death. 1964 Member of the Royal Photographic
1941-70 film outfitter in London and Hollywood. 1926 First exhibition in a Lon Society. 1980 Dies in Broadchalke near Salisbury. Wiltshire.
don gallery. 1926-30 Freelance portrait and fashion photographer. 1928-50
Court photographer to the British royal family. 1939-45 Photographer for the Further Reading: Garner, Ph. and Mellor, D.A. Cecil Beaton: Photographs 1920-1970.
Ministry of Information in London. 1930—c. 55 Employed as fashion photog- New York, 1996.

146
Richard Avedon The Generals of the Daughters of the
American Revolution, Washington, D.C. 1963

This is a picture that fascinates. If one examines the colleagues, none of them is looking at the photogra¬
ladies' clothes, it can be seen to be an official photo¬ pher, and there is no visual contact with the viewer.
graph. All eleven of them are of mature years, definite¬ The group is alone with itself; a diverse network of
ly "upper class," and decked out in evening gowns and intersecting, but never touching, glances develops.
sashes as indications of their function. Some of them are In addition, the main person in the center is standing
even wearing medals on their chest. They are all repre¬ with her back to the viewer, thereby cutting off the
sentatives of an organization called "The Daughters of group even more from the photographer, producing a
the American Revolution," which obviously awards certain privacy, and making the viewer an intruder,
its officers military rank. These eleven leaders have the despite all the official get-up. The contradiction is
status and title of generals. With this photo, Richard obvious. Based on their attire, these are officials who
Avedon created a group picture that follows a genre, are portrayed, yet, based on their facial gestures and
rich in tradition, one that can trace its origins back to their conduct, they are private individuals.
the guild portraits of the Netherlands. Certainly, the The inner conflict of the group composition is not
reference to guild portraits in Avedon's photo is partic¬ only the expression of a formal experiment but also a
ularly instructive, especially if we compare it with the mirror of Avedon's ambivalent relationship to the sub¬
most famous work of this genre, Rembrandt's Night jects of this picture. In a lecture he once said, "These are
Watch. Rembrandt exploded the then prevailing norms the Generals of the DAR, the Daughters of the Ameri¬
of group portraiture by not painting the heads of the can Revolution. That means that every one of their
members of the watch lined up next to one another; in¬ ancestors came over on the Mayflower. They turned
stead he turned the group portrait into a story and gave into the most reactionary of organizations. They're the
it dramatic lighting. ones who would not permit Marian Anderson to sing
Avedon's photograph interests us, like Rembrandt's in Constitution Hall because she was black." r.m.
Night Watch, because of its unconventionality. The
generals are part of the group, and yet each of them is
isolated. None of them is looking at another of her

1S23 Born in New York. 1941-42 Studies philosophy at Columbia and photographer at Harper's Bazaar under Brodovich and Carmel Snow. From
University. New York. 1942-44 Work in the photography depart¬ 1950 Freelance work for, among others, Life and Look. 1959 First publication:
ment of the U.S, Merchant Navy. 1944-50 Photography studies Observations. From 1966 Regular contributor to Vogue. 1980 Appointed Chan¬
with Alexey Brodovich in the Design Lab of the New School cellor of the University of California at Berkeley. Lives in New York.
for Social Research, New York. 1945-47 Regular photographer
for Junior Bazaar. 1946 Sets up own photo studio in New York. 1945-65 Editor Further Reading: Richard Avedon. Evidence 1944-1994. Munich, 1994.

148
Stefan Moses Self in the Mirror—Ernst Bloch and Hans Mayer 1963

For more than three decades Stefan Moses, who, to¬ assists by means of stage management and animation
gether with Thomas Hopker, Robert Lebeck, and Max when, for instance, he uses a pale gray felt cloth as a
Scheler, is among the top-notch photographers of the background for his West or East German portraits or,
magazine Stern, has been preoccupied with the theme for another series, takes prominent witnesses of con¬
of his life—to depict the Germans. At the head of his temporary German history such as Golo Mann, Willy
various cycles of portraits is the series Self in the Mir¬ Brandt, and Max Schmeling into the forest and photo¬
ror: self-portraits of German intellectuals such as the graphs them there. In other portraits, politicians pose
writer Ernst Jiinger and the philosopher Theodor with a wooden dumbbell or artists, such as Otto Dix,
Adorno, or Ernst Bloch and Hans Mayer, taken with a Hans Richter, and Ernst Wilhelm Nay, with a home¬
delayed-action release, making the very act of photo¬ made mask.
graphing the theme. Characteristic is Moses' psychological feel for a
We know how difficult, how impossible, it is to situation, for the concealed and the cryptic, for trag¬
grasp the essence of a person within a picture, but at edy and irony. Whereas classic portrait photography
the same time we have high expectations about the in the style of Hugo Erfurth (see p. 40) concentrates
general validity of pictures of people. In order to get in a static manner on the facial features, whose "land¬
closer to the identity of a person, it is important first of scape" becomes, so to speak, a mirror of the persona¬
all to clarify the field of tension between the mask-lilce lity, Moses' portraits are lively mises en scene. This is
transfigurations and the essential. Moses deliberately also demonstrated in his picture essays on his son
Manuel, in which he depicts his son's childhood poeti¬
cally, making visible the world of childish games and
dreams, the dressings up and transformations. As a
result of his break with customary studio aesthetics
Moses constantly reinvents the pictures; the classic
relationship between photographer and model is liber¬
ated from the static approach, the essence of personal¬
ity is playfully exposed. These are photos of artistic,
highly contemporary value which continue the tradi¬
tion of August Sander's encyclopedic work on people
in the twentieth century (see p. 20). u.p.

Child and Cat with Chinese Animal Masks, 1965

1928 Born in Liegnitz, Silesia, 1943 Photographic training with by the Fotografische Gesellschaft Deutscher Lichtbildner (GDI), 1992-94 Travel¬
the children's photographer Grete Bodlee in Breslau and Erfurt. ing exhibition Ostdeutsche Portrats-1989/90. including stops in the U S A,
1946-49 Stage photographer at the Nationaltheater in Weimar, and Canada, 1998-99 Exhibition Jeder Mensch ist eine kleine Gesellschaft.
1950 Moves to Munich, 1950-60 Photojournalist in Munich, in Munich, lives in Munich.
working among others for the Neue Zeitung. Revue, and Quick.
Further Reading: Ibschied und Anting: Ostdeutsche Portraits 1989-1990 von Stefan
1960—67 Employed at Stem. From 1965 Freelance photographer. Photos of Moses. Ostfildern. 1991, Stefan Moses: Jeder Mensch ist eine kleine Gesellschaft.
artists, writers, and politicians. 1990 Awarded the David Octavius Hill Medal Exh. cat, Munich, 1998.

150
 Gordon Parks Ethel Shariff in Chicago 1963

As a film director, Gordon Parks broke the color barrier many of their practices and principles, but he under¬
against African Americans behind the camera in Holly¬ stood them as a necessary force in the United States
wood with The Learning Tree (1969) and Shaft (1971). at that time, and a logical outgrowth of the country's
A composer whose orchestral music has been performed racist history. His coverage of the organization and its
internationally, he is also an autobiographer and novel¬ members treated them as forces to be reckoned with—
ist. And, of course, a photographer, best known for as in this study of ranks of Muslim women, which uses
the classic black-and-white documentary and photo- selective focus to personalize the one in the foreground,
journalistic images he produced for the Farm Security suggesting the individuality of each of those behind her
Administration and later for Life magazine. while symbolizing their collective strength and deter¬
This image comes from his extensive Life feature mination. (The boxer Muhammad Ali, portrayed in
story on the Black Muslims, produced when the late the inset image, was then a recent, controversial convert
to Islam.)
Parks has never lost his love for still photography
—the medium that served as his ticket out of poverty,
the one which, he acknowledges fondly, "made all the
other things possible. My main thrust was the docu¬
mentary approach—which I learned from Roy Stryker
and the F.S.A. [Farm Security Administration] group.
That shaped my whole attitude toward life." That
project gave him the opportunity to depict (among
other things) the African American experience as per¬
ceived by a member of that minority, and thereby to
have a significant voice in determining how his people
were visually represented to the world.
This was a major breakthrough in that era, and Parks
Muhammad Ali, 1970 used the opportunity well, not only then but consist¬
ently thereafter. When he later started working for Life
Malcolm X still spearheaded its organizational activi¬ magazine, he covered many subjects, from Hollywood
ties and served as the fiery spokesman for its adver¬ to fashion, but much of his strongest work from that
sarial, separatist policies in relation to white America. period addressed issues of race, prejudice, and the
Parks himself was not a Muslim, and disagreed with politics surrounding those matters. A. D. c.

1012 Born in Fort Scott, Kansas, grows up in impoverished circum¬ Magazine Photographers' "photographer of the year," 1966 Exhibition of his
stances, 1016 Moves to St, Paul, Minnesota, Early 1030s Starts pictures at "photokina" in Cologne, with a great response, 1970s-80s Further
composing, 1037 First camera, 1041 Julius Rosenwald Award films and books (prose and poetry), Numerous honorary doctorates. Several
for Photography, Chicago, 1042 Works under Roy Striker in the photo exhibitions, mainly in the U.S.A. 1988 Receives the National Medal of
photographic department of the Farm Security Administration, Arts from the President of the United States. 1989 Large-scale retrospective
1945-49 Photographer for Standard Oil of New York, Publication of the books 40 Jahre Fotografie in TObingen 1990 Honored for his life's work by the Inter¬
Flash Photography and Camera Portraits, among others. 1940-70 First black national Center of Photography, Publishes his autobiography Voices in the
photographer at Life, Also successfully active during this time as a writer and Mirror. Lives in New York.
as a director of his own film projects, 1960 Chosen as the American Society of Further Reading: Half Past Autumn: A Retrospective-Gordon Parks, Boston, 1997.

152
Malick Sidibe Twist 1965

meetings. In this he was the opposite of Sakaly, whose

clientele was drawn from the upper class. In the de¬
cades of Twist and Cha Cha Cha, and later Rock 'n' Roll
and Beat, Sidibe photographed the new, self-assured
generation at their private dances and parties, and in
their clubs, bathing in the Niger, at weddings, baptis¬
mal ceremonies, or sports events. With a distinctive
spontaneity, freshness, and immediacy, he captured
the zest for life of teenagers and people in their twenties
following Mali's independence.
Sidibe's oeuvre is not just unique in Africa; in the
West, too, there was hardly another photographer
who documented the youth culture of the sixties and
seventies with such passion and over such a long peri¬
od of time. Twist is one of the few "classic" pictures
by Sidibe. Young Malians in elegant evening garb have
Dance Party, 19/2 put a record on and are dancing to the latest hits. The
figure of the male dancer filling the foreground, seen
Malick Sidibe, of Mali in West Africa, is representative from behind, directs our gaze on to the pleasant, con¬
of the large number of indigenous African photogra¬ centrated face of his partner—both of them in the
phers who, although they received their training from crouched posture typical of this dance. The young,
white photographers, became independent and since modern townspeople have abandoned the tribal dances
then have produced photographs "by blacks for of the rural regions and are enjoying dancing socially
blacks." The greater part of their work consists of por¬ in couples in the Western fashion, but in a way that
traits. In this field Seydou Keita and Abdourahmane again displays almost ritualistic form. Through the
Sakaly (Mali), Cornelius Y.A. Augustt (Ivory Coast), emergence of amateur and color photography on a mas¬
James K. Bruce-Vanderpuye (Ghana), and Narayandas sive scale, such sophisticated portrait and observational
V. Parekh (Kenya) have produced exceptional work. art has now been consigned to history in Africa—and
Sidibe expanded the parameters of portrait photog¬ not just there. p.s.
raphy and made it dynamic. Every evening he would
leave his studio and laboratory to attend young people's
celebrations in Bamako and record their boisterous

1936 Born in Soloba, in what was then the French Sudan (now 1956 First camera 1962 Sets up own photographic studio. Becomes favorite
Mali). 1952 Graduates from school Until 1955 Attended the photographer of the youth of Mali, concentrating on photographing them at
Ecole des Artisans Soudanais in Bamako, where he studied ceremonies, parties, and dances. Lives and works in Bamako, the capital of Mali.
goldsmithing, followed by training in the Photo Service studio
of the French photographer Gerard Guillat (known as Gege). Further Reading: Magnin, Andre (ed,). Malick Sidibe, Zurich, 1998.

154
Bernd and Hilla Becher Cooling Tower, Mt. Cenis Colliery, Herne, Ruhr 1965

they did so because they had discovered that such

monuments were being torn down more rapidly than
they themselves could photograph. However, photog¬
raphy also turned out to be extremely useful because it
provided objectively better comparable data. The art
scene then discovered these works as photographic
parallels to sculptures and other plastic works, so to
speak as "found," "anonymous sculptures." According
to this way of thinking, a photograph was still a
document that recorded the sculptures as such. "The
'artist'—to use a term that is not really admissible
here—retreats completely behind what he is depict¬
ing. He remains anonymous like the built 'sculptures'
that he reproduces." Today Bernd and Hilla Becher
would definitely be seen in a different light, but this
shows how far photography has come since 1981, how
Typology of Half-Timbered Houses, 1959-74 much our understanding of documentary photography
has changed. In the meantime, it is apparent that it
is the concept that makes the Bechers artists, and that
their documentation is no detriment to this. The rever¬
At the beginning of the century, Karl Blossfeldt em¬ sal in evaluation that led to Blossfeldt, Sander, Albert
barked on his large-format photographs of details Renger-Patzsch, and other factual and documentary
of plants (see p. 24), survey photographers collected photographers also being honored as artists retrospec¬
architectural data in German cities and recorded them tively has moved the Bechers into the rank of German
photographically, and August Sander began his ency¬ artists of highest international renown. Basically, we
clopedia on people in the twentieth century (p. 20). In should not see the Bechers' photos as individual pic¬
these contexts, photography was primarily considered tures. It is only when they are put in rows, compiled
a means of compiling visual material in a comparable into series, that the essence of these works, their con¬
manner and thus of preserving it for science and for cept, can be recognized. R.M.

interested posterity.
When Bernd and Hilla Becher took photographs of
cooling towers and half-timbered houses in the sixties,

Hilla Becher; 1934 Born Hilla Wobeser In Potsdam. Trains Bernd Becher: 1931 Born in Siegen, 1947-50 Trains as an interior decorator
as a photographer, then works as a commercial photog¬ in Siegen 1953-56 Studies at the Staatliche Kunstakademie in Stuttgart,
rapher in Hamburg and DOsseldorf, 1957 Moves to DOs- 1957 First photographs of industrial buildings. 1957-61 Studies typography at
seldorf, 1958-61 Studies, followed by the establishment the Staatliche Kunstakademie in DOsseldorf. 1959 Begins collaborating with
of a photography department at the Staatliche Kunstakademie in DOsseldorf. Hilla Wobeser, whom he marries in 1961.1972-73 Guest lecturer at the Hoch
From 1959 Collaboration with Bernd Becher. schule fur Bildende KOnste, Hamburg. From 1976 Professor at the Staatliche
Kunstakademie, DOsseldorf. 1990 German contribution to the Venice Biennale
Further Reading: Becher, Mapplethorpe. Sherman. Monterrey, 1992, Grigoteit, Ariane with Hilla Becher, Bernd and Hilla Becher have lived in DOsseldorf and in
(ed.). Bernd & Hilla Becher. Deutsche Bank AG, Frankfurt am Main, 1998, Munich since 1989.

156
 lini
tHill 1

mil
V . ■■ .
Diane Arbus Boy with a Straw Hat Waiting to March
in a Pro-War Parade, N.Y.C. 1967

Less a street photographer than a transactional, envi¬ era: the straw boater, the white shirt and jacket, the
ronmental portraitist who often used the street as a bow tie, the short-cropped hair, all speak of an earlier
setting for her work, Diane Arbus faced her subjects day and a previous war, when mindless flag-waving
head on, usually at close range, and always asked and naive patriotism were all the rage. Everything
their permission before photographing. Thus these seems slightly too large for him; he has yet to grow
are not surreptitious, "candid" sketches but collabo¬ into it all. It is as if he is wearing his father's clothing,
rations reflecting the conscious relationship between and his father's attitudes and politics as well.
photographer, camera, and subject. Though he was undoubtedly surrounded by others,
Arbus frequently photographed children and ado¬ part of the crowd watching the parade or even a
lescents, with a keen eye for their awkward and pain¬ marcher in it, Arbus has photographed him as if no
ful efforts to anticipate adulthood and fit themselves one else was around, isolating him from his immedi¬
into its often constricting roles. This boy, with his ate context—just as he has cut himself off from the
fixed, adamant, and angry stare through the lens at behaviors and tendencies of his cohort. Her use of
us, seems curiously time-displaced. He is an American on-camera flash freezes his hostile glare at her—while
teenager, after all, in 1967—'the heyday of "sex, drugs, also registering every detail of of his face, clothing,
and rock 'n' roll," the historical moment of the inter¬ and accoutrements. This has the effect of emphasiz¬
national hippie movement, the Summer of Love, and ing his protruding ears, which remind us poignantly
widespread opposition by members of his generation of his immaturity, becoming what Roland Barthes
to the ill-conceived and increasingly unpopular war dubbed the "punctum," the telling detail, of the image.
in Vietnam. A.D.C.

Yet he has not only decorated himself with symbols

declaring his opposition to all that but has gone fur¬
ther, to garb himself as a defiant throwback to another

1923 Born Diane IMemerov in New York. 1941 Marries photographer raphy at Parsons School of Design, New York, in 1968-69 at Cooper Union for
Allan Arbus. Initially works as his assistant, then until 1971 photog¬ the Advancement of Science and Art, New York, and 1970-71 at the Rhode Island
rapher for Harper's Bazaar, Show, Esquire, Glamour, and The New School of Design, Providence. 1971 Dies in New York,
York Times. 1955-59 Studies under Lisette Model at the New
School for Social Research, New York. 1965-71 Teaches photog¬ Further Reading: Dim Arbus. An Aperture Monograph. New York, 1972.

158
;
Overpopulation 1968

'•.Svii/i

mm
Will McBride
1968 was a year unlike any other. In West Germany, the genera¬
tional conflict that had already been simmering for ages was
vented in violent clashes with the organs of the state. In France,
students and workers became allies in protest against the conser¬
vative regime of an authoritarian general. At the same time, in
Prague, Soviet tanks plowed down budding hopes for a socialist
"spring" following the cold winter of Stalinism. One of the sym¬
pathetic photographers of the events of that year was Will
McBride, trained as a painter, a student of the precise "realist"
Norman Rockwell. In February 1953, McBride arrived in Ger¬
many as a GI and was fascinated by the country's “gray tones ...
which I had never seen in my thoroughly glittering homeland."
He was immediately successful as a photographer in the magazine
trade. Yet his aesthetic interest lay neither in documentation nor
in reportage. He introduced a new tone to photography, and his
photos are more strongly colored by personal experience than
by the objective appearance of his subjects. McBride restricted
himself to interior views of a German reality in which the con¬
flict between the generations was gradually taking shape, seek¬
ing its expression in unconventional clothing, existentialist
affectations, and rebelliousness against the bigoted suppression
of sexual pleasure. His pictures convey atmospheres and feelings
rather than facts. His strength lay in sequences of pictures,
subtle photographic essays which unfolded through individual
stages. In 1968, he photographed the cast of the successful Mu¬
nich production of the musical Hair, in cardboard boxes. Several
versions of the central image of the sequence exist. Usually it is
cropped on the right and left, reducing the distance between the
sixteen male and female actors (including two children) and the
viewer. In the cardboard boxes, which are open at the front,
piled two or three stories high, representing something like the
cross-section of a profit-greedy apartment house, the naked
actors sit, crouch, and huddle, either alone or in twos. The photo¬
graph reduces the myth of 1968 to an optical metaphor of a contra¬
dictory nature: on the one hand, the demonstrative proclamation
of freedom and independence, but on the other, a depressing
testimony of homelessness, separation, and physical confinement.
Perhaps the decisive experience lies in the failure of the high-
spirited dreams of the past. IC.H.

1931 Born in St. louis, Missouri. 1948-50 Studies English at the University of Vermont; private
student of Norman Rockwell. 1950-51 Studies painting at the National Academy of Design, New
York 1951 -53 Studies art history, painting, and illustration at Syracuse University, New York.
1953-54 Serves in the U.S. Army, stationed in Wurzburg; first photographic works 1955-58
Moves to Munich, then Berlin. Studies philosophy, painting, and photography. 1959-81 Free¬
lance photographer in Berlin, from 1961 in Munich Picture essays and reportages for Twen,
Quick, Geo, Stem, Life, Look, and Paris Match. 1965 Guest lecturer at the Hochschule fOr
Gestaltung in Ulm 1972 Moves to Casoli. Italy 1983 Returns to Germany, Establishes photo
studio in Frankfurt am Main. Lives in Frankfurt.

Further Reading: Weiermair, Peter (ed.). Will McBride. 40 Jahre Fotografie. Schaffhausen / Zurich /
Frankfurt / Dusseldorf, 1992.
Robert Hausser J.R 5-9-70 1970

Robert Hausser was the first postwar photographer Through camera positioning and lighting, Hausser
who received recognition in artistic circles as early as the succeeded in seeing simple things in a new way, isolat¬
1960s. He rapidly became aware of the danger that pho¬ ing individual objects within a picture and, so to speak,
tography in Germany might become isolated and sought investing them with significance. Magic Realism has
ways of eliminating the separation between art and artis¬ been mentioned in connection with Hausser's work, but
tic photography. Thus he turned away from thematic his art could also characterized art as photographic
orientation and more toward artistic techniques. symbolism in continuation of nineteenth-century tra¬
dition. Certainly, part of this comes from a share of the
romantic, which in him—a former farmer—is not
without an earthy foundation.
Whether from his “bright period" (1953-55) or from
other phases, all his pictures are typified by a certain
morbidity and, faced with his self-portrait, any doubt
about his tendency to yearn for death vanishes. Haus-
ser's interest in farm life was expressed in his early pic¬
tures of freshly plowed fields, but particularly in the
series on home-slaughtering, a photographic narrative
in six pictures. In later work he turned more frequent¬
ly to the pictorial sequence, using it to document his
interest in formal pictorial solutions, but also in con¬
ceptual work. He became increasingly interested
in political themes and in borderline situations such as
Bicyclist, 1953 loneliness, desolation, doubt, and death. However, the
politics of the day did not enter into Hausser's art. His
The constant factor in his work was the magic of pictures never arose out of the moment but from long
things. Typical of this is J.R. 5-9-70, which shows a observation, from analysis. As far as he was concerned,
cult object, the racing car, brought out through hard contemporary criticism was not a confrontation with
contrasts as a simple form, a fetish of the twentieth the political and social realities of the day, but instead
century. The fact that this object is wrapped increases with people and situations. r.m.

the intensity of the impression. However, it also demon¬

strates the ambivalent feelings towards the event to
which the enigmatic title of the photo refers: the death
of the Austrian race-car driver Jochen Rindt on Sep¬
tember 5, 1970, in Monza.

1924 Born in Stuttgart. Trains as a press photographer, later from publishing houses and corporations, in many countries in Europe, South
apprentices as a photographer, 1942-46 War and prisoner of America, the U.S. and East Asia. Publishes several books of his pictures; many
war. 1946-52 Works on his parents' farm in Mark Brandenburg. photos also appear in magazines and newspapers. 1980 Gives up studio and
East Germany. Pictures of the rural world, 195D Studies at the commercial photography for artistic, creative work. Solo exhibitions in over sixty
Kunstschule Weimar under Walter Hege, Exhibition at "photokina" museums and galleries in Germany and abroad. Numerous prizes and awards,
in Cologne. Appointed to the refounded West German Gesellschaft Deutscher including from the Hasselbad Foundation.
Lichtbildner. Particpates in many exhibitions in the West. 1952 Growing discrim¬
ination owing to his contacts with the West; gives up the farm, flees to West Further Reading: Robert Hausser: Photographische Bilder, Werkiibersicht der Jahre
Germany and establishes business as photographer in Mannheim, Commissions 1941-1987. Exh. cat. Wurttembergischer Kunstverein Stuttgart, 1988-89.

162
Josef Sudek A Walk in the Magic Garden 1954-59

to Sudek. All his work is permeated by a receptive¬

ness to the finest nuances of light which touches on the
supernatural. "He wrestled with the light like Jacob
with the angel," Jaroslav Seifert once noted.
Sudek's photographic oeuvre is a hermetic world,
the creation not of a widely traveled person but of a
man who found strength in restricting himself to a few
places, ultimately to one place—Prague. Most of his
pictures were, in fact, produced either in the studio or
during walks not far away. He had a masterly under¬
standing of how to invest the apparently marginal with
significance, of making the ordinary mysterious.
A Walk in the Magic Garden shows an apparently
casual, but nevertheless carefully thought-out arrange¬
ment of garden furniture on a lawn. A white cup on
the table and the discarded summer hat give the impres¬
sion that guests cannot be far away. At the same time,
however, the arrangement of the chairs hints at some¬
thing out of the ordinary; a suggestion of a surreal situ¬
ation, the unreality of which is enhanced by the atmos¬
Roses. 1956 phere of the light, equivalent to either dawn or dusk.
Sudek produced variations on the "magic garden"
If ever a photographer succeeded in composing a poem theme in several works taken in his architect friend
with visual tools, Josef Sudek did. A glass of water, an Otto Rothmayer's garden. Characteristic in this picture,
egg, a stone—these were all he needed for what he among other things, is the fact that Sudek dispenses
called "a simple still life." Everything else was done with refined accessories such as sculptures or stone
by the light. Sudek's "poems" are modulations of light globes and limits himself to simple garden equipment
on simple and utterly commonplace themes; not over- in setting the scene. He has included a chair of the latest
ornate poetry, but prose using the shortest words. One type (right rear) among somewhat older designs, a
German term for photographer—Lichtbildner (literally, choice that makes a considerable contribution to the
sculptor of light)—is particularly appropriate as applied "romantic" character of the picture. p. s.

1896 Born in Kolfn. Bohemia. 1908-10 Attends the Royal Technical the center of Prague. 1930s Collaboration with the publisher Druzstevni Prace
College in Kutna Hora. Starts working in photography. 1910-13 and on the art association Manes’ journal, loins smery. Establishes the Sudek
Trains as a bookbinder. 1920-22 Amateur photographer, member Gallery for Fine Artists. From c. 1947 Works with panoramic camera (10 x 30 cm);
of Czech Photo Amateur Club (CKFA), Prague 1922-24 Classes book project Prag als Panorama (Prague as panorama). 1956 Publication of
^ with Prof, Karel Novak at State Graphic Arts College in Prague. first monograph, with 232 intaglio reproductions. 1976 Dies in Prague.
1922 Founding member of the Prague Photo Club; excluded in 1924.1924
Founding member of the Czech Photographic Society. 1927 Opens a studio in Further Reading: Farova, Anna. Josef Sudek: Poet of Prague. New York, 1990.

164
Josef Koudelka Czechoslovakia 1968

One year before he recorded this scene, Josef Koudelka of almost Kafkaesque alienation, enigmatic moments,
had decided to give up his career as an aircraft engi¬ and phenomenal occurrences within the apparently
neer and devote himself entirely to photography. Just ordinary. In view of all the associations invoked by
thirty years old, he had been awarded a prize for his the term, Exiles is a collection of experiences of the
theater photographs by the Czechoslovakian Artists' magical, of consciousness of another dimension. People,
Association. In that fateful year of 1968—the "Prague animals, and objects appear to be equally affected by
Spring," the occupation by Warsaw Pact troops— it. Almost all the photographs take a turn toward the
Koudelka was still living in his native land, but two surreal. Koudelka's art could be characterized as
years later he went into exile in England, then France, "fotografia metafisica."
and after that was stateless for almost two decades. The unreal in the opposite picture is taking place in
The picture of the winged boy was included in broad daylight in a village street, in the form of a white-
1988 in his volume Exiles, containing a total of sixty- robed cyclist wearing sneakers and wings. As far as we
one photos. Together with two pictures from Romania can see, it is not the right season for a Christmas nativ¬
and a further one from Czechoslovakia, it was among ity play. Has he perhaps dressed up for a masquerade
the earliest works in this series. As a quote from Victor party, or for a part in a school drama? He has come to
Hugo in it states: "Exile is not a material thing, it is a halt and is leaning apprehensively against a wooden
a spiritual thing.... And anywhere one can dream is wall, his eyes lowered before the figure of authority,
good, providing the place is obscure, and the horizon with a horse-drawn cart beside him. The melancholy
is vast." that overcasts this scene and which is prevalent in
In Exiles, Koudelka included pictures from almost Koudelka's work is also partly due to the socialist
every country that he had visited—England, Ireland, dreariness that reigned for decades in the Eastern Bloc.
Scotland, southern Europe, Turkey, even one from the Angels, denied by the official atheism of the Communist
United States. At first glance, it looks almost as though Party, would have seemed to be—in a double sense—
he had intended, if only vaguely, to characterize the messengers from another world. Koudelka deliber¬
inhabitants of the countries of Europe in emulation of ately did not provide the picture with any further
his colleague at Magnum, Henri Cartier-Bresson. Yet explanation, other than indicating the country, in
the creator of this picture had other things on his mind: order to lend the viewer's imagination wings and let
optical and psychological irritations, the experiencing it soar all the more freely. p.s.

1938 Born in Boscovice, Moravia. 1952 Takes first photographs, 1956-61 Stud- 1970 Emigrates to London. 1971 -80 Freelance photographer with the photo
ies aircraft construction at the Technical University, Prague, 1961 -67 Works as agency Magnum, Paris and New York; lives in London. 1975 Solo exhibition
aeronautics engineer in Prague, 1961 -65 Active as a freelance photographer at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1977 Major traveling exhibition in
for the theater magazine Divadlo. 1965-70 Official photographer for the Europe. Living in Paris since 1980.
Theatre za Branou, Prague. Member of the Society of Czechoslovakian Artists.
1968 Documents the occupation of Czechoslovakia by Soviet troops. Further Reading: Koudelka, Josef, Exiles. New York, 1988/89.

166
Adams County, Colorado 19/3
Robert Adams

Robert Adams's photography can be described as contemplative. Unlike

photojournalism or editorial magazine photographs that must quickly grab a
reader's attention, Adams' photographs are made for those willing to adjust
to his considered pace. His pictures are quiet, unassuming, and utterly re¬
spectful of his subjects: urban and rural landscapes in the western United
States. An ardent conservationist, he has been motivated, in part, by man's
mismanagement of these vast lands. Yet his photographs neither preach nor
reminisce. Avoiding the tradition of heroic landscapes, he has instead chosen
more subtle, intimate, and human-scale views of mountains, prairies, and
waterways, as well as of settlements and cities. He seeks to see with "normal
vision." Adams began photographing in Colorado, where he lived for over
forty years. His work came into prominence with the publication in 1974 of
the book The New West: Landscapes Along the Colorado Front Range. Shortly
thereafter, his work was included in the benchmark exhibition. New Topo¬
graphies: Photographs of Man—Altered Landscape. Using the same large-
format cameras as traditional landscape photographers, the artists in New
Topographies explored instead the relationship between man and nature.
Adams and the other photographers looked at the incessant construction on
what used to be free and open spaces; their subjects included roadways,
tract homes, shopping centers, and trailer parks. Often, the human-scale
elements appear slight and fragile under the vast western skies. In the series
Photographs of the American West, Adams poses the question of what would
be if those skies were contaminated by nuclear fallout. More than the other
New West photographers, Adams also notices the plants that persist, those
that grow around the concrete and evade the bulldozer. In addition, he photo¬
graphs well-crafted structures as often as the travesties of good design. He
patiently locates beauty where others find only the banal. Beauty is a cause
for reverence. He unabashedly admires its existence, and manifests his vener¬
ation in the quality of light that suffuses his pictures. Even photographs taken
at night emit light, as if from within the print itself. Never overtly dramatic,
the prints possess an even, eloquent, silver radiance.

1937 Bom in Orange, New Jersey, 1955-59 Studies at the University of Redlands, California,
1959 Bachelor of Arts in English, 1965 Awarded doctorate in English from the University of South¬
ern California, Los Angeles. 1962-70 Lecturer and assistant professor of English at Colorado
College, Colorado Springs. From 1967 Freelance photographer and writer, 1971 First solo exhibi¬
tion at the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, 1977 Publication of the series Denver: A Photo¬
graphic Survey of the Metropolitan Area. Lives in Colorado,
Further Reading: Adams, Robert. What We Bought: The New World, Scenes from the Denver Metropolitan Area 1970-
1974. Published by the Stiftung Niedersachsen. Exh. cat., Sprengel Museum, Hanover, 1995, Adams, Robert. Beauty in
Photography: Essays in Defense of Traditional Values. 1981. Adams, Robert. Why People Photograph. 1994.

169
William Eggleston

If any photographer's work invited the naive respon¬ liar with his subjects. However, no one else, adult or
se, "my kid could do that," it might be William Eggle¬ child, has thought to photograph this world, and not
ston's photographs. His photograph of a tricycle that in this illuminating way. Eggleston does not attempt
graced the cover of his first book, William Eggleston's to varnish, polish, clean up, or otherwise beautify his
Guide (1976), was taken from the eye level of a very world. He isolates the most basic components, includ¬
small child. But it is not just the perspectives in his ing a meal, tracks in a dirt road, ordinary pets, a side
photographs that invite the comparison. Rather, the porch, unpainted columns, an ancient truck, and an
accessibility of the scenes in his pictures intimates that old-fashioned gas station. The unsentimental direct¬
anyone, even a child, could have noticed the same views. ness of Eggleston's gaze results in pictures that, in
Eggleston's pictures possess the seeming simplicity turn, invite us to gaze and to consider. We see details
of snapshots. However, a child is unlikely to think to that we might otherwise have overlooked and whose
record something as ordinary as a kitchen table, com¬ importance we might have slighted. One can build a
plete with industrial-size condiment bottles, and a deep understanding of these places and of this culture
supply cupboard (opposite). Nor would a child catch with these distinct parts. His approach is literary with¬
the visual link between white bleach bottles discarded out being narrative. He learned his style and refined
on a dusty road and puffy, summer clouds drifting his vision by reading Southern writers, such as
over a flat horizon. No child would understand the William Faulkner and Eudora Welty, and by looking
shared-but-unequal lives implied in the identical at the photographs of Walker Evans (see p. 72). Like
hands-in-the pocket stances of two men—one white, his mentors, he respects what is daily and trusts the
one black; one in a suit and one in a uniform. Anyone ordinary moments to reveal life's indecipherable
born in the rural South where Eggleston works is fami¬ complexities. A.W.T.

1939 Born in Memphis, Tennessee. 1957 First camera (Canon range¬ Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge. Photography in the Gulf States
finder); in 1958 first Leica. From 1962 Freelance photographer on behalf of A TT. 1980-90 Journey to Kenya with Caldecot Chubb: The Louisiana
in Washington and Memphis. 1965 First attempts with color slide Project 1982 Takes photographs during the scene construction for John Huston's
film. 1967 Turns to color negative film. Moves to New York. Meets film Annie. 1983 Photographs the series Kiss Me Kracow in Berlin, Salzburg,
Garry Winogrand, Lee Friedlander, and Diane Arbus. 1974 Lecturer and Graz 1986 Commissioned to photograph shooting of the film True Stories
in visual and environmental studies at the Carpenter Center, Harvard University, by David Byrne. 1988 Trip to England, resulting in the series English Rose.
Cambridge, Massachusetts. 1976 Solo exhibition at the Museum of Modern 1989 Publication of The Democratic Forest. New York and London 1990 Journey
Art, New York, with accompanying publication, William Eggleston’s Guide, Photo to Spain, Lives in Memphis, Tennessee
commission for Rolling Stone, 1978-79 Researches into color video at the Further Reading: William Eggleston: Ancient and Modern. New York, 1992.
Untitled 1980
Joel Meyerowitz Vivian 1980

Even though mastering black and white has always demanded great proficiency
from the photographer, color photography has turned out to be an even more
difficult discipline. In the history of photography, color masterpieces are com¬
paratively few in number. In more recent times, William Eggleston (see p. 170),
Franco Fontana, and Joel Meyerowitz in particular have succeeded in getting a
creative grip on color—Eggleston by confronting the lens with intensive color
situations, Meyerowitz by careful selection of subjects whose "colorfulness" is
naturally subdued. The coast, people on the beach, and objects in the shadows
are among his preferred subjects, along with portraits. Waiting for dusk or "bad"
weather also allows him to perceive the intrinsic value of colors, their "noise,"
ready filtered.
In Vivian, taken in Provincetown, Massachusetts, the main figure has her
back turned to us and her arms folded behind her. She gazes out over the open
sea. Her red bathing suit, highlighted by the sun's rays, complements the
bluish-green of the middle ground, which merges into a silvery blue-gray in
the upper half of the picture. The few boats—parallel to the lower edge—lie
peacefully at anchor, furthering the contemplative atmosphere. The degree of
consistency with which the photo is constructed is revealed in one detail: the
top of Vivian's head, her impending departure, should she take a step forward,
meets with the fine line of the horizon. The photograph was taken with a cumber¬
some, large-format (20 X 25 cm) camera, using a telephoto lens to foreshorten
perspective.
Caspar David Friedrich's painting Monk by the Sea (1808—10) is the romantic
prototype for this image: the solitary human figure immersed in contemplation
of infinite nature. Meyerowitz has produced a kind of secularized photographic
variation, modernized to take in the facts of international summer vacations and
female equality. Even if it less charged with metaphysics, for the American photog¬
rapher, too, the sea is an object of inner contemplation. The qualities of equilibrium
and composure, as Vivian (Meyerowitz's wife at the time) may be experiencing
them, are also imparted to the viewer of this photo via its austerity of form and
coherence of structure. The ocean panorama becomes a psychological sounding-
board.
The majority of Meyerowitz's pictures, especially those featuring many figures,
are carefully staged and have greatly contributed to the popularity of raise en
scene photography. p.s.

1938 Born in New York. 1956-59 Studies painting and medical drawing at Ohio State University,
Columbus. 1959 Bachelor of Fine Arts, Self-taught in photography. 1959-63 Works as art director
in advertising From 1963 Freelance photographer. 1966 Solo exhibition at the International Museum
of Photography, George Eastman House, Rochester, New York. 1971 -79 Lecturer in photography;
1977 Mellon Lecturer at Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, New York. From
1977 Extraordinary Professor of Photography at Princeton University, New Jersey,

Further Reading: Meyerowitz, Joel. Cape Light: Color Photographs by Joel Meyerowitz. Boston, 1991.

172
Cindy Sherman Untitled Film Still, #21 1978

The young woman, her hair cut short under the knit Cindy Sherman made her debut on the art scene
cap, looks out sceptically at the city skyscrapers, her with the remarkable series Untitled Film Stills, of
mouth slightly open with astonishment. Behind her, which this is number twenty-one. She herself plays
the gigantic buildings tower into the sky, filling almost the role of the young woman, as played by countless
the entire background of the picture, taken from a actresses in the American genre cinema. But the picture
markedly low angle. The open Byronic collar, indeed says little as a portrait, and still less as a self-portrait.
her clothing in general, as far as it is visible, seems un¬ This is no selected personality that is presented here
like that of a city dweller and lend the model a certain but somebody playing a role, a role which, as always
vulnerability and sense of displacement. The angle of in the cinema, reflects a social pattern, a widespread
her eyes follows the camera perspective. They are perception of the role of women in society. It deals
directed upward and to our right, toward the vertig¬ with the power of the modern mass media to influence
inous towers of urban architecture which surround perception and thus, simultaneously, social existence.
her. The viewer's attention is thus drawn away from For many years, the images of women's roles past
the model and toward the context in which she finds and present, as well as the subliminal influence they
herself. The narrative crux of the picture is clear; exert on the individual in a media society, have consti¬
there is no doubt that a story is being told here. The tuted the central theme in Cindy Sherman's work.
title explains it: Untitled Film Still. It refers not to a K.H.

specific story but to a specific medium, cinema, which

tells variations of the same stories over and over again.

1954 Born in Glen Ridge, New Jersey. 1972—7B Studies painting and photogra¬ Museum of American Art, New York. 1990 Publication of Untitled Film Stills
phy at State University College of New York in Buffalo: Bachelor of Arts in 1976. in New York and Munich; also publication there in 1991 of the series History
1974-77 Works at Hallwalls Gallery: first solo exhibition there in 1979. 1977 Portraits. 1991 Vomit and Civil War Series are the first series in which she
Moves to New York City, Up to 1980, first series of Untitled Film Stilts. From herself does not appear. 1995 First Cibachrome prints and processing of nega¬
1980 Exhibitions at the Metro Pictures Gallery, New York. 1982 First European tives, influenced by early Surrealist photography. Lives in New York.
traveling exhibition mounted by the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam. Participation
in “documents 7," Kassel, and the Venice Biennale 1983 First major traveling
Further Reading: Cindy Sherman. New York/Chicago/Los Angeles: 1997. Cindy
exhibition through the U.S.A. 1984 Participates in the 5th Biennale in Sydney.
Sherman: Photoarbeiten 1975-1995. Exh. cat., Deichtorhallen Hamburg, Malmo Konst-
1987 First retrospective in the form of a traveling exhibition, including Whitney hall, Kunstmuseum Luzern. Munich/Paris/Loodon. 1995,

174
David Hockney The Skater, New York 1982

No other artist of the twentieth century has dealt so the analysis of perception developed the representa¬
clearly with perception as David Hockney. Whatever tion of subjective memory, based not just on its contents
influence Picasso and Cubism had on him in theory, but also on the act of remembering. Finally, Hockney
Hockney remained a man of the eye, an artist for whom included in his collages not only his own movement
art has to do with pleasure in colors, shapes, and paint¬ and the time that had simultaneously elapsed, but also
ing. At a time when it was considered chic in the art the opposite movement. Photo-collage allowed him to
world to be aloof, incomprehensible, or ambiguous, record people not as lifeless, static, visual objects but
his art was considered by critics to be superficial and as living beings moving through time. This processual
"too beautiful." For many years, this hindered percep¬ perspective, already practiced in the Middle Ages, dis¬
tion of the innovative approach of his work. Hockney solves space as a static construct and rediscovers it as a
wrested back themes for the visual arts that had long field of action.
been considered the domain of photography, painters The Skater is the fourth collage (the others are Diver
having relinquished them because they thought they and the two portraits of Gregory Walking, once in the
were gaining freedom by giving up the obligation to picture plane and once advancing toward the viewer)
reproduce reality. in which Hockney made movement itself the subject
In emulation of the Cubist Picasso, Hockney matter. In other collages, such as Serving Tea in the
established a relationship between painted and photo¬ Garden, Henry Moore, or Photographing Annie Leibovitz
graphed images and our manner of perception. Over the While She Is Photographing Me, movement has indeed
course of two decades, he developed new approaches been recorded, since the people have moved during
to confronting reality and portraying its perception the long process of taking the photographs, but move¬
by exchanging his experiences with both media. He ment as such is not the theme. The Skater is the only
replaced the central perspective of photography by a collage in which the rotations of a human body are
collage-type composition made up of a multitude of recorded so that all the details of movement appear as
moments recorded photographically. In place of the "facets," including the individual phases of motion of
static landscape image, he put our experience of land¬ the arms and legs. The picture was used as a poster for
scape in motion by driving through it in a car, as a the 1984 Olympic Winter Games in Sarajevo and has
composition of individual moments of memory. From become one of Hockney's best known images. R. M.

1937 Born in Bradford, England, Representative of British Pop art. for The Rake's Progress at Glyndebourne. Publication of autobiography David
From 1953 Studies at Bradford College of Art. 1959-62 Studies Hockney by David Hockney. 1981 Exhibition Looking at Pictures in a Room at
at the Royal College of Art in London. Meets R.B. Kitaj, Allen the National Gallery, London, with accompanying publication. 1982-84 Photo¬
Jones, and Peter Phillips, From 1961 Produces photographs as collages and Polaroid collages. 1985-89 Experiments with color photocopier
well as paintings and graphic art. 1962 Teaches at Maidstone and colored computer graphics, 1985 Commission for French Vogue.
School, London. 1963 First solo exhibition at the Kasmin Gallery. London. From 1988-89 Works produced with fax machine 1990-91 Works with computer
1963 numerous teaching activities at various universities in the U S A 1964 drawing, camera, and color laser printer; series L.A. Visitors. 1992 Honorary
Stays in the U.S.A 1966 First stage sets and costumes for Alfred Jarry's opera doctorate from the Royal College of Art, London, 1995 Honorary doctorate from
Ubu Roi at the Royal Court Theatre, London. 1968 Studio in Santa Monica, Cali¬ the University of Oxford. Lives in London and Los Angeles.
fornia. Participates in "documents 4,” Kassel. 1969 Guest professor at the
Hochschule fur Bildende KOnste, Hamburg. 1970 First retrospective, organized
Further Reading: Melia, Paul and Luckhardt, Ulrich, David Hockney. Paintings. Munich/
by the Whitechapel Art Gallery, London (traveling exhibition). 1972 Photography New York, 1994, Misselbeck, Reinhold (ed.). David Hockney: Retrospective-Photoworks.
increasingly important. 1973-77 Lives in Paris. 1975 Stage sets and costumes Exh. cat., Museum Ludwig. Cologne. Heidelberg, 1998.

176
Helmut Newton They're Coming! 1981

They're Coming! Four tall young women march in a In retrospect, the once highly controversial photog¬
phalanx formation from the back of the picture towards rapher turns out to have been a prophet. At least his
the front, obviously as unstoppable as they are self- claim to be a good observer has received triumphant
aware and self-confident. Taken from a slightly low confirmation. Earlier objections that he degraded
angle, they appear monumental, invested with irresist¬ women into objects of sexual desire have turned out
ible power. Helmut Newton is the male photographic to be short-sighted. His photos were never copies of
harbinger of women as the strong sex. Wearing nothing the visible but evidence of an obsessive perception
but high-heeled shoes, they advance in two rows, the that fed on subjective experiences and observations,
ones in the back row with their hands casually propped buried memories and erotic desires, collective repres¬
on their hips. They look through, or past, the viewer, sions and taboo cravings, unspoken urges and fears.
which serves only to increase the suggestive power A world all its own is manifest in the polished poses of
that emanates from them; they appear to be complete¬ Newton's models, in his careful selection of locations
ly unconcerned, and nothing can stop them. In a simi¬ and objects, in the contrast-rich lighting drawn from
lar photo with identical choreography, the women wear pittura metafisica and the American film noir, in his
elegant suits but, in a strange way, seem more power¬ absolute control of staging. Fluctuating emotions, the
ful in the unclothed version. interwoven patterns of social and psychological feel¬
ings, longings, and needs create an autonomous aes¬
thetic reality.
Frequently, however, there is melancholy lurking
below the glamour of Newton's photographic uni¬
verse. A radiant beauty, eyes turned inward, displays
herself with a hairy chest (opposite). Her arms—also
hairy—are folded below her swelling bosom. Is she
being presented to the curious public as an exotic odd¬
ity, as was commonly the case in earlier times at carni¬
vals and circuses? Only the title of the picture, Arielle
After a Haircut, provides an answer to the riddle.
Hair is associated with the animal aspects of mankind;
Georges Bataille interpreted eyes and hair as syno¬
nyms of sexuality, and Newton certainly touches on
this here. He is the photographer who elevated the
pleasure of seeing and of being seen into a subject for
photography. k.h.

Arielle After a Haircut, 1982

1920 Born in Berlin, 1932 Receives his first camera. 1937-38 1957 Works for Jardin des Modes. From 1958 Regular contributions to Queen,
Trains with the photographer Yva in Berlin. 1938-40 Works Nova. Vogue, [lie. Marie Claire, and Linea Italiana. Today primarily active for
in a studio for fashion and theatrical photography in Berlin. Stern and Vogue. Since 1981 Lives in Monte Carlo.
1940 Moves to Australia; freelance photographer in Sydney.
1942-45 War service in the Australian Army. 1954 Active for Further Reading: 7he Best of Helmut Newton. New York, 1996. Newton, Helmut. Aus
Australian Hope. 1956 Moves to London, where he works for British Hope. dem photographisohen Werk. Munich, 1993.

178
Ralph Gibson Infanta 1987

Ralph Gibson learned photography in the United States Intensifying contrast and emphasizing the grain of
Navy, studied at the San Francisco Art Institute, and the film in his prints, he began to concentrate on
apprenticed to the great documentary photographer minute details: the edge of a cafe table, the arc of a
Dorothea Lange before moving to New York in 1969. hip, the glint of a fork, increasingly seen in extreme
Once there, he began working as a cameraman for an¬ close-up—a form of visual microstudy.
other of the key figures in mid-century documentary, This cryptic image, Infanta, represents well the
the Swiss emigre photographer and filmmaker Robert surgical precision of Gibson's reductivist style. He
Frank, while evolving his own distinctive vision in gives us the exactly framed right brow, eye, and
curved cheek of a woman—just enough to suggest
gender and age, and to establish individuality, but
hardly sufficient for a portrait: she is unrecognizable
here to anyone save the photographer and perhaps
would not even recognize herself from this slender
piece of evidence.
Gibson's subject looks down and away from his
gaze, in avoidance or introspection. She constitutes
the only tangible solidity in an otherwise pitch-black
void, appearing for all the world like the west coast
of some continent photographed from the air or de¬
lineated in a cartographer's rendering, this bit of her
visage a map to be read. Yet the space is compressed,
the photographer's proximity is intimate; this is a
lover's-eye view of the beloved, where the territory
is intimately familiar and any part stands for the
whole. Paradoxically, by isolating carefully selected
fragments of the visual surround in this minimalist
In Situ, 1988 way, this photographer learned he could heighten
both his own and the viewer's consciousness of the
still photography. Though he worked with a Leica and complex sign system that underpins contemporary
Kodak Tri-X film, and often photographed in public life. Formally rigorous, the results also partake of
venues, Gibson's work soon lost almost all traces of the sometimes hallucinatory clarity of passages from
its early links to documentary and street photography. dreams, with a consistent erotic energy. A. D. c.

1939 Born in Los Angeles. 1958-60 Studies photography during to New York, Founds Lustrum Press, where he publishes all his own books as
military service in the U.S. Navy 1960-61 Studies at the San well as those of other photographers 1970 First solo exhibition at the San Fran¬
Francisco Art Institute. 1961-62 Assistant to the photographer cisco Art Institute. 1975 DAAD grant in Berlin. From 1980 Turns to color photog¬
Dorothea Lange. 1967-68 Assistant to Robert Frank, among other raphy. Lives in New York.
things, on the film Me and My Brother in New York. 1969 Moves Further Reading: Ralph Gibson: Women. Exh. cat., The Boca Raton Museum of Art, 1993.

182
Touhami Ennadre Hands 1978

This photograph of a hand comes from the cycle Hands, of old people whose skin has become leathery or
Back, Feet, produced in Southeast Asia in 1978-82. papery, weathered by the experiences of a long life.
Touhami Ennadre concentrated primarily on hands in Here it is the extended hand of a mother which is
these works, which he reproduced in his preferred grasped by the tiny hands of her child. Sentimentality
large format of 1.5 x 1.3 meters. By isolating them and charitable feelings play no role in these images,
which are sober statements of fact, and yet considered
supremely formal arrangements.
Anyone afraid of ageing or death will find no com¬
fort in Ennadre's photographs. He fearlessly tackles
"difficult" themes—from birth, depicted with brutal
realism, and the dying process, which starts from this
very point, to death itself: as archeologically discernible
death in the ruins of Pompeii, as the death of animals in
slaughterhouses or in the form of fossils, as the death
of a suicide, and as the death of the deaths of the
twentieth century—Auschwitz. Even photographic
series on the Moroccan city of Fez, the Alhambra, or
the paintings of bulls in the caves of Lascaux become,
without warning, insights as though into tombs and
mausoleums.
His series. Trance, of 1993-95, deals with a complete¬
ly other world, that in-between world of consciousness
Trance, 1993-95 in which Haitian devotees of Voodoo immerse them¬
selves. The black void in which Ennadre embeds all his
against a neutral black, he succeeded in making them subjects corresponds directly with the theme of death,
monumental, giving the body parts an almost sculp¬ underlies all appearances like a bass note. To speak of
tural effect. Mainly, he depicted two hands of different morbidity in this context would be to misunderstand
people—old and young—in order to bring out the the photographer. Ennadre rejects the superficiality
contrasts in skin texture. The hands of a child clasp the and arbitrariness of our visual culture and tunes the
hand of an elderly person; young hands clasp an old palette of his "colors" to a sonorous black, liberating
hand. In other pictures, Ennadre shows pairs of hands a profusion of values within this asceticism. p. s.

a 1953 Bom in Casablanca 1961 Family moves to Paris, where he

later becomes a French citizen. Receives camera from his
mother, which proves decisive for his choice of career 1976
in the exhibition Vital. Three Contemporary African Artists. Tate Gallery,
Liverpool 1996 Participates in the exhibition African Photography. 71 Triptych.
Solomon R, Guggenheim Museum, New York, 1997 Exhibition at the Havana Bien¬
Awarded the Prix de la critique de la photographie at the Rencon¬ nale and the Johannesburg Biennale, 1998 Sao Paulo Biennale, Participates in The
tres internationales in Arles. Travels to Indonesia, Singapore, Edge of Awareness: Project Art of the World. Geneva, PS1, New York, and Art in
Malaysia, Thailand, Burma, Nepal, and India, 1978 Participates in the exhibition Freedom, Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam 1998 Six-month grant
Tendances actuelles de la photographie en France ARC, Musee d'Art Moder- from the AFAA (Association frangaise pour Faction artistigue) in the Villa
ne de la Ville de Paris 1978-82 Produces the series Hands. Backs, feet, Kujoyama, Kyoto, Japan, 1999 Exhibition at the Maison Europeenne de la
1982-85 Travels to the U.S.A.. Canada, Germany, Morocco, Italy, and Sicily, Photographie, Paris, Lives in Paris.
1984 Annual grant for the Villa Arson, Nice 1985-90 The series Herculaneum.
1986-93 Travels to Japan, Benin, Haiti, and Poland, 1990 Exhibition in the
Further Reading: Touhami Ennadre: Black Light-Lumiere Noire-Schwarzes Licht.
Institut du monde arabe, Paris. 1993-95 The series Trance. 1995 Participates with an essay by Frangois Aubral. Munich/New York. 1906.

184
Sebastiao Salgado Fight Between a Serra Pelada Mineworker
and a Policeman, Para, Brazil 1986

This photograph is one of hundreds that Sebastiao gun. They face up to each other: the policeman in his
Salgado took in 1986 at the Serra Pelada goldmines. uniform, the laborer clad only in a loincloth, his torso
Many photographers had worked there before Salgado, naked, his bare legs spread in an aggressive stance.
but it was his pictures which first revealed to the world Tension fills the air. What will happen? Will he man¬
this inferno of the twentieth century, the hopelessness, age to wrestle the weapon away? The dialogue as such
brutality, and poverty in which people were forced to is taking place on the faces of the two protagonists. The
work to survive. With his photographic work, Salgado black worker is protesting. The white policeman is
has become the advocate for the world's poorest. skeptical, uncertain. The situation is dangerous. The
This photograph from the series on the Serra Pelada policeman is helpless without his weapon. This situa¬
mineworkers is a representative example of his photo¬ tion could escalate into rebellion.
graphic commitment. All the questions in this photograph are touched
Salgado is a reporter, a documentary photographer, on, and all the questions are open; this is what gives
and yet at the same time a poet, even a lyric poet, in it its dynamism and tension. The pitiless rhythm of
this field. He is a photographer of human pain and of the mine is interrupted for a moment and disturbed
the human dignity that nevertheless remains intact by human “action." The laborer—the slave, although
through all misfortune. What does the picture tell us he is paid better than the overseer—has revolted
about this? In the Serra Pelada mines huge masses of against his fate. For an instant—that instant in which
people—50,000, it is said—work in constant mud in Salgado sees and takes the picture—he is a free man.
the search for gold. Salgado has taken photos of this Then the crowd will return to work and submit to
seething mass of humanity in such a way that one their fate. Eduardo Galeano, the Uruguayan writer,
forgets these are people; one would think they were has expressed this best: "These photographs will out¬
ants, or perhaps slaves building a pyramid. There are live their people and their author because they bear
disruptions in the trudge up and down the muddy the legacy of the world regarding their naked truth
slope: one of the workers has grabbed a policeman's and their hidden splendor." e.b.

1944 Born in Aimores, Brazil. 1963 Study of law in Vitoria. Gamma, 1977-83 Regular travels and reportages in South America. 1979 Links
1967-68 Doctorate in economics from the University of Sao with the photo agency Magnum; works for Geo. 1982-85 Collaboration with
Paulo. 1969-71 Doctorate in agriculture from the Sorbonne, the organization Medecins sans Frontiers 1984 Full member of Magnum.
Paris. 1970 Acquires a Pentax. 1971 -73 Works for an interna¬ 1986-92 Documentary project on ending physical labor. From 1994, researching
tional coffee organization in London, 1973 Photojournalist in into people’s movements throughout the world
Paris; reports on the famine in Nigeria. 1974 Reports for Sygma on the revolu¬ Further Reading: Salgado, Sebastiao. Workers. New York, 1993. Salgado Sebastiao:
tions in Portugal, Mozambique, and Angola. 1975-79 Works for the agency An Uncertain Grace, New York, 1990,
Sally Mann Emmett, Jessie, and Virginia 1989

For years, Sally Mann's children—two girls and a Superbly crafted as sumptuous, interpretive photo¬
boy—posed for her as part of a relationship as con¬ graphic prints in the classical tradition, these works—
sensual as any between child subject and artist parent, of which this group portrait is one example—are also
and far more so than most. (It is hard to stop your consistently and extraordinarily affecting as images:
mother from writing a poem or short story about you, intimate, startling, deeply emotional, devoid of sen¬
or painting you from memory, while comparatively timent, psychologically charged, often unsettling,
easy to render the making of a photograph difficult revelatory. Intersecting, as they have, a time of hys¬
if not impossible, or at least to impose your own teria over the representation of children's bodies and
personality on it.) Thus there is a significant element children's sexuality, they have stirred controversy
of collaboration to this project, even if final control and attracted a wide audience.
of the imagery's messages ultimately rests with the These pictures are not made furtively or casually.
photographer. Mann uses a large-format camera, conspicuous and
cumbersome; in all her images, even if not as obvious¬
ly as this one, the children are aware of its presence,
and of her examination of them through the lens.
They are thereby made self-conscious, and must be
understood as deliberately presenting themselves to
their mother's scrutiny with the knowledge that total
strangers will get to see the results.
Here they stand, clearly bonded, strong, defiant. Of
whom? Of their mother? Or of a society that has problem-
atized their cooperation with her? In any event, these
facts remain: that, in their photographic incarnations,
these children have grown into adolescence in front of
the world's eyes; that their appearance at these stages of
their growth are engraved on the memories of thousands
Untitled, Virginia, 1992 of people; that what we know of them (or think we
know) is only what they and their mother have chosen
to tell us; and that, as Richard Avedon once said, "The
moment an emotion or fact is transformed into a photo¬
graph it is no longer a fact but an opinion"—which is
to say, an interpretation, a fiction. A. D. C.

1951 Born in Lexington, Virginia. From 1966 Studies at Ben Hollins College in Virginia 1975 Additional Bachelor's degree in literature.
nington College, Vermont, and Friends World College 1971 Since then workshops and lectures. 1989 First solo exhibition at the Museum
Learns photography at the Praestegaard Film School, the of Photographic Art, San Diego. Lives in Lexington, Virginia.
Aegean School of Fine Arts, and in the Ansel Adams Yosem
ite Workshop. 1974 Awarded Bachelor of Arts degree from Further Reading: Mann, Sally, Still Time, New York, 1993.
Thomas Ruff Portrait (Lukas Duwenhogger) 1986

An initial encounter with Thomas Ruff's work may Diisseldorf, is less concerned with the identity of the
provoke irritation. For instance, the portraits pro¬ individual. Rather he understands the portraits, with
duced since 1981 present over-life-size busts of the ar¬ their rather clinical aura, as a reaction to the political
tist's friends and acquaintances, all the same age as him¬ situation in Germany following the demise of the Red
self, frozen like statues with fixed expressions. Their Army Faction, which led to increased state surveillance
appearance strikes us as simultaneously strange and of the populace.
familiar, near and aloof. This style of photography is Since 1987, Ruff has been taking photographs of
reminiscent of photography for the purposes of police residential buildings and industrial zones. In the case
identification developed by Alphonse Bertillon at the of the buildings, the architecture involved is the pur¬
end of the nineteenth century, which recorded people pose-built, rationalistic twentieth-century architec¬
either frontally or in profile and was intended to ture that is characteristic of the center and periphery
reproduce the physiognomy in a neutral manner. Ruff, of German towns and cities. This architecture is at
too, is concerned with preserving distance and "scien¬ times recorded strictly symmetrically, almost in mono¬
tific" neutrality, not with psychological empathy. His chrome, and with neutral lighting. Disturbing visual
portraits radiate a certain coldness owing to the preci¬ elements are eliminated with the aid of electronic re¬
se readability of every detail. There is nothing of the touching. The series on star images and newspaper
anecdotal or narrative here; these photos are not suit¬ photos follow similar conceptual objectives. The sub¬
able as representational likenesses. The artist, who jective artistic "signature" is defined by the selection
studied under Bernd Becher at the Kunstakademie in of subject matter, the determination or choice of format,
the texture and tonality of the reproduced model.
Removed from the original context in which they were
taken, these photographs lead to a different, artistic
perception. They become projection surfaces and
mirror images that make the viewer's expectations and
ideas visible and reflect the medium itself. u. p.

House No. 3II, 1988

1058 Born in Zell am Harmersbach in the Black Forest. 1977-85 Kassel 1995 Exhibition in the German Pavilion at the Venice Biennale
Studies photography at the Staatliche Kunstakademie in Diissel- (together with Katharina Fritsch and Martin Honert). Lives in Diisseldorf.
dorf under Bernd Becher. 1981 First solo exhibition at the Galerie
Rudiger Schottle, Munich. 1992 Participates in “documenta 9", Further Reading; Thomas Ruff. Exh. cat., Rooseum Center for Contemporary Art. Malmo, 1990.
A Sudden Gust of Wind (after Hokusai)
Jeff Wall

The Canadian photographer Jeff Wall began to work directorially

in the 1970s, staging increasingly elaborate tableaux for the camera.
He gravitated to the presentational form called the Duratrans, a
backlit transparency most familiar to the average citizen in its fre¬
quent usage in airports, office buildings, and other architectural
sites of the corporate state. Wall considers the Duratrans " a bureau¬
cratic way of presenting information" because "[the] point of
control, of projection ... is inaccessible." These lightboxes of his,
like their commercial counterparts, are large, glowing, imposing
artifacts whose size—typically 8 X16 feet—makes the settings of
his images, and the figures within them, close to life-size.
Wall sees his work as operative in a charged space somewhere
between conceptualism and realism, an effort to bring to the atten¬
tion of his fellow citizens the power structures that underpin the
global economy. Yet, for all his theoretical inclination, he deliber¬
ately produces images that are theatrically credible and consistently
engaging to the eye, such as this elaborate reinterpretation of a
classic work by the Japanese woodblock artist Hokusai.
This is more, however, than a mere updating of and homage to
that source. The woodblock was to its day and its culture what the
photograph is to ours—a comparatively affordable-medium en¬
abling the middle class to purchase and live with works of art.
And Hokusai is known for his inclusion of everyday people
from the working and middle class in his exquisitely rendered
images. Thus Wall's citation of his precursor is highly political
in its resonances.
Most of Wall's images are set in his home town of Vancouver,
British Columbia, a comparatively new city (only 100 years old)
with little history as such. Yet it is an economically vital inter¬
national seaport with strong links to the Pacific Rim, and a popula¬
tion combining Native American, Asian, and European peoples.
Staging this scenario in that place, replacing Hokusai's leaves and
trees with paper and telephone poles, symbolizes those abrupt,
transformative cultural and technological incursions, giving new
meaning to the image's originally playful title. A. d . c.

1046 Born in Vancouver, Canada, 1970 Graduates from the Department of Fine Arts at the
University of British Columbia, Vancouver. 1970-73 Research at the Courtauld Institute of Art,
University of London. 1974-75 Lecturer in the Department of Art History at the Nova Scotia
College of Art and Design in Halifax. 1976-87 Lecturer in the Centre for Arts, Simon Fraser
University, Vancouver. 1978 First solo exhibition at the Nova Gallery, Vancouver. 1987 Participates
in “documents 8," Kassel. From 1987 Lecturer in the Department of Fine Arts, University of British
Columbia, Vancouver. 1997 Participates in “documenta X,” Kassel. Lives in Vancouver.

Further Reading: Brougher, Kerry. Jeff Wall. Exh. cat,, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.
Zurich/Berlin/New York. 1997.

193
Nan Goldin

Nan Goldin is best known for an often harsh and hard- the mirror into which his partner still stares to present
edged first-person account of life among her own himself to Goldin's lens, and to our eyes, in all of his
cohort, that culture of gender-bending, substance- complexity. His body is clearly male, the gesture of
abusing, club-going young people which constitutes his hand on his companion's shoulder feminine, his
a notable and notorious component of New York City's expression somewhere in between. He stands for this
population. Goldin left home at age fourteen, began moment hidden behind his mask, yet confronting us
photographing at age fifteen, and attended school in with both himself and his adopted role before turning
Boston, where she met a number of kindred spirits. back to contemplate and perhaps improve on his
In 1978, she moved to New York, whose "downtown" projected image.
scene provided her with both subject matter and show¬ Coming of age in the first cohort of photographers
cases for her highly personal, often autobiographical to take color photography for granted as an option,
commentaries on the experiences of one segment of Goldin began working in black and white but switched
her generation. to color early on, and has used it exclusively ever since.
The gay transvestite and performance artist Stephen Like Diane Arbus and Mary Ellen Mark, she works
Tashjian, who calls himself Tabboo!, is one of those within the loose confines of documentary form but
whose connection with Goldin was established in the emphasizes transactional, environmental portraiture.
Boston scene, and who, like her, made his way to the Most of her early images were made in the relentless
New York art and club scene upon graduation. Here glare of on-camera flash. Yet there is a lyrical aspect
Goldin portrays him "preparing," in T. S. Eliot's words, to Goldin's project as well, which has become more
“a face to meet the faces that we meet." She seems to obvious in her recent work. A. D. c.
have caught him during a "backstage" moment, as if
he were an actor in a dressing room, out of costume
but in makeup. He has turned away momentarily from

^ 1953 Bom in Washington, DC. raised in Boston, From 1969

Involved with photography. From 1973 Color photos. Attends
evening classes with Henry Horenstein at the New England
show consisting of c. 700 slides with music, constantly revised, In 1986 first
presented at the Burden Gallery, Aperture Foundation, New York, as well as in
cinemas, museums and at film festivals 1991,1992 DAAO grant in Berlin. 1992,
School of Photography. First solo exhibition at Project Inc. in 1994 Travels through Asia 1995 Film I'll Be Your Mirror, together with Edmund
Cambridge, Massachusetts. 1974 Meets Lisette Model. Begins Coulthard, made for the BBC. Lives in New York,
studying at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. 1978 Moves to New
Further Reading: Sussman, Elisabeth and Armstrong, David (eds). Han Goldin: I'll Be
York. 1984 First publication, The Ballad of Sexual Dependency; parallel slide Your Mirror. Zurich/Berlin/New York, 1996,

194
Jimmy Paulette and Tabboo! in the bathroom, NYC 1991
List of Illustrations

BERENICE ABBOTT HERBERT BAYER EDOUARD BOUBAT

Designer's Window, Bleecker Street, New Self-Portrait, 1932, gelatin silver (vintage), First Snow, Jardin du Luxembourg, Paris,
York, 1947, gelatin silver, 24.3 x 19 cm, 38.5 x 29.4 cm, Museum Ludwig, Cologne, 1955, (Premiere neige, Jardin du Luxembourg,
Miinchner Stadtmuseum, Munich ML/F 1977/53 Paris), gelatin silver, 18 x 24 cm, Rapho
Lower East Side, Waterfront, South Street, Lonely City Dweller / Self-Portrait, 1932, Agency/Focus
New York, 1935, gelatin silver (Einsamer GroJSstadter / Selbstportrat),
MARGARET BOURKE-WHITE
Portrait by Lotte Jacobi, Miinchner Stadt¬ gelatin silver, 34 x 26.9 cm. Museum Ludwig,
Mahatma Gandhi, Delhi, April 1946, gelatin
museum, Munich, © Lotte Jacobi Archive, Cologne, ML/F 1977/54
silver (vintage), 26 X 34.2 cm, Dietmar Siegert
University of New Hampshire
CECIL BEATON Collection, Munich
ANSEL ADAMS Edith Sitwell, 1962, gelatin silver, Portrait (1946) by Sunil Jahah
White House Ruin, Canyon de Chelly, 24 x 19.2 cm, Cecil Beaton Archive, Sotheby's
BILL BRANDT
Arizona, 1942, gelatin silver, 27.9 x 33.6 cm, London
Drawing Room in Mayfair, 1930s, gelatin
Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust Self-Portrait in the Studio, 28 February 1951,
silver, 19 x 22.8 cm, Bill Brandt Archive,
Moonrise Over Hernandez, New Mexico, gelatin silver (vintage), 25 x 20 cm, Dietmar
London
c. 1941, gelatin silver, 40.6 x 50.8 cm, Ansel Siegert Collection, Munich
Halifax, c. 1940s, gelatin silver, 19x22.8 cm.
Adams Publishing Rights Trust
BERND AND HILLA BECHER Bill Brandt Archive, London
Portrait (1975) by Imogen Cunningham,
Cooling Tower, Mt. Cenis Colliery, Herne, Portrait (anonymous), Bill Brandt Archive,
© Imogen Cunningham Trust, Berkeley
Ruhr, 1965, (Kiihlturm, Zeche Mont Cenis, London
ROBERT ADAMS Heme, Ruhr), gelatin silver, 40 x 30 cm,
BRASSAI
Adams County, Colorado, 1973, from the artists' collection
Lovers in a Cafe on the Place d'ltalie, 1932,
series Photographs of the American West, Typology of Half-Timbered Houses,
(Couple d'amoureux dans un petit cafe pres de
gelatin silver, 20.3 x 25.4 cm, Fraenkel Gallery, 1959-74, (Typologie von Fachwerkhausern),
la place d'ltalie), gelatin silver, 27 x 21.6 cm,
San Francisco gelatin silver (vintage), one frame of nine
Musee National d'Art Moderne, Paris
Portrait (Oregon, 1967) by Kerstin Adams pictures, 40 x 31 cm (of a total of 4 frames, each
Graffiti, "The Sun King," 1945-50, from the
148.3 X 108 cm), Museum Ludwig, Cologne,
DIANE ARBUS series IX: Primitive Pictures, (Graffiti "Le Roi
Stiftung Ludwig, ML/F 1985/34
Boy with a Straw Hat Waiting to March soleil"), gelatin silver mounted on wood,
Portrait by Detlef Conrath, Hamburg
in a Pro-War Parade, N.Y.C., 1967, gelatin 139.8 x 105 x 2 cm, Musee National d'Art
silver, 50.8 x 40.6 cm, Robert Miller Gallery, ILSE BING Moderne, Paris
New York Self-Portrait with Leica, 1931, (Selbstportrat Portrait by Imogen Cunningham, © Imogen
Portrait (in Central Park, 1967) by John mit Leica), gelatin silver (vintage), Cunningham Trust, Berkeley
Gossage 26.6 x 29.8 cm. Museum Ludwig, Cologne,
MANUEL ALVAREZ BRAVO
ML/F 1988/178
EUGENE ATGET The Dreamer, 1931, (El sohador), gelatin
Three Men on Steps at the Seine, 1931, (Drei
The Organ-Grinder and the Singing Girl, silver, 17.9 x 22.5 cm, artist's collection
Manner aufeiner Treppe an der Seine), gelatin
1898-99, (Jouer d'orgue), gelatin silver (print Sunday Cyclist, 1966, (Bicicletas en domingo),
silver (vintage), 26.1 X33.9 cm (without
c. 1910), 21.8 x 16.5 cm. Museum Ludwig, gelatin silver, 18.1x23.8 cm
frame). Museum Ludwig, Cologne,
Cologne, ML/F 1977/3
ML/F 1988/179 RENE BURRI
Versailles, Brothel, Petite Place, March 1921,
Portrait by Reinhold Misselbeck Sao Paulo, i960, gelatin silver, 18x24 cm,
(Versailles, maison close. Petite Place), gelatin
Magnum Photos
silver, 23.2 x 17.4 cm, Museum Ludwig, WERNER BISCHOF
Portrait (Paris, 1981) by Jean Gaumy
Cologne, ML/F 1977/1 On the Way to Cuzco, Peru, 1954, (Auf dem
Portrait by Berenice Abbott, © Commerce Weg nach Cuzco, Peru), gelatin silver ROBERT CAPA
Graphics Ltd., Inc. (vintage), 39.8 x 30.1 cm, Museum Ludwig, Death of a Loyalist Soldier, 1936, gelatin
Cologne, ML/F 1977/84 bromide print, 24 x 34 cm. Magnum Photos
ELLEN AUERBACH
Rural Tavern, Puszta, Hungary, 1947, Portrait (Naples, 1943, anonymous)
Eckstein with Lipstick, 1930, (Eckstein
(Bauernschenke in der Puszta, Ungarri),
mit Lippenstift), gelatin silver, 20.4 x 19.5 cm, HENRI CARTIER-BRESSON
gelatin silver, Magnum Photos
Museum Folkwang, Essen Alicante, Spain, 1933, gelatin silver,
Portrait, Magnum Photos
Slums, London, 1935 18 x 24 cm, Magnum Photos
Portrait (1980) by Barbara IClemm KARL BLOSSFELDT Portrait (1946) by Beaumont Newhall
Adiantum pedatum. Maidenhair Fern,
RICHARD AVEDON MARTIN CHAMBI
1920-30, (Adiantum pedatum, Haarfarn),
The Generals of the Daughters of the Ameri¬ Flute-Playing Indio with Llama, 1933,
gelatin silver, 30 X 24 cm, Ann and Jurgen
can Revolution, Washington, D.C., 1963, (Tristeza andina. La Raya), gelatin silver,
Wilde Collection, Cologne
gelatin silver, 16 x 20 cm, Richard Avedon 18 x 24 cm, Teo Allain Chambi, Cuzco
Papaver orientate, Oriental Poppy, Seed Cap¬
Studio, New York Self-Portrait (1923), Teo Allain Chambi, Cuzco
sule enlarged five times, 1915-25, (Papaver
Self-Portrait, Herbert Lochner Collection
orientate, Orientalischer Mohn, Samenknospe
funffach vergrossert), gelatin silver (vintage),
26.3 x 19 cm, Museum Ludwig, Cologne,
ML/F 1980/356 VI
Self-Portrait (1930), Ann and Jurgen Wilde
Collection, Cologne

196
CHARGESHEIMER HUGO ERFURTH ERNST HAAS
Konrad Adenauer, 1954, gelatin silver Otto Dix with Brush, 1929, (Otto Dix mit Homecoming Prisoners, Vienna, 1947,
(vintage), 29.2 x 33.8 cm, Museum Ludwig, Pinsel), oil pigment print, 47 x 37.5 cm, (Kriegsheimkehrer, Wien) gelatin silver
Cologne, ML/F 1977/172 Rheinisches Landesmuseum, Bonn (vintage), 18 x 12 cm. Museum Ludwig,
Before the Procession, Cologne, 1950s, Austrian Writer Franz Blei, 1914, (Der Cologne, Stiftung Gruber, ML/F 1983/122
(Vorbereitung zur Prozession, Kbln), gelatin osterreichische Schriftsteller Franz Blei), New York, 1966, gelatin silver
silver, 18.6 x 30.4 cm, Museum Ludwig, oil pigment print, 28 x 19 cm, Miinchner Portrait (Munich, 1948, anonymous)
Cologne, ML/F 1980/385 Stadtmuseum, Munich
ROBERT HAUSSER
Portrait by L. Fritz Gruber Portrait (1940) by L. Fritz Gruber
J.R. 5 9-70, 1970, gelatin silver, 50 x 60 cm,
IMOGEN CUNNINGHAM WALKER EVANS collection of the artist
Pregnant Nude, 1959, gelatin silver, Bud Fields and His Family, Hale County, Bicyclist, 1953, (Radfahrer), gelatin silver,
81.3 x 66 cm, Imogen Cunningham Trust, Alabama, 1936, gelatin silver, 35.5 x 28 cm, 50 x 55 cm, collection of the artist, WVZ 53-4
Berkeley Miinchner Stadtmuseum, Munich Self-Portrait (private)
Nude, 1932, gelatin silver Subway Portrait, New York, 1938-40,
HEINZ HAJEK-HALKE
Self-Portrait (1933) gelatin silver, 11 x 13 cm
Black and White Nude, 1936, (Schwarz-
Portrait (1971) by Arnold Crane
JOHN DEAKIN weisser Akt), gelatin silver (print c. 1977),
Francis Bacon, 1952, gelatin silver, ANDREAS FEININGER 50 x 60 cm, estate of Heinz Hajek-Halke/
48.3 x 57 cm, Conde Nast Publications, Hudson River Waterfront, New York, 1942, Michael Ruetz, Berlin
Vogue Archives, London gelatin silver, 61 x 50.8 cm, Institut fur Kultur- Eva-Changon, c. 1932, gelatin silver, Galerie
Joy Parker, Actress, 1953, gelatin silver, austausch, Tubingen Bodo Niemann, Berlin
38 x 30.5 cm, Conde Nast Publications, Portrait (1997) by Volker Hinz, Hamburg, Portrait courtesy of Michael Ruetz, Berlin
Vogue Archives, London Institut fur Kulturaustausch, Tubingen
LEWIS W. HINE
Portrait (probably by Frank Auerbach)
GISELE FREUND Sunday Noon, Some of the Newsboys Return¬
ROBERT DOISNEAU Virginia Woolf, 1939, dye-transfer print, ing Sunday Papers, Hartford, Connecticut,
Kiss in front of the Hotel de Ville, Paris, 1950, 40 x 30 cm, Nina Beskow Agency, Paris March 1909, gelatin silver (vintage),
(Le baiser de I'hotel de ville), gelatin silver, Andre Gide under Leopardi's Death Mask in 11.5 x 16.6 cm, Dietmar Siegert Collection,
18 x 24 cm, Rapho Agency/Focus his Apartment at Rue Vanneau, Paris, 1939, Munich
Portrait (private) (Andre Gide unter der Totenmaske von Leo¬ Portrait (1935, anonymous), courtesy of the
pardi in seiner Wohnung rue Vanneau, Paris), George Eastman House, Rochester, New York
WILLIAM EGGLESTON
dye-transfer print, 40 x 30 cm, Nina Beskow
Untitled, 1980, dye-transfer print, DAVID HOCKNEY
Agency, Paris
40.6 x 51 cm, collection of the artist The Skater, New York, December 1982,
Self-Portrait
Portrait by Winston Eggleston Polaroids, 66 x 49.5 cm
LEE FRIEDLANDER Portrait by Reinhold Misselbeck, Herbert
ALFRED EISENSTAEDT
Galax, Virginia, 1962, gelatin silver, Locher Collection
The Dirigible Graf Zeppelin Being Repaired
28 x 35.6 cm, Fraenkel Gallery, New York
Over the South Atlantic on a Flight to Rio de HORST P. HORST
Self-Portrait (1969), San Francisco Museum
Janeiro, 1934, (Das Luftschiff "Graf Zeppe¬ Mainbocher Corset, Paris, 1939, gelatin
of Modern Art
lin” wird auf dem Flug nach Rio de Janeiro silver, 24.2 x 19.2 cm, Museum Ludwig,
iiber den Sudatlantik repariert), gelatin silver, MARIO GIACOMELLI Cologne, Stiftung Gruber, ML/F 1984/66
28 x 35.2 cm, Rheinisches Landesmuseum, I Have No Hands to Caress My Face, Still Life, 1937, gelatin silver, 35.2 x 27.5 cm,
Bonn 1961-63, (Io non ho mani che mi accarezzino Museum Ludwig, Cologne, Stiftung R. Wick,
Portrait (London, 1932, anonymous) il volto), gelatin silver, 39 x 30 cm, collection MF/F 1992/175
of the artist Portrait, © 1991, Martin Hugo Maximilian
ED VAN DER ELSKEN
Scanno, 1957, gelatin silver, 29.5 x 38 cm, Schreiber
Durban, South Africa, 1959-60, gelatin
collection of the artist
silver (vintage), 23.9 x 30.2 cm, Museum LOTTE JACOBI
Portrait by Paolo Mengucci
Ludwig, Cologne, ML/F 1977/255 Kathe Kollwitz, 1929, gelatin silver (vintage),
Portrait (1990) by Paul Levitton RALPH GIBSON 34 x 25.6 cm, Dietmar Siegert Collection,
Infanta, 1987, 22 x 15.8 cm, Ralph Gibson, Munich
TOUHAMIENNADRE
Lustrum Press Girl, Berlin, c. 1930, gelatin silver,
Hands, 1978, gelatin silver, 150 x 130 cm,
In Situ, 1988, Ralph Gibson, Lustrum Press 20.6 x 15.8 cm, Fotografische Sammlung,
collection of the artist
Portrait (1998) by Lesley Loudon Museum Folkwang, Essen, Inv. No, 1627/82
Trance, 1993—95, gelatin silver, 150 x 150 cm,
Self-Portrait, Miinchner Stadtmuseum,
collection of the artist NAN GOLDIN
Munich
Portrait (private) Jimmy Paulette and Tabboo! in the bathroom,
NYC, Cibachrome, 75 x 100 cm, Nan Goldin
Studio, New York
Portrait by Christine Frenzl

I97
YOUSUF KARSH ROBERT MAPPLETHORPE ARNOLD NEWMAN

Pablo Casals, 1954, gelatin silver (vintage), Untitled (Male Nude), 1981, gelatin silver, Max Ernst, 1942, gelatin silver (vintage),
34.2 x 27.2 cm, Dietmar Siegert Collection, 38.1 x 38.5 cm, Museum Ludwig, Cologne, on 24.4 x 19.1 cm, Museum Ludwig,
Munich permanent loan from Jeane von Oppenheim, Cologne, ML/F 1977/554
Winston Churchill, 1941, gelatin silver ML/F Dep. 1989/209 Igor Stravinsky, 1946, gelatin silver,
(print c. 1959), 31 x 25.3 cm, Museum Ludwig, Portrait by Mark Thompson 18.3 x 34,4 cm, Museum Ludwig, Cologne,
Cologne, ML/F 1977/369 ML/F 1977/557
WILL MCBRIDE
Portrait by Jim Macari
Overpopulation, 1968, gelatin silver, HELMUT NEWTON

ANDRE KERTESZ 26.7 x 40.5 cm, Museum Ludwig, Cologne, They’re Coming!, 1981, gelatin silver (print
The Fork, 1928, (La fourchette, Paris), gelatin Stiftung Uwe Scheid, ML/F 1995/122 c. 1983), 22.4 x 22.8 cm, Museum Ludwig,
silver (vintage), 19.4 x 24 cm. Museum Cologne, Stiftung Gruber, ML/F 1984/13
JOEL MEYEROWITZ
Ludwig, Cologne, ML/F 1977/381 Arielle After a Haircut, 1982, gelatin silver
Vivian, 1980, print on Ektacolor RC,
Swimmer Under Water, 1917, (Nageur sous Portrait (private)
27.9 x 35.6 cm (paper format), Joel Meyerowitz
Veau, Esztergom, Hongrie), gelatin silver
Studio, New York PAUL OUTERBRIDGE, JR.
(print c. i960), 19 x 24.7 cm, Museum Ludwig,
Portrait by Ariel Meyerowitz Shower for Mademoiselle, c. 1937
Cologne, ML/F 1977/394
Ide Collar, 1922, platinum
Portrait (1930s, anonymous) LISETTE MODEL
Coney Island Bather, New York, 1939-41, GORDON PARKS
WILLIAM KLEIN
gelatin silver, 34.5 x 27.2 cm, National Gallery Ethel Shariff in Chicago, 1963, gelatin silver
Heads, New York, 1954, gelatin silver,
of Canada, Ottawa Muhammad Ali, 1970, gelatin silver
30 x 24 cm, Magnum Photos
Running Legs, Fifth Avenue, New York, Portrait (private)
Portrait by Bjorn Rantil
1940—41, gelatin silver, 49.4 x 39.4 cm,
IRVING PENN
ALBERTO KORDA National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa
Pablo Picasso, 1957, gelatin silver (vintage),
Che Guevara, i960, gelatin silver, 30 x 40 cm Portrait by Imogen Cunningham, © Imogen
34.1 x 34.1 cm, Museum Ludwig,
Quixote Atop a Lamppost, Havana, 1959, Cunningham Trust, Berkeley
Cologne, ML/F 1977/591
(El Quijote de la Farola, La Habana),
TINA MODOTTI Portrait by Bjorn Rantil
gelatin silver, 40 x 30 cm, Wolfgang Smuda
Workers' Demonstration, Mexico, May 1,
Collection, Munich WALTER PETERHANS
1929, platinum, 20.5 x 18 cm
Portrait (anonymous) Portrait of the Beloved, 1929, (Bildnis der
Worker's Hands, 1926, platinum
Geliebteri), gelatin silver, 38.6 x 46.0 cm,
JOSEF KOUDELKA Portrait (1924) by Edward Weston, © Center
Bauhaus-Archiv, Berlin, Inv. 7217
Czechoslovakia, 1968, gelatin silver, for Creative Photography, Arizona Board of
Pythagorean Paradigm, 1929, (Pythago-
18 x 24 cm. Magnum Photos Regents
reischer Lehrsatz), gelatin silver
DOROTHEA LANGE LASZLO MOHOLY-NAGY Portrait (Berlin, 1927) by Grete Stern,
Migrant Mother, Nipomo, California, 1936, Self-Portrait, Photogram, 1926, bromide Bauhaus-Archiv, Berlin
gelatin silver (print c. 1950), 32.8 x 26.1 cm, print, 23.1 x 17.6 cm, Fotografische Sammlung,
ELIOT PORTER
Museum Ludwig, Cologne, ML/F 1977/442 Museum Folkwang, Essen, Inv. No. 100-73/3
Pool in a Brook, Pond Brook, New Hamp¬
Field Hands on a Cotton Plantation, Greene Portrait (anonymous)
shire, 1953, dye-transfer print, 25.4 x 20.3 cm,
County, Georgia, 1937, gelatin silver. The
STEFAN MOSES Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas
Library of Congress, Washington
Self in the Mirror-Ernst Bloch and Hans Sculptured Rock, House Rock Canyon, Grand
Portrait (1955) by Paul S. Taylor
Mayer, 6 August 1963, ("Selbst im Spiegel"— Canyon, Arizona, June 13,1967
JACQUES-HENRI LARTIGUE Ernst Bloch und Hans Mayer, Tubingen), Portrait (1957) by Ellen Auerbach
Grand Prix of the Automobile Club of France, gelatin silver, 30 x 40 cm, collection of the
MAN RAY
1912, gelatin silver (vintage), artist
Kiki—Le Violon d'Ingres, 1924, gelatin silver
20.8 x 28.7 cm, Museum Ludwig, Cologne, Child and Cal with Chinese Animal Masks,
(print c. 1965), 38.6 x 30 cm, Museum Ludwig,
MF/F 1977/431 Ammersee, Bavaria, 1965, (Kind und Haus-
Cologne, ML/F 1977/648
Portrait by Eric Brissaud katze mit chinesischen Tiermasken, Ammer¬
Rayograph—Lee Miller (from the series
see, Bayern), gelatin silver, 30 x 40 cm,
HELEN LEVITT Electricite), 1931, photogravure, 26 x 20.5 cm,
collection of the artist
New York, c. 1940, gelatin silver, Dietmar Siegert Collection, Munich
Self-Portrait, collection of the artist
27.9 x 35.6 cm, Laurence Miller Gallery, Portrait by Imogen Cunningham, © Imogen
New York MARTIN MUNKACSI Cunningham Trust, Berkeley
Self-Portrait (1944/45), © Helen Levitt Boys on the Shore of Lake Tanganyika, 1931,
ALBERT RENGER-PATZSCH
(Neger Fiuk A Tanganyika-To—Partjdn),
SALLY MANN Beech Wood, 1936, (Buchenwald), gelatin
gelatin silver, 30.5 x 23.3 cm, F.C. Gundlach
Emmett, Jessie, and Virginia, 1989, gelatin silver, 40 x 30 cm, Ann and Jurgen Wilde
Collection
silver, 20.3 x 25.4 cm, Edwynn Houk Gallery Collection, Cologne
Uncle Robert's Poor Being Served Lunch,
Untitled, Virginia, 1992, 20.3 x 25.4 cm, "Katharina" Colliery in Essen, 1954, (Zeche
1926, (Robert Bdcsi Szegenyei Ebedet
Edwynn Houk Gallery "Katharina" in Essen), gelatin silver (vintage),
Kapnak), gelatin silver, 23.2 x 29 cm
Portrait (1992), © Jessie and Virginia Mann 22.4 x 14.3 cm, Museum Ludwig, Cologne,
Portrait (anonymous), © Joan Munkacsi cour¬
ML/F 1993/112
tesy Howard Greenberg Gallery, New York
Portrait (1959) by Sabine Renger
ALEXANDER M. RODCHENKO MALICK SIDIBE YEVGENY A. TSCHALDEY
Somersault, 1936, gelatin silver (print Twist, 1965, gelatin silver, 50 x 60 cm, private The Reichstag, 1945, gelatin silver, 49 x 39 cm,
c. 1950), 40.5 x 27 cm, Museum Ludwig, collection Anna Bibicheva-Tschaldey, Moscow
Cologne, ML/F 1978/1110 Dance Party, 1972, gelatin silver, 50 x 60 cm, The Sea of War, Arctic Ocean, 1941, gelatin
Trumpet-Playing Pioneer, 1930, gelatin silver private collection silver, 28.2 x 40 cm, Anna Bibicheva-
(print c. 1950), 37 x 29.5 cm. Museum Ludwig, Portrait (anonymous) Tschaldey, Moscow
Cologne, ML/F 1978/1065 Portrait (private)
EUGENE SMITH
Self-Portrait (1931)
The Wake, 1950, gelatin silver, 22.2 x 33.1 cm, UMBO
THOMAS RUFF Center for Creative Photography, The Latest Offer-In Profile, 1928, (Das
Portrait (Lukas Duwenhogger), 1986, color The University of Arizona, Tucson neueste Angebot en profit), gelatin silver,
print, 210x165 cm, Galerie Johnen & Schottle, Portrait (Africa, 1954) by Neville Grant, 23.6 x 17.7 cm, private collection
Cologne © Courtesy of the Center for Creative Photog¬ Ruth. Her Hand, 1927, (Ruth. Die Hand),
House No. j 11, 1988, (HausNr.y 11), color raphy, Arizona gelatin silver, 22.4 x 16.8 cm, private
print on plexiglas, 231 x 175 cm, Galerie collection
EDWARD STEICHEN
Johnen & Schottle, Cologne Self-Portrait (1952), print from Lothar
Richard Strauss, 1904, gum bichromate
Portrait (private) Schnepf, Cologne
(vintage), 33.5 x 21,8 cm, Dietmar Siegert
SABASTIAO SALGADO Collection, Munich JEFF WALL
Fight Between a Serra Pelada Mineworker Charlie Chaplin, 1931, bromide (vintage), A Sudden Gust of Wind (after Hokusai),
and a Policeman, Para, Brazil, 1986, (Dis¬ 25 x 19.8 cm. Museum Ludwig, Cologne, 1993, large transparency on lightbox,
puta entre trabalhadores da mina de ouro da ML/F 1977/790 229 x 377 cm, Tate Gallery, London
Serra Pelada e um membro policia militar do Portrait by Lotte Jacobi, Munchner Stadt¬
WEEGEE
estado do Para, Brasil), gelatin silver, museum, Munich, © Lotte Jacobi Archive,
The Critic, New York, 1943, gelatin silver
23.6 x 30 cm, Magnum Photos University of New Hampshire
(vintage), 27.7 x 35.3 cm, Sprengel Museum,
Portrait by Bjorn Rantil
OTTO STEINERT Hanover, on permanent loan from the Ann
ERICH SALOMON Pedestrian's Foot, Paris, 1950, (Ein-Fuss- and Jurgen Wilde Collection
Ah, le voila! Le roi des indiscrets (It's that Ganger), gelatin silver (vintage), Lovers at the Movies, c. 1940, infra-red photo¬
Salomon Again!), Paris, 1931, gelatin silver, 28.7 x 40 cm. Museum Ludwig, Cologne, graph, gelatin silver (vintage), 27 x 34.5 cm,
18 x 24 cm, Bildarchiv Preussischer Kultur- ML/F 1977/818 Dietmar Siegert Collection, Munich
besitz, Berlin Children's Carnival, 1971, (Kinderkarneval), Portrait with the Speed Graphic (1942,
Night Session of the German and French bromide print (vintage), 30x39.5 cm. Photo¬ anonymous)
Ministers at the War Debts Conference in graphic Collection, Museum Folkwang, Essen,
EDWARD WESTON
The Hague, January 1930, gelatin silver (print Inv. No. 65/129
Oceano, 1936, gelatin silver, 19.2 x 24 cm,
c. 1955), 27.8 x 36 cm, Museum Ludwig, Portrait by Lotte Jacobi, Munchner Stadt¬
Munchner Stadtmuseum, Munich
Cologne, ML/F 1977/685 museum, Munich, © Lotte Jacobi Archive,
Cabbage Leaf, 1931, gelatin silver, 18 x 23 cm,
Portrait (c. 1930, anonymous) University of New Hampshire
Lane Collection
AUGUST SANDER ALFRED STIEGLITZ Portrait (c. 1920, anonymous, attributed to
Young Farmers in Their Sunday Best, Wester- Steerage, 1907, chloride print (vintage), Johan Hagemeyer), © Center for Creative

wald, 1913, (Jungbauern im Sonntagsstaat, 11 x 9.2 cm, Alfred Stieglitz Collection, The Photography, Arizona Board of Regents
Westerwald), gelatin siver (print c. 1950), Art Institute of Chicago
GARRY WINOGRAND
30.4 x 20.5 cm, Museum Ludwig, Cologne, Exhibition in the 291 gallery, New York, 1915
Untitled, 1950s, gelatin silver, 26.2 x 33.7 cm,
ML/F 1977/705 Portrait by Lotte Jacobi, Munchner Stadt¬
Center for Creative Photography,
Baker, 1928, (Konditormeister), gelatin silver, museum, Munich, © Lotte Jacobi Archive,
The University of Arizona, Tucson
29.9 x 21.0 cm, Munchner Stadtmuseum, University of New Hampshire
Portrait (1952) by Ed Feingersh
Munich
PAUL STRAND
Portrait by Chargesheimer, courtesy of WOLS
The Family, Luzzara, Italy, 1953, gelatin
the photographic collection of the Museum Untitled, n.d., gelatin silver
silver, 24 x 30 cm, Paul Strand Archive,
Ludwig, Cologne Self-Portrait, n.d., gelatin silver
Aperture Foundation

DAVID SEYMOUR Portrait by Hazel Kingsbury HEINRICH ZILLE

A Hand Grenade Attack, Spain, 1936, gelatin Nine Boys Practicing Handstands, before
JOSEF SUDEIC
silver, 20 x 25.3 cm. Magnum Photos 1900, (Neun Jungen uben Handstand), gelatin
A Walk in the Magic Garden, 1954-59,
Portrait (anonymous) silver, 20.7 x 26.2 cm, Berlinische Galerie,
(Prochazka po kouzelne zahrddce), 18 x 24 cm,
Berlin
CINDY SHERMAN Arts and Crafts Museum, Prague,
Cobbler Shop, 1899, (Schusterwerkstatt),
Untitled Film Still, #21, 1978, gelatin silver, Inv. UPM GF-32.202
gelatin silver, 8.9 xii.i cm, Berlinische
20.3 x 25.4 cm, Metro Pictures, New York Roses, 1956, gelatin silver (vintage),
Galerie, Berlin
29.3 x 24 cm, Dietmar Siegert Collection,
Portrait by H.-J. Preetz-Zille
Munich

Self-Portrait (probably 1914)

I99
© Prestel Verlag, Munich ■ London • New York 1999 New York; Paul Outerbridge by G. Ray Hawkins Gallery, Santa Monica;
© of works illustrated by the photographers, their heirs or assigns, Irving Penn by Conde Nast Publications, Inc.; Walter Peterhans by
with the exception of: Brigitte Peterhans; Eliot Porter by the Amon Carter Museum, Fort
Berenice Abbott by Commerce Graphics Ltd, Inc.; Ansel Adams by Worth, Texas, Bequest of Eliot Porter; Man Ray by the Man Ray Trust,
CORBIS/Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust; Diane Arbus by The Paris/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 1999; Albert Renger-Patzsch by the Albert
Estate of Diane Arbus, New York; Richard Avedon by the Richard Renger-Patzsch Archiv/Ann and Jurgen Wilde/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn
Avedon Studio, New York; Cecil Beaton by the Cecil Beaton Archive, 1999; Erich Salomon by the Berlinische Galerie, Berlin; August Sander
Sotheby's, London; Ilse Bing by the Estate of Ilse Bing; Werner Bischof by the Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur—A. Sander
by Werner Bischof/Magnum Photos, Paris; Karl Blossfeldt by the Karl Archiv, Cologne/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 1999; Cindy Sherman by Cindy
Blossfeldt Archiv—Ann and Jurgen Wilde, Cologne/ VG Bild-Kunst, Sherman and Metro Pictures; W. Eugene Smith by The Heirs of W.
Bonn 1999; Bill Brandt by the Bill Brandt Archive Ltd, London; Brassai Eugene Smith, courtesy of Black Star, Inc., New York; Edward Steichen
by Gilberte Brassai; Henri Cartier-Bresson by Magnum Photos/Focus; by Joanna T. Steichen; Otto Steinert by Stefan Steinert, Essen; Alfred
Martin Chambi by Teo Allain Chambi, Cuzco; Chargesheimer by Stieglitz by The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago (1998); Paul Strand
Museum Ludwig Photosammlung; Imogen Cunningham by the Imogen by the Aperture Foundation, Inc., Paul Strand Archive; Josef Sudek by
Cunningham Trust, Berkeley; John Deakin by British Vogue/Conde Anna Farova; Yevgeny A. Tschaldey by Anna Bibicheva-Tschaldey;
Nast Publications Ltd; Ed van der Elsken by The Netherlands Photo Umbo by Galerie Rudolf Kicken, Cologne, and Phyllis Umbehr, Frankfurt/
Archives; Walker Evans by The Library of Congress, Washington; Main; Weegee by the Hulton Getty Picture Library; Edward Weston
Gisele Freund by the Nina Beskow Agency, Paris; Mario Giacomelli by by the Center for Creative Photography, Arizona Board of Regents;
Mario Giacomelli/Art Consulting Siebenhaar; Ernst Haas by Ernst Haas/ Heinrich Zille by the heirs of Heinrich Zille, Bremervorde.
Hulton Getty Collection; Heinz Hajek-Halke by the estate of H.H.H./ William Klein, Will McBride, Sebastiao Salgado by Focus; Rene Burri,
M.R./Stiftung Fotomuseum/Focus; David Hockney by The David Robert Capa, Joseph Koudelka, David Seymour by Magnum Photos,
Hockney No. 1 U.S. Trust, Los Angeles; Lotte Jacobi by the Lotte Paris; Robert Adams, Lee Friedlander, Garry Winogrand by the Fraen-
Jacobi Archive, University of New Hampshire; Andre Kertesz by the kel Gallery, San Francisco; Edouard Boubat, Robert Doisneau by the
Association Fran^aise pour la Diffusion du Patrimoine Photographique, Rapho Agency, Focus; Margaret Bourke-White, Alfred Eisenstaedt by
Paris; Dorothea Lange by the Dorothea Lange Collection, The Oakland Time Life Picture Syndication/inter Topics; Herbert Bayer, Hugo
Museum of California; Jacques-Henri Lartigue by the Ministere de la Erfurth, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, Alexander Rodchenko, Thomas Ruff,
Culture—France/AAJHL, Paris; Helen Levitt by Helen Levitt, Courtesy Wols by VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 1999.
of the Laurence Miller Gallery, New York; Sally Mann, by Sally Mann,
The rights for the small-format portraits of the photographers can
Courtesy of the Edwynn Houk Gallery, New York; Robert Mapple¬
be found in the List of Illustrations (p. 196).
thorpe by the Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation, Inc., New York; Lisette
Model by the Lisette Model Foundation, New York; Martin Munkacsi The prints and transparencies of photographs from the Museum
by Joan Munkacsi; Arnold Newman by Arnold Newman Studios, Inc., Ludwig collection were provided by the Rheinisches Bildarchiv.
The Promise of Photography
The DC Bank Art Collection
Edited by Luminita Sabau
392 pp., 211 full-color and duotone illus.
9/2 x n3/4in. isbn 3-7913-1995-7 Hardcover

Touhami Ennadre
Black Light
With an introduction
by Francois Aubral
128 pp., 83 full-page duotone illus.
io3/4 x 14 in. isbn 3-7913-1735-0. Cloth

Ellen Auerbach
Berlin • Tel Aviv • London • New York ,
104 pp., 95 duotone illus.
93/4xii/4in. isbn 3-7913-1972-8. Cloth

Lewis W. Hine
The Empire State Building
By Freddy Langer
96 pp., 70 duotone illus.
9/2 xns/4in. isbn 3-7913-1996-5. Hardcover

John Jonas Gruen

Facing the Artist
With an introduction by Justin Spring
96 pages with 85 duotone illus.
9/2 x 12 in. isbn 3-7913-2003-3. Hardcover

Ray K. Metzker
City Stills
With an introduction by Laurence Miller
108 pages with 80 duotone illus.
9/2 x 12 in. isbn 3-7913-2002-5. Hardcover

Continental Drift
10 Photographic Commissions
Edited by Michael L. Sand and Anne McNeill
160 pp., 75 full-color and 30 b/w illus.
9/2 x 12 in. isbn 3-7913-1948-5. Hardcover

Nude Photography
Masterpieces from the Past 150 Years
Edited by Peter-Cornell Richter
136 pp., 65 duotone illus.
9/2 x ii3/4 in. isbn 3-7913-1998-1. Paperback

Munich • London
 ■ Some 160 masterpieces by more
than go photographers
■ An invaluable collection of
the century’s most powerful and
moving images
■ Poignant photographs, born of
the moment yet of enduring quality,
which capture the history, fate,
dreams, and hopes that defined the
twentieth century
■ A fascinating journey to the
greatest cities and the most remote
landscapes of North and South
America, Europe, Asia, and Africa
■ Insightful texts by renowned
photography critics on the “icons
of photography” presented in this
exquisite volume, complete with
biographies of the photographers

9 783791 320014