John Szarkowski
John Szarkowski is a noted contributor to Encyclopaedia Britannica online. Read Britannica's biography of John Szarkowski
John Szarkowski (1925-2007) was an acclaimed photographer, curator, historian, and critic who served as the visionary director of photography at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York from 1962 through 1991 and demonstrated that photography is an art form rather than just a means to document events.
During his tenure at MoMA, Szarkowski curated 160 thought-provoking exhibitions and helped launch the careers of prominent photographers Diane Arbus, William Eggleston, Lee Friedlander, and Garry Winogrand and expand the reputations of Walker Evans and Robert Frank, among others.
photograph: Courtesy of the UW-Madison Archives (#S06908)
Primary Contributions (6)
Ansel Adams was an American artist and one of the 20th century’s most important landscape photographers. He is also among the best-known and most beloved photographers in U.S. history; the popularity of his work has only increased since his death. Adams’s most important work was devoted to what was…
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Publications (6)
John Szarkowski Photographs (February 2005)
- Accompanying the photographs will be excerpts from a life-time's correspondence giving a glimpse of Szarkowski's perspective on life and photography. Curator Sandra Phillips contributes an introductory essay.
- The exhibition will open at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in February 2005 to national fanfare in honor of Szarkowski's 80th birthday, and will travel to the Museum of Modern Art, New York, as well as several other venues into 2006.
- John Szarkowski is the author of many...
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- The exhibition will open at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in February 2005 to national fanfare in honor of Szarkowski's 80th birthday, and will travel to the Museum of Modern Art, New York, as well as several other venues into 2006.
- John Szarkowski is the author of many...
Ansel Adams at 100 (October 2003)
In commemoration of the one-hundredth anniversary of his birth, Ansel Adams at 100 presents an intriguing new look at this distinguished photographer's work. The legendary curator John Szarkowski, director emeritus of the Department of Photography at New York's Museum of Modern Art, has painstakingly selected what he considers Adams' finest work and has attempted to find the single best photographic print of each. Szarkowski writes that "Ansel Adams at 100 is the product of a thorough review of work...
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William Eggleston's Guide (October 2002)
William Eggleston's Guide was the first one-man show of color photographs ever presented at The Museum of Modern Art, New York; it changed the world's perception of color photography forever, and its accompanying catalog is now considered one of the most important American photobooks ever published William Eggleston's Guide was the first one-man show of color photographs ever presented at The Museum of Modern Art, New York, and the Museum's first publication of color photography. The reception was...
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The Idea of Louis Sullivan (2000)
Louis Sullivan (1856-1924) is one of America's most famous and influential architects -- an American Master in the words of John Szarkowski. In 1956, before Szarkowski gained fame as the Director of Photography at the Museum of Modern Art, he was the author/photographer of a book on Sullivan. Published by the University of Minnesota Press. The Idea of Louis Sullivan has long been out-of-print.
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Bulfinch Press has decided to bring this classic book back in print. The photographs have been declared...
Atget (October 2000)
This superbly reproduced volume presents the essence of the work of the great French photographer, Eugène Atget, in one hundred carefully selected photographs. John Szarkowski, an acknowledged master of the art of looking at photographs, explores in this book the unique sensibilities that made Atget one of the greatest artists of the twentieth century and a vital influence on the development of modern and contemporary photography. Szarkowski's eloquent introductory text and commentaries form an extended...
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Looking at Photographs (1980)
Originally published in 1973, this marvelous collection of photographs with accompanying texts by the revered late Museum of Modern Art photography curator John Szarkowski has long been recognized as a classic. Reissued in 1999-with new digital duotones-this volume is now available to a new generation of readers.
"This is a picture book, and its first purpose is to provide the material for simple delectation," says Szarkowski in his introduction to this first survey of The Museum of Modern...
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"This is a picture book, and its first purpose is to provide the material for simple delectation," says Szarkowski in his introduction to this first survey of The Museum of Modern...
