Photography - History, Criticism, & Collections

Arnold Newman

Name: Arnold Newman
Author: Philip Brookman
ISBN: 9783822825921

by Philip Brookman

Write a review

Overview

Piet Mondrian behind his easel, Igor Stravinsky at his piano, Max Ernst sitting smoking on his throne-like chair: Arnold Newman's photographs are classics of portraiture. His subtle arrangements constituted the foundations of "environmental portraiture." His photographs integrate the respective artist's characteristic equipment and surroundings, thus indicating his or her field of activity. The enormous fame of Newman's portraits can be ascribed to their daring compositions and sometimes astounding spatial structures. The photographer's beginnings, on the other hand, were none too promising. During the Great Depression Newman had to abandon his art studies for financial reasons. Between 1938 and 1942 he concentrated on socio-documentary photography in the ghettos of West Palm Beach, Philadelphia, and Baltimore. One might think that being forced to earn his living in a photography studio would have stifled his artistic potential: Newman portrayed up to 70 clients a day. Yet he still succeeded in developing a very personal touch and establishing himself in the New York art scene of the early 1940s. His subjects included Max Ernst, Marcel Duchamp, Marc Chagall, Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning and Alexander Calder. With his unmistakable style, Newman became the star photographer of artists, writers and musicians.

Reviews

There are no reviews yet. Log in to write one.

Editorials

Library Journal

At 82 and still actively involved in a career that has spanned 60 years, Arnold Newman has photographed many of the 20th century's leading political and cultural figures. His approach to portraiture has been to place subjects within their working or natural environments to better distinguish their personalities and creative abilities. Thus, we see artists in their studios, writers at their desks, composers seated at pianos, and presidents and prime ministers in stately settings. His images of John F. Kennedy, Harry Truman, Igor Stravinsky, Pablo Picasso, Piet Mondrian, Eleanor Roosevelt, Arthur Miller, and Lillian Hellman, among others, are often what come to mind when we think of these famous people. This book is compiled as part of Taschen's lavish, large-format series on prominent photographers (e.g., August Sander, LJ 7/99) and released as the catalog for a retrospective at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. It contains introductory essays by Newman and by Philip Brookman, curator and organizer of the exhibition, and features over 200 full-page black-and-white and color plates, supplemented with a detailed chronology. Well worth considering, even if your library does own pictures of many of Newman's subjects.--Joan Levin, MLS, Chicago Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.\

David Kaufman

What is most striking about the celebrity portraits that Arnold Newman photographed for Life, Look and other magazines is their elegant simplicity... Recent photos of Woody Allen and President Clinton testify that Newman has lost none of his skill for apprehending an inner mood with an outer expression.
—The New York Times Book Review

Svetkey

There are lots of famous faces in this handsome collection of (mostly) portraits culled from Newman's 60-plus-year career behind the camera. But what makes this LIFE and Look contributor a truly great photographer is that even his most familiar subjects—from Eisenhower to Clinton, from Monroe to Adenauer—look eerily unfamiliar when captured by his lens...virtually every photo offers an illuminating surprise.
—Entertainment Weekly