Sonya Noskowiak CENTER FOR CREATIVE PHOTOGRAPHY, Contents Director's Statement 3 Sonya Noskowiak Portfolio 5 Index of Videotapes, Oral History Library 20 Acquisitions, January to June, 1978 Photographing the Famous: Photographers Look at Paul Strand 32 A Private Sequence by Minor White 34 THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA TUCSON 85721 NUMBER9 JUNE 1979 CENTER FOR CREATIVE PHOTOGRAPHY is a research publication of previously unpublished or unique mate­ rial from the collections in the archives of the Center for Creative Photography. Subscription and renewal rate: $15 (USA), $20 (foreign) for five issues. Back issues available. Address inquiries and subscriptions to: Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona, 843 East University Boulevard, Tucson, Arizona 85719. Center for Creative Photography University of Arizona Copyright © 1979 Arizona Board of Regents All Rights Reserved FRONT COVER: BACK COVER: EDWARD WESTON: Sonya Noskowiak, ca. 1930. ALFRED STIEGLITZ: Paul Strand, ca. 1916. Gelatin Silver Print. 11 .1 x 8.9 cm. Satista Print. 24.6 x 19.4 cm. 76:010:034 78:017=006 "The University of Arizona is an EEO/AA Employer and does not discriminate on the basis of sex, race, religion, color, national origin, Vietnam Era veterans' status, or handicapping condition in its admissions, employment and educational programs or activities. Inquiries may be referred to Or. Jean Kearns, Assistant Executive Vice President, Administration 503, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona 85721. Telephone: (602) 626-4636." Directors Statement � THIS ISSUE OF THE CENTER'S research pub­ other research programs at the Center such as ., lication initiates an expanded format which the Oral History Library . we believe will better serve historians and all The content of each issue of the Center's pub­ those who seek greater knowledge of photogra­ lication is coordinated by a staff member, and phy. Henceforth portfolios of contemporary as I would like to acknowledge this issue's con­ well as historical works will be accompanied, tribution by William Johnson, Photographic when available, by critical articles written by the Archives Librarian. Also deserving of special members of the staff of the Center for Creative note and appreciation is Editorial Assistant Min­ Photography or guest authors. nette Burges who assists in the preparation of In the January, 1957 issue of Image (Vol. 6, every issue. I also wish to mention the fineefforts No. 1), Beaumont Newhall wrote an editorial of the Center's registrar, Sandy Schwartz, Pho­ which called for more historians of photogra­ tographic Archives Curator, Librarian Terence phy. Quoting A. Kraszna-Krausz who warned Pitts, and Exhibitions Assistant Marnie Gillett against writing that "befogs" rather than "illu­ who have contributed to this issue. minates," Newhall heartily endorsed Kraszna­ Timothy Druckrey, a graduate student in the Krausz' plea for more "scholarly monographs, Department of Art at the University of Arizona, dispassionate biographies, and thoroughly re­ was the first recipient of the Polaroid student searched local and national histories." Much fellowship at the Center. As a recipient of this has been accomplished, if by only a few, to ful­ fellowship, he began the annotated bibliography fill those scholarly needs during the past two of the videotapes in the Center's Oral History decades. However, it is time once again, par­ Library and has continued with this project to ticularly in light of the mushrooming of edu­ the present. We are pleased to include this list cation in photography, to put forth the call for of the work accomplished to date and to note new historians. Primary goals of the Center for that his annotated bibliography is being pub­ Creative Photography include making its mate­ lished as a supplement to this issue. rials available for research and providing ve­ Forthcoming issues of the Center's publica­ hicles for the publication of scholarly writing. tion will be presenting portfolios of works by In order to achieve this we will need the inter­ W. Eugene Smith, Clarence John Laughlin, and est and participation of established writers/his­ Margrethe Mather. We look forward to publica­ torians, educators and their qualified graduate tions of greater intensity with the expressed goal students, and a less inhibited involvement by the of sharing our collections with a wider audience. art history establishment. In recognition of the historical value of publishing lists and recorded JAMES L. ENYEART data we plan to include in each publication Director bibliographies, acquisitions data, and notes on 3 SONYA NOSKOWIAK: Untitled, 1930. Gelatin Silver Print. 24.8 x 18.5 cm. 76:009:227 Sonya Noskowiak � soNY A NOSKOWIAK, born in Leipzig, Ger­ Young Museum in San Francisco and displayed � many in 1900, spent her childhood in Chile photographs emphasizing the forms, patterns before settling in California with her family in and textures of natural objects - rocks, leaves, 1915. Interested in photography at an early age, and sand. Noskowiak became a receptionist in Johan Following her association with The Group Hagemeyer's photographic studio in Los Ange­ f.64 Noskowiak continued to make photographs les County. Noskowiak met Edward Weston at in the West Coast tradition of landscape and Hagemeyer's studio in 1929 and became Wes­ still life. She also concentrated on portraiture ton's darkroom assistant, developing and print­ and recorded some of the most creative person­ ing commercial portrait assignments for him. alities of the 1930 s and 1940 s, including Jean During her association with Weston from 1929 Charlot, John Steinbeck, and Martha Graham. to 1934 Noskowiak developed a personal vision Noskowiak began her own studio in about 1935 and understanding of craftsmanship which fol­ and photographed in the San Francisco Bay area lowed the general principles of her distinguished through the 1940 s; her commercial work ranged teacher. Noskowiak's photographs, which reveal from portraiture to fashion and architectural her personal style and interests, received praise views. Noskowiak died in Greenbrae, California, from Weston and he once stated: "Any of these in 1975. I would sign as my own." The Center for Creative Photography houses Her photographs portray the prevailing sub­ the Sonya Noskowiak Collection, consisting of ject matter and techniques which dominated 463 photographs made by Noskowiak during West Coast photography during the 1930 s. her long career, several hundred negatives and Noskowiak was an organizing member of The work prints, correspondence and merrtorabilia. Group f.64 in 1932 and her work reflected the The Noskowiak Collection also contains 58 group's philosophy of sharp unmanipulated con­ prints by Edward Weston. tact prints, an aesthetic based on "straight" pho­ MARNIE GILLETT tography. Noskowiak participated in the first Exhibitions Assistant exhibition of The Group f.64 in 1932 at the de 5 Noskowiak in the 1930s was a founding member of The Group f.64 in 'J THEhas approximatelyCENTER FOR CREATIVE fifty photographs PHOTOGRAPHY in its 1932. � collections by Sonya Noskowiak of the indus­ Noskowiak's earliest photographs of indus­ trial or urban landscape. After portraiture, this trial structures reflect her awareness of an avant­ is the topic most frequently photographed by garde position in photography - and her desire Noskowiak. These photographs were made to join it. Pictorialism had placed a fairly rigid from 1930 to the early 1940 s. Noskowiak's ap­ boundary around the types of subjects that were proach to the industrial landscape varied over considered aesthetic and therefore worthy of an the decade of the 1930 s and these photographs artist's interest. Often these subjects contained reflect her changing relationship to the medium a narrative element or reflected an associatively of photography during that period. They also expressive content that was designed to con­ echo, in a more diminished way, the broadly tain the message that the photograph was artis­ shifting ideas at work on the photographers of tic. "Madonnas," "Pierrots" or "Victories" all that generation. contained historically derived and socially sanc­ Sonya Noskowiak began her photographic tioned "artistic" meanings that would be recog­ career in California in 1929. During the early nized by any properly trained observer. Work­ 1930 s California was filled with the flare and ing within the range of known subjects, the clash of different ideas and ideologies as some function of the pictorial artist was to convey his photographers began to challenge established particular aesthetic sensibility and taste through traditions about the nature and purposes of crea­ deft interpretation of the known elements and tive photography itself. A growing number of manipulation of the materials of his craft. This younger photographers mounted an increased limited range of acceptable artistic subject mat­ attack on the dominant pictorialist aesthetic. In ter had been under fire from both without and this evolving redefinition of creative photogra­ within the pictorialist tradition and its rigid phy arguments about style and subject and ap­ boundaries were eroding fast. proach were fought out in the photographic However, the remains of the pictorial aes­ journals, in the photo clubs, between friends, thetic still flourished on the West Coast in 1930 within the individual photographers and in the and the industrial landscape was still a contro­ photographs themselves. Sonya Noskowiak be­ versial subject to photograph. For Noskowiak, gan as a photographer in this environment. She the industrial landscape had the virtues of being studied with Edward Weston, worked for and modern, of being free from outworn associative with him, and developed her approach to crea­ and sentimental meanings, and of being a sub­ tive photography through him, his friends, and ject particularly accessible to one of the major associates. She shared the enthusiasm and inter­ concerns of her generation. The question of ests of this distinctive community of artists, and abstraction and the problem of accommodating 6 abstract form to the apparent verism of the camera position and a cooler middle distance.