Peace Road, City of Kawartha Lakes, 2005: after Lee Friedlander
Phillip Chee
In Homage To...
Lee Friedlander
Lee Friedlander (American, 1934-) is among the most significant, inventive and influential contemporary photographers, with a lifetime achievement spanning the last fifty years. What distinguishes Friedlander's work is not primarily his technique, but the visual and aesthetic concepts he applies. By recording phenomena of everyday life and by critical observation of the world around him Friedlander has been central in defining a whole genre based on the concept of the ââÅsocial landscapeââ. His work embodies a ââÅnew documentary paradigmââ, in which stylistic innovations and freedom from established formal practices has influenced the work of subsequent generations of photographers.
Born in Aberdeen, Washington, Friedlander took up photography in 1948. He studied for two years at the Los Angeles Art Center School (1953-55), leaving to work with Edward Kaminski. Enamored of jazz, Friedlander completed many assignments for album jacket covers for Columbia, RCA, and Atlantic Records before moving to New York City in 1956. His portraits of New Orleans jazz musicians earned him the first of three fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation (1960, 1962, 1977) and his first one-person show at George Eastman House, Rochester (1966).
In the 1970s Friedlander began work on town squares and city parks across America., The American Monument (1976) reveals forgotten, unattended and eroding icons. Later he turned his camera to the beauty of nature, resulting in Flowers and Trees (1981) and Cherry Blossom Time in Japan (1986). His extensive series of unconventional and highly tangible nudes culminated in the book Lee Friedlander Nudes.
In 2005 Friedlander was the subject of a major retrospective with a corresponding catalog at the Museum of Modern Art and the recipient of the Hasselblad Foundation Award
Sources:
Hasselblad Foundation
Other Links:
Others By This Photographer
All photographs shown on Utata are stored on flickr. This photo and text © Computer Science Geek.
The previous 4 images in the loop
The next 4 images in the loop
