tim_atherton2 Posted June 27, 2003 Share Posted June 27, 2003 Who would be considered to have been as the Modernist photographers? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scott_killian1 Posted June 27, 2003 Share Posted June 27, 2003 Sir Ansel & the F64 gang, Stieglitz, Strand, Weston, etc... Basically the folks who shunned pictoralism (photography imitating painting). We're clearly still in the post- modernist period today (too bad, IMHO). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
walter_glover Posted June 27, 2003 Share Posted June 27, 2003 Tim, Crossing the Atlantic I doubt one can overlook Albert Renger-Patzsch and his objectivity. His tradition continues through the Bechers. Would August Sander have fitted the bill? Possibly. Back in the US I'd suggest that when it comes to the nude Ruth Bernhard may have been at the cutting edge. To be honest, Modernism is a style ideally suited to the powers of photography and I would suggest that despite claiming proveneance in more recent '-isms' many are really still producing Modernism. Thank goodness you didn't ask about deconstructivism. Walter Glover Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
john_kasaian1 Posted June 27, 2003 Share Posted June 27, 2003 Anyone who uses a digital camera? :-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
james_chinn Posted June 28, 2003 Share Posted June 28, 2003 The early modernists came out of the Clarence White School. Best known would be Ralph Steiner, Margret Bourke-White, Laura Gilpin, Paul Outerbridge and Dorethea Lang. A great deal of this work was made in the 20s and predates F64. Strand was influenced by these photographers and at the same time his early studies of abstracts in 1916 helped move White and his teaching away from pictorialism to modernism. Adams credits Strand with opening his eyes to what would become the F64 estetic in 1932. On the East coast the technology for reproducing photographs for publication in magazines arrived around 1920 and fueled the need for a modern realsitic rendering of subjects. One example that most will be familiar with is Typwriter Keys by Ralph Steiner. Made in 1921 it is completely modern by F64 standards yet predates F64 by 11 years. The other fact about the photo many don't realize is that it was made for an advertisement for a ink manufacturer. This evolution was not just occuring in America. The same movement was taking place in Europe at the same time. Adams, Weston, were modernists but it is important to understand who came first. The source for my argument is the book, Pictorialism into Modernism, published by George Eastman House and authored by Bonnie Yochelson and Kathleen A. Irwin. The book accompanied a traveling exhibit by the same name organized the the Detroit Institute of Art in 1996. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tim_atherton2 Posted June 28, 2003 Author Share Posted June 28, 2003 great stuff - thanks. What about the Bauhaus "crucible of modernism" with regard to architecture and art Gropius, Klee, van der Rohe, Corbusier, obviously great effect - but as regards photography? Others in Europe? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
james_chinn Posted June 28, 2003 Share Posted June 28, 2003 The Bauhaus in Germany with Gropius and Nagy in the 20s was a definite influence on their American counterparts. The New Bauhaus and later the Institute of Design in Chicago was a further development and extension of modernism. While White was focused on the application of teaching photography for the world of illustration and advertising, the New Bauhaus/Institute was concerned with teaching and exploring the use of photography as a design tool in and of itself. Nagy would discuss in lectures the ideas of "light in place of pigment", and drawing with light". He was in favor of liberating photography from the world of representational art. Later Nagy was followed by Harry Calahan and Aron Siskind who expanded on using photography's unigue attributes and characteristics as design tools. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nicholas_f._jones Posted July 6, 2003 Share Posted July 6, 2003 Good thread. Antecedents of modernism in photography more complex than I had realized, but that's the way these things usually go. As for whether modernism is still alive in photography, two obvious factors to be considered are (i) b&w versus color; (ii) LF versus some smaller esp. hand-held format. B&w LF, esp. 8x10 or bigger, continues to make the modernist aesthetic attractive in my personal opinion, among other options obviously since b&w periodically is viewed as cool--and who knows when the Big Camera might get funky? James, I'm going to look for that book you mention on pictorialism into modernism. By the way, does anyone know what has happened to the long-ago announced book Defining Modernism: Group f.64 by Susan Ehrens with Deborah Klochko? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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