Contemporary Photographer Presentation: Arnold Newman

Biography: Arnold Abner Newman was born in New York, New York on March 3rd, 1918. He was a photographer from the United States and known for his environmental portraits of other fellow artists and politicians. Newman was also known for his abstract still life photographs. He attended the University of Miami after graduating from a high school in Miami Beach. At the University of Miami he studied both drawing and painting as well as Modernism. He did not have the financial funds to continue his education so he picked up and moved to PA. He worked making forty-nine cent portraits for a studio there. He would return to Florida later in his career to manage a portrait studio in West Palm Beach. He would later continue to open his own business.

Significance: "I didn't just want to make a photograph with some things in the background," he wanted the surroundings to not only add to the composition but relate and understand the person in the portrait. He did not care for doing just a simple portrait of a famous person because to him, that didn't mean a thing. There had to be something interesting about the photograph.

Composition:  Many of his compositions were very interesting and added to the understanding of the person in the portrait. Depending on the person, and their personality, he portrayed them to his understanding of the individual. For instance with his most famous Igor Stravinsky black and white photograph. He was a famous composer so he included a piano. I believe that he used this high contrast black and white image because of how strikingly brilliant this man was with his career. With all of his subjects he took into account the framing of the surroundings and the figure. In Igor's portrait he is depicted small and in the corner, while the piano, his career, is seen as large, or successful. 

Igor Stravinsky Portrait - 1946

 

Concept: Arnold Newman's concept was to create something more than just a portrait. He could not simply do a boring portrait without something interesting in the background. He brought this to viewers attention to help them better understand the subject depicted. 

Motivations: I believe that his creation of portraits such as Igor's is to portray their true identity. He wanted their natural surroundings, and this is what his based his approach to portraiture on. I believe he also enjoyed creating interesting compositions that told a story or informed a viewer more than just the average portrait.

Pablo Picasso 1956

My Opinion: I found his work to very pleasing and informative. When going through his portraits, I felt like I was reading visual interpretations of each of the subjects biographies. His use of the subject and mixing in the background surroundings to tell more about the subject made his photographs very interesting to view.