Detail View: The AMICA Library: 72 North Union Street, Rochester (Kitchen)

CMA_.1993.14

1998

Photographs

White, Minor

North American; American

artist

1908 - 1976

Minor White American, 1908-1976Minor Martin White (born in Minneapolis) was a photographer, poet, and teacher who worked in photographic sequences to achieve greater expressive power. Several years after graduating from the University of Minnesota with amajor in botany and a minor in English, White moved to Portland where he joined the Oregon Camera Club. Interested in photography since his youth, he worked as an assistant in a photography studio at night and in 1938 served as a creative photographer forthe Works Progress Administration. Following service in the U.S. Army Intelligence Corps (1942-45), White moved to New York where he studied art history with Meyer Shapiro at Columbia University (19450-46). In 1946 he met Alfred Stieglitz, whose ideas about photographic equivalents had a deep impact on his work. Like Stieglitz, White sought to express inner feelings and beliefs through his work. Around this time he began producing sequences of images that were arranged for their allusive or metaphoricalmeaning rather than for narrative content, a practice he continued throughout his career. In 1952 White helped found Aperture magazine, serving as its editor until l975. He took a position as curator of exhibitions at George Eastman House in Rochester inthe early 1950s, working there until 1957. While at Eastman House he also served as editor for the museum's publication, Image. In 1955 White began teaching at the Rochester Institute of Technology, leaving in 1965 to join the faculty of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Over the years he became a well-respected and influential teacher, and continued to teach at mit until 1974. During the 1950s White became interested in mysticism, Eastern philosophy, and Gestalt psychology, all of which had an impact on his work and teaching. In 1962 he was a founding member of the Society for Photographic Education and in 1970 was awarded a fellowship by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. M.M.

M

Minneapolis, MN

Boston, MA

Minor White

72 North Union Street, Rochester (Kitchen)

Primary

Full View

1956

1956

1956

gelatin silver print

Photography

Image: 23.8cm x 17.7cm

The Cleveland Museum of Art

Cleveland, Ohio, USA

1993.14

Andrew R. and Martha Holden Jennings Fund

Written in pencil on recto of mount: "1956 Minor White [signed]"; in pencil on verso of mount: "To Bill / remember the Light / Minor"; "MW28"

Copyright ? 1989 Trustees of Princeton University

http://www.clemusart.com/museum/disclaim2.html

As a photographer, educator, writer, curator, and editor of Aperture magazine, Minor White was one of the most influential forces in 20th-century photography. Early in his career, he championed a photographic style that emphasized personal feeling, ambiguity, and abstraction. While working in Rochester, New York from 1953 to 1964, White lived in an apartment located above a store at 72 North Union Street (his darkroom was in the building's basement). The apartment had a spare, austere atmosphere that is reflected in this view of the kitchen, with the Japanese paper lantern and simple table setting. Each element in this carefully arranged composition has formal as well as metaphysical significance, such as order, routine, necessity, and the natural flow of life.

CMA_.1993.14.tif