Modernism: European Avant-garde and American Straight Photography

Modernism in Photography (approximately 1945-1970):

American modernism, as opposed to European avant-garde modernism, is usually attributed to photographers, such as Alfred Steiglitz and Paul Strand, who “used the realism of the medium to create beauty from everyday life, and to make statements about the nature of photography, rather than about the world. Their work often abstracted reality by eliminating social and spatial context; by using viewpoints that flattened pictorial space, acknowledging the flatness of he picture plane; and by emphasizing shape and tonal rendition in the highlights and shadows as much as the actual subject matter". (Oxford Companion to the Photograph)

"Photography became art by transcending its reality bearing function through the subjectivity that photographers, as authors of their images, managed to instill in their pictures”. Modernism, which was championed by art critic Clement Greenberg and MoMA Curator Belmont Newhall “emphasized formal and aesthetic qualities that defined “masters” and “canonical” images that transcended their historical and social context”. (Oxford Companion to the Photograph)

In Europe something different was happening. Modern artists, such as the Surrealists, Constructivists, and Bauhaus artists, "sought to break-down the traditional definitions of art, and the barriers between art and design, often with the utopian aim to merge art with everyday life." (Oxford Companion to the Photograph) The European avant-garde embraced technology, developed mixed media practices, and often championed art that explored social and political concerns.


When we speak of modernism, however, typically we are referring to American ideas of form, space, and the medium. "In the post 1945 period, American Modernism became dominant in the West, emphasizing specialization and purity, and downplaying the political engagement of earlier avant-garde groups: to be modern, each discipline had to refine the definition of its own competencies." (Oxford Companion to the Photograph)

Below you will find an outline of various modern photographic practices, as well as links to more information on each modern genres. In class this semester we looked at three different types of European Modernism: the Bauhaus artist from Germany, the Surrealists from Paris, and the Constructivists from Russia.


The Bauhaus



The Bauhaus was an art school founded by architect Walter Gropious in Germany in 1919. Gropious sought to break down the barriers between art and design. All Bauhaus students participated in an intensive foundation study, which emphasized design and craftsmanship. Once foundation studies were complete, students could specialize in a particular discipline. Lazlo Maholy Nagy taught photography at the Bauhaus. Moholy-Nagy embraced technology and the camera and encouraged his students to find new ways to perceiving the world. He also used the Photogram to teach basic principles of design, such as form, layout and balance. Moholy Nagy coined te term "New Vision" to explain his artistic teachings and practices.

See link below:
Photography and the Bauhaus



Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, Untitled, 1925



Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, Boats, Port of Marseilles , 1929




Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, Hand Photogram, 1925

Surrealism

• Surrealism originated in the late 1910s and early '20s as a literary movement that experimented with a new mode of expression called automatic writing, or automatism, which sought to release the unbridled imagination of the subconscious.

• It was officially announced in Paris in 1924 with the publication of the Manifesto of Surrealism by the poet and critic André Breton (1896–1966); soon after, Surrealism quickly became an international intellectual and political movement.

• Breton, a trained psychiatrist was influenced by the psychological theories and dream studies of Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) and the political ideas of Karl Marx (1818–1883). Using Freudian methods of free association, their poetry and prose drew upon the private world of the mind, traditionally restricted by reason and societal limitations, to produce surprising, unexpected imagery.

• The major surrealist Photographers were Man Ray and Andre Kertesz



Andre Kertesz, Distortion, 1933



Man Ray, Untitled, Rayograph, 1922


Man Ray, Glass Tears, 1930



Man Ray experimented with alternative processes, such as solarization, split negatives, and Rayograms, his unique photogram process. He wanted to make psychological works of art that tapped into the unconscious.

See Link Below
Photography and Surrealism


Russian Constructivism

• Constructivism was spearheaded by graphic artists, Alexander Rodchenko and El Lissitzky

• The Constructivists, as they were called, believed that it was photography’s mission, in conjunction with the graphic arts, to supplant painting as socialism’s leading representational medium.

• The Constuctivists rejected Pictorialism, as practiced by Rejlander and Robinson; they claimed that Pictorialism was elitist and individualistic. Instead, they embraced aspects of Lazlo Moholy Nagy's “New Vision.”

• Constructivist's subject matter became machines, mass produced objects, and industrial development becuase these things clearly represented a future-minded, contemporary, society.



Alexander Rodchenko, Chauffeur 1929


Modern Photography In The U.S.A

Photographic Modernism in the United States is associated with Alfred Steiglitz and the 291 Gallery on the East Coast and Edward Weston and the F 64 Group on the West Coast. Initially, Steiglitz first exhibited European modern paintings at his 291 gallery. In fact, Picasso, Cezanne, and Degas were among the European artist to exhibit at 291. Modern photography, like Eropean modern painting, privileged form over subject-matter and attempted to flatten space into single planes of color and shade. By the 1910s Steiglitz hailed a young photographer by the name of Paul Strand as the new modern master. Strand's photographs successfully flattened space and abstracted the the world in front of the camera lens. Years later, however, Paul Strand left the United States for Mexico. In Mexico, he abandoned traditional modernism and made a series of documentary films that explored a diverse group of subjects.

In the early part of the 1900s, leading West Coast photographers. such as Imogen Cunningham, Edward Weston, and Ansel Adams, formed a photography group, known as F 64. F 64 Group named themeslves after the smallest aperture setting because (as you know) the smallest aperture ensures the most depth of field and clearest images, The F-64 Group rejected Pictorialism, which was still the leading trend in art photography at the time, and sought to make the West Coast, as opposed to New York, the hub of photography.



Alfred Steiglitz, The Steerage, 1907

The Steerage is one Steiglitz's most famous works. It is celebrated for its modern sense of space and design. This photograph also represents a transition in Steiglitz's own photographic practice. Initially, Steiglitz gained recognition as a popular Pictorialist photographer who made romantic, soft focus images, but the Streerage showcases attributes of straight photography or modernism, a crisp in-focus image, thoughtful design, and an elimination of spatial context.



Paul Strand, Wall Street, 1915



Edward Weston, Nude, 1925



Ansel Adams, Lodgepole Pines, Yosemite, 1921

Magnum Photography and the Picture Magazine

Life Magazine Cover, 1936 (year of its inception)

By the late 1930s, photojournalism had established itself as a viable form of photography. Most photojournalism is assignment driven, meaning photographers are sent out by clients (editors at magazines and newspapers) to capture specific events or places. The documentary project, on the other hand, is usually artist driven, concieved, directed, and executed solely by an artist and his/her team.

Big picture magazines, such as Life and Look, helped to define mid-twentieth century photojournalism. Life Magazine was originally started by a man named Henry Luc, who had previously founded Time in 1923 and Fortune in 1924. Life Magazine quickly gained popularity. The magazine combined entrainment, news, and special interest stories; it also promoted American middle class life and patriotism. In deed, Life Magazine developed the very concept of the "photo essay." It endorsed such photographers as Robert Capa and W. Eugene Smith.





W Eugene Smith, Nurse Midwife, 1951 (photo essay on midwife Maude Callen in South Carolina.)
This slide represent a typical lay-out for a Life Magazine "photo essay," a magazine story told primarily through photographs, not text.



Vu, September 23, 1936, page spread containing Robert Capa’s Spanish Civil War coverage with the Falling Soldier photograph


Magnum Photography

Magnum was founded in 1947 by a group of photo-journalists, including Robert Capa and Henri Cartier-Bresson. It was "the first self-governing, cooperative photographic agency, whose members also owned the copy-write of their work"(Oxford Companion to the Photograph). In other words, it was a group in support of the photojournalist, that gave image rights to the photographer, rather than the magazine. Magnum photographers spread across the world and covered all major events. Since its inception, Magnum holds high photographic standards and supports only top notch, well recognized photographers.



Behind the Gare Saint-Lazare, Henri Cartier-Bresson 1932

Henri Cartier-Bresson, a parisian photographer credited with transforming photojournalism in to a true art-form, has influenced many young photographers who came after him. He originally coined the phrase the "decisive moment," the moment when surprise, chance, form, and content converge into a single image (as exhibited in the picture above).



Madrid, Henri Cartier-Bresson, 1933

Click the web links below to access more information:

American Photojournalism
Henri Cartier-Bresson
Magnum Photography

Documentary Tradition Part II

A short version of the Great Depression

On October 29th, 1929, the Stock Market crashed, propelling this country into a decade known as the Great Depression. Three years later, approximately one out of every four Americans was unemployed. By 1932, Roosevelt replaced Hebert Hoover in the White House; he immediately began to implement his recovery policy, known as the “New Deal. The "New Deal" consisted of various government programs that helped to aid the economy, farmers, and the unemployed. FDR established the CCC (Civilian Conservation Core), The WPA (Works Progress Administration), and the AAA (Agricultural Adjustment Act, which later became the FSA or Farm Security Administration).

The Farm Security


In 1937, President Roosevelt established the Farm Security Administration (formally the Resettlement Administration) to help assist struggling farmers through the Great Depression. In 1935, a man named Roy Stryker headed the FSA’s or RA’s Historical section, a team of photographers charged with showing the “city people what its like to live on a farm”. Although the FSA photographers were aware of the historical significance of their photographs, they often had to produce pictures that glorified the Government Relief efforts. Still , over 10,000 FSA photographs exist today in government archives; many of these photographs have become important historical documents that accurately depict the lives of rural families as they struggled during the Great Depression, FSA Photographers included Dorothea Lange, Walker Evans, Arthur Rothstein, Ben Shahn, Jack Delano, Russell Lee, Gordon Parks, and Marion Post Wolcott.


The FSA Photographers and the Great Depression

Migrant Mother, Dorothea Lange. 1936



Cotton pickers 6:30 a.m., Alexander plantation, Pulaski County, Arkansas, Ben Shahn, 1935



Hale County, Alabama , Walker Evans, 1936


Here are some useful Links information on photography and the Great Depression:
Migrant Mother
Hard Times

Documentary Tradition Part I

Photographs are often categorized into different genres: documentary, fine art,and commercial. What makes a photograph a document? What is the difference between a document and piece of art work? Can a document be a piece of artwork? When we elvauate a photograph it can be helpful to ask ourselves the following questions:

• Who took the photograph?
• Why and for whom was the photograph taken?
• How was the photograph taken?
• Does the series or full portfolio explain more than a single print?

The Oxford Encyclopedia of photography defines documentary: "In the broadest sense, all photography not intended purely as a means of artistic expression might be considered ‘documentary’, the photograph a visual document of an event, place, object, or person, providing evidence of a moment in time...Yet the term ‘documentary photography’ has a more specific meaning. The Life Library's Documentary Photography (1972) defined it as ‘a depiction of the real world by a photographer whose intent is to communicate something of importance—to make a comment—that will be understood by the viewer."

We will keep this definition in mind as we look at some early documentary projects. Would you call these photographers Documentarians?

Eugene Atget



Eugene Atget, Lampshade Merchant 1899-1900

Atget captured over 10,000 views of Paris with his large, wooden, glass-plate camera. His aim was to show Paris, an old, historic city which disappearing to modernism. He strived to make photographs of both Paris' architectural details and colorful residents. Although hailed first by the Surrealists as a master artist and later by the MoMA Photo Director John Szarkowski as a photographic genius, Atget, himself, was a business man and a loyal Parisian who mourned the city's transformation.

Edward Curtis