Background
Barbara Bachmann Crane was born in 1928 in Chicago, Illinois, United States.
(In the early 1980s, Barbara Crane embarked on a series of...)
In the early 1980s, Barbara Crane embarked on a series of photographs shot during Chicago's various summer festivals. Using a Super Speed Graphic camera and Polaroid film, Crane waded in close to the revelers, tracking down the details of their clothing, hairstyles and gestures.
https://www.amazon.com/Barbara-Crane-Private-Views/dp/1597110965/?tag=2022091-20
(Barbara Crane’s subjects are commonplace: a piece of drif...)
Barbara Crane’s subjects are commonplace: a piece of driftwood, a cluster of wild mushrooms, a crowd of commuters rushing for the train. The resulting photographs, however, are far from ordinary. They are imaginative, peculiar, jarring, and, like their creator, defy easy explanation. For more than sixty years, Crane has forged her own path as a photographer. Lacking a darkroom, she began using Polaroid materials. Lacking suitable models, she paid her children to pose. Barbara Crane: Challenging Vision celebrates this Chicagoan’s wide-ranging art with a gorgeous collection of more than 250 color and black and white photographs.
https://www.amazon.com/Barbara-Crane-Challenging-Vision/dp/093890342X/?tag=2022091-20
Barbara Bachmann Crane was born in 1928 in Chicago, Illinois, United States.
Barbara Crane began her studies in art history at Mills College in Oakland, California in 1945. She transferred to New York University in 1948. In 1950, she received her Bachelor of Arts in art history from New York University. After recommencing her career in photography, Barbara Crane showed a portfolio of her work to Aaron Siskind in 1964 and was admitted to the Graduate Program in Photography at the Institute of Design at the Illinois Institute of Technology. She then studied under Siskind at the Institute of Design, Illinois Institute of Technology, and received her Master of Science from the Institute in 1966.
Working as a freelance commercial photographer off and on since 1960, Crane was also employed as an educator. Since 1967 she has taught at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and has been employed as a visiting artist in photography at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts of Boston (1979), a visiting lecturer in the history of photography at Tufts University Medford, Massachusetts (1979), a visiting professor of photography at Philadelphia College of Art (1977) and a lecturer in the history of photography at Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago (1969).
(Barbara Crane’s subjects are commonplace: a piece of drif...)
(In the early 1980s, Barbara Crane embarked on a series of...)
Barbara Crane has been a trustee of Friends of Photography in Carmel, California, since 1975 and is a member of VSW, Rochester. From 1972 to 1976 she was a board member of the Society for Photographic Education.
Quotes from others about the person
Naomi Rosenblum notes that Crane: "pioneered the use of repetition to convey the mechanical character of much of contemporary life, even in its recreational aspects."