Greatest Photographers of the 20th century. Based on a study by David Galenson (2009) NBER.

1. Greatest
Photographers Of The
Twentieth Century

2. How do you define
Great
Photographers

3. SKILLFUL.

4. SKILLFUL. INFLUENTIAL.

5. SKILLFUL. INFLUENTIAL. REMARKABLE.

6. me?

7. Eugène Atget
February 12, 1857 – August 4, 1927
French photographer noted for
his photographs documenting
the architecture and street
scenes of Paris.

8. He was more interested in the dark
and sooty corners of the old city.

9. Photographs

17. Where Did
The People
Go?

18. Atget
prefers to work
early in the
morning

19. Giving many of the
images a feeling of
silence and
timelessness.

20. He produced
no single famous
Photograph
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21. Made thousands of images that
recreate the visual past of a great city.

22. My work was physically demanding as my old
bellows camera, with its glass plates, and a
wooden tripod, weighed more than forty
pounds!

23. I offered to lend him a little
Rolleiflex, but he refused.

24. Man Ray
August 27, 1890– November 18, 1976
An American artist who spent
most of his career in Paris, France.

25. Dada and Surrealist movements’
Significant contributor

26. Dada
Anti-war.
Anti-bourgeois.
Anarchist in nature

27. Surrealism
Surprise.
Unexpected juxtapositions.
Non sequitur.

28. In 1999, ARTnews magazine
named him one of the
25 most influential
artists of the 20th
century.

29. Photographs

32. Photogram

34. He never fully abandoned painting though
portrait photography
provided him with both financial
support and celebrity status

35. When asked by people if
he quitted one art for
another
… during his time

36. “There was no conflict between the two –
why couldn’t people accept the idea that
one might engage in two activities in his
lifetime, alternately or simultaneously?”

37. So you have to thank this man
for making PHOTOGRAPHY
an accepted ART FORM.

38. Alfred Stieglitz
January 1, 1864 - July 13, 1946
American photographer &
modern art promoter

39. He was…
Experimental

40. Experimental
Technical

41. Experimental
Technical
A Photography Crusader

42. “Stieglitz does not, like his Parisian contemporary, Atget,
range the city from morning to night, deliberately
composing a documentary history of its life, after the fashion
of Zola. He not merely observes: he waits, he eliminates; he
selects.”
- Lewis Mumford, critic

47. Georgia O'Keeffe, wife

48. Georgia O'Keeffe, wife

49. 8 of 9 highest prices ever
paid at auction for Stieglitz
photographs are images of
Georgia O'Keeffe
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52. Like the Chinese proverb,
ONE PICTURE IS
WORTH TEN
THOUSAND WORDS

53. Walker Evans
November 3, 1903 – April 10, 1975
American photographer
Best known for his work for the
Farm Security Administration
documenting the effects of the
Great Depression.

54. His goal as a photographer was
to make pictures that are:
literate
authoritative
transcendent

55. Photographs

62. Walker Evans was a writer in Time and Editor
in Fortune magazine.

63. In 2000, Evans was inducted into the
St. Louis Walk of Fame
---

64. Cindy Sherman
January 19, 1954 - Present
American photographer and
film director well-known for
her conceptual portraits

65. As a child, she loved to play
dress-up, using old clothes
she had inherited from her
grandmother.
She also loved to draw, and
she practiced by studying
her own face.

66. Year after she graduated from
college, she began to make the
series of 69 photographs,
(Untitled Film Stills
recognized as --
“one of the landmarks of late-
twentieth-century art.”

67. Photographs

70. And much more…

73. Sherman’s contribution is conceptual
“She has reclaimed the oldest trick in the
book, storytelling, and given it new life
in visual art.” - Calvin Tomkins
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74. Stieglitz, Evans, and Atget were experimental
artists who were committed to realism

75. Man Ray and Sherman were conceptual
innovators who constructed images to
express their ideas

76. I might say that I possess all of Old Paris.
- Eugène Atget, 1920
I want to be contradictory and irrational.
- Man Ray, 1966
Photography is my passion. The search for Truth my obsession.
- Alfred Stieglitz, 1921
It is reality that photography reaches toward.
- Walker Evans, 1969
[T]he one thing I’ve always known is that the camera lies.
- Cindy Sherman, 1987

77. The Greatest Photographers
of the
Past Century
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78. On determining the greatest…
This was based on the study by
David Galenson (2009).
NATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH
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79. Slide Source
1-8, 20-23, 42, 74, 77-78 http://www.atgetphotography.com/The-Photographers/Eugene-Atget.html
9 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Atget_organ_grinder.jpg
10 http://hopeugeneatget.wordpress.com/2010/05/23/10
13 http://www.flickr.com/photos/estetica_fotografica/2756041561
17-19 http://www.leninimports.com/eugene_atget.html
12 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Atget_-_Avenue_des_Gobelins.jpg
12 http://carabinieres.wordpress.com/inspiration
14 http://www.masters-of-photography.com/A/atget/atget_prostitute_full.html
15 http://lauralerner.com/photographers.html
1-6, 38-42, 50-52, 74, 77-78 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Alfred_Stieglitz.jpg
47 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Stieglitz_okeeffe_1918_Corrected.jpg
43 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:The_Steerage_1907_Stieglitz.jpg
43 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Stieglitz-SpringShowers.jpg
45 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Stieglitz-GoingtotheStart.jpg
48-49 http://www.vam.ac.uk/images/image/4108-popup.html
44 http://www.sfmoma.org/artwork/13810
46 http://s564.photobucket.com/albums/ss90/toastfm/prophotographers/?action=view&current=AlfredStieglitz.jpg&&newest=1
1-6, 23-28, 34-36, 75, 77-78 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Man_Ray_1934.jpg
33 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:ManRayMisunderstood.jpg
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80. Slide Source
33 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:ManRayANightAtSaintJean.jpg
32 http://www.burnaway.org/2008/10/the-rayograph
29 http://www.dailyartfixx.com/2010/08/27/man-ray-1890-1976
30 http://www.dailyartfixx.com/2010/08/27/man-ray-1890-1976
31 http://www.dailyartfixx.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/veiled-erotic-meret-oppenheim-man-ray-1933.jpg
1-6, 53-54, 62-63, 74 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Walker_Evans_1937-02.jpg
55 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Frame_house_Charleston_Walker_Evans.jpg
57 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Allie_Mae_Burroughs_print.jpg
61 http://www.newpartisan.com/tradanon
58 http://www.shorpy.com/node/1921?size=_original
59 http://www.flickr.com/photos/pingnews/2116470695/in/set-72157600163848756
56 http://www.flickr.com/photos/pingnews/290586561/sizes/z/in/set-72157600163848756
60 http://www.flickr.com/photos/pingnews/472004201/sizes/m/in/set-72157600163848756
1-6, 64-66, 75, 77-78 http://artmarketingsecrets.com/2008/04/cindy-sherman-art-quote-of-the-week.html
68 http://www.cindysherman.com/art.shtml
71 http://www.cindysherman.com/art.shtml
67 http://www.arthistoryarchive.com/arthistory/photography/Cindy-Shermans-Photography.html
72 http://www.arthistoryarchive.com/arthistory/photography/Cindy-Shermans-Photography.html
66 http://www.cindysherman.com/art.shtml
69 http://www.cindysherman.com/images/photographs/Untitled93.jpg
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