One Hundred
The Howard Greenberg Gallery in Newyork City celebrates the 100th birthday of Arnold Newman with a new exhibition of his work from the 1930s through the 1990s
“My work is an expression of myself. It reflects me, my fascination with people, the physical world around us, and the exciting medium in which I work. I do not claim that my way is the best or the only way, it is simply my way. It is an expression of myself, of the way I think and feel.” —Arnold Newman, A Life in Photography
Through June 30
Howard Greenberg Gallery 41 E. 57th Street
New York, NY 10022 t: (212) 334-0010 www.howardgreenberg.com
During his nearly 60year photographic career Arnold Newman shot such personalities as Georgia O’keeffe, Isamu Noguchi, Marcel Duchamp, David Hockney and Jean Dubuffet. Newman was discovered by Alfred Stieglitz and Beaumont Newhall (Museum of Modern Art) and was given his first exhibition at the A.D. Gallery in September of 1941. “Arnold Newman conceived a new vocabulary for photographic portraiture,” says Gregory Heisler, professor of photography at Syracuse University.“it is difficult today to truly appreciate the magnitude of his breakthrough. Before Arnold’s arrival, the photographic portrait was generally a box with somebody in the center.arnold used what was around him to create visually complex, spatially intriguing portraits that has a psychological dimension. He didn’t just show the environment, he actively employed it for its narrative power.” Heisler wrote the introduction to Arnold Newman: One Hundred, which will be published this year by Radius Books. Along with the book, the Howard Greenberg Gallery in Newyork City will celebrate Newman’s 100th birthday with an exhibition of 45 works culled from his entire career.the exhibition will include rarely seen images as well as some of Newman’s most famous prints.and, for the first time, the gallery will also include early work consisting of collages, still lifes and other graphic images dating back to the 1940s and ’50s.
According to the gallery, Newman
“is generally acknowledged as the pioneer of the environmental portrait. He spent time exploring the essence of his subjects, finding the best environment to express who they were, and integrating them with their work into compositions that referenced the work.”
Newman’s 1946 portrait of Stieglitz and O’keeffe is now part of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s permanent collection. One of his most famous portraits also was done in 1946 and depicts composer Igor Stravinsky at his piano, head resting on his raised hand completely overshadowed by the geometric form of the musical instrument.