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- Manuel Alvarez Bravo
- Laughing Mannequins
- 1932
- blending of surrealism and Mexican identity
- framing of photo captures visual poetry of city
- illusion of real women - upsetting expectations
- - many of the faces are the same, no arms, hanging
- tie to the uncanny (Freud) - look like people but they aren't - disorienting
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- Claude Cahun
- Self-Portrait
- 1928
- emphasizes issues of gender and self-representation
- challenges societal expectatiosn of gender roles - male and female elements present
- challenge photography as document - if photograph is "real," we should be able to tell she is female
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- Five Cents a Spot
- Jacob Riis
- 1889
- social reform + photography
- criticism and commentary - illustrates experience of poorest urban dwellers in US
- images are not just documentary - they also have composition, design, etc
- invisible, underground city - multiple layers, back alleys; density of humanity overwhelms viewer
- poor = victims rather than makers of own fate; goes against common knowledge
- thought was that if upper/middle class was shown what was up, they would fix the city
- connects space to frame, enclose/trap figures
- uses flash powder - impt because slums were poorly lit day and night
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- The Steerage
- Alfred Stieglitz
- 1907
- precisionism
- "straight photography" - no manipulation ebcause this looses the natural tone/art of the medium; little to no airbrushing/bluring, etc
- passengers on way back to Europe after being rejected from Ellis Island
- Stieglitz doesn't care; he just saw a picture of shapes and had a feeling about life
- shapes, forms, colors (blacks, whites, shadows)
- no interest in human condition, emotion
- clear distinction between amateur and artist photographer
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- Robert Henri,
- Laughing Child
- 1907
- Ashcan School/The 8
- forthwright expression of painterly freedom
- feathery, lively expressive brushstrokes
- forms Art school - influential teacher
- informal, not necessarily upperclass
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- The Wake of the Ferry II
- John Sloan
- 1907
- Ashcan School
- urban landscape = element
- journalistic eye apparent in composition
- bold brushwork, limited color palette of grays/blacks
- ferry crossing (everyday experience in NY)
- melancholy, loneliness, distance, isolation
- tilted angle of ferry juxtaposed with diagonal line of wake
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- Balzac - The Open Sky
- Edward Steichen
- 1908
- pictorialism
- photo of Rodin sculpture - Rodin considered the piece to be the sum of his whole life
- photo taken at night under moonlight to diffuse light
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- Child in a Carolina Cotton Mill
- Lewis Hine
- 1908
- social reform - belief in the goodness of mankind
- concerned people wouldn't believe his photos
- wanted to show things that needed to be corrected and appreciated
- girl dwarfed by machine she works at
- in center of photo not looking at viewer
- "endless" repetition of windows and machinery
- communicate conditions of child labor 1. booming economy 2. widespread poverty lead to child labors continuation
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- George Bellows
- Cliff Dwellers
- 1913
- muted colors
- Ashcan School
- urban subject of NY - lower class on the lower east side Manhatten (daily life)
- loose brushwork, energetic
- hot sumemr day - too hot to be inside therefore people are driven to the streets
- class difference - lower/working class people are good subjects
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- Church Street El
- Charles Sheeler
- 1920
- trained as photographer; friends with Dada members and Stieglitz
- birds eye view
- elevated rail and subway train
- interested in patterns - geometric abstraction
- cropped
- shifted viewpoint
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- Radiator Building - Night, New York
- Georgia O'Keefe
- 1927
- geometric abstract style - a reaction to people talking about feminine issues in all of her other pieces
- simplification of form, economy of detail, nuanced version of view
- view from her apartment
- engaging with everchanging cityscape - relatively new addition to the skyline when she painted piece
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- The Figure 5 in Gold
- Charles Demuth
- 1928
- precisionism
- American movement
- fascination with machine precision and machines in modern life
- sharp edges
- incorporated spatial discontinuity
- inspired by poem "The Great Figure" by William Carlos Williams
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The Eight
- 1907 National Academy of Design (Philly) rejected 8 artists; they formed their own exposition at Macbeth Gallery in NY in 1908
- Leader: Robert Henri
- diverse styles/subject matters
- only 5 were Ashcan painters
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The Ashcan School
- Realism - larger movement/style
- Name: created by critic in 1930s used to describe NY group of artisits active 1905-1913; favored muted/earthy colors that looked as if they had been scraped from the furnace
- Subjects: everyday objects, scenes, and people
- often focus on lower class or seedy side of urban life
- interested in vitality of city and occupants
- Style: confront society with frank naturalism
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291 Gallery
- Alfred Stieglitz began holding photography exhibitions of NY in 1905
- mixed mediums in displays - shows equality
- obsessed with art as a high form - distinguished between ameteurs and artists
- nucleus for American modernists
- in close contact with artists/art movements in Europe
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How the Other Half Lives
- publication of photojournalism by Jacob Riis
- exposed the slums to middle/upper class in NY
- 1880s
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Camera Work
- published quarterly by Stieglitz from 1903-1917
- independent from conservative influence, it spread photography and art in the US
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Pictorialism
- photography movement 1885-1914
- make connections between traditional art and photography
- emulate painting
- lenses, emulsions, dark room manipulation
- example: Steichen
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Precisionism
- photography movement in the US
- anti-pictorialist
- distinguishes photography from painting because it is in a moment - what is there when you take the picture
- interested in sharp lines and little to no manipulation
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- American Gothic
- Grant Wood
- 1930
- Regionalism
- farmer and his spinster daughter in rural Iowa in front of clean house with vernacular architecture
- gothic windows
- dour expressions give image air of gloominess
- quaint, humerous, hard working, "American"
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- Early Sunday Morning
- Edward Hopper
- 1930
- national mindset of the great depression
- generalized subjects: lonliness and isolation
- scenes are still, muted, filled with empty space
- handling of light: eerie, filtered, dreary light
- Street is completely empty - why? a.) people don't have $$ to spend b.) isolation in the city "alone in a crowd" c.) light pole and fire hydrant are stand ins
- regular repetition
- makes it anonymous - could be mainstreet America anywhere
- individuality vs universality
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- Aspects of Negro Life: From Slavery through Reconstruction
- Aaron Douglas
- 1932
- stretching all the way back to Africa even though many members had never been there
- silhouttes - both individual and universal
- 3 sections read from right to left
- 1. Emancipation Proclamation
- 2. pointing towards capitol building shows strength of black leaders - encouraged people to vote/participate
- 3. KKK - rise of white supremacy groups but they are placed in background
- juxtaposes positive and negative thoughts/events/groups
- elements of nature unify piece
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- The Ballad of the Jealous Lover of Lone Green Valley
- Thomas Hart Benton
- 1934
- Story: the man is convinced his fiance is cheating on him so he kills her. The musicians in the foreground are playing the ballad, telling the story.
- collapses time and space - intense composition with a lot of figures and movement
- swirls of color/line - aesthetic style and moves the viewer's eye through painting
- metaphoric vision of music
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- Migrant Mother
- Dorthea Lange
- 1936
- FSA Project (Farm Security Administration)
- employed by the government - sent out to shoot specific subjects
- reveals more about photographer and audience than subject of work
- specific people in the image were removed because they gave the wrong impression of the family to average America
- religious overtones - the Virgin Mary
- emotion of mother's face - strength/anxiety
- central position of mother, lack of father, direction of gaze, universal symbol
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- Pioneer Days and Early Settlers
- Thomas Hart Benton
- 1936
- in Jefferson City in the state capitol
- part of "A Social History of the State of Missouri"
- primitive agriculture, horse training, lynching, grain elevators, politics, native Americans - the good and the bad of Missouri's history
- 13 panels: 6 history, 2 social, 5 folklore
- complex composition, fluidity of imagery, simplified figures, and rubbery distortion
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- Sharecropper's Family, Hale County Alamaba
- Walker Evans
- 1936
- from book Let Us Now Praise Famous Menphoto turned away from FSA
- emphasizes plight of families in extreme poverty (house = shack) (dirty clothes, no shoes) (care worn faces)
- family was unhappy with the way they were portrayed
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- The Migration Series, Panel No. 1
- Jacob Lawrence
- 1940
- dynamic cubism
- narrative series - story telling through tiles
- causes of migration and problems created by joining new workforce
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- Nighthawks
- Hopper
- 1942
- looks like a film still - time is suspended and motion is stopped
- echos isolation of contemporary urban life
- muted, filled with empty space
- highly vulnerable because of huge window but at the same time they are safe/in a refuge because they are inside
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The Harlem Renaissance
- movement beginning in Harlem, NY
- Great migration of African Americas to northern areas
- big, unified AfAm movement
- any conception of negros had to be created by blacks themselves
- 1920s
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Regionalism
- subset of American scene painting
- American scene: "America painted as America sees itself."
- Regionalism is specifically located in the rural Midwest
- interest in small town, rural life
- America's cultural backbone
- reaction to abstract forms
- reassuring images of America - aka American realism, naturalism
- tighter lines, recognizable subjects
- nostalgic and mythological
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Farm Security Administration photography project
- Federal Arts Project - segment of Work's Progress Administration (WPA)
- New Deal Agency - provided jobs for unemployed public projects
- combat rural poverty
- challenges of rural poverty - photographers/writers documented them
- Roy Strker wanted mainstream America to understand what was going on - created a file for all negatives - which in turn made them universal
-
Let Us Now Praise famous Men
- detailed account of 3 families living in the south in poverty
- photographers and writers were sent by Fortune Magazine
- Walker Evan's photography with James Ag's text
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