W.M. Hunt

 #some reallygoodones, #beaumontnewhall, #modernism, #chasemanhattanbank

In the mid-1980s there was a two day symposium on Photography and Modernism at New York University.  It was maddening because no one attempted to actually define Modernism.  The presenters all behaved along the lines of “you’ll know it when you see it”.  I dutifully went home and did some primitive Googling and found myself in discussions of the changes in the Catholic Church, rejecting or, at least, reinterpreting doctrine.  Then you have Ezra Pound writing “Make it New” (1934) or Constantine Treplev, the young playwright in Chekhov’s “The Seagull” demanding “We must have new forms!’.  Post 1920s photography seems to have a slick vehicle as a relatively young medium, allowing for experiments with light and perspective, but it’s a catchall term and vague.  

But here is a nomination for a Modernist classic, Beaumont Newhall’s ”Chase National Bank, New York City”, 1928 

The legacy of Newhall (1908-1993) is as an historian for his 1949 landmark book, “The History of Photography.”  Even with revisions this books remains the canon for photography in the first half of the twentieth century.  He created a collective taste, and if you weren’t in the book, you hadn’t happened as a photographer.  At the time, it was inspired, and he got there first and best.  

Of course, now it is all subject to reconsideration.

But look at something he saw and made, not said: the bank image.  It is a knock out in terms of its strong verticals and horizontals, the exhilarating perspective sweeping up to the sky, the cosmic void at the center and a completely mysterious, almost alien circle at the base of a right-angled black line.  It is a perfect meeting of representation and abstraction.  It is what it is, and we ask what is it.  

©2021

#somereallygoodones, #theunseeneye, #wmhunt, #collectiondancingbear, #collectionblindpirate, #greatphotographs, #howilookatphotographs, #photographsfromtheunconsicous, #collectingislikerunningaroundinathunderstormhopingyoullbehitbylightning, #aphotographsogooditmakesyoufartlightning, #photographschangedmylifetheygavemeone, #beaumontnewhall, #modernism, #chasemanhattanbank