Henri Cartier-Bresson: Born August 22, 1908

Posted in Artists Born Today Include: by Christy

Henri Cartier-Bresson was born on August 22, 1908 in Chanteloup, France. A pioneer in photojournalism, Cartier-Bresson wandered around the world with his camera, becoming totally immersed in his current environment. Considered one of the major artists of the 20th century, he covered many of the world biggest events from the Spanish Civil War to the French uprisings in 1968.
FROM Henri Cartier-Bresson Biography.com

Henri Cartier-Bresson developed a passion for filmmaking in the 1930’s. He studied cinema with Paul Strand in New York in 1935. When he returned to France, he was hired as the second assistant director to Jean Renoir in 1936 for La vie est à nous and Une partie de campagne, and in 1939 for La Règle du Jeu.
LINK TO Filmography

In 1947, with Robert Capa, George Rodger, David ‘Chim’ Seymour and William Vandivert, he founded Magnum Photos.
LINK TO Henri Cartier-Bresson : French, b. 1908, d. 2004

Henri Cartier-Bresson : Selected Photo Essays

6Aug2016

Andy Warhol: Born August 6, 1928

Posted in Artists Born Today Include: by Christy

Andy Warhol eating a burger from Pedro Treno on Vimeo.

Open Culture: Andy Warhol Eats a Burger King Whopper, and We Watch … and Watch
http://www.openculture.com/2011/06/andy_warhol_eats_a_burger_and_we_watch_and_watch.html

The Andy Warhol Museum~ http://www.warhol.org/
The Andy Warhol Family Album~ http://www.warhola.com/index.html
Figment, a live feed of Warhol’s gravesite~ http://www.warhol.org/figment/

Andy Warhol / Double Hamburger / 1985-86 / Synthetic polymer paint on canvas / 116”x242”

2Aug2016

Auguste Bartholdi: Born on August 2, 1834

Posted in Artists Born Today Include: by Christy

In 1865, a French political intellectual and anti-slavery activist named Edouard de Laboulaye proposed that a statue representing liberty be built for the United States. This monument would honor the United States’ centennial of independence and the friendship with France. French sculptor Auguste Bartholdi supported Laboulaye’s idea and in 1870 began designing the statue of “Liberty Enlightening the World.”
While Bartholdi was designing the Statue, he also took a trip to the United States in 1871. During the trip, Bartholdi selected Bedloe’s Island as the site for the Statue. Although the island was small, it was visible to every ship entering New York Harbor, which Bartholdi viewed as the “gateway to America.”
Creating the Statue of Liberty~ http://www.nps.gov/stli/learn/historyculture/places_creating_statue.htm

Vintage Photos: Construction of the Statue of Liberty in Paris and NYC~
http://untappedcities.com/2013/10/28/vintage-photos-construction-statue-of-liberty-paris-nyc/

Biography of Auguste Bartholdi~ https://www.nga.gov/collection/artist-info.6761.html

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16Jul2016

Charles Sheeler: Born July 16, 1883

Posted in Artists Born Today Include: by Christy

Charles Sheeler (1883–1965)~
http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/shee/hd_shee.htm
Precisionism~ http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/prec/hd_prec.htm
Power / Fortune, December1940~
https://www.fulltable.com/vts/f/fortune/ills/sheeler/b.htm

The American modernist Charles Sheeler (1883–1965) explored the relationships between photography, film, and more traditional media such as painting and drawing with more rigor and intellectual discipline than perhaps any other artist of his generation. As in a well-conceived scientific experiment, Sheeler used his own photographs and film stills as the basis for paintings and drawings, thus crystallizing the differences and similarities between them. Works in one medium manage to function as independent objects while also being inextricably linked to works in other media.Charles Sheeler: Across Media

7Jul2016

Ringo Starr: Born on July 7, 1940

Posted in Other Notable Birthdays by Christy

While some accused Ringo Starr of being a clumsy drummer, many more agreed with George Harrison’s assessment: “Ringo’s the best backbeat in the business.” And while many in the wake of the Beatles’ breakup predicted that Starr would be the one without a solo career, he proved them wrong. Not only has he released several LPs (the first came out before the Beatles disbanded) and hit singles, but he’s also the only Beatle to establish a film-acting career for himself outside of the band’s mid-’60s movies.
http://www.rollingstone.com/music/artists/ringo-starr

Anybody who knows the Beatles’ music intimately knows the tympanic accents and fills as clearly today as when they were recorded: the famous drum roll that launches into “She Loves You”; the shimmering incandescence of his cymbal work on so many of those early hits; the impressionistic free-form of “Rain”; the loping cadence and crispy snare of “Sexy Sadie”; the haunting, almost cinematic drama and rich texture behind “Long, Long”; the building, tour-de-force crescendo that leads up to the “The End” on “Abbey Road.”

“Here’s what I discovered in the very first session that I did with him,” recalls Walsh. “He came in and I said, ‘You want to see a chart on the song?’ And he said, ‘No, give me the lyrics.’ He responds to the singer. A great example of that is when he plays on the Beatles’ ‘Something’ and he does that fill that’s such a musical response it’s almost like a guitar player; there’s notes to it.”
http://variety.com/2014/music/news/ringo-starr-paul-mccartney-beatles-1201073353/

25Jun2016

Photo Essay: “Children of Baltimore” by John Patterson

Posted in Miscellanea by Christy

16Jun2016

Irving Penn: Born June 16, 1917

Posted in Artists Born Today Include: by Christy

The photographer Irving Penn put Marcel Duchamp in a corner, exposed Colette’s forehead and swaddled Rudolf Nureyev’s lithe body in layers of winter clothing. His subjects, who included many of the greatest creative talents of the 20th century, emerged from their portrait sessions with their carefully shaped personas profoundly shaken. Mr. Penn died on Oct. 7, 2009; he was 92.
As one of the 20th century’s most prolific and influential photographers of fashion and the famous, Mr. Penn’s signature blend of classical elegance and cool minimalism was recognizable to magazine readers and museumgoers worldwide.
FROM https://www.nytimes.com/topic/person/irving-penn

Irving Penn Foundation~ https://irvingpenn.org/

Art Institute of Chicago: Irving Penn Archives~ https://archive.artic.edu/irvingpennarchives/overview/

Time Magazine: Appreciation –The Photos of Irving Penn~ http://content.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1929105_1964784,00.html

14Jun2016

Margaret Bourke-White: Born June 14, 1904

Posted in Artists Born Today Include:, Women Artists by Christy

Margaret Bourke-White was a pioneering photojournalist whose insightful pictures of 1930s Russia, German industry, and the impact of the Depression and drought in the American midwest established her reputation…In 1927 she graduated from Cornell University with a degree in biology, but she spent most of her time establishing herself as a professional photographer. Bourke-White opened her first studio in her apartment in Cleveland, Ohio.
FROM http://www.moma.org/interactives/objectphoto/artists/712.html

As an artist, Bourke-White continued to use photography as an instrument to examine social issues from a humanitarian perspective. She witnessed and documented some of the 20th century’s most notable moments, including the liberation of German concentration camps by General Patton in 1945, the release of Mahatma Gandhi from prison in 1946, and the effects of South African labor exploitation in the 1950s. Her career was cut short in 1966 due to Parkinson’s disease, and she died in 1971.
FROM https://www.howardgreenberg.com/artists/margaret-bourke-white

International Photography Hall of Fame and Museum~ https://iphf.org/inductees/margaret-bourke/

LIFE’s First-Ever Cover Story~ http://time.com/3764198/lifes-first-ever-cover-story-building-the-fort-peck-dam-1936/

Shorpy Archives~ http://www.shorpy.com/image/tid/208

11Jun2016

Julia Margaret Cameron~ Born June 11, 1815

Posted in Artists Born Today Include: by Christy

Detail: Painting of Julia Margaret Cameron by George Frederic Watts

Julia Margaret Pattle was born in British India, on June 11, 1815, the daughter of an official in the Bengal Civil Service and a descendant of the French aristocracy. After her early years she received an education in France and England, returning to India in 1834. Four years later, in 1838, she married Charles Hay Cameron, twenty years her senior. In 1848, after Charles retired, he and Julia returned to England where they raised five children, adding a sixth in 1857 when they adopted Mary Ryan. Through Julia’s sister, Sarah Prinsep, the new arrivals cultivated a wide circle of elite, intellectual friends. It is this company of friends, family, and servants that Cameron used as models for her “tableux vivants”.
FROM http://d.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/creator/julia-margaret-cameron

Cameron’s practice of photography began relatively late in her life, at age forty-eight, when her daughter gave her a sliding wooden box camera. Her “very first success in photography” came in January 1864, with a portrait of Annie, daughter of a neighbor.
Cameron used the wet collodion process, making prints with albumen printing-out paper, and worked with large negatives in order to avoid having to enlarge. In 1864 she began to register her work at the British Copyright Office, became a member of the Photographic Society of London and of Scotland, and prepared photographs for exhibition and sale through the London print dealers P. and D. Colnaghi. Most of her work was made between 1864 and 1875, before she left for family coffee plantations in Ceylon.
FROM https://www.icp.org/browse/archive/constituents/julia-margaret-cameron?all/all/all/all/0

From the first moment I handled my lens with a tender ardour,” she wrote, “and it has become to me as a living thing, with voice and memory and creative vigour.” Condemned by some contemporaries for sloppy craftsmanship, she purposely avoided the perfect resolution and minute detail that glass negatives permitted, opting instead for carefully directed light, soft focus, and long exposures that allowed the sitters’ slight movement to register in her pictures, instilling them with an uncommon sense of breath and life. FROM http://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/listings/2013/julia-margaret-cameron

Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History

The Beauty of the Heroine: Julia Margaret Cameron and the Poetic Portrait

Julia Margaret Cameron: soft-focus photographer with an iron will

7Jun2016

Marion Post Wolcott: Born June 7, 1910

Posted in Artists Born Today Include: by Christy

Marion Post Wolcott is best known for the more than 9,000 photographs she produced for the Farm Security Administration (FSA) from 1938 to 1942.1 This work is preserved at the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division and also available online. Before Wolcott became a government photographer, she earned her living making photographs for magazines and newspapers. Initially she worked freelance, but, as a staff photojournalist in 1937 and 1938, Wolcott broke gender barriers in the newspaper darkroom. Then she worked for the Farm Security Administration, one of the largest news photography projects in the world. Although she worked professionally for only a few years, her artistry and perseverance have inspired many articles, books, and exhibitions and her photographs created a lasting record of American life on the eve of World War II.
FROM http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/coll/womphotoj/wolcottessay.html