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• Between-the-Wars Modernism

Edward Weston, Female Nude (Fay Fuqua)

Modernism, as applied to Photography, was largely a response to and a rejection of Pictorialism, which was an earlier attempt to imitate art approaches more simplistically. The proponents of Pictorialism saw the camera as more than a mere mechanical device, and they were intent on proving it could create art. The movement emulated and copied painting and its look and approaches.

In the realm of painting though a revolution was well on its way towards the end of the 19th-century and beginning of the 20th, partly and ironically brought on by the introduction of Photography itself. The rejection of tradition became so visceral that even as new, exciting movements were born, they were quickly discarded in favor of ever newer movements. There was a rapid and overlapping succession of isms: secessionism, fauvism, expressionism, cubism, futurism, constructivism, dada, and surrealism. Painters rejected the traditional notion that art had to be a realistic depiction of nature, people and society.

So, it’s not surprising that with all of this going on, Modernism infiltrated photography with much the same ideas. The movement was most obvious with the changes seen after Alfred Stieglitz “seceded” in 1902 from the National Arts Club after a battle with more conservative members over what photographs should be chosen for the Pictorialist exhibit that he was ostensively in charge of. He invited other Pictorialist photographers to join him and on February 17, 1902, the Photo-Secessionist group was formed.

Henri Cartier-Bresson, Derrière la Gare Saint-Lazare

And while this earlier “revolution” had more to do with personalities and opinions, it prompted Stieglitz to evaluate even his own choices when it came to Pictorialism itself. As he later noted in rejecting the proponents of Pictorialism, “It is high time that the stupidity and sham in pictorial photography be struck a solar plexus blow...Claims of art won’t do. Let the photographer make a perfect photograph. And if he happens to be a lover of perfection and a seer, the resulting photograph will be straight and beautiful--a true photograph.”

Meanwhile, on the West Coast the battles between Pictorialism and Straight Photography were heating up with a debate in print in Camera Craft between Pictorialist William H, Mortensen and Edward Weston. Weston, originally a Pictorialist himself, became an avid proponent of Straight (or pure) Photography and a founding member of the F64 Group. Mortensen was reviled by the group. Ansel Adams, who also soon joined the debate on Weston’s side, famously even called Mortensen “the Antichrist” of photography.

The first exhibition of this group was on November 15, 1932 in the de Young Museum in San Francisco and included photographs from Group f/64 members: Ansel Adams, Imogen Cunningham, Willard Van Dyke, Edward Weston, John Paul Edwards, Sonya Noskowiak and Henry Swift.

The group rejected Pictorialism out of hand: “The Group will show no work at any time that does not conform to its standards of pure photography. Pure photography is defined as possessing no qualities of technique, composition or idea, derivative of any other art form. The production of the “Pictorialist,” on the other hand, indicates a devotion to principles of art which are directly related to painting and the graphic arts.”

Further the group rejected any approach that wasn’t purely a photographic method. Their approach shook up American Photography, but was soon adopted worldwide. And it was as if a match was lit under Photography as a medium. Photography was no longer a step child of Art; often it was the spark that pushed the rest of the Art World forward. Pictorialism was largely relegated to amateur photographers and camera club exhibitors.

Into this fertile environment, strode the concept of Modernism, built over multiple frameworks that included all those isms that were mentioned previously and which were added to the camera’s newest technologies. Extreme camera angles and cropping (from the Constructionists); night photography along with more casual street photography (from more sensitive lens and film; smaller, more light weight cameras); and a rejection of typical framing and subject matter (from all the rest of the isms) helped nurture this New Vision, or “Modernist” approach to Photography.

Often considered largely European in its early formulation, Modernism quickly spread as an influence to nearly every point on the globe, from Japan to Argentina, to the U.S. and Mexico.