John Szarkowski’s Followers (29)

John Szarkowski

Born

in Ashland, WI, The United States

December 18, 1925

Died

July 07, 2007

Genre

Arts & Photography

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John Szarkowski was an American photographer and curator best known for his role as the director of the Museum of Modern Art’s Photography Department from 1962 through 1991. “Photography is the easiest thing in the world if one is willing to accept pictures that are flaccid, limp, bland, banal, indiscriminately informative, and pointless,” he once explained. “But if one insists in a photograph that is both complex and vigorous it is almost impossible.”

Born Thaddeus John Szarkowski on December 18, 1925 in Ashland, WI, he went on receive a degree in art history from the University of Wisconsin, Madison in 1948. After working as a museum photographer at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, he moved to Buffalo to teach photography. The artist ...more

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John Szarkowski’s books

Average rating: 4.19 · 11,415 ratings · 272 reviews · 70 distinct works • Similar authors

	The Photographer's Eye 4.09 avg rating — 4,823 ratings — published 1966 — 12 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Looking at Photographs: 100 Pictures from the Collection of The Museum of Modern Art by John Szarkowski, The Museum of Modern Art 4.30 avg rating — 510 ratings — published 1973 — 8 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Ansel Adams at 100 4.52 avg rating — 424 ratings — published 2001 — 16 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Bellocq: Photographs from Storyville, the Red-Light District of New Orleans by John Szarkowski, Susan Sontag (Introduction), E.J. Bellocq (Photographer) 4.35 avg rating — 171 ratings — published 1970 — 13 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Still Life by John Szarkowski, Irving Penn 4.29 avg rating — 49 ratings — 5 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Mirrors and Windows: American Photography Since 1960. 4.08 avg rating — 49 ratings — published 1978 — 12 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Photography Until Now by John Szarkowski, Richard E. Oldenburg (Foreword) 4.38 avg rating — 39 ratings — published 1990 — 10 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	John Szarkowski: Photographs by John Szarkowski, Sandra S. Phillips (Contributor) 3.91 avg rating — 32 ratings — published 2005 — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Idea of Louis Sullivan 4.17 avg rating — 24 ratings — published 2000 — 8 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Walker Evans 4.52 avg rating — 21 ratings — published 1971	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

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Quotes by John Szarkowski (?)

“There is a terrible truthfulness about photography. The ordinary academician gets hold of a pretty model, paints her as well as he can, calls her Juliet, and puts a nice verse Shakespeare underneath, and the picture is admired beyond measure. The photographer finds the same pretty girl, he dresses her up and photographs her, and calls her Juliet, but somehow it is no good – it is still Miss Wilkins, the model. It is too true to be Juliet.

George Bernard Shaw
Wilson’s Photographic Magazine, LVI, 1909”
― John Szarkowski, The Photographer's Eye

tags: photography, shakespeare

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“Speaking of photography Baudelaire said: "This industry, by invading the territories of art, has become art's most mortal enemy." And in his own terms of reference Baudelaire was half right; certainly the new medium could not satisfy old standards. The photographer must find new ways to make his meaning clear.”
― John Szarkowski, The Photographer's Eye

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“The reason [Ansel Adams] is important to us, as I think he is, is because he was a good artist. On his best days, he was a terrific artist. And he found some way to put together the fragments of the world in a way that transformed them into a picture. In the same way that a poet uses the same dictionaries that the rest of us do—all the words are in there, all the words in the poem are [in the dictionary]. It is just a matter of taking a few of them and putting them in the right order. That’s all there is to it. . . . A good picture does something like that.”
― John Szarkowski

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John Szarkowski’s Followers (29)

John Szarkowski

Combine EditionsJohn Szarkowski’s books

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John Szarkowski’s books