Heckscher Museum of Art
Huntington, Long Island, NY
631-351-3250
www.heckscher.org
Hans Namuth: Portraits
"Hans Namuth: Portraits,"
at the Heckscher Museum of Art from August 19, 2000 through October 29,
2000, includes photographs of icons of 20th-century arts and culture, among
them writers John Steinbeck, Edward Albee, and John O'Hara; architects Philip
Johnson and Mies Van Der Rohe; composers Oscar Hammerstein, Richard Rogers,
and Stephen Sondheim, and painter Jackson Pollock. The exhibition of 75
photographs, taken between 1950 and 1989, was organized by the National
Portrait Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution.
While
Hans Namuth's photographs of Jackson Pollock are probably the best known
of his body of work, the photographer also created perceptive portraits
of many of the leading artists, writers, architects, and composers of his
time. Namuth had a particular affinity for visual artists. His lens often
focused on those working in what was then the new Abstract Expressionist
school: Barnett Newman, Mark Rothko, Willem de Kooning, Robert Motherwell,
Elaine de Kooning, and Lee Krasner; and also on highly individual artists
such as Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg whose work represented the
antithesis of Abstract Expressionism; realist painters such as Edward Hopper
and Ben Shahn; sculptors Isamu Noguchi and Louise Nevelson; and Harlem Renaissance
artist Romare Bearden. (left: Louise Nevelson (1899-1988),
1977, Cibachrome print)
Hans Namuth was born in Germany in 1915. He demonstrated
an early interest in art, music, and literature. Following his arrest in
1833 for distributing anti-Hitler pamphlets, Namuth was spirited out of
the country, arriving in Paris at age 18 where he supported himself in a
variety of jobs. One of his fellow emigres, the photographer Georg Reisner,
taught Namuth the craft that would sustain him the rest of his life. Reisner
and Namuth worked together as photojournalists in Paris and in Spain, during
the Spanish Civil War. In 1941, following a stint with the French Foreign
Legion, Namuth left Europe for the United States where he joined the military
intelligence service. His post-war classes at the New School for Social
brought him back to photography, first in the fashion and advertising worlds,
and then to Jackson Pollock and the work for which he became famous. Namuth
remained active as a photographer until his death in 1990.
As a companion to "Hans Namuth: Portraits," the
Heckscher is offering "Pollock to Wyeth: American Masters", an
exhibition of paintings, prints, and sculpture by some of the famed artists
photographed by Namuth, among them Jackson Pollock, Edward Hopper, Romare
Bearden, Mark Rothko, Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, Isamu Noguchi,
Roy Lichtenstein, Willem de Kooning, and Andrew Wyeth.
Read more in Resource Library
Magazine about the Heckscher Museum
of Art.
Please click on thumbnail images bordered by a red line
to see enlargements.
This page was originally published in Resource
Library Magazine. Please see Resource Library's Overview section for
more information. rev. 3/2/11
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reserved.
While
Hans Namuth's photographs of Jackson Pollock are probably the best known
of his body of work, the photographer also created perceptive portraits
of many of the leading artists, writers, architects, and composers of his
time. Namuth had a particular affinity for visual artists. His lens often
focused on those working in what was then the new Abstract Expressionist
school: Barnett Newman, Mark Rothko, Willem de Kooning, Robert Motherwell,
Elaine de Kooning, and Lee Krasner; and also on highly individual artists
such as Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg whose work represented the
antithesis of Abstract Expressionism; realist painters such as Edward Hopper
and Ben Shahn; sculptors Isamu Noguchi and Louise Nevelson; and Harlem Renaissance
artist Romare Bearden. (left: Louise Nevelson (1899-1988),
1977, Cibachrome print)