Background
Aaron Siskind was born on December 4, 1903 in New York City, New York, United States.
100 W Mosholu Pkwy S, Bronx, NY 10468, United States
DeWitt Clinton High School
160 Convent Ave, New York, NY 10031, United States
City College of New York
31 Prince St, Rochester, NY 14607, United States
Visual Studies Workshop
2 College St, Providence, RI 02903, United States
Rhode Island School of Design
Aaron Siskind was born on December 4, 1903 in New York City, New York, United States.
Initially, Aaron studied at DeWitt Clinton High School. Later, he enrolled at the City College of New York, graduating with Bachelor of Social Science degree in Literature in 1926.
In 1971, he received Honorary Doctor of Arts degree from Columbia College Chicago.
After finishing studies, Aaron Siskind started to work as a public school English teacher, a post he held until 1930, when he became interested in photography. In 1933, he joined the Film and Photo League in New York, a group of documentary photographers, who devoted their time to improving social conditions in contemporary society through their pictures. In 1941, he left the organization. During that period, Siskind made some of his most successful and well-known documentary photographs, including those for the book "Harlem Document".
After the late 1930's, Siskind concentrated on architectural photography, natural phenomena and still life. Since 1951 to 1971, Aaron held the post of a Professor of Photography at the Institute of Design of the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago. Since 1971, he held the same position at the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence, Rhode Island until his retirement in the late 1970's.
During the period from 1960 to 1970, Aaron served as a co-editor of Choice Magazine.
In 1984, he established the Aaron Siskind Foundation, which was charged with managing his collection of vintage photographs and supporting contemporary photography with its income. The following year, Siskind funded the Aaron Siskind Center for Photography within the Department of Prints, Drawings and Photographs at Rhode Island College of Design.
In his eighties, Siskind remained active, traveling and photographing in Africa, Central and South America and Europe. His photographs are published in several books, including "Places" (1976) and "Road Trip, Photographs 1980-1988" (1989).
New York 2
Utah 84
Gloucester 16A
Uruapan 11
Yuchitan 1
Recife (Olinda) 8
Chicago
Westport 10
New York 40
Vera Cruz 96
Rome, Arch of Constantine 10
Feet 102
New York 24
New York City W 1
Providence 92
New York
Acolman 1
The Tree 35
Perú 400
Chicago 6
Jerome, Arizona
Kentucky 4
Pleasures and Terrors of Levitation - 25
Quotations:
"As soon as I became familiar with the camera, I was intrigued with the possibilities of expression it offered. It was like a discovery for me."
"The business of making a photograph may be said in simple terms to consist of three elements: the objective world (whose permanent condition is change and disorder), the sheet of paper on which the picture will be realized, and the experience that brings them together."
"As the saying goes, we see in terms of our education. We look at the world and see what we have learned to believe is there. We have been conditioned to expect. And indeed it is socially useful that we agree on the function of objects. But, as photographers, we must learn to relax our beliefs. Move on objects with your eye straight on, to the left, around on the right. Watch them grow large as you approach, group and regroup as you shift your position. Relationships gradually emerge and sometimes assert themselves with finality. And that’s your picture."
"In any art, you don’t know in advance what you want to say – it’s revealed to you as you say it. That’s the difference between art and illustration."
"When I make a photograph, I want it to be an altogether new object, complete and self-contained, whose basic condition is order."
"Almost inevitably there are tensions in the picture, tensions between the outside world and the inside world. For me, a successful picture resolves these tensions without eliminating them."
Siskind was a member of New York Photo League.
Aaron married Sidonie Glaller in 1929.