Looking Through the Lens at iconic photography
The rooms are loosely divided by themes like modernism and surrealism, though you could see many of the artists pieces in two different categories. A series of dark black and white prints by Paul Strand anchored the modernism section which also included Edward Weston's "Pepper." Some Dadaists also made there way into the modernism category, most notably Aleksander Rodchenko and Vinicio Paladini, with collages that married geometrical shapes and photographs.
Portraits were not confined to one "-ism" but rather dispersed throughout. Max Burchartz's "Lotte's Eye," Edward Steichen's portraits of Greta Garbo and an aging Charlie Chaplin playfully "shooting" his iconic bowler hat with his equally notable cane, and Man Ray's film noir pieces of circus folk and Marcel Duchamp were some of the more memorable ones. A large chunk of the exhibit was dedicated to Man Ray and includes some of his famous pieces like "Tears," which is currently stretched across Charles Street on the BMA banner, and "Le Violon d'Ingres" which is a woman with a violin's f-holes painted or tattooed on her back. Tom McAvoy's shots for Life magazine are a little too candid to be portraits but masterfully capture an inebriated President Franklin Roosevelt at a dinner party. Weegee's "The Critic," which shows two bejeweled society women smiling for the camera as a homeless woman confronts them, could be called a portrait of society and offers some comic relief in a collection that is often laden with disparate themes, as the time period calls for.
The Surrealism section could be characterized by the distinctive overlapping negatives like in Imogen Cunningham's "Mount Hamilton Observatory," but one photo stood out among them as my personal favorite. It was Salvador Dalí's and Horst P. Horst's "Dreams of Venus." A photograph of Horst's paired with Dalí's ink embellishments turned a statuesque photo of a woman into a graceful, cinematic sea creature. It is collaboration at its best.
The end of the exhibit moves from urban shots of America and Europe to rural United States during the depression. Dorothea Lange's heartbreaking shots are paired side-by-side with Marion Post Wolcott's, while Ansel Adams's landscapes hold down their own wall.
The exhibit ends with a salute to American life and a series of still lives. It's a quaint end to an impressive and moving exhibit. Photography is probably the best way to capture the six decades that the collection encompasses because it was a time of unimaginable change and circumstances. Only a picture can capture the truth in a face, a landscape or portrait; after two world wars, a depression and numerous revolutions, the truth was in high demand.
Portraits were not confined to one "-ism" but rather dispersed throughout. Max Burchartz's "Lotte's Eye," Edward Steichen's portraits of Greta Garbo and an aging Charlie Chaplin playfully "shooting" his iconic bowler hat with his equally notable cane, and Man Ray's film noir pieces of circus folk and Marcel Duchamp were some of the more memorable ones. A large chunk of the exhibit was dedicated to Man Ray and includes some of his famous pieces like "Tears," which is currently stretched across Charles Street on the BMA banner, and "Le Violon d'Ingres" which is a woman with a violin's f-holes painted or tattooed on her back. Tom McAvoy's shots for Life magazine are a little too candid to be portraits but masterfully capture an inebriated President Franklin Roosevelt at a dinner party. Weegee's "The Critic," which shows two bejeweled society women smiling for the camera as a homeless woman confronts them, could be called a portrait of society and offers some comic relief in a collection that is often laden with disparate themes, as the time period calls for.
The Surrealism section could be characterized by the distinctive overlapping negatives like in Imogen Cunningham's "Mount Hamilton Observatory," but one photo stood out among them as my personal favorite. It was Salvador Dalí's and Horst P. Horst's "Dreams of Venus." A photograph of Horst's paired with Dalí's ink embellishments turned a statuesque photo of a woman into a graceful, cinematic sea creature. It is collaboration at its best.
The end of the exhibit moves from urban shots of America and Europe to rural United States during the depression. Dorothea Lange's heartbreaking shots are paired side-by-side with Marion Post Wolcott's, while Ansel Adams's landscapes hold down their own wall.
The exhibit ends with a salute to American life and a series of still lives. It's a quaint end to an impressive and moving exhibit. Photography is probably the best way to capture the six decades that the collection encompasses because it was a time of unimaginable change and circumstances. Only a picture can capture the truth in a face, a landscape or portrait; after two world wars, a depression and numerous revolutions, the truth was in high demand.
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