He was born to an affluent family in Warsaw in 1911 and given the name Dawid Szymin. His father, Benjamin, was a publisher of books in Hebrew and Yiddish. The family fled Warsaw after the city was bombed at the beginning of the First World … Keep readingDavid Seymour (CHIM)
I’m not an aficionado of landscape photography. I suppose that’s not entirely true. I like to look at landscape photography. I find it visually appealing, but for me the appeal rarely expands beyond the eye. Part of that, I suspect, is because modern visual media … Keep readingOlaf Otto Becker
She was born Gerta Pohorylle on 1 August, 1910 to a proper upper middle class Jewish family in Stuttgart, Germany. For most of her life, she lived a proper upper middle class life: a good education in Leipzig and at a Swiss boarding school, elegant … Keep readingGerda Taro
Over the last year and a half, in the course of preparing these salon discussions, I’ve done quite a bit of research on a lot of photographers. Not surprisingly, a lot of the same names kept turning up when those photographers discussed their influences. They’re … Keep readingEvelyn Hofer
In the middle of the 17th century the Dutch Republic gained its independence from Spain. The Dutch quickly became a major seafaring and economic power, the first thoroughly capitalist country in the world, and one of the most innovative centers of culture. A new European … Keep readingHellen van Meene
He was born Gyula Halász in the ancient Transylvanian city of Brassó. In 1902, his family moved to Paris for a year (his father, a professor of literature, had a one year lectureship at the Sorbonne). Given that he was only three years old at … Keep readingBrassaï
Miroslav Tichý was 22 years — a student of drawing and painting at the Academy of Art in Prague — when the Soviet Union ‘annexed’ Czechoslovakia in 1948. Like many other students, Tichý was very vocal in his opposition to the new regime. The new Soviet … Keep readingMiroslav Tichý
We are accustomed to seeing–and shooting–photographs OF something. Some person, some object, some thing. In fact, for most of us the subject of the photograph is also the reason for the photograph. We shoot photographs OF a tree, OF a friend, OF a kitten or … Keep readingUta Barth
“Perhaps it’s good for one to suffer,” said Aldous Huxley. He asked “Can an artist do anything if he’s happy? Would he ever want to do anything? What is art, after all, but a protest against the horrible inclemency of life?“ I can’t entirely agree … Keep readingUrsula Sokolowska
Robin Rhode is a smart-ass. One of those young street-punk kids who wants to take on the Art World and kick it in the cojones. And sometimes he really does it; sometimes he seriously lays one right in the goolies (and I’ll give an example … Keep readingRobin Rhode