Episode No. 144 of The Modern Art Notes Podcast features curators Paul Martineau and Jane Aspinwall.
First, J, Paul Getty Museum curator Paul Martineau discusses “Minor White: Manifestations of the Spirit,” a retrospective on view through October 19. It’s the first White retrospective in 25 years, since a show that was organized by the Princeton University Art Museum and that debuted at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. The Getty itself published the catalogue for Martineau’s exhibition and it’s terrific. It’s a must-own not just for the many rarely published White photographs, but for Martineau’s strong essay. Amazon offers it for under $30.
White was one of the most important and influential American photographers of the mid-20th-century. Not only was he a teacher and a founder and editor of Aperture magazine, but White’s brand of metaphorical modernism was perfect for an era in which much of what individuals thought or felt could not be said for fear of repercussions from the state.
This is White’s Haags Alley, Rochester (1960) from “Sequence 16: Steely the Barb of Infinity.”
On the second segment, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art curator Jane Aspinwall tells us about two little-known bodies of work by one of America’s most famous photographers, Alexander Gardner. While Gardner is best known for the pictures he took during and immediately after the Civil War, Aspinwall’s “Across the Indian Country: Photographs by Alexander Gardner, 1867-68” provides an opportunity to consider Gardner’s photographs of and related to the Kansas Pacific railroad and his subsequent pictures of native Americans. Her exhibition is up through January 11, 2015. The catalogue of the exhibition will be available from Yale University Press next month.
Air date: Aug. 7, 2014.
Minor White, Haags Alley, Rochester, 1960.
Minor White, Copper Creek, Oregon (Wallowa Mountains), 1941.
Minor White, Tom Murphy, San Francisco, 1948, No. 30 from the series “The Temptation of St. Anthony Is Mirrors,” (sequenced 1948).
Minor White, Cabbage Hill, Oregon (Grande Ronde Valley), 1941.
Minor White, Tom Murphy, San Francisco, 1947. No. 1 from the sequence “The Temptation of St. Anthony is MIrrors), 1948.
Minor White, Tom Murphy, San Francisco, 1947. No. 4 in the sequence “The Temptation of St. Anthony Is Mirrors,” 1948.
Minor White, Tom Murphy, San Franciscso, 1947. No. 5 in the sequence “The Temptation of St. Anthony Is Mirrors,” 1948.
Minor White, Tom Murphy, San Francisco, 1947. No. 6 in the sequence “The Temptation of St. Anthony Is Mirrors,” 1948.
Minor White, Tom Murphy, San Francisco, 1947. No. 14 in the series “The Temptation of St. Anthony Is Mirrors,” 1948.
Minor White, Tom Murphy, San Francisco, 1947. No. 21 in the sequence “The Temptation of St. Anthony Is Mirrors,” 1948.
Minor White, 72 N. Union Street, Rochester, 1958.
Minor White, Vicinity of Rochester, 1954.
Charles Sheeler, Side of White Barn, 1915.
Alexander Gardner, Lawrence, Kansas, 1867.
Alexander Gardner, Lawrence, Kansas, 1867.
Alexander Gardner, Group with Packs His Drum, Man Afraid of His Horses, and Red Bear, 1868.
Alexander Gardner, Spotted Tail, Roman Nose, Man Afraid of His Horses, Lone Horn, Whistling Elk, Pipe, Slow Bull, 1868.
Alexander Gardner, Lone Horn, Pipe, Grass and Young Elk, 1868.
Alexander Gardner, Tulare Valley, California; gathering flowers in February, February 1868.
