160 Convent Ave, New York, NY 10031, United States
City College of New York where Garry Winogrand studied from 1947 to 1948.
Gallery of Garry Winogrand
72 5th Ave, New York, NY 10011, United States
The modern University Center of the New School where Garry Winogrand took photography classes of Alexey Brodovitch from 1949 to 1951.
Gallery of Garry Winogrand
116th St & Broadway, New York, NY 10027, United States
The Library of the Columbia University where Garry Winogrand studied painting in 1948.
Career
Gallery of Garry Winogrand
1967
New York City, New York, United States
Garry Winogrand on 5th Avenue, New York City, 1967. Photo by Jonathan Brand
Gallery of Garry Winogrand
Garry Winogrand
Achievements
1955
The iconic image of Marilyn Monroe in a flying up white dress made by Winogrand when the actress was at the set of the movie The Seven Year Itch in 1955.
The iconic image of Marilyn Monroe in a flying up white dress made by Winogrand when the actress was at the set of the movie The Seven Year Itch in 1955.
(It is a distillation of a photographic project begun by G...)
It is a distillation of a photographic project begun by Garry Winogrand in 1969 when he was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship to photograph what he called "the effect of media on events."
Garry Winogrand was an American street photographer. He was known as the one who showed the American life and culture of the middle of the 20th century. He created his black-and-white photos primarily on the streets of New York City capturing spontaneous moments of stranger’s everyday life which reflected the social issues, revolutionary sentiments, and other perturbations of the time.
Background
Ethnicity:
Garry Winogrand's parents came to the United States from Budapest and Warsaw right before the Great Depression.
Garry Winogrand was born on January 14, 1928, in New York City, New York, United States. He was a son of Abraham Winogrand, a leather worker in the garment industry, and Bertha Winogrand who fabricated neckties.
Garry had a sister named Stella.
Education
Garry Winogrand spent his childhood along with his sister Stella in a working-class area of the Bronx in New York City. He was fascinated by art since his early years, so the decision where to go to receive an education was quite simple and evident.
Winogrand finished high school in 1946, and then, after one year of military service, he studied at the City College of New York till 1948. That year, Winogrand moved to Columbia University where he studied painting. It was there where Winogrand discovered photography for the first time due to the school newspaper’s photographer, George Zimbel who showed him the 24-hour darkroom. It was love at first sight and for the entire life. Zimbel and Winogrand established “Midnight to Dawn” club.
From 1949 to 1951, Winogrand also took photojournalism classes of Alexey Brodovitch at the New School for Social Research (currently the New School). Brodovitch who was head of the art department of Harper's Bazaar, inspired his students to place their instincts and emotions in the first place while taking photos rather than science and methodical techniques.
The beginning of Garry Winogrand’s career can be counted from the military service he completed from 1946 to 1947 in the United States Army Air Force. After, he supported himself for a while as a photojournalist and advertising photographer selling photos to such periodicals as Harper's Bazaar, Sports Illustrated and Life Magazine, one of the most important publications of the time. From 1952 to 1954, he collaborated with PIX Publishing agency (doesn’t exist nowadays) in Manhattan on an introduction from Ed Feingersh.
In 1955, a couple of his works was featured at the popular photo show of the time at the Museum of Modern Art called ‘The Family of Man’. The debut solo exhibition of his photos was organized four years later at Image Gallery.
The next decade, Winogrand developed a strong interest in the black and white photography by Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Frank, and Walker Evans. After discovering Evans’s book ‘American Photographs’, he made a decision to set up his own path to the field. Along with his contemporaries, Joel Meyerowitz, Tod Papageorge, and Diane Arbus, he moved to the streets of New York with his Leica camera and a wide-angle lens, and began to take photos of its everyday life with ardency always capturing different people – women, children, businessmen, political activists – and showing their emotions in a variety of situations.
Winogrand sold his first pictures to the Museum of Modern Art in New York City in 1960. It was the curator of photography, Edward Steichen, who paid ten dollars for each photo. Three years later, one of the important exhibitions for Winogrand took place at Five Unrelated Photographers at the Museum. His works were shown at a group exhibition along with the art of Minor White, George Krause, Jerome Liebling, and Ken Heyman. The event was followed by another group shows, 1966 ‘Toward a Social Landscape’ at the George Eastman House and 1967 ‘New Documents’ at MoMA in New York.
The latter boosted Winogrand’s career as a photographer. Soon after the show, in 1969, he had his first solo exhibition at MoMA called ‘The Animals’. The photos he had taken at the Bronx Zoo and the Coney Island Aquarium explored the interactions between humans and animals. Many of the pictures were included in the same-title photo book published the same year. He also received the Guggenheim Fellowship which allowed him to concentrate on another subject, in particular, “the influence of media on events.”
Since then, Garry Winogrand photographed at public events focusing on people’s emotions to them rather than to situations themselves. In 1977, many photos of the series which counted in total 6,500 prints were gathered in his next photo book ‘Public Relations’. Another series of the period which pushed the growth of Winogrand's popularity and was included in a 1975 book became ‘Women Are Beautiful’ reflecting the events of feminist revolution and expressing the author’s interest to the female form.
In the 1970s, Winogrand abandoned commercial photography and earned his living through teaching. In 1971, he relocated to Chicago and joined the staff of the IIT Institute of Design at the Illinois Institute of Technology where he taught till 1972. The following year, the photographer moved to Texas where he worked as a teacher at the University of Texas at Austin till 1978. Then, he settled down in Los Angeles.
Since then, using his third Guggenheim Fellowship, Winogrand has traveled throughout the south and west of the country exploring the social tensions of the time. In 1980, he issued a book titled ‘Stock Photographs’. The volume included the shots which demonstrated the human relationships and their attitude toward animals.
(This is the 1969 first edition of this classic Winogrand ...)
1969
photography
Untitled, from 'Women are Beautiful'
Untitled, from 'Women are Beautiful'
New York
Los Angeles, California
San Marcos, Texas
Peace Demonstration, Central Park, New York
Dwight Eisenhower-Richard Nixon Press Conference
Untitled
Diane Arbus, "Love-In", Central Park, New York City
Coney Island, New York
Copenhagen, Denmark
The Zoo, New York City (walrus)
Marilyn Monroe, New York
New York
Women, Beverly Hills, California
Untitled
New York
Stork Club
Houson
Untitled, from 'Women are Beautiful'
World's Fair, New York City
Columbia University Student Amelia Rechel Handing Out Anti-Vietnam War Literature at Information Table on Campus
New York City
Central Park Zoo, New York
New York City
John F. Kennedy, Democratic National Convention
Opening, Frank Stella Exhibition, The Museum of Modern Art, New York
New York City
Albuquerque
El Morocco, New York
Hand Feeding Elephant Trunk, Zoo
New York
New York City
Fort Worth
Views
Garry Winogrand didn’t like the notion ‘street photographer’ because he thought it expressed nothing about what his work really was.
Quotations:
"Life is banal. The artist deals in banality."
"Art is not a matter of industrial efficiency."
"No moment is most important. Any moment can be something."
"Sometimes photographers mistake emotion for what makes a great street photograph."
"All a photograph ever does is describe light on surface. That's all there ever is. And that's all we ever know of anybody – what we see."
"Every photograph is a battle of form versus content. The good ones are on the border of failure."
"Photography is not about the thing photographed. It is about how that thing looks photographed."
"When I photograph I see life. That's what I deal with."
"You could say that I'm a student of photography – and I am – but really I'm a student of America."
"My intention is to make interesting photos."
"Sometimes I feel like... the world is a place I bought a ticket to. It's a big show for me, as if it wouldn't happen if I wasn't there with a camera."
Personality
On the opinion of John Szarkowski, photography curator, historian, and critic, Garry Winogrand was the central photographer of his generation. Frank Van Riper, a documentary and fine art photographer and author, characterized Winogrand as “one of the greatest documentary photographers of his era” but noted that he was “a bluntspoken, sweet-natured native New Yorker, who had the voice of a Bronx cabbie and the intensity of a pig hunting truffles.”
According to one of ex-wives of Garry Winogrand, Adrienne Lubeau many of his “colleagues, students and friends” described him as “an almost obsessive picture-taking machine.”
Quotes from others about the person
"For those of us interested in street photography there are a few names that stand out and one of those is Garry Winogrand, whose pictures of New York in the 1960s are a photographic lesson in every frame." Phil Coomes, Picture Editor and Photographer for the BBC News
"In the 1960s and 70s, he [Winogrand] defined street photography as an attitude as well as a style – and it has laboured in his shadow ever since, so definitive are his photographs of New York." Sean O'Haganm journalist, critic and writer for The Guardian and The Observer
"Being married to Garry was like being married to a lens." Adrienne Lubeau, Winogrand's ex-wife
Interests
Artists
Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Frank, Walker Evans
Connections
Garry Winogrand was married three times.
His first wife became Adrienne Lubeau in 1958. They had one daughter Laurie and a son Ethan. Adrienne and Garry broke up in 1963 and divorced three years later.
In 1967, Winogrand married Judy Teller with whom he had lived for one year.
The third and last wife of the photographer was Eileen Adele Hale whom he formed a family with in 1972. Eileen and Garry had a daughter named Melissa.
Father:
Abraham Winogrand
Mother:
Bertha Winogrand
Sister:
Stella Winogrand
ex-wife:
Adrienne Lubeau
ex-wife:
Judy Teller
Wife:
Eileen Adele Hale
Daughter:
Laurie Winogrand
Son:
Ethan Winogrand
Daughter:
Melissa Winogrand
Friend:
Alexey Brodovitch
References
The Street Philosophy of Garry Winogrand
Modeled on John Szarkowski’s classic book Atget, The Street Philosophy of Garry Winogrand is a masterfully curated selection of one hundred photographs from the Winogrand archive at the Center for Creative Photography, with each image accompanied by an original essay
2018
Garry Winogrand: All Things are Photographable
The documentary examines Winogrand's work including the thousands of rolls of film still undeveloped upon his death in 1984. What emerges is a controversial yet undeniable influence on contemporary image making.