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View Full Version : f/64 vs. Pictorialism at the CCP, Tucson...



Mark Sawyer
1-Feb-2008, 11:57
At the Center for Creative Photography, Tucson Arizona. I think this will be of interest to more than a few people on this board. Maybe a few will be in town for the lecture, exhibition, or both...

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Center for Creative Photography

Opening Reception and Lecture: Innovation in Pictorialism and Modernism: Anne Brigman, Imogen Cunningham, Alma Lavenson

Friday, February 15, Auditorium

Reception at 5 p.m., lecture at 6 p.m.

Susan Ehrens, noted author, curator, and photography historian, will look at three California women photographers who created significant and unique bodies of work. Assessing their contributions to Pictorialist and Modernist traditions in photography, Ehrens will also examine their relationships to each other and to other members of Group f/64.

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Exhibition: Debating Modern Photography: The Triumph of Group f/64

February 16–May 4, 2008

Debating Modern Photography presents the lively artistic debate that gripped California photographers in the 1930s.

On one side is the Modernist work of Group f/64: powerful images by photographers whose reputations are now established, such as Ansel Adams and Edward Weston.

The other, representing the more popular approach of the time, includes the soft-focus Pictorialist photographs of artists less well-known today, such as Johan Hagemeyer, William Mortensen, and Anne Brigman.

Although the sharp-focus aesthetic of Group f/64 ultimately became the prevailing art-photography style for much of the 20th century, this exhibition returns to the moment when this triumph was not yet assured.

Glenn Thoreson
1-Feb-2008, 12:46
Ah, the debate continues. I have a book from 1889 wherein the same stuff was up for debate. More strongly, I might add. Steichen was quite involved in the issues, as one might expect.

paulr
1-Feb-2008, 14:56
the debate doesn't really continue (both styles are such old news that they've gone in and out of fashion more than once) ...

but it's an interesting part of the history of photography.

Mark Sawyer
1-Feb-2008, 17:36
I agree with both Glenn and Paul, and note that while there are surges of interest in both, there was never really a definative "winner", or even a chance of one, just periods of popularity. We continue the debate even as we work and show that work side-by-side in a very good-natured way every day on this forum.

And I feel as comfortable with a multi-coated plasmat or a Verito on the front of the old 2D, which is, for me, just as it should be...

The CCP's show will be a wonderful chance to see the original prints from leading artists of both persuasions with presumably intelligent modern commentary.