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Houston--John Szarkowksi: Photographs, the first public retrospective of the influential curator and critic's work, concludes its five-venue run at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, from June 18-September 10, 2006. Szarkowski (b. 1925) interrupted his photography career to serve as director of the department of photography at the Museum of Modern Art in New York from 1962 to 1991 and produced 160 exhibitions during his tenure. When he retired, he returned to photography full time. This exhibition, on view in the Millennium Gallery of the Audrey Jones Beck Building, 5601 Main Street, presents 48 of Szarkowski's early works, pictures of the Midwest dating from 1943 until he accepted the MoMA post, and 28 later photographs made around his farm in upstate New York.
"John Szarkowski's graceful photographs of urban and rural landscapes capture a sense of history and place with great humility," said Peter C. Marzio, MFAH director. "This exhibition recognizes the extraordinary quality of his work and acknowledges his contribution to the art of photography."
Though Szarkowski's photographs vary in subject and date, the tonally rich black-and-white prints present a consistent vision. His respect for the people and the places he photographs is evident, as is his eye for detail and composition. He finds meaning in scenes often overlooked in everyday life.
Szarkowski's particular talent is in seeing "the plain beauty of things," according to Sandra S. Phillips, senior curator of photography at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, which organized the exhibition. Szarkowski's photographs, Phillips writes in an essay in the exhibition catalogue, "persuade us of the pleasure of opening the back door and walking into the garden, that grace is available if we look for it in the yard or the overgrown field."
"Each of these photographs projects an intimacy and familiarity that compel the viewer to want to know the rest of the story," says Anne Wilkes Tucker, the Gus and Lyndall Wortham Curator of Photography at the MFAH, who is directing the exhibition in Houston. "It's remarkable to see the continuity in the work Szarkowski created as a young man and the pictures he has taken since resuming his photography career, as if thirty years were long night's sleep from which he awoke refreshed and perhaps a bit more reflective and definitely informed by those years of looking and thinking about the work of other masters."
Szarkowski captures emotion in photographs with and without people. In Schoolhouse, Town of Lincoln, Bayfield County, Wisconsin (1949), the derelict structure evokes a certain sadness in its loss of purpose. Mr. Anderson and son, near Sandstone, Minnesota (1957) captures a farmer and his son in worn work clothes against the backdrop of a corncrib. They appear comfortable with themselves and with the idea of taking a moment to pause for a portrait. An animated discussion between two businessmen is the focus of Old Stock Exchange, Traders (1954). Sarah Lake (1962) is a peaceful, impressionistic image of the shimmering body of water near Szarkowski's New York home. In Winesap from Barn (1997), Szarkowski frames a fruit tree in a barn door, so that it looks like a painting or perhaps shares the point of view of the fruit picker taking respite from the midday sun in the barn's dark interior.
Szarkowski was born and raised in Ashland, Wisconsin, and became interested in photography as a child. He pursued it formally at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, where he earned a degree in art history. Walker Evans, Edward Weston, and Ansel Adams influenced his perspective on photography, but he also was profoundly affected by the abstract expressionist paintings he was exposed to in his first job as photographer for the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. The work he produced during his first year in Minneapolis shows a dramatic shift in how he looked at space and forms as a result.
After three years at the Walker Art Center, where he had his first exhibition in 1949, Szarkowski joined the staff of the Albright Art School in Buffalo, New York. Shortly after that, he began to photograph Louis Sullivan's Prudential (Guaranty) Building, and developed an idea for a book that would employ photography as a form of criticism. He received a Guggenheim fellowship for the Sullivan project and published The Idea of Louis Sullivan in 1956.
In 1958, the year he returned to live in Wisconsin, he published a second book, The Face of Minnesota, commissioned by the state to honor its centennial. He had a solo exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1960 and received a second Guggenheim fellowship in 1961 for another book project about the Quetico-Superior area between northern Minnesota and Canada. Later that year, he was offered the position at MoMA, where he succeeded Edward Steichen. After his retirement, he published his third photographic book, Mr. Bristol's Barn, in which his photographs are accompanied by entries from a 19th-century farmer's diary.
MFAH Corollary Exhibition
Complementing the show is a corollary exhibition in Millennium Corridor of photographs by photographers whose works were curated by Szarkowski while he was at MoMA. The MFAH's Tucker selected the works by such artists as DianeArbus, William Eggleston, Irving Penn, Lee Friedlander, and Garry Winogrand from the museum's permanent collection.
Lecture
Szarkowski will present an artist's talk at 6:30 p.m. on Monday, June 19, in the museum's Brown Auditorium Theater on the lower level of the Caroline Wiess Law Building, 1001 Bissonnet Street. The lecture, Photographer John Szarkowski on How to be a Photographer, is free and open to the public. A book signing and a reception to meet the speaker follow the lecture.
Organizer
John Szarkowski: Photographs is organized by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. In Houston, Anne Tucker, the Gus and Lyndall Wortham Curator of Photography, is in charge of the show.
Sponsors
Generous funding for the exhibition in Houston is provided by Pace/MacGill, Manfred Heiting, and Hans P. Kraus, Jr.
Catalogue
Accompanying the exhibition is a fully illustrated book of the same title, published by Bulfinch Press. The 156-page volume features an introductory essay by Sandra S. Phillips, SFMOMA's senior curator of photography, excerpts from Szarkowski's personal correspondence, and 84 tri-tone photographs. The book is available in hardcover for $60 at the MFAH Shops, 713-639-7360.
Tour Schedule
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, February 5 – May 15, 2005
Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona, June 11 – September 5, 2005
Milwaukee Art Museum, September 30, 2005 – January 1, 2006
Museum of Modern Art, New York, February 1 – April 30, 2006
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, June 18 – September 10, 2006
MFAH Hours and Admission
The Audrey Jones Beck Building is at 5601 Main Street. The museum is open to the public Tuesday and Wednesday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m.; Thursday, 10 a.m.-9 p.m., Friday and Saturday, 10 a.m.-7 p.m.; and Sunday from 12:15-7 p.m. The museum is closed on Monday, except for holidays. General admission is $7 for adults and $3.50 for children 6-18, students, and senior adults (65+); admission is free for museum members, Glassell School students, and children 5 and under. Admission is free on Thursday, courtesy of Shell Oil Company Foundation. Admission also is free on Saturday and Sunday for children 18 and under with a Houston Public Library Power Card or a Harris County Public Library Card. For more information, call 713-639-7300. For information in Spanish, call 713-639-7379. TDD/TYY for the hearing impaired, call 713-639-7390. For membership information, call 713-639-7550 or e-mail membership@mfah.org.
MFAH Parking
The museum's parking garage is in the MFAH Visitors Center, located at 5600 Fannin Street at Binz Street (entrance on Binz). Free parking is available in two lots on Main Street, at Bissonnet and at Oakdale.
Cafe Express-Museum
Cafe Express-Museum offers convenient dining in the Beck Building of the MFAH. Hours are Tuesday and Wednesday, 11 a.m.-5 p.m., Thursday, 11 a.m.-9 p.m., and Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, 11 a.m.-7 p.m.
MFAH Collections
Founded in 1900, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston is the largest art museum in America south of Chicago, west of Washington, D.C., and east of Los Angeles. The encyclopedic collection of the MFAH numbers more than 51,000 works and embraces the art of antiquity to the present. Featured are the finest artistic examples of the major civilizations of Europe, Asia, North and South America, and Africa. Italian Renaissance paintings, French Impressionist works, photographs, American and European decorative arts, African and Pre-Columbian gold, American art, and European and American paintings and sculpture from post-1945 are particularly strong holdings.
MFAH Campus
The MFAH collections are presented in six locations that make up the institutional complex. Together, these facilities provide a total of 300,000 square feet of space dedicated to the display of art. The MFAH comprises:
* Two major museum buildings: the Caroline Wiess Law Building, designed by Mies van der Rohe, and the Audrey Jones Beck Building, designed by Rafael Moneo
* Two facilities for the Glassell School of Art: one with studio spaces for children and another with studio spaces for adults
* Two house museums that exhibit decorative arts: Bayou Bend Collection and Gardens features American works, Rienzi features European works
* The Lillie and Hugh Roy Cullen Sculpture Garden, created by Isamu Noguchi
General Information: For information, the public may call 713-639-7300, or visit www.mfah.org. For information in Spanish, call 713-639-7379.
Media Information Only: Frances Carter Stephens, Lynn Feuerbach, Carol Walker, Megan Whitenton,
713-639-7540; mfahpr@mfah.org
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