Miss Caliill THE ETROPOLITAN NEWS USEUM OF ART FOR M RELEASE Friday, May 8, 1959 FIFTH AYE.at82 STREET • NEW YORK TR 9-5500 Press View: Thursday, May 7, 2-4:30 p.m. PHOTOGRAPHY IN THE FINE ARTS, EXHIBIT AT METROPOLITAN MUSEUM Works of 55 contemporary photographers will be exhibited beginning Friday, May 8, at The Metropolitan Museum of Art as works of art. A new national project, "Photography in the Fine Arts," will present 85 photo­ graphs (30 color and 55 black & white) chosen by a jury of distinguished exponents of the fine arts, v/ith James J. Rorimer, Director of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, as chairman. The photographs v/ere selected from 438 nominations submitted by authoritative sources in the field of photography. The exhibit will be on view in a special Photographic Gallery at the Metro­ politan Museum through Labor Day, and it has been proposed that the photographs in it should become a part of the Museum's permanent collections. The project was developed by Ivan Dmitri, noted photographer, under the spon­ sorship of the national weekly magazine SATURDAY REVIEW. It has been in the course of preparation for nine months. Its origin was a column in SATURDAY REVIEW which described Mr. Dmitri's conviction that more museums should collect and display great photographs as art. Response from 21 museum directors indicated wide interest and revealed the need for finding an unbiased method for screening the best work in the field of photography, as is done with contemporary painting. The breadth of the jury for the present exhibition and the final 85 photographic selections are the result. Duplicates of the pictures in this exhibit will be shown throughout the country to help win further recognition for photography as a fine art. It is also hoped that the exhibit will spur interest among other museums and art galleries here and abroad for the establishment of more permanent collections of photographs. The membership of the National Advisory Committee v/hich selected the pictures for display, besides Mr. Rorimer, includes: Frank Baker, Senior Art Director, McCann-Erickson; Dr. Alfred Frankfurter, Editor of ART NEWS; Joyce C. Hall, Presi­ dent of Hallmark Cards; Bartlett H. Hayes, Jr., Director of the Addison Gallery of American Art, Andover, Massachusetts; Bryan Holme, Editor of STUDIO Books; Alexander Liberman, Art Director of VOGUE; Stanley Marcus, President of Neiman-Marcus, Dallas, Texas; Grace Mayer, Curator of Prints, Museum of the City of New York; A. Hyatt Mayor, (more) Photography in the Fine Arts--2 Curator of Prints, The Metropolitan Museum of Art; Beaumont Newhall, Director of George Eastman House, Rochester, New York; Aline B. Saarinen, Art Critic of THE NEW YORK TIMES; Dorothy Seiberling, Art Editor of LIFE; Edward Steichen, Director of the Department of Photography, The Museum of Modern Art. From its inception the project received the support of editors of national magazines, art directors, heads of editorial and industrial libraries, and other experts in the field. They submitted photographs which they believed outstanding enough for inclusion in a museum's permanent collection. The editors of LIFE Maga­ zine, for example, submitted 100 after reviewing the 175,000 photographs that have appeared in the magazine over the past 23 years. ,:The committee by no means regards its selections as the greatest contemporary photographs," said Mr. Dmitri, "but in this first step hopes that it has chosen a well-balanced and stimulating group of fine photographs on v/hich to build. It has in effect, offered this exhibition as visual proof that photography deserves to be ranked among the fine arts." The May 16th issue of SATURDAY REVIEW will be devoted to explaining the purposes of the "Photography in the Fine Arts'1 project. It v/ill publish eight pages of se­ lections from the exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum, both in color and in black- and-white, together v/ith articles evaluating the collection as art and as photography, In the exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum, the general public as v/ell as specialists in the photographic field v/ill have the opportunity to observe dif­ ferent trends in contemporary picture-making, and various approaches to the creation of outstanding pictures. They also will see the many techniques and textures of the medium, attempts to obtain depth or a third-dimensional quality, the wide-angle versus the telephoto view, and sharp focus versus soft out-of-focus effects. The subjects covered in this exhibition include portraits; anecdotal or subject pictures; emotional images, including tragedy; story-telling pictures; textures with abstract patterns going from small-scale to great v/ide-scale views; mechanistic patterns; and lyrical landscapes. -000- 5/4/59 See following page for list of photographers represented in the exhibition and titles of their pictures. Photography in the Fine Arts--3 List of 55 Photographers Represented in the Exhibition and Titles of Their Pictures *Indicates Color KESSEL, Dmitri. *44) Rio at Night ADAMS, Ansel. 45) Yangtze River *l) Mission, Ranchos de Taos, *46) 1265 Battlefield, Evesham, England New Mexico LANDSHOFF, H. ANGUTI, Michael. *47) Manhattan 2) Two for a Penny *48) City at Night AVEDON, Richard. *49) 1,404 Windows to Wash 3) Ezra Pound LANGE, Dorothea. BISCHOF, Werner. 50) Doorway of the Church 4) Snow Scene, Japan LERNER, Bob. 5) Two Indonesian Children on Mat 51) Texture BURDEN, Shirley C. LIONNI, Leo. 6) Dead Bird *52) East Indians Dyeing Mats CALLAHAN, Harry. McCOMBE, Leonard. 7) Chicago Loop 53) Farm Kitchen, Mexico CAPA, Cornell. METZKER, Ray K. 8) Talmudic Scholars 54) Children Playing CAPA, Robert. MILI, Gjon. 9) D-Day *55) Mozart's Birthplace, Salzburg 10) Italian Mothers Mourn Sons MOUNT WILSON AND PALOMAR OBSERVATORIES CARTIER-BRESSON, Henri. 56) Nebulosity in Monoceros 11) Child in Valencia 0N0, Takahiro. 12) Children Playing, Seville 57) Religious Ritual, Japan 13) Eunuch of the Imperial Court, PARKS, Gordon. Peking 58) Harlem Gang Leader 14) Playground in Spain PENN, Irving. 15) Easter Sunday in Harlem *59) Seine Rowboat CLERGUE, Lucien. 60) Moroccan Children 16) Nu de la Mer No. 1 *6l) Two in a Canoe COOKE, Jerry. *62) Country Kitchen 17) Ohio Insane Asylum *63) Summer Sleep DAVIDSON, Bruce. ROTHSTEIN, Arthur. 18) Clown and Circus Tent 64) Oklahoma Dust Storm DE CARAVA, Roy. 65) Blue Ridge Mountain Postmaster 19) Man on Subway Stairs SANDBERG, Bob. DUNCAN, David Douglas. 66) Sick Friend *20) Moslem Women at Prayer SCHENK, Gustav. 21) Picasso and Fishbone 67) Microscopic Study of a Drop of Water 22) Maneuvers of Turkish Cavalry SCHULTHBSS, Emil. EISENSTAEDT, Alfred. *68) Golden Gate Bridge *23) Coptic Vicar, Ethiopia *69) The Bridge ELIS0F0N, Eliot. SEYMOUR, David. *24) Satchmo 70) Toscanini Playing Piano *25) Clown, Roddy McDowall 71) The Blackboard ERWITT, Elliott. SHAHN, Ben. 26) Baby, Cat and Mother 72) Destitute Woman 27) Street Scene SILK, George. FARBMAN, N. R. 73) Jet Fighters over Thule Air Force 28) Communist Marchers, East Germany Base FEININGER, Andreas. SMITH, W. Eugene. *29) Little Bay, de Noquet, Michigan 74) Woman Weaving *30) Intersecting Walls at 75) Spanish Wake GM's Technical Center SOCHUREK, Howard. FRANK, Robert. *76) High Altitude Flight 31) Mary and Andrea SOMMER, Frederick. HAAS, Ernst. 77) Max Ernst, 1946 *32) Conversation on Third Avenue STASHIN, Leo. *33) Bullfight 78) Reading Book in Synagogue *34) Johannesburg Skyline STROCK, George. *35) Venice, Gondolas in Blue Fog 79) American Casualties on Beach, *36) Sports Car Race New Guinea HARRINGTON, Phillip. TERRELL, Maurice. *37) Siesta, Rome 80) Water-Babies *38) Fountain, Rome TREFONIDES, Steven. HOTTA, Takeichi. 81) Life and Death in a Home for the 39) Fall, Japan Aged: No. 3. Dying Woman JOEL, Yale. TYLER, Rev. Kenneth W. 40) Fog, New York 82) Robin in Snow Storm KARSH, Yousuf. VACHON, John. 41) Churchill 83) Chicago 42) Nehru 84) Poland, 1946 KAUFFMAN, Mark. WELLS, John R. *43) Platero and I *85) Urban Pest .