Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2001/09/09

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Subject: [Leica] Eugene Smith: Photographing the Paradoxes of Pittsburgh
From: CHARLES STIRK JR C <ccstirkjr@yahoo.com>
Date: Sun, 9 Sep 2001 11:56:06 -0700 (PDT)

Thought some of you would find this interesting 
Chuck


 Photographing the Paradoxes of Pittsburgh 
> IN 1948, an international poll named W. Eugene Smith one
> of the
> world's 10 greatest photographers. He had already taken
> what he
> considered "the finest set of photographs I have ever
> produced,
> quality and quantity": his pictures of Pittsburgh. The
> Pittsburgh
> commission called for 100-plus photographs; Smith worked
> for more
> than three years, went heavily into debt, produced at
> least 11,000
> negatives and ultimately proposed a magazine essay of
> approximately
> 200 images.
> 
>  No magazine had that kind of space, even had this
> ever-intransigent photographer not demanded total control
> over
> layout and text. The essay has never been seen the way he
> wanted
> it, but the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh will now
> try. From
> Nov. 3 through Feb. 10, the museum will present "Dream
> Street: W.
> Eugene Smith's Pittsburgh Photographs," 195 works that
> the guest
> curator, Sam Stephenson, has identified as Smith's
> choices.
> 
>  Some of his most famous images are here. "Dance of the
> Flaming
> Coke" is a contemporary version of the fierce beauties of
> Hades,
> where a man in front of a sheet of flame spars with a
> snarling
> fire. In "Pride Street," a teenage boy has hoisted
> himself up and
> curled his body around the hopefully named street sign.
> The rest is
> Smith's attempt to record the paradoxes of city life in
> America —
> the clutch of industry, the dogged persistence of both
> community
> and loneliness, the forces of love, hate, growth and
> decay. Not
> even the venerated master of photojournalists could quite
> pull this
> off, but Smith's obsessiveness was harnessed to an
> enormous talent,
> and he wasn't far from the mark when he wrote that his
> essay would
> "create history."
> 
>  The show, organized by Linda Batis, associate curator of
> fine arts
> at the Carnegie, will travel to New York and Tucson next
> year and
> is accompanied by a book by the same name from W. W.
> Norton.  
> 
> 
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/09/arts/design/09GOLD.html?ex=1001050511&ei=1&en=b4674c4508911344



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Replies: Reply from "Bill Harting" <wharting@adelphia.net> (Re: [Leica] Eugene Smith: Photographing the Paradoxes of Pittsburgh)
Reply from David Degner <ddegner@morris.com> (Re: [Leica] Eugene Smith: Photographing the Paradoxes of Pittsburgh)
Reply from "Ted Grant" <tedgrant@home.com> (Re: [Leica] Eugene Smith: Photographing the Paradoxes of Pittsburgh)