Corcoran Gallery of Art
Washington, DC
202-639-1700
http://www.corcoran.org
Strange But True: The Arizona
Photographs of Allen Dutton
September 9 - November 13, 2000
In the late 1970s, Allen Dutton bought an
8 x 10-inch view camera and began to systematically photograph the state
of Arizona, from desert to mountain, from suburb to city. The extraordinary
body of work he has created in the intervening years ranks among the most
unusual and interesting documents of America's heartland. Comprising thousands
of images taken over 20 years, Dutton's project offers a poignant chronicle
of the growing American West and reflects changing attitudes toward the
natural world. Organized by independent curator Jane Livingston, Strange
But True: The Arizona Photographs of Allen Dutton features 76 examples
of this work and is on view at the Corcoran Gallery of Art through November
13, 2000. (left: Phoenix, Camelback Mountain, from the Arizona
Then and Now Rephotographic Survey, 1910, gelatin silver print, Courtesy
of the artist (Historic image from a private collection)
"I want to leave as complete a document as I can of
every community in Arizona," Dutton has said. "People don't realize
that the only historical document they will have of the present is what
they preserve today." Long interested in the pioneering survey photography
of William Henry Jackson, Dutton began to research historical photographs
of Arizona from the late 19th and early 20th centuries to see how the land
looked when first populated. Fascinated, he traveled to the same locations
from which the photographers had captured these images, and made new pictures
as close as possible in angle, perspective, and orientation to the earlier
views. Dutton then began to pair these old scenes with his own "re-photographed"
images.
The
resulting visual juxtapositions between past and present yield surprising
revelations about the effects of development and domestication on the wilds
of the American West. Recently, Dutton has begun to re-photograph his own
first views of Arizona from the late 1970s and early 1980s. (left:
Sun City, 9425 Arrowhead Drive, from the Sun City Rephotographic Survey,
May, 1999, gelatin silver print, Courtesy of the artist)
Since the late 1970s, Dutton has also made single straightforward
views of people, their homes and vehicles, and the desert landscapes that
surround them. Traveling the back roads, he sets up his large-format camera
in the bed of his pickup truck, working slowly to compose the scene in front
of his lens. He often poses people before their homes. These images dryly
document man's fragile existence within the harsh climes of the arid Sonoran
Desert. Beyond their informational value as images of the shifting boundaries
between city, suburban development and the untamed desert, they also illuminate,
with great sensitivity, the tenuous relationship between man and nature.
Like many great photographers, Dutton's pictures have the
quality of being both specific and universal. While they are important as
records of the changing face of one state, they convey something more profound
about how urban areas evolve across the United States. Because photography
allows artists to record events and locations in a single slice of time,
the comparison of two detailed images made over a period of decades offers
an extraordinary means of witnessing how development of the land can affect
the lives of its inhabitants. The extraordinary thing about these images
is that they could convey such truth and beauty while being so exact.
According
to exhibition curator Jane Livingston, "Dutton's photographic explorations
of his beloved native Arizona take their place among the finest images produced
in the long tradition of American Western photography. Aside from their
artistry, they constitute what may be a unique record of any place in the
late twentieth century." (left: Sun City, Eva Williamson,
9425 Arrowhead Drive, from the Sun City Rephotographic Survey,
February 1985, gelatin silver print, Courtesy of the artist)
Born in Phoenix in 1922, Dutton served in World War II.
After three years overseas, he returned to Arizona, where he earned a master's
degree in education from Arizona State University and began a career as
a high school art teacher. A painter and sculptor by training, he increasingly
found himself turning to photography as a means of expression, and soon
began to teach the medium as well.
In 1960, Dutton accepted a position at Phoenix College
as a professor of photography. During his 22-year tenure at the College,
he was an influential and beloved mentor to a number of art students, including
future Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer Brian Lanker and famed actor
Nick Nolte. As a photographer, Dutton studied the work of his eminent contemporaries
Edward Weston, Ansel Adams, Frederick Sommer, Aaron Siskind, Garry Winogrand,
and Lee Friedlander.
During the early 1960s, Dutton attended a workshop with
photographer and educator Minor White and became a lifelong student. During
one summer hiatus from teaching, he lived and worked with White in Utah,
absorbing his teachings. White's famous theories of the conscious discovery
and use of symbolism in a photographed scene, and the connection between
nature and spirituality, had a profound effect on Dutton. He decided from
this point forward to make black and white photographs of the strange desert
landscapes of central Arizona.
For several years, Dutton experimented with Surrealist
montages, often posing nudes among unusual cacti formations. He received
his first widespread recognition for these works, exhibiting them throughout
Europe and Japan. But gradually Dutton began to turn toward a more literal
documentation of the Arizona landscape.
The Curator
Jane Livingston, a well-known and respected curator, has
organized and participated in exhibitions across the country at many of
the nation's top museums. Livingston was Chief Curator at the Corcoran Gallery
of Art from 1975-1978, and from 1978-1990 was both the Museum's Chief Curator
and an Associate Director. She has been a Professor of Art History at George
Mason University and a Consultant for Museum and Art Projects for Eastman
Kodak Company. Currently an Adjunct Curator at the Whitney Museum of American
Art in New York, Livingston continues to consult, write, and curate exhibitions.
Exhibition Catalog
A 64-page, fully illustrated catalog accompanies the exhibition.
Featuring an introductory essay by co-curator Jane Livingston and 48 duotone
reproductions, this volume will explore in greater depth the critical significance
of Dutton's work and make explicit his connections to a classic tradition
of documentary photography.
Strange But True: The Arizona Photographs of Allen Dutton is part of an ongoing exhibition series presented through the
generous support of Evelyn Stefansson Nef. This series is intended to highlight
the work of mature artists whose life's work and ongoing achievements merit
greater recognition. Additional support is provided by Anne and Ronald Abramson,
the Greater Phoenix Convention and Visitors Bureau, the Women's Committee
of the Corcoran Gallery of Art, the President's Exhibition Fund, and the
Estate of John M. Clements.
Read more about the Corcoran
Gallery of Art in Resource Library Magazine
Please click on thumbnail images bordered by a red line
to see enlargements.
For further biographical information on selected artists
cited above please see America's Distinguished
Artists, a national registry of historic artists.
This page was originally published in Resource
Library Magazine. Please see Resource Library's Overview section for
more information. rev. 4/6/11
Search Resource
Library for thousands of articles and essays on American art.
Copyright 2011 Traditional Fine Arts Organization, Inc., an Arizona nonprofit corporation. All rights
reserved.
In the late 1970s, Allen Dutton bought an
8 x 10-inch view camera and began to systematically photograph the state
of Arizona, from desert to mountain, from suburb to city. The extraordinary
body of work he has created in the intervening years ranks among the most
unusual and interesting documents of America's heartland. Comprising thousands
of images taken over 20 years, Dutton's project offers a poignant chronicle
of the growing American West and reflects changing attitudes toward the
natural world. Organized by independent curator Jane Livingston, Strange
But True: The Arizona Photographs of Allen Dutton features 76 examples
of this work and is on view at the Corcoran Gallery of Art through November
13, 2000. (left: Phoenix, Camelback Mountain, from the Arizona
Then and Now Rephotographic Survey, 1910, gelatin silver print, Courtesy
of the artist (Historic image from a private collection)
