Re: [Leica] Eugene Smith: Photographing the Paradoxes of Pittsburgh

[Guy Bennett <gbennett@lainet.com>]

These are some of WES's most compelling photographs, IMHO. I much prefer
them - and the project itself - to his big photo essays ("Country Doctor,"
"Spanish Village," "Nurse Midwife"), wonderful though they are.

Now, if only someone would only put together an exhibit or intelligent book
of his "As from My Window I Sometimes Glance" and "The Loft from Inside
In," I would be a happy man.

Guy


P.S. Pray for a catalogue!


>Thought some of you would find this interesting
>Chuck
>
>
> Photographing the Paradoxes of Pittsburgh
>> IN 1948, an international poll named W. Eugene Smith one
>> of the
>> world's 10 greatest photographers. He had already taken
>> what he
>> considered "the finest set of photographs I have ever
>> produced,
>> quality and quantity": his pictures of Pittsburgh. The
>> Pittsburgh
>> commission called for 100-plus photographs; Smith worked
>> for more
>> than three years, went heavily into debt, produced at
>> least 11,000
>> negatives and ultimately proposed a magazine essay of
>> approximately
>> 200 images.
>>
>>  No magazine had that kind of space, even had this
>> ever-intransigent photographer not demanded total control
>> over
>> layout and text. The essay has never been seen the way he
>> wanted
>> it, but the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh will now
>> try. From
>> Nov. 3 through Feb. 10, the museum will present "Dream
>> Street: W.
>> Eugene Smith's Pittsburgh Photographs," 195 works that
>> the guest
>> curator, Sam Stephenson, has identified as Smith's
>> choices.
>>
>>  Some of his most famous images are here. "Dance of the
>> Flaming
>> Coke" is a contemporary version of the fierce beauties of
>> Hades,
>> where a man in front of a sheet of flame spars with a
>> snarling
>> fire. In "Pride Street," a teenage boy has hoisted
>> himself up and
>> curled his body around the hopefully named street sign.
>> The rest is
>> Smith's attempt to record the paradoxes of city life in
>> America ó
>> the clutch of industry, the dogged persistence of both
>> community
>> and loneliness, the forces of love, hate, growth and
>> decay. Not
>> even the venerated master of photojournalists could quite
>> pull this
>> off, but Smith's obsessiveness was harnessed to an
>> enormous talent,
>> and he wasn't far from the mark when he wrote that his
>> essay would
>> "create history."
>>
>>  The show, organized by Linda Batis, associate curator of
>> fine arts
>> at the Carnegie, will travel to New York and Tucson next
>> year and
>> is accompanied by a book by the same name from W. W.
>> Norton.ÝÝ
>>
>>
>http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/09/arts/design/09GOLD.html?ex=1001050511&ei=1&en
>=b4674c4508911344
>
>
>
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