previous artist
Arnold Newman
Arnold Newman (1918 – 2006)
Arnold Abner Newman was an American photographer, noted for his environmental portraits of artists and politicians. He was also known for his carefully composed abstract still life images. Arnold Newman found his vision in the empathy he felt for artists and their work. Although he photographed many personalities, Marlene Dietrich, John F. Kennedy, Harry S. Truman, Piet Mondrian, Pablo Picasso, Arthur Miller, Marilyn Monroe, Ronald Reagan, Mickey Mantle, and Audrey Hepburn he maintained that even if the subject is not known, or is already forgotten, the photograph itself must still excite and interest the viewer.
Newman is often credited with being the first photographer to use so-called environmental portraiture, in which the photographer places the subject in a carefully controlled setting to capture the essence of the individual’s life and work. Newman normally captured his subjects in their most familiar surroundings with representative visual elements showing their professions and personalities. A musician for instance might be photographed in their recording studio or on stage, a Senator or other politician in their office or a representative building. Using a large-format camera and tripod, he worked to record every detail of a scene.
“I didn’t just want to make a photograph with some things in the background,” Newman told American Photo magazine in an interview. “The surroundings had to add to the composition and the understanding of the person. No matter who the subject was, it had to be an interesting photograph. Just to simply do a portrait of a famous person doesn’t mean a thing.”
Newman’s best-known images were in black and white, although he often photographed in color. His black and white portrait of Igor Stravinsky seated at a grand piano became his signature image, even though it was rejected by the magazine that gave the assignment to Newman. He was one of the few photographers allowed to make a portrait of the famously camera-shy Henri Cartier-Bresson.
The work of Arnold Newman is featured in these exhibitions.
(Select the image to view the exhibition page)
Music To My Eyes
Images of Achievement
Arnold Newman . . . . . . The Early Work
Southern Heritage – Preview
Peter Sekaer – In Context
Street Talk
The work of Arnold Newman is featured in these Theme Collections.
(Select the image to view the theme page)
Artists
Musicians
Portraiture – Male
Portraiture – Female
American South
Historical
Signage
High Museum of Art, Hill Auditorium
Gregory Heisler, former Newman assistant shared his insight to the photography of Arnold Newman. Heisler, is a New York-based photographer who is renowned for his technical mastery and thoughtful responsiveness. It has been said that he combines “the eye of an artist, the mind of a scientist, and the heart of a journalist.” He is perhaps best known for his more than seventy TIME magazine cover portraits. As a sought-after speaker and educator, Gregory has taught at the International Center of Photography, the New School for Social Research, The School of Visual Arts (Master of Fine Arts Program), Parsons School of Design, The Smithsonian Institution (Masters of Still Photography Series), and the National Geographic Society, as well as scores of workshops and seminars throughout the country and overseas.
Arnold Newman portrait of Igor Stravinsky
Celebrating the 140th Birthday of Igor Stravinsky
When I think of Stravinsky, my first thought is not about his music, it is an “image” that comes to mind. The iconic and powerful portrait by Arnold Newman. This article from NPR (from 2013) on the eve of the 100th anniversary of the “Rite Of Spring” provided thought provoking insight into Igor Stravinsky’s pivotal place in the history of classical musical.
Follow this link to hear the 7 minute segment on the NPR web Site.
Also worth a read is the account of the riot which occurred at the debut of the work on May 29th, 1913, at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris. “As the ballet progressed, so did the audience’s discomfort…”
Igor Stravinsky, New York, NY, 1960, © Arnold Newman
Greg Heisler – from the Lumiére lecture at the High Museum on October 8, 2008.
Additional comments can be found on the Lumiere Facebook Page..
Lumière at the Decorators' Show House
Show House Details:
April 17 – May 9, 2010
3639 Tuxedo Road
Atlanta, GA 30305
Complete information at:
Decorators’ Show House Web Site
Lumière is proud to participate in this, the 40th year of the Atlanta Symphony Associates Decorators’ Show House and Gardens. Working with Peace Design and Summerour Interiors, we are pleased to provide exceptional photography to enhance their extraordinary interior design.
Yvonne McFadden of Summerour interiors utilized two of Bob Kolbrener’s commanding landscapes in the “Young Gentleman’s Bedroom”.
Bill Peace and Hillary Linthicum of Peace Designs are working with the environmental portraiture of Arnold Newman and classic images from Alexander Rodchenko in the “Library”.
We encourage you to visit the Decorators’ Show House & Gardens before it closes on May 9, 2010. This year’s house showcases 28 of the finest interior and landscape designers in the Southeast at “Giverny” in a magnificent estate home with over four acres of spectacular gardens. It is one of the longest running show houses in the country. All proceeds benefit the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra’s Learning Community.
AJC, Portrait Photographer Remembered For His Street Work
Below is an excerpt of a review from the Atlanta Journal and Constitution.
To read the entire review please access the AJC web site.
DATE: May 23, 2008
PUBLICATION: Atlanta Journal-Constitution
BYLINE: Lisa Kurzner
TITLE: Portrait Photographer Remembered For His Street Work
EXHIBITION : “Arnold Newman: The Early Work”
BOTTOM LINE: A fine opportunity to view vintage and modern prints of little-known work — street still lifes — by the portrait photographer Arnold Newman.
Known primarily as a portrait photographer famous for his “environmental portraits” of artists and society luminaries, in his early years Arnold Newman (1918-2006) also created a large body of photography of a more private nature.
These are mostly outdoor still-life images, formalist studies of light, shadow and textures, many devoid of people. They demonstrate Newman’s understanding of the most advanced European and American techniques as he trained his eye outside the studio.
Recently, “Arnold Newman: The Early Work” (Steidl), which features these images, was published. To celebrate, Lumiere Gallery has mounted a show, the first dedicated to Newman’s early work outside New York.
Forced to find employment after high school during the Depression, Newman took a job in a photography studio, learning the trade he would make his life’s work. Later, moving between Baltimore, Philadelphia and West Palm Beach, he took his medium-format camera and tripod into forgotten neighborhoods.
The results, collected in this exhibition, suggest that Newman had more on his mind than social documentation, a resonant theme of much urban photography of the era. He had absorbed lessons from avant garde painting as well as photography.
“Violin Maker’s Patterns” (Philadelphia, 1941) takes up one of the French modernists’ favorite subjects. For both Cubists and the Surrealists, the sinuous forms of the violin invoked the female form, and here Newman plays with positive and negative, collage and texture in a beautifully printed, sophisticated composition.
In another image, “Chairs on Porch” (West Palm Beach, 1941), Newman harnesses the sunlight and shadows into a meditation on form and structure as only photography can. Shadows cast from the vertical porch balustrade onto the clapboard wall of the house establish a relationship between the solid wooden posts and elusive shadows, bringing the two in equal balance.
To put Newman’s work in context, the show pulls in portrait and street work by other photographers working at the same time, including John Gutmann, Paul Strand and Helen Levitt. While Newman made social pictures too, these are his most derivative works.
The final gallery includes some of his wonderful portraits, including those of Frank Stella and Marilyn Monroe.
