Garry Winogrand was one of the most prolific photographers ever. He seemingly could not pick up his 35mm camera without seeing examples of Cartier-Bresson's "decisive moment" all about him. "At the time of his death in 1984, he left more than 2,500 undeveloped rolls of film," according to the Getty Museum's short bio.
According to an article in The Huffington Post, a number of these posthumous photos will be on display this spring at SFMOMA in an exhibit that then travels to Washington, D.C., New York, Paris and Madrid.
It took me a while to appreciate Winogrand's work. At first, many of his photos seemed little more than haphazard snapshots. I saw the influence of Robert Frank's The Americans quite clearly (both he and Winogrand had been awarded Guggenheim Fellowships to travel through America with their cameras); but while Frank saw America through the sensibilities of a European, much as Nabokov once had, Winogrand's photography was more that of an insider. It was only after viewing a number of Winogrand's photos that I was able to appreciate how extraordinarily well he composed commonplace scenes into meaningful images.
The Huffington Post author, Priscilla Frank is on target in pinpointing the source of Winogrand's genius:
"Winogrand expressed American truths with a poetic eye. Whether capturing the overcrowded, amorphous New York streets or a lone sailor hitchhiking on the highway, Winogrand possessed an eye for that funny sense of isolation that lies beneath the American way."
The SFMOMA show opens in March 2013. In the meantime, The Huffington Post article contains a photo gallery that gives a good sense of Winogrand's style.
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