id: 156089
accession number: 1991.328.12
share license status: Copyrighted
url: https://clevelandart.org/art/1991.328.12
updated: 2024-03-26 02:00:12.418000
Portfolio 6: Untitled, 1969. Aaron Siskind (American, 1903–1991). Gelatin silver print; image: 15.6 x 11.5 cm (6 1/8 x 4 1/2 in.); matted: 45.7 x 35.6 cm (18 x 14 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Thomas A. Mann 1991.328.12 © Aaron Siskind Foundation
title: Untitled
title in original language:
series: Portfolio 6
series in original language:
creation date: 1969
creation date earliest: 1969
creation date latest: 1969
current location:
creditline: Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Thomas A. Mann
copyright: © Aaron Siskind Foundation
---
culture: America, 20th century
technique: gelatin silver print
department: Photography
collection: PH - American 1951-Present
type: Portfolio
find spot:
catalogue raisonne:
---
CREATORS
* Aaron Siskind (American, 1903–1991) - artist
Aaron Siskind American, 1903-1991 Born in New York City, Aaron Siskind inspired many photographers through the example of his own work and his instruction at the Institute of Design, Illinois Institute of Technology, and at the Rhode Island School of Design. Graduating from City College of New York in 1926, Siskind taught English in the city's public schools for 23 years. He took up photography as a hobby in 1930 and two years later learned to process and print his own images. Around this time he joined the Photo League, an organization of socially concerned photographers who promoted documentary photography. Siskind headed the league's project focusing on Harlem (Harlem Document) and also produced his own series Tabernacle City, Bucks County and The Most Crowded Block in the World. In the early 1940s, Siskind's work gradually shifted from a social documentary approach to a more abstract and personal style. During summers on Martha's Vineyard and in Gloucester, Massachusetts, he began photographing natural objects close up, eliminating deep, naturalistic space and concentrating on the primacy of the flat, two-dimensional surface of the photograph. As a result of his experiments, he came to be interested in the photograph as a physical object in its own right, rather than as a reflection of the outside world. In 1947 Siskind exhibited his new work at the Egan Gallery in New York, where the paintings of the abstract expressionists were shown. He became friends with painter Franz Kline and other members of his circle and through their support published his first book, Aaron Siskind: Photographs (1959). In the 1950s Siskind also began to establish himself as a photography teacher. He gained his first experience as a part-time instructor at Trenton College (1949-51), then taught during the summer of 1951 at Black Mountain College in North Carolina. There he worked with Harry Callahan, who invited him to join the staff of the Institute of Design in Chicago. Siskind taught at the institute from 1951-71, when he left to join the Rhode Island School of Design where Callahan now headed the department of photography. Siskind continued to teach at the school until his retirement in 1976. Over the years Siskind remained interested in exploring the formal and abstract qualities of photography, becoming known for his closeup, abstracted views of rocks, peeling paint, bits of graffiti, torn signs, and other objects. He exhibited widely, and in 1982 his photographs were featured in a major retrospective, Aaron Siskind: Fifty Years, organized by the Center for Creative Photography, Tucson. M.M.
* Illinois Institute of Technology - publisher
---
measurements: Image: 15.6 x 11.5 cm (6 1/8 x 4 1/2 in.); Matted: 45.7 x 35.6 cm (18 x 14 in.)
state of the work:
edition of the work:
support materials:
inscriptions:
inscription: Written in pencil on recto of mount: "Aaron Siskind [signed]"
translation:
remark:
---
CURRENT EXHIBITIONS
title: Aaron Siskind Photographs
opening date: 1999-07-13T00:00:00
Aaron Siskind Photographs. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (July 13-November 14, 1999).
---
LEGACY EXHIBITIONS
* {'description': 'Cleveland, Ohio: The Cleveland Museum of Art; July 13 - November 14, 1999. "Aaron Siskind Photographs."', 'opening_date': '1999-07-13T00:00:00'}
---
PROVENANCE
Mr. and Mrs. Thomas A. Mann
date:
footnotes:
citations:
The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
date: May 18, 1992
footnotes:
citations:
---
fun fact:
digital description:
wall description:
---
RELATED WORKS
---
CITATIONS
Cleveland Museum of Art, Tom E Hinson. Catalogue of Photography. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1996.
page number: Reproduced: P. 323
url:
---
IMAGES