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Thread: Art Sinsabaugh

  1. #11

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    Re: Art Sinsabaugh

    Quote Originally Posted by Oren Grad View Post
    It's been almost 50 years now... yikes! ...but IIRC I first learned of his work from the Life Library of Photography volume "The Print", where he was featured as one of the "Great Printmakers of Today". I still have that volume on my shelf, too.
    I have that volume as well, and while I haven't had my copy for almost 50 years, it isn't that short of it either. Yikes, is right!

    Just had another look at the double page spread with gutter bleed picture. Impressive paper printing reproduction for the technology of the day.

  2. #12
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    Re: Art Sinsabaugh

    Quote Originally Posted by Mick Fagan View Post
    Just had another look at the double page spread with gutter bleed picture. Impressive paper printing reproduction for the technology of the day.
    The distinctive matte-ink-on-glossy-paper look of the original edition of the Life Library can be polarizing. There's something about it that caught my fancy back then and still does all these years later. But I know photographers who strongly dislike it.

  3. #13

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    Re: Art Sinsabaugh

    Oren, I found one of my old screen printing lines per inch transparency checkers, which is a screened line rule unit to ascertain what the screen ruling is on a halftone reproduction.

    I'm getting 250 lines per inch as the halftone reproduction ruling, which for the time was right up there. Most four or five colour stuff back then was topping out around 300 lines per inch, which generally speaking is usually able to be finer than straight B&W screen ruling.

    I'm not a printer (printing press printing) but I worked in a graphic arts place for 15 years where we used reprographic gallery cameras to screen continuous tone photographs for half tone printing. These books are very interesting in that the paper is a gloss (vale coated maybe?) surface, but the photographic plates are matte. Meaning you can see the pictures in the books without overhead lighting reflecting back at you. I would think it was state of the art printing at the time, and for the cost of these books at the time they were released, quite cheap.

  4. #14

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    Re: Art Sinsabaugh

    There was a short film about him: https://www.amazon.com/American-Hori.../dp/B001DRF88S

    I recall seeing the film at a show he had at the Chicago Art Insitute.

  5. #15

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    Re: Art Sinsabaugh

    Wow, a blast from the past!

    I first heard of Art Sinsabaugh when I was visiting Eastman House in 1959. Upstairs in the print room, a gentleman from Chicago was selecting prints for an exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago. He introduced himself as Hugh Edwards, recently assuming the position of Curator of Photography there. He raved about the work of Sinsabaugh, learning of him from Aaron Siskind. He met Sinsabaugh in person the following year, the beginning of a long friendship.

    Sinsabaugh's work was innovative and best judged in the context of the time. When later visiting Hugh Edwards at the AIC in 1963, I was treated to a large exhibition of Art Sinsabaugh's photographs. It was obvious that Hugh's earlier enthusiasm was well-founded. I too, became a fan.

    In the 1960's I participated in several group exhibitions with Sinsabaugh; most notable was "Photography 63/An International Invitational Exhibition" co-sponsored by Eastman House. There is no doubt that the promotion of his work by Hugh Edwards brought Sinsabaugh's work to the attention of a large audience.

    As an aside, Hugh Edwards should be remembered as one of the most distinguished Curators of Photography in this country. Three decades after his death, the Art Institute of Chicago paid tribute to: "The Photographer's Curator"

    https://www.artic.edu/exhibitions/27...cago-1959-1970

  6. #16
    Drew Wiley
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    Re: Art Sinsabaugh

    Richard - yeah, you re-interpreted my meaning correctly. By even further cropping into long strips, and taking advantage of blank skies, he effectively turned banal flatland skylines into detailed silhouette patterns the eye could follow and dance atop visually. Nominal subject content wasn't the idea; and that is why it worked. Or at least that is the impression I personally got viewing a number of his actual prints. The aforementioned book itself, not so much. He was competent relative to his own objective, just like his fellow instructor Harry Callahan; but I wouldn't personally call either of them great printmakers per se. I reserve a rather high bar for that. And the whole ethos of the Art Institute of C. seems to have been to get from Point A to B fast and modern (for that era), without undue fuss; the prototype of Legoland, but with Klee as its city plan commissioner.

  7. #17

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    Re: Art Sinsabaugh

    Thanks for posting - I'd heard his name, but don't know that I'd ever seen any of his images. I like that style. His work reminds me a little bit of a B&W version of "our own" John Sanderson's railroad landscapes.

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