The Radical Camera: New York's Photo League, 1936-1951

The Photo League students take their camera anywhere . . . they want to tell us about New York and some of the people who live there . . . there was almost a sense of desperation in the desire to convey messages of sociological import.”
Beaumont Newhall, 1948

Via The Jewish Museum
In 1936 a group of young, idealistic photographers, most of them Jewish, first-generation Americans, formed an organization in Manhattan called the Photo League. Their solidarity centered on a belief in the expressive power of the documentary photograph and on a progressive alliance in the 1930s of socialist ideas and art. The Radical Camera presents the contested path of the documentary photograph during a tumultuous period that spanned the New Deal reforms of the Depression, World War II, and the Cold War.

Sid Grossman, Coney Island, c. 1947



Jerome Liebling, Butterfly Boy,
New York, 1949

Photographing the City
Members rejected the prevailing style of modernism in order to engage the gritty realities of urban life. Leaguers focused on New York, and this meant looking closely at ordinary people. That impulse spurred the group to explore neighborhoods, street by street, camera at the ready.

The League and Its Legacy
A unique complex of school, darkroom, gallery, and salon, the League was also a place where you learned about yourself. One of its leading members was Sid Grossman who pushed students to discover not only the meaning of their work but also their relationship to it. This transformative approach was one of the League’s most innovative and influential contributions to the medium. By its demise in 1951, the League had propelled documentary photography from factual images to more challenging ones--from bearing witness to questioning one’s own bearings in the world.

Mason Klein
Curator, The Jewish Museum, New York

Catherine Evans
Curator, Columbus Museum of Art, Ohio

Jack Manning (American, 1920-2001)
Elks Parade, 1939, from Harlem Document, 1936–40
Gelatin silver print
10 1/16 x 13 in. (25.6 x 33 cm)
The Jewish Museum, New York
Purchase: Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation Fund, 2008-95
© Estate of Jack Manning


Sid Grossman (American, 1913-1955)
Coney Island, c. 1947
Gelatin silver print
9 3/8 x 7 7/8 in. (23.8 x 20 cm)
The Jewish Museum, New York
Purchase: The Paul Strand Trust for the benefit of Virginia Stevens Gift, 2008-62
© Howard Greenberg Gallery, NYC

Jerome Liebling (American, 1924-2011)
Butterfly Boy, New York, 1949
Gelatin silver print
9 1/2 x 9 1/2 in. (24.1 x 24.1 cm)
The Jewish Museum, New York
Purchase: Mimi and Barry J. Alperin Fund, 2008-90



The Radical Camera: New York's Photo League, 1936-1951 has been organized by The Jewish Museum, New York and the Columbus Museum of Art, Ohio.

The exhibition is made possible by a major grant from the Phillip and Edith Leonian Foundation, with generous support from the National Endowment for the Arts and Betsy Karel.

The exhibit opens November 4, and runs through March 25, 2012 and will then travel to the Columbus Museum of Art, the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco, and the Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach, Florida.

See related article here

See related slideshow here

Ida Wyman's photographs are included in the exhibition

Ruth Orkin's photographs are included in the exhibition

Palace of the Governors Photo Archives Wins Award for Excellence

Palace of the Governors Photo Archives Wins the Edgar L. Hewett Award for Excellence

 New MexicoAssociation of Museums to present the honor on Nov. 4

Santa Fe—Citing its many resources and online accessibility, the New Mexico Association of Museums will bestow its Edgar L. Hewett Award for Excellence on the Palace of the Governors Photo Archives at its annual business meeting in Farmington on Friday, Nov. 4.

“The staff of the Photo Archives has worked diligently to make the state’s visual record readily available to people in any part of the state and even the world,” said Dr. Frances Levine, director of the New Mexico History Museum/Palace of the Governors. “These resources will prove especially valuable as we prepare to enter our Centennial year as a state. We’re honored by this award.”

The History Museum as a whole received the Hewett Award in 2009, the year it opened on a campus that includes the Palace of the Governors, Photo Archives, Fray Angélico Chávez History Library, Palace Press, and Native American Artisans Program. The award is named for the first director of the Museum of New Mexico, Edgar Lee Hewett, who led the agency from 1909 until his death in 1946. He also taught anthropology at the University of New Mexico and was instrumental in encouraging the development of small museums throughout the state.

“The Palace of the Governors Photo Archives is a rich and tenured resource in our state that promotes preservation and scholarship through a unique collection of historic photographs, films, glass plate negatives, photo postcards, and other visual imagery,” said Laurie Rufe, president of NMAM and director of the Roswell Museum and Art Center. “Recipients of this award illustrate exemplary leadership in the field, and the Palace of the Governors Photo Archives, with its multitude of resources and online presence, serves a community of scholars, authors, researchers, and the general public on an international level.”

The archives hold an estimated 800,000 items dating from 1843 to 2011. Included among them are historic photographic prints, cased photographs, glass plate negatives, film negatives, stereographs, photo postcards, panoramas, color transparencies, lantern slides, and more than 1,500 books on photography. More than 16,000 images have been digitized and can be keyword-searched by clicking here. Other images can be searched in person. Nearly all are available as high-quality digital scans and prints, for editorial reproduction, and use in advertising, publishing, media projects, and TV news media stories at nominal cost.

Research into what the archives already hold is ongoing. Just last year, Archivist Daniel Kosharek discovered a rare, ca. 1870s photograph of famed Navajo war chief Manuelito. The image, now on display in the History Museum, was among photographs, glass-plate negatives and other photographic ephemera in the archives’ Henry T. Hiester/Melander Brothers Collection. Most recently, staff and volunteers have been processing and digitizing 5,000 early 20th-century images of Santa Fe and northern New Mexico taken by Jesse Nusbaum.

Some of the most important 19th- and 20th-century photographers of the West are represented in the Photo Archives’ collections, and the subject matter spans the history and people of New Mexico, anthropology, archaeology, and ethnology of Hispanic and Native American cultures. Smaller collections document Europe, Latin America, the Far East, Oceana, and the Middle East.

The archives are widely used by researchers, authors, publications and the public. More than 1,000 people visit the archives each year to conduct research, and several thousand more submit direct research queries, photograph orders, and permission requests each year from the website.

The collection continues to expand, and long-range preservation and conservation projects are underway. To inquire about donating historical or contemporary photographs, contact Daniel Kosharek, Palace of the Governors Photo Archives, 120 Washington Ave., Santa Fe, NM 87501; (505) 476.5092; or Daniel.kosharek@state.nm.us.

Image above: "Hispanic family, New Mexico," 1949, by Anacleto (Tito) G. Apodaca. From the Tito Apodaca "Mi Gente" Collection, Palace of the Governors Photo Archives, #142320.


Media contact: Kate Nelson, Public Relations and Marketing
 New Mexico History Museum/Palace of the Governors
 (505) 476-1141; (505) 554-5722 (cell)
 kate.nelson@state.nm.us

http://media.museumofnewmexico.org/

The New Mexico History Museum is the newest addition to a campus that includes the Palace of the Governors, the oldest continuously occupied public building in the United States; Fray Angélico Chávez History Library; Palace of the Governors Photo Archives; the Press at the Palace of the Governors; and the Native American Artisans Program. Located at 113 Lincoln Ave., in Santa Fe, NM, it is a division of the Department of Cultural Affairs.

New Book: Jack Kennedy Elusive Hero Cover Photo by Mark Shaw

Photograph by Mark Shaw



Library Journal

Matthews (Kennedy and Nixon), host of MSNBC's Hardball and former aide to the late Speaker of the House Tip O'Neill, has come to know many JFK insiders. Here he uses to excellent effect his conversations and interviews with those officials and friends as he seeks the real John F. Kennedy, that "elusive man," as JFK's own wife called him. Using the first person as he seeks out a full portrait of JFK, Matthews gives us an eminently readable biography, following Kennedy through his sickly and less-than-happy youth, his wartime heroism, and his presidency during the most perilous years of the Cold War. Although Matthews's coverage of Kennedy's pre-presidential career and the 1960 election is nearly as long as that devoted to the presidency, his most significant conclusion is that Kennedy's decision not to invade Cuba in 1962 likely saved the world from nuclear annihilation and at the very least stopped Soviet premier Khrushchev from invading West Berlin. VERDICT Robert Dallek's An Unfinished Life and Richard Reeves's President Kennedy provide in-depth investigations of Kennedy's politics, but readers wanting a lively overview of Kennedy, the flawed man and inspiring leader, should turn to this poignant study

REFLECTION: A tribute to a journalist - John Neary

Via The Santa Fe New Mexican
Sunday, October30, 2011


People choose their careers for a variety of reasons. I chose mine because I wanted to be around people like John Neary. My career in journalism was dawning as his was ending. In so many words, he warned me: "I assume you know what you're in for, but just in case you don't ...." John Neary, who died Oct. 21, was like that, a vintage blend of Irish pessimism and Irish humor. He would have chided me for redundancy there.

I ignored his warnings. Why would I not pursue a profession that employed people like John Neary? Listening to him reminisce was like listening to a character from Jack London or Robert Louis Stevenson recall a perilous ocean voyage. The stories he told, the way he spoke of the perils, the low pay and the SOBs in charge, the more you wanted to head out on a voyage of your own. He had a writer's genius for spinning irresistible stories out of the grimmest adventures.

John wrote and edited stories for Life magazine before moving to Santa Fe in the 1970s. At least one of the books that celebrate the achievements of Life recalls him fondly. His work for Life endures in anthologies of the best of the magazine. After he left Life, he wrote a couple of books and numerous articles for magazines and Time Life Books. What I remember about him from that period are his descriptions of going back to New York every summer to work as a substitute for vacationing editors at Time Life. Hearing him chronicle the miseries of New York City in the dog days of summer and the thankless editorial chores worthy of a modern day Bartleby the Scrivener only made me yearn for that very life. He could not help but make journalism sound romantic. When he turned from journalism to blacksmithing, it was as if he were transferring his power of expression from one tool to another. Just as the typewriter had been, the forge was a precision instrument in his hands.

When I began thinking seriously of returning to Santa Fe to live, John was again full of dire warnings, about drought and wildfire and about how Santa Fe had changed for the worse. John was the opposite of lace-curtain Irish, and, to him, Santa Fe had become a bit lacey. He talked about hiding out in the Tesuque barrens and refusing to come any closer to the Plaza than the flea market. If Cassandra had been a 6-foot 4-inch Irishman, her name would have been Neary.

He was right about journalism, at least about the world of journalism he knew and I came to know. It was doomed. The newspaper where he started out, the Washington Star, is long gone, as are three of four papers where I worked. The fourth is in bankruptcy. If I possessed John's story-telling skill, I would write about getting stiffed for the last $9,000 I earned while bankruptcy court awarded the bosses millions in bonus money. If I were John, perhaps, I could tell the story in a way that might entice some green youngster to still want to be a journalist, to still want a taste of the bygone grandeur that John Neary represented.

Former Los Angeles Times reporter Frank Clifford lives in Santa Fe.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN

Steve Schapiro: Halloween, Brooklyn Heights, New York, 1960

A must-see NYT Lens slideshow: "Why is everyone so scared?"

Archive: Halloweeen 2010

Nina Berman: Beyond the Fringe of Protest

 


The New York Times/Lens Blog has an excellent post today comparing the Tea Party Protests and Occupy Wall  Street Protests.

By DAVID GONZALEZ

 Nina Berman was intrigued by the idea of protest in this age, so when she heard about a nascent uprising that was gaining national momentum, she had to check it out.

 “I had an open mind,” she said. “I was wondering what made them tick, who showed up and what united them. Were they right wing? Did they draw from the left and the middle? Was it as crazy as people made it out to be?”

She was talking about the Tea Party movement, which she photographed at a huge rally in Washington in 2010. A year later, she had some of the same questions about the throngs that streamed into Lower Manhattan as part of the Occupy Wall Street protests. As she has discovered, though there are obvious differences in ideologies, the groups have some similarities. Both have staked a claim to be defenders of grass-roots values. And at times their critics have dismissed both as out of step with the rest of the nation.

 

New York Times/Lens for slideshow and full article.

2011 LUCIE AWARDS RECAP

©Robert Leslie

Lucie Awards Honor Lifetime Achievements

Photo Distrct News has a good recap of the 2011 Lucie Awards:

Eli Reed, Bill Eppridge, Dawoud Bey and Rich Clarkson were among the veteran photographers honored for their contributions to photography at the 2011 Lucie Awards, held October 24 in New York City.

Bill Eppridge and Rich Clarkson Backstage © Robert Leslie

In accepting the award for Achievement in Photojournalism, Eppridge, who covered the Beatles’ arrival in America, Woodstock and Robert Kennedy’s presidential campaign and assassination, thanked “all the photographers I ever worked against,” noting, “It’s that kind of quality competition that drives you.” Dawoud Bey, who received the award for Achievement in Portraiture, said his goal has been to create “a conversation with the human community” and to raise “questions about ourselves.” Rich Clarkson, who has photographed more than 30 covers of Sports Illustrated, was honored for Achievement in Sports. In his acceptance speech, Clarkson, who is a book producer and founder of the Summit Series Workshops, and worked as photo editor and director of photography at Topeka Capital-Journal, Denver Post and National Geographic, said he felt his true mission was to foster a young generation of photographers and photo editors. In presenting the award to Eli Reed for Achievement in Documentary Photography, photographer Misha Erwitt, a friend of Reed’s, noted that Reed’s “generosity shows in his photography and in his teaching.”

Nancy McGirr, who for 20 years has been teaching photography to children living in poverty in Guatemala and Honduras through her program Fotokids, was awarded the Humanitarian prize. The Spotlight Award was given to the International Center of Photography museum and school, presented by photographer Annie Leibovitz, a winner of an ICP Infinity Award. Nobuyoshi Araki, honored for Achievement in Fine Art Photography, was unable to attend; photographer Michael Grecco, who described himself as a collector and fan of Araki’s work, presented and accepted the award on his behalf.

While most of the awards honored lifetime achievement, the awards for achievements in the past year were kept a surprise until the ceremony. Kira Pollack of Time won Photo Editor of the Year. W Magazine won Fashion Layout of the Year for its photos of actress Tilda Swinton by Tim Walker. Zoom was named Photo Magazine of the Year. Kohle Yohanman, curator of the “Beauty Culture” exhibition at the Annenberg Center in Los Angeles won Curator/Exhibition of the Year. The award for Photo Book of the Year went to Chris Boot for the book Infidel by Tim Hetherington, who was killed in Libya in April. Boot, who is now executive director of Aperture, noted that sentiment probably went into the selection of Hetherington’s book. “All of us who had the pleasure of working with Tim loved him, and still do,” Boot said.

At the start of the event, the International Photography Awards, described as “a sister effort of the Lucie Foundation” were announced. The winners were selected by a jury of 70 photo editors, reps, photographers and gallery owners. Majid Saeedi was named International Photographer of the Year, which carries a $10,000 cash prize. The Discovery of the Year award, which honors a non-professional, went to portrait photographer Anna di Prospero. The award for Deeper Perspective, which honors a combination of essay and reportage photography, went to Daniel Beltra for his work on the Deep Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

©Bill Eppridge with Richard Stolly on stage

©Bill Eppridge Eli Reed and Dawoud Bey with programme

 

 

 

Related: Bill Eppridge Gallery Talk in Santa Fe November 4, 5 - 7 PM

John Loengard : Age of Silver

Henri Cartier-Bresson, Age of silver © John Loengard



An entire generation of photographers has come of age since digital technology supplanted film technology in photography. For those who have never wound a roll of film through a camera or dipped their fingers in darkroom chemicals, but have nonetheless wondered about that archaic process, let me recommend the following description from photographer and former Life magazine director of photography John Loengard. It is as succinct and eloquent an account of photography’s origins and chemical past as you will ever find:

Read the full interview betwen David Schonauer and John Loengard in today's La Lettre de la Photographie. "Age of Siver", exhibition opens November 25, Monroe Gallery of Photography. The exhibition continues through January 29, 2012.

2011 LUCIE AWARDS

The Lucie Awards

By Peggy Roalf Friday October 21, 2011

For the 9th consecutive year, the Lucie Awards will celebrate the greatest achievements in photography the world over. This year, the gala comes to New York’s Frederick P. Rose Hall, Home of Jazz at Lincoln Center, on October 24, 2011.

Scenes from Lucies past, at Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Hall. Courtesy the Lucie Foundation.

The Lucie Awards, produced by the Lucie Foundation, a nonprofit charitable foundation, honor the achievements of the world’s most accomplished photographers, discover and cultivate emerging talent through mentoring and scholarship programs, and promote the appreciation of photography worldwide. The Lucie Foundation will also recognize the winners from the 2011 International Photography Awards (IPA) competition, the foundation’s sister effort.

“I am so proud of the path the Lucie Awards has taken thus far,” said Hossein Farmani, founder of the Lucie Awards. “2011 marks the 9th year of the Lucies, and 2012 will reveal the launch of an array of significant new programming to celebrate the 10-year anniversary, when the Lucies will return to its birth city, Los Angeles, in October of 2012.”

Each year the Lucie Awards recognize master photographers who have made a significant contribution to photography. The list of honorees joining this distinguished group of 78 prior honorees includes: Dawoud Bey, Achievement in Portraiture; Bill Eppridge, Achievement in Photojournalism; Rich Clarkson, Achievement in Sports; Nobuyoshi Araki, Achievement in Fine Art; Nancy McGirr and Fotokids, Humanitarian Award; and Eli Reed, Achievement in Documentary Photography Award.

The International Center of Photography will receive the 2011 Spotlight Award, which is nominated annually by the 40-member advisory board.

The 2011 International Photography Awards (IPA), a sister effort of the Lucie Foundation, will announce the competition winners who will receive cash prizes and Lucie statues at the gala. The revenue from this world-wide competition funds the majority of the Lucie Foundation’s year-round programming. Three of the 21 finalists will be named Photographer of the Year, Discovery of the Year Award, and Deeper Perspective Photographer of the Year. See the list of the 21 finalists from which the three winners will be named.

The Lucies will also recognize those in the creative community who are integral in crafting an image in the following categories: Print Advertising Campaign of the Year, Fashion Layout of the Year, Photography Magazine of the Year, Book Publisher of the Year, Exhibition/Curator of the Year, and Picture Editor of the Year. Information.

The Lucie Awards Ceremony takes place on Monday, October 24 at the Frecerick P. Rose Hall, Home of Jazz at Lincoln Center, 33 West 60^th Street, at Columbus Circle, NY, NY. Tickets $10/$20/$40/$60/

Tony O'Brian: "Contemplative Landscapes,” opens at the New Mexico History Museum Oct. 23

A Quiet Moment, Monastery of Christ in the Desert, 1995/2009. Photo by Tony O'Brien

The Albuquerque Journal

A time to refocus

By Kathaleen Roberts / Journal Staff Writer

The photographs reveal the sacred slant of light slicing across bowed heads, a solitary figure trudging up a snowy hill toward the chapel, loaves of freshly baked bread cooling on a wooden tabletop.

Tony O’Brien photographed Christ in the Desert Monastery for one year and discovered his own personal solace. The photographer’s dramatic black and white series forms the heart of “Contemplative Landscapes,” opening at the New Mexico History Museum Oct. 23.

Imprisoned by the Afghan secret police for six weeks while on assignment for Life magazine in 1989, O’Brien sought refuge and perspective at the Benedictine monastery. He returned to do a story in 1994 and in the process became a member of the community. His year-long spiritual sojourn granted him rare access to daily life in a community living a tradition dating to the Middle Ages. The monastery’s seclusion encouraged focus on St. Benedict’s guiding tenets –– hospitality, humility, acceptance and perseverance. He excavated the canyon deep within himself.

"I probably didn’t realize at the time that it was an opportunity for me to put a little closure to some things in my life that came out of prison and to understand who I was,” said O’Brien, now teaching photography at Santa Fe University of Art and Design.

The photojournalist had worked for both the Albuquerque Journal and the New Mexican and covered the Gulf War, as well as the violence in Northern Ireland, Central America, Pakistan, India and finally Afghanistan. He had visited the monastery and befriended some of the monks.

Before his capture, he had been working in Peshawar covering the war between the Soviets and the Afghan Mujahideen. There was a bounty on western journalists, especially Americans. O’Brien traveled to Kabul to meet with a network of guerrillas in a safe house.

“The commander in charge of my little group sold me out,” he said.

At first he was put in relatively solitary confinement with two Afghans.

“We never saw anyone,” he said. “I came back one day after interrogation and one of my cell mates was gone. You never knew what happened.”

Roughed up, but not beaten, he said most of the abuse he endured was psychological.

“You got shoved around a bit, but once I was in prison, it was the interrogation, never having the lights off, waking you up in the middle of the night.”

“Sometimes I’d be in interrogation for 12 hours,” he continued. “I didn’t exist in the world anymore because nobody knew where I was.”

He began re-examining his life. Hope arrived in the form of his cellmate Nadr Ali, a practicing Shiite Muslim. O’Brien watched Nadr Ali say his prayers five times a day and soon joined him in his own prayers, following the Muslim cycle. The pair even crafted their own prayer beads.

In captivity, O’Brien collided with his own vulnerability.

“When I was captured, one of my first thoughts was ‘Oh my God, I’m never going to see my mother again’,” O’Brien said. “That was shattering.” It was through Nadr Ali’s faith and trust in God that he endured.

“He was just an ordinary guy and he turned out to be one of the strongest individuals I’ve ever met. That doesn’t mean I didn’t sink into the abyss,” O’Brien said. “I give a lot of credit to Nadr and his faith. This was a Muslim –– the bad guys.”

Raised Catholic, but no longer practicing the faith of his childhood, O’Brien had long been fascinated by the Benedictines and monasticism. The similarities between monastic life and prison were not lost on him.

“I always thought it was funny,” he said. “I had a cell in Afghanistan and I had a cell at the monastery.
“It was the quiet and the solitude that drew me,” he continued. “At the same time, there was that sense of community. These monks are on their own individual journeys, but they do it in community.”

At first, O’Brien stayed in the guest house. But he quickly realized the separate quarters would always render him an outsider. The monks agreed to allow him to join them in his own cell. He rose with vigils at 4 a.m., chanted the psalms, celebrated the triumph of life over death, light over darkness in a life defined by prayer. He waited nearly a month and a half before he began taking pictures.

“By the time the project ended, even though I was the photographer, I wasn’t the photographer,” he said. “If I lifted my camera, nobody paid any attention. It was almost like having another family. I feel very blessed for that.”

The project changed the way the deadline-driven photographer worked.

“I came out of the newspaper/magazine business,” he said. “(I learned) it’s OK, slow down. If you miss it, something else will come along. Keep it simple. Watch it evolve. Another gift I got was I learned it was OK to say I don’t know.”

But perhaps most profoundly, the tiny monastery tucked between the canyon walls along the Chama River changed him spiritually.

“It allowed me to become more at peace with who I was and with my beliefs,” he explained. “Part of it all is the struggle and the questions. It’s how you live on your quest for God. Each individual is on their own journey, but you’re in a community and that’s how you get your strength to carry on.”

If you go

WHAT: “Contemplative Landscape”
WHEN: 2-4 p.m. opening reception Sunday, Oct. 23. Through April 7.
WHERE: New Mexico History Museum, 113 Lincoln Ave.
COST: $9 out-of-state; $6 New Mexico residents. Free Sunday to state residents; free Wednesday to New Mexico seniors. Free to museum members and children under 17. Free Fridays 5-8 p.m.
HOURS: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Sunday; open til 8 p.m. Friday.
CONTACT: 476-5200