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1-29-2015 Garry Winogrand, Family Intimacies Joseph C. Troncale University of Richmond, [email protected]

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Recommended Citation Troncale, Joseph C. "Garry Winogrand, Family Intimacies." In Garry Winogrand, Family Intimacies: Photographs from the Adrienne Judith Lubeau-Winogrand Collection. Richmond, Virginia: Joel and Lila Harnett usM eum of Art, University of Richmond Museums, 2015.

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J NUARY 29 TO APRIL 3, 2015 JoEL AND LILA HARNETT Mu EUM OF ART, U JvER ITY OF R1cHMOl\D Mu EUM INTRODUCTION w. ARE PLEASED TO PRESENT THIS This exhibition features a selection of exhibition of photographs by Garry Winogrand personal, never exhibited, photographs from (American, 1928-1984). A photographer of New the collection of his first wife, Adrienne Judith York City and of American life from the 1950s Lubeau-Winogrand. Selected from her private through the early 1980s, the content and dynamic collection, the images focus on an aspect of style of his images placed him among the most the artist not seen in his usually dark, gritty influential photographers of the period. The city scenes and urban landscapes. They reveal legendary curator and critic Winogrand's relation to his family - his wife called him the central photographer of his Adrienne, his daughter Laurie, and his son generation, and Winogrand is widely considered Ethan - and express a side of the artist rarely one of the greatest photographers of the seen in exhibitions of his work. twentieth century. Our heartfelt thanks go to Adrienne The artist grew up in , New York, Judith Lubeau-Winogrand for so graciously and studied painting at The City College of agreeing to lend her photographs to the New York, and painting and photography at museum and for working closely with the in New York in 1948. By curators, Joe Troncale and Richard Waller, in 1955, his photographs were included in an making this exhibition a reality. Organized by exhibition at the , New the University of Richmond Museums, the York. In the 1960s he began photographing exhibition is made possible in part with support on the streets of New York and branching out from the Louis S. Booth Arts Fund. by traveling through America exploring and documenting media events and the public after RICHARD WALLER being awarded two Guggenheim Fellowships Executive Director in 1964 and again in 1969. His career spanned University of Richmond Museums thirty years producing thousands of images, five books, and numerous exhibitions throughout the United States and abroad.

GARRY WINOGRAND, FAMILY INTIMACIES

T HE RECENT TRAVELING RETROSPECTIVE of America in the 1960s and 1970s. They see the of the widely recognized American photographer "value" of his work from the perspective of the Garry Winogrand has generated renewed Vietnam War and Kent State, the Civil Rights interest in one of the great talents of the Movement, Watergate, and the numbing effect twentieth century. Winogrand was a student of all those crushing revelations, doubts, and of America. He loved the density of the streets disappointments that streamed into millions of , but also traveled widely to of living rooms on the nightly news. However, discover and photograph other parts of the like most great photographers, Winogrand took United States. The world, as he saw it, was messy pictures primarily to find out what things looked and that is what he shot. He didn't want to make like in photographs, not to make judgements it neat. His images invite perceptual response and about them. "Point and shoot, point and shoot" interpretation in a particular way. For example, was his mantra. It was natural and not complex. many interpret Winogrand's later works from the While photographing, he didn't see pictures, point of view of the shifting values and moods he saw faces. Garry Winogrand, Ethan Climbing an Adrienne on the Grass in the Park, 1959, gelatin silver print on paper, 9 x 13 1/2 inches, Collection of Adrienne Judith Lubeau-Winogrand © The Estate of Garry Winogrand, courtesy Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco

The photographs in this exhibition were that experienced everything through a lens taken before the tumultuous years of the 1960s rather than himself. and 1970s. Much of his later work reveals a Efforts to get Winogrand to talk about his people seemingly preoccupied with their own work often elicited responses much like the weighty monologues. In contrast, the images photographs he made in the last twenty-four here capture moments spontaneous and serene, years of his life. Seemingly, he popped off scenes from the photographer's own inner his answers like he compulsively popped off space. They are products of his life with his first thousands upon thousands of photographs. wife, Adrienne, and their children Laurie and Shooting constantly, he was outlandishly Ethan. It is revealing that Winogrand printed prolific. Hounded by a backlog of undeveloped three hundred photographs of his family and images and far preferring to shoot rather than gave them to Adrienne as a gift. They reflect a print, he fell into a habit of leaving the process joyful, uncomplicated participation in a life that of editing and printing his work to others. After endures, in spite of the fact that Adrienne his udden death at fifty-six, more than 6,ooo once confessed feeling that her late husband rolls of undeveloped film were left behind. He only related to her and everyone else through just didn't have time for such things. His mentor, the lens of a camera. He was already shooting Robert Frank, told him that he wasn't taking without restraint in the 1950s, and Adrienne photographs, he was "taking a census." has said that, at times, she felt as if she were Winogrand wanted to simply shoot pictures married to a one-eyed creature, a creature rather than talk about them. To him photographs were nothing but illusions, "Illusions of a literal self-discovery. For example, in the photograph description," he once said. Filled with a glib, of Adrienne holding Laurie twelve hours after street-smart savvy, they leave viewers with her birth, Winogrand, the new father, resonates feelings of ambiguity and spontaneity but no quietly through his lens, joining his wife's awe further expectations of the photographer. In an and joy in holding and caressing the fragile child interview in 1974, he said, "You know, once the in her arms. This quality is echoed in two photograph exists, it has no relation to what was photographs of Adrienne holding Laurie at photographed." Winogrand wasn't interested in one month old. The second of these contains the grand interpretive schemes of the critic. He remarkable nuances: Adrienne tilts her head was an artist who wanted to learn as much about slightly into the light, her hair glistens. Radiantly the form as possible, as quickly as possible. 'Tm peaceful, her face comes out of the shadows only trying to learn about photography" he said. to join Laurie's. Her hand, as well as the blanket, His images are audacious, rich in photographic glows. Mother and daughter seem lost in each detail and eminently readable. When introducing other's embrace as Laurie's delicate small Winogrand at MIT, also in I974, Todd Papageorge hands seem to respond to her mother's gentle called his work " ... a photography without but protective caress. Here are extraordinary captions, without metaphysics, a photography photographic complexities, without ambiguity. without apology." In other words, simply art. This selection of photographs from The images in this exhibition are not, as Adrienne Judith Lubeau-Winogrand's private some see in his later work, auguries of America's collection introduces us into the world of the existential awakenings to its own doubts and artist from a unique vantage point and fears of a cultural cataclysm. Instead, Adrienne, complements the recent retrospective of Laurie, and Ethan elegantly fill frames, most of Winogrand's photographs that traveled from the which were taken during the i95os. These are San Francisco Museum of Modern Art to the not dark musings into the fate of American in Washington, DC, The society and its values, nor spontaneous flashes Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and of public emotion and style that typify his work the Jeu de Paume National Gallery in Paris. during the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. The images here belie Winogrand's often quoted "I just take JOE TRONCALE pictures." What many would later see as the seedy, Associate Professor of Russian Literature and Visual Studies gritty, dark shadows of the street-smart University of Richmond photographer's touch in the last twenty-four years of his work dissolve into gentle, tender chiaroscuro: the embrace of a loving husband and father who is a gifted artist. These images reflect an intimate orientation to his family and express a side of the artist rarely seen in exhibitions of his work. Here is none of the aggressive, COVER : Garry Winogran d, Adrienne Holding Laurie, One Month voracious lens that seems to pounce on a subject Old, September 1956, gelatin silver print on paper, 13 1/4 x 5 1/2 inches, Collection of Adrienne Judith Lubeau-Winogrand in unguarded moments, eliciting a range of © The Estate of Garry Winogrand, courtesy Fraenkel Gallery, ambiguous feelings. In these images, Winogrand San Francisco seizes upon an essential quality of intimacy that is no less surprising and rewarding. The photographer is not looking for something or UNIVERSITY OF RICHMOND MUSEUMS for how something might look in a photograph. 28 Westhampton Way, Richmond, VA 23173 The aesthetic in these photographs is found 804-2 89-82 7 6 museums. rich mond.ed u the instant we recognize Winogrand's natural brilliance through the spontaneous and Images © The Estate of Garry Winogrand, courtesy Fraenkel Ga llery, San Francisco playful photographic details of intimacy itself. Printed © 2015 University of Richmond Museums, The world is not messy here; it is a place of Richmond, VA 23173