Long-ish newsletter for this week comrades, but it’s worth it, trust me. Make yourselves comfortable over a hot chocolate, a snack and some Bach playing in the background ‘cause I’m about to tell you everything that I think know about Modernism, my favourite movement in the history of photography, design, art and architecture.
Introduction
Modernism more than a social and cultural movement, was a collection of ideas that developed in our western world during the early decades of the twentieth century. It is argued that it originated in The Netherlands and Germany and soon expanded to Paris, Prague and Moscow making it all the way to New York as the main hubs where Modernist artists found residence.
This collection of loose ideas proposed values that aligned with a new way of living. Europe was left scarred after a World War and a Revolution in Russia while industrialisation was set to be the way forward. A collective idea that the human spirit could be healed by making new art and design became the philosophy of the time. Ezra Pound’s MAKE IT NEW collection of essays became the motto for the whole modernist movement.
This “Make It New” idea inspired artists around the world to adopt the new technologies as their raison d’etre while departing entirely from the traditional forms for making art.
No other movement has influenced the world we live in today as modernism has. The spaces we live in and work at, our parks and urban areas, music, literature, design, philosophy and of course photography have been influenced in one way or another by modernism.
Photography.
And I have to emphasise photography since it was then, at the beginning of the twentieth century when photography radically evolved thanks to the invention of the Kodak Brownie in 1900 making photography available to the people, not just to those who could afford to pay for a portrait. Later the invention of the 35mm camera in 1921 by Leica, helped established photojournalism and documentary photography as the most important practice in the history of our modern world.
Artistically, the invention of these affordable, portable cameras allowed artists and photographers to experiment with the science and technology of the chemical process. Photography until then was considered something like a cheat for those who lacked the skill to paint a landscape; portraits were only accessible to rich Victorians and European aristocrats. So artists used the modernist ideals to break free from these obsolete standards and show that it can also be considered art. They photograph our every day environment and showed the world the beauty of the mundane.
Socially, photography allowed curiosity to be documented, society until then had their backs turned to the working class. Photographers felt the need to photograph what was like in the slums, factories, farms and hoods where they came from. Editorials like LIFE gave birth to the craft of photojournalism. Industrialisation gave people access to information from all over the world and they were ready to see what life was like in other parts of the world. Photography became a storytelling tool, the photo essay was born thanks to documentary photography and these essays had so much power that in many cases they were used to make reforms and improve people’s lives; photography was then used for social justice, not just status as it was the norm on the nineteenth century. Photography changed the world.
1900 - 1940 Photographers.
Alfred Stieglitz. Not a modernist in a strict sense but he was the bridge between the old and new ways. He’s considered the father of the Photo Secession, the birth of photography as an artistic expression.
Paul Strand. A hardcore modernist who injected psychology into portrait photography.
Lewis W. Hine. A sociologist from NY. In the early 1900s he set to document the poor labour conditions that children suffered in factories. His work as a documentary photographer helped change this situation and get the federal government to regulate and prohibit children to work in factories. You think Salgado is awesome, how’s Hine for social change?
Eugene Atget. Some consider Atget to be the first documentarist who turned his craft into an art form. His observational work on the streets of Paris became a turning point in the history of photography.
Man Ray. Probably the finest example of a modernist. He experimented with light and chemical processes touching subjects of abstraction and Surrealism and even Dada.
Aleksandr Rodchenko. Another photographer who crossed the borders of documentary and art photography as well as painting and design. His photographs were used for soviet propaganda.
Berenice Abbott. American sculptor who took photography when landing in Paris. She became Man Ray’s assistant and soon started experimenting with her own methods; after seeing Eugene Atget’s work, she decided that documenting life was her calling. Her photo essay “Changing New York” became an icon of Modernism in America but to me, her most impressive work is the one she did at MIT in the late 30’s trying to figure out science through photography.
Edward Weston. Known for his peppers he the figure that established photography as an artistic medium. Until then, photography struggled to separate itself from the pictorial stereotypes of a Victorian era. With his peppers, Weston made a statement that photography can also capture the beauty and art in every day objects and that there was skill on doing so.
Collectives:
The f/64. (Ansel Adams, Willard Van Dyke, Imogen Cunningham, Edward Weston, John Paul Edwards, Sonya Noskowiak & Henry Swift). In the U.S. these photographers set to make a point by stating that landscape photography was a valid artistic expression of its own and had nothing to do with painting.
New Objectivity. (Imogen Cunningham, Karl Blossfeldt, Josef Sudek, August Sander, Albert Renger-Patzch). Not a collective as such but a group of German photographers whose work was closer to scientific exploration and direct photography rather than the poetic visuals of expressionism. The movement stopped with the fall of the Weimar and many artists exiled to America.
The FSA. (Dorothea Lange, Marion Post Wolcott, Walker Evans, Gordon Parks, Jack Delano, Russell Lee, Carl Mydans, Arthur Rothstein, John Vachon). Between 1935 and 1944 the Farm Security Administration commissioned these documentary photographers to produce work showing the life and conditions of the Deep South of the United States. The work produced by all these photographers is incredibly powerful!
Lazlo Moholy-Nagy. I don’t know what they put in the water in Hungary but the country, in my opinion produced the finest photographers in the history of the craft! Moholy-Nagy was a Bauhaus teacher who he encouraged his students to experiment with abstraction using different techniques that were never seen before until then.
Dora Maar. An icon of the Surrealist movement. Her work was highly creative and today it is considered a true example of the psychological and metaphysical nature of the art movement. Her biography is quite dramatic.
Henri Cartier-Bresson. My second least favourite photographer just before Martin Parr! …I’m sorry, I had to say it. I do, however respect his work and what he stands for in the history of photography. His work needs no introduction.
Brassai. A documentarist by heart and probably the OG of street photography, yes, even before Cartier-Bresson. His work at night in the streets of Paris became a Modernist icon. He’s also considered to be the father of the photo-essay, he was so good at storytelling that I take his work as an inspiration on how to work on and create photo-essays.
Andre Kertesz. Hungarian, teacher of Cartier-Bresson and Brassi. Master of the masters!
Manuel Alvarez Bravo. One of my favourite photographers and my favourite Mexican photographer. Alvarez Bravo created his own realities from every day scenes of the city and towns he visited. He was the one to introduce Modernist ideals into the art scene in Mexico, especially about surrealism.
Margaret Bourke-White. She had an impeccable technique with the camera. Her vanguardist eye became a reference of the Modernist movement in America. Years later, she became one of the first war photographers for Life Magazine. because of her work inside concentration camps and in Russia, she’s considered one of the finest female photojournalists in history.
Without a doubt, the work produced in the first 4 decades of the twentieth century redefined photography as an artistic expression and as a way to document our every day lives. I don’t think that any other medium or practice has taken so much advantage of the technological developments of its time like photography has, probably design comes close but socially and culturally it doesn’t have the impact and hasn’t contributed to history as much as photography has.
Thank you comrades, for reading.
My pleasure Susanne, hope you discovered someone new,.especially female photographers which are my favourites in Modernism.
That's right Parr and Cartier-Bresson I can't stand! I could write an essay about it but Parr I don't get, I think he has awful taste and I don't get his sense of humour. I find it crungy and tacky. Cartier-Bresson I find it too basic and impersonal.
Really enjoyed the post and photos, Xavi. I disagree with you on HCB and Parr though.