Category Archives: Photography

July 17

New York Through the Lens of Berenice Abbott

posted by

On the 17th of July 1898, American photographer Berenice Abbott was born in Springfield, Ohio. In 1918, she came to New York to study journalism. But her interest soon turned to sculpture. Disappointed with the commercial approach prevalent in American at the time, she decided to go to Europe. “I was scared of New York,” […]

»»
July 13

Piero Manzoni: Scatology and Art

posted by

On the 13th of July 1933, Italian conceptual artist Piero Manzoni was born in Soncino Cremona, Italy. Called, by some, the enfant prodige of Italian art in the late 1950s and early 60s, Manzoni became most famous for a series of artworks that dealt with the presence of the artist’s character and physiology in art. […]

»»
July 05

Chuck Close: The Master of Photorealism

posted by

On the 5th of July 1940, American painter Chuck Close, broadly known for his photorealist portraits,  was born in Monroe, Washington. His adventures in Photorealism began in the late 1960s when he started using photography to help him paint large-scale portraits, mostly in acrylic. The artist method consists of applying a grid on the photo and on the canvas and […]

»»
July 04

Alice in Wonderland and Photography

posted by

On the 4th of July 1865, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland was published in London. Written by Victorian author Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (1832-1898) under the pseudonym Lewis Carroll, author, mathematician and Oxford don, this fantasy novel has since made him famous all over the world. Less known is the fact that Dodgson was also an avid […]

»»
June 29

James Van Der Zee: Life and Death in Harlem

posted by

On the 29th of June 1886, the largely self-taught African American photographer James Van Der Zee was born in Lenox, Massachusetts. He became the leading photographer of the Harlem Renaissance, also known as the New Negro Movement or the New Negro Renaissance – the cultural movement that spanned the 1920s. The term New Negro was […]

»»
June 24

Imogen Cunningham’s Sensual Photography

posted by

On the 24th of June 1976, American photographer Imogen Cunningham died in San Francisco, California at the grand age of 93. Best known for her portraits, nudes and images of plant life, Cunningham started her studies at the University of Washington in Seattle. “Her earliest prints were made in the tradition of Pictorialism, a style of […]

»»
June 21

Jacqueline Livingston: Male Nudity Against the System

posted by

On the 21st of June 2013, American photographer Jacqueline Louise Livingston (nèe Barrett) died in Ithaca, New York. Born in August 1943, Jacqueline Louise Barrrett, grew up in Chandler, Arizona, where her father worked on the Air Force base as chief of the Fire Dept. He died when she was 12 years old, leaving her […]

»»
June 18

Modernism Uncut: Marianne Brandt’s Photomontages

posted by

On the 18th of June 1983, German artist Marianne Brandt died in Kirchberg, Saxony at the age of 89. She was a complex multi-media artist and designer nowadays best remembered for creating metallic household objects such as lamps, ashtrays and teapots which are at the forefront of modern industrial design. Starting with 1926, Brandt also […]

»»
May 18

Through the Female Lens: Gertrude Käsebier’s Indians

posted by

On the 18th of May 1852, leading American pictorialist photographer Gertrude Käsebier was born in Des Moines, Iowa. Artistically trained at the Pratt Institute, then in France and Germany, she started off as a magazine photo-illustrator, opening her own portrait studio on Fifth Avenue in New York at the end of the 19th century. Her […]

»»
January 15

Mathew Brady: The American Civil War Photographer

posted by

On the 15th of January 1896, Mathew Brady died in the charity ward of the Presbyterian Hospital in New York City. He was one of the most prolific American photographers at the time, yet he died in poverty and in a state of deep depression brought on him by the project he is nowadays most […]

»»