John Szarkowski, foto curator, dies at 81

[bob cole]

fyi:


http://www.nytimes.com/pages/obituaries/index.html?8qa

[kbg32]

Yes, sad. I had the pleasure of seeing the "Mirrors and Windows" show.

[sepiareverb]

Another of the 'big guns' gone. He did an awful lot to get fine art photography where it is today.

[Tuolumne]

I love this quote of his from the obit:

“One might compare the art of photography to the act of pointing,” Mr. Szarkowski wrote. “It must be true that some of us point to more interesting facts, events, circumstances, and configurations than others.”

[gns]

Very sad. I think it's safe to say we will not likely see someone with his impact again.

Whenever someone asks, "Can you recommend a good book about photography"?, my answer is always, "Looking At Photographs".

Toulmne, I like that quote too. It reminds us when we are all wrapped up in the notion of "Creating" pictures that photography is, at it's root, an act of recognition.
In a similar vein, I think Winogrand once said something along the lines that just putting a frame around something changes it, and that's enough.

Cheers,
Gary

[Tuolumne]

I also find photography a mode of interacting with the world. Not just a way of remembering or memorializing a place, event or object. Perhaps that's why the "feel" and subjective experience of using a camera (sound, heft, viewfinder, workmanship, etc.) are so important to us. It might not change the finished product but it affects the experiece of it.

/T

[John Camp]

I agree that he was important, and hate to sound too sour, but I think the obit was a little over-cooked. Almost single-handedly elevated photography as a fine art? He didn't get to New York until 1962, it says...I mean, a large number of the most famous photos ever taken were taken before then, and were taken deliberately and specifically as fine art. Let Us Now Praise Famous Men wass published while Szarkowski was still in school. Andy Warhol published his Jackie series of photo-silkscreens in about 1964, I think...and I think the Brits, the French, the Germans and the Japanese might have something to say about it, too. Szarkowski was an important guy in the photo world, because of his post at the Modern, but he was not a pioneer...

Should say that I liked his writing.

JC

[troym]

Originally Posted by John Camp

I agree that he was important, and hate to sound too sour, but I think the obit was a little over-cooked. Almost single-handedly elevated photography as a fine art? He didn't get to New York until 1962, it says...I mean, a large number of the most famous photos ever taken were taken before then, and were taken deliberately and specifically as fine art. Let Us Now Praise Famous Men wass published while Szarkowski was still in school. Andy Warhol published his Jackie series of photo-silkscreens in about 1964, I think...and I think the Brits, the French, the Germans and the Japanese might have something to say about it, too. Szarkowski was an important guy in the photo world, because of his post at the Modern, but he was not a pioneer...

Should say that I liked his writing.

JC

I think you're misunderstanding what the obit means by Szarkowski's elevating photography to a fine art.

Of course there were noted accomplishments in photography before Szarkowski moved to MOMA. But Szarkowski's efforts really cemented photography's acceptance among art collectors, taste-makers, and commentators on an equal footing with painting and other traditional media. More importantly, the ways in which the art world evaluated photographs (artistically and monetarily) were altered by Szarkowski's influence.

I'm too young to remember it, but my older friends and colleagues who do remember tell me that New Documents and similar exhibits had a tremendous impact on the status of photography in the art world in the 1960s and 1970s.

On a more crass level, this change in status can be measured by the price of photographs during the 1960s and thereafter. Prints by Arbus, Winogrand, and Friedlander -- and even by older artists (Walker Evans, Edward Weston, etc.) -- rose dramatically in art-market value after the 1960s. And the most prized works were typically those that fit the tastes moulded by Szarkowski.

[John Camp]

Originally Posted by troym

I think you're misunderstanding what the obit means by Szarkowski's elevating photography to a fine art.

No, I don't think I misunderstood; it was fairly clear. I'm simply suggesting it was a large overstatement.

His two predecessors at the MOMA, Beaumont Newhall and Edward Steichen, were both more famous in their time than Szarkowski is in this time, and were also credited with raising photography's status as a fine art. As, of course, was Alfred Stieglitz before them; and that's only here in the US.

This, from Wiki,

About Newhall:

Newhall's career at the Museum of Modern Art began in 1935 when he became its librarian. In 1937, he was invited by Alfred Barr Jr., the director of MOMA, to develop the first comprehensive retrospective of photographic works. The exhibition that Newhall mounted was pivotal in securing photography's place within the arts. It's accompanying catalog, The History of Photography, was the first account of the first 100 years of photographic history that gave equal credit to its technical virtues, as well as its value as an art form.
In 1940, Newhall became the first director of the Museum of Modern Art's photography department.
Newhall served as curator of the International Museum of Photography at the George Eastman House from 1948 to 1958, then its director from 1958 to 1971. While at the Eastman House, Newhall was responsible for amassing one of the greatest photographic collections in the world.

About Steichen:

During World War II, he served as Director of the Naval Photographic Institute. His war documentary The Fighting Lady won the 1945 Academy Award for Best Documentary. After the war, Steichen served until 1962 as the Director of Photography at New York's Museum of Modern Art.
Among other accomplishments, Steichen is appreciated for creating The Family of Man in 1955, a vast exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art consisting of over 500 photos that depicted life, love and death in 68 countries. Steichen's brother-in-law, Carl Sandburg, wrote the introduction for the exhibition catalog (ISBN 0-8109-6169-5). As had been Steichen's wish, the exhibition was donated to the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. It is now permanently housed in the Luxembourg town of Clervaux.

About Stieglitz:

Alfred Stieglitz (January 1, 1864 – July 13, 1946) was an American-born photographer who was instrumental over his fifty-year career in making photography an acceptable art form alongside painting and sculpture. Many of his photographs are known for appearing like those other art forms, and he is also known for his marriage to painter Georgia O'Keeffe.

Photography, it seems, has been raised numerous times.

JC