Lee Friedlander
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Lee Friedlander (born July 14, 1934) is an influential American photographer and artist, born in Aberdeen, Washington. Some of his most famous photographs appeared in the September 1985 Playboy, black and white nude photographs of Madonna from the late 1970s. A student at the time, she was paid only $25 for her 1979 set, and in 2009, one of the images fetched $37,500 at a Christie's Art House auction.
Friedlander prints of Bellocq photographs
After E. J. Bellocq death, most of his negatives and prints were destroyed. However, the Storyville negatives were later found concealed in a sofa. In 1971, a selection of the photographs were published in a book entitled Storyville Portraits. They had been made into distinctive prints by Lee Friedlander, using the whole of the glass negatives. These photographs were immediately acclaimed for their unique poignancy and beauty.
Career
Friedlander studied photography at the Art Center of Los Angeles. In 1956, he moved to New York City where he photographed jazz musicians for record covers. His early work was influenced by Eugène Atget, Robert Frank, and Walker Evans. In 1960, the Guggenheim Memorial Foundation awarded Friedlander a grant to focus on his art and made subsequent grants in 1962 and 1977.
Working primarily with Leica 35mm cameras and black and white film, Friedlander's style focused on the "social landscape". His art used detached images of urban life, store-front reflections, structures framed by fences, and posters and signs all combining to capture the look of modern life.
In 1963, the International Museum of Photography at George Eastman House mounted Friedlander's first solo museum show. Friedlander was then a key figure in the 1967 "New Documents" exhibition, at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City along with Garry Winogrand and Diane Arbus. In 1990, the MacArthur Foundation awarded Friedlander a MacArthur Fellowship.
Friedlander now works primarily with medium format cameras. While suffering from arthritis and housebound, he focused on photographing his surroundings. His book, Stems, reflects his life during the time of his knee replacement surgery. He has said that his "limbs" reminded him of plant stems. These images display textures which were not a feature of his older work. In this sense, the images are similar to those of Josef Sudek who also photographed the confines of his home and studio.
In 2005, the Museum of Modern Art displayed a major retrospective of Friedlander works. In the same year he received a 2005 Hasselblad International Award.
References
- Friedlander, 2005 (ISBN 0-87070-343-9) by Peter Galassi, Museum of Modern Art
- Lee Friedlander: Sticks And Stones: Architectural America, 2004 (ISBN 1-891024-97-3) by Friedlander and James Enyeart
- Stems 2003 (ISBN 1-891024-75-2)
- American Musicians: Photographs by Lee Friedlander, 2003 (ISBN 1-56466-056-7) by Friedlander, Steve Lacy, Ruth Brown.
- Like a One-Eyed Cat, 1989 Harry N. Abrams, Inc.
- Lee Friedlander Portraits, 1985, New York Graphic Society,
- The American Monument, 1976, The Eakins Press Foundation.
