
International Art | Sculpture
Satyr with wineskin cast 19th century
after UNKNOWN ROMAN
International Art | Sculpture
Satyr with wineskin cast 19th century
after UNKNOWN ROMAN
International Art | Painting
The prodigal son c.1780-1840
UNKNOWN
International Art | Sculpture
Spinario cast late 19th century
after School of PASITELES
Asian Art | Print
Courtesans (reprint) unknown
after EISEN
Asian Art | Sculpture
Flying horse of Kansu cast 1973
after EASTERN HAN ARTIST
International Art | Sculpture
Bust of Niccolo da Uzzano unknown
after DONATELLO
International Art | Sculpture
Borghese warrior 19th century
after AGASIUS THE EPHESIAN
Pacific Art | Fibre
Jipai (mask) 2011
AFEX, Ben
International Art | Glass
Decanter c.1875-1900
AESTHETIC STYLE
International Art | Glass
Vase c.1880-1900
AESTHETIC STYLE
International Art | Glass
Vase c.1880-1900
AESTHETIC STYLE
Contemporary Australian Art | Installation
Blackboards with pendulums 1992
KENNEDY, Peter
International Art | Drawing
Design
ADAM, Sicander
International Art | Metalwork
Tea urn c.1770-1800
ADAM STYLE
International Art | Ceramic
Long necked vase c.1900-50
ACOMO PUEBLO
Pacific Art | Photograph
'Te Waiherehere', Koroniti, Wanganui River, 29 May 1986 1986, printed 1997
ABERHART, Laurence
Pacific Art | Photograph
Nature morte (silence), Savage Club, Wanganui, 20 February 1986 1986, printed 1999
ABERHART, Laurence
Pacific Art | Photograph
Angel over Whangape Harbour, Northland, 6 May 1982 1982, printed 1991
ABERHART, Laurence
Australian Art | Drawing
A memory of Gumeracha (study of flies) 1908
HEYSEN, Hans
Pacific Art | Print
The boxer 2009
ABEL, Patrik
By Sally Foster
Artlines | 4-2013 | Publisher: QAGOMA | Editor: Stephanie Kennard
The photographs taken by New York photographer Marvin Newman (b.1927) in the 1950s that make up the series ‘Coney Island’ 1953 and ‘Wall Street’ 1956 appear as if they were a sequence of film stills shot on location during the making of an ambiguous film noir. Taken in the bright glare of the late afternoon sun, the Coney Island images show figures loitering or passing in front of otherwise deserted amusement stalls in the shabby laneways near the Brooklyn neighbourhood’s waterfront, while the photographs taken on Wall Street capture anonymous businessmen emerging from and receding into the shadows of the iconic Lower Manhattan location. Shot on 35mm Kodachrome colour slide film — which produced a distinct, subtle colour tone — and made using only the available natural light, Newman’s street photography was groundbreaking for the era.
Marvin Newman studied at Brooklyn College with documentary photographers Walter Rosenblum (1919–2006) and Berenice Abbott (1898–1991) before undertaking a master’s degree with modern art photographers Harry Callahan (1912–99) and Aaron Siskind (1903–91) at the Institute of Design in Chicago in 1949–52. While completing his master’s thesis, Newman developed his interest in the idea of the photographic series, a theme that he would reiterate throughout his career. Following his return to New York, in 1953 Newman was included in ‘Always the Young Strangers’, an exhibition of emerging photographers held at the Museum of Modern Art. In the press release for the exhibition, which describes Newman as exploring through his work the ‘fantastic shadows of people on the street’,1 the exhibition’s curator Edward Steichen observed:
'The refusal of the preceding decade to be bound to any group or "ism" still holds: however, the dominant tendency of the great majority of our young photographers today is towards photo-journalism.'2
From the 1930s, documentary and photojournalism had come to define much of the most progressive international modern art photography. In New York, the presence of the editorial offices of new, influential, illustrated magazines was fundamental in shaping the city’s cultural and creative climate, creating a unique environment for the development of a New York school of photography. Photojournalism became a way of life for many of the most prominent street photographers working in New York in the 1940s and 50s, and Newman was among a number to work independently on such projects while receiving commercial commissions.
Reflecting, perhaps, the influence of the magazine editorial format on his fine art practice, Newman created series of small sequences of images, suggestive of carefully constructed but undefined narratives — not common practice among street photographers of the period, who tended to make ongoing series extending over many years. With only a small group of photographers using colour film for non-commercial work in the 1950s, colour remained at the margins of modern art photography until the arrival of photographers such as William Eggleston (b.1939) and Stephen Shore (b.1947) in the 1970s. In recent years, there has been a reassessment of early colour street photography, pioneered by photographers such as Newman in the 1950s.
Endnotes