Lot 150 (detail)
AN EYE ON THE AMERICAN SCENE
The vast American scene has long captivated photographers. Some took to the
road while others focused on the urban street. The portrait studio also emerged
as a site of aesthetic investigation. Richard Avedon’s stunning portraits of the
working class in the West counterpose Lewis Baltz’s unsettling views of the
social landscape. Aaron Siskind brought his quintessentially American Abstract
Expressionist style to image-making, just as Harry Callahan rendered America
with visual poetry. Lee Friedlander asked us to both embrace and feel repelled
by the banality of our culture. Their photographs are both sublime and cool.
They are straight, interpretive, loving, harsh, jaded, and tender.
Nowhere is this more evident than in the books made in New York City. Berenice
Abbott’s bold diagonally-oriented dust jacket proclaiming her Changing New
York, William Klein’s own take on the American typeface (in neon this time),
Lewis Hine’s document of the Empire State Building that is both affectionate
and awe-filled, and Weegee’s photographs of the city at its most raw—these
books attempted to document, to understand, to record, to frame what is
essentially unframeable. Their design is powerful, pulpy, sensitive, gasping, and
yet many of the images are tender and careful. These contradictions, these
portraits, are America at its best and most true.
