Face to Face

The Philadelphia Museum of Art launches a new exhibition featuring photographs of artists

The Philadelphia Museum of Art launches a new exhibition featuring photographs of artists

During graduate school I had one photograph on my desk. It was a postcard with a black-and-white image of Dylan Thomas, later in life, intertwined in a thicket of branches. I have spent the past 20 some odd years trying to find it again to no avail. There is something about photographs of artists that draws us to them. It’s one thing to have a work of art by a particular artist hanging on the wall, but a photo connects us to the artist when they were in their prime of creating.we see them in situ, typically in their studio, surrounded by all the things that enabled them to bring their art into the world. It’s a moment in time that has become timeless.

The Philadelphia Museum of

Art launched a new exhibition this summer titled Face to Face: Portraits of Artists, which will run concurrently with Modern Times: American Art 19101955, consisting of over 100 such photographic portraits of artists.the exhibition includes photographs of Berenice Abbott, George Biddle, Arthur B. Carles, Jacob Lawrence, Georgia O’keeffe, Alfred Stieglitz, Marcel Duchamp,thomas Eakins and Milton Avery. Some come from the Stieglitz Collection as gifted by the O’keeffe Foundation while others come from the collection of Julien Levy.

“Ranging in date from the late 19th century to the present, the compelling images in Face to Face reveal the expressive ways in which artists have used photography not only to portray their subjects but also to promote or shape their own celebrity,” says the museum. The exhibition also highlights artists who used photography to craft a specific public persona such as Duchamp, Eakins, O’keeffe and Stieglitz.

“Stieglitz and O’keeffe realized the power of photographs to shape their public reputation,” says the museum. “and, over time, were the subject of many portraits. By contrast, most of the images of Kahlo in the Museum’s collection are from a single session with her art dealer and friend Julien Levy, who produced what appears to be a collaborative and intimate exploration of her artistic identity.”

The exhibition is on view until October 14.

Left:Arnold Newman (1918-2006), Jacob Lawrence, 1944. Gelatin silver print, image and sheet: 9 ½ x 4 in., sheet: 169⁄16 x 1311⁄16 in. Philadelphia Museum of Art: Gift of R. Sturgis and Marion B. F. Ingersoll, 1945.

Right:Carl Van Vechten (1880-1964),Ella Fitzgerald, January 19, 1940. Gelatin silver print, image and sheet: 915⁄16 x 715⁄16 in. Philadelphia Museum of Art: Gift of John Mark Lutz, 1965.

Arnold Newman (1918-2006), Milton Avery, 1944. Gelatin silver print, image and sheet: 7⁄ x 9⁄ in., mount:16⁄ x 14 in. Philadelphia Museum of Art: Gift of R. Sturgis and Marion B. F. Ingersoll, 1945.

Arnold Newman (1918-2006), Isamu Noguchi, ca. 1941-45. Gelatin Silver print, image: 7⁄ x 9½ in., sheet: 7⁄ x 10 in., mount (primary): 9 x 11 in., mount (secondary): 16⁄ x 13/ in. Philadelphia Museum of Art: Gift of R. Sturgis and Marion B. F. Ingersoll, 1945.