Arnold Newman was one of the most influential and acclaimed American portrait photographers of the 20th century. His meticulous approach to constructing portraits (which included arranging objects in the foreground and background to situate his subjects in distinct poses) yielded captivating photographs that aimed to distill the true character of his subjects. His expansive body of work consists largely of photographs produced while on assignment for prominent magazines like Harper’s Bazaar, Life, Holiday, and Fortune. Such commissions provided Newman with access to some of the most important artists, thinkers, and political figures of the American post-World War II era.
Born in 1918 in New York, NY, Newman grew up between Atlantic City and Miami, and went on to study at the University of Miami on scholarship for two years. He left school and moved to Philadelphia, where he worked as a portrait photographer. By the time of his first exhibition, “Artists Through the Camera,” (with the photographer Ben Rose) in 1941 at the A-D Gallery in New York City, Newman had already made his mark as an accomplished portraitist, receiving regular commendations by the luminaries of the day, including Alfred Stieglitz, Ansel Adams, and Beaumont Newhall who, as the Curator of Photography at the Museum of Modern Art, purchased his work for the permanent collection.
Newman relocated to New York in 1946, and shortly thereafter he was shooting photos for Look and Harper’s Bazaar, always with a keen eye for details and a determination to capture the essence of his subjects, whether they are actors, artists or presidents. Newman died 2006 in New York, leaving a volume of work that looks better and better in an age that prizes glamor and quick shots. As the photographer and critic, Bill Jay said:
There is something noble in a spirit, epitomized by Arnold Newman, who has not pandered to changing fads and fashions or the art market, but who has narrowly defined a path of progress and pursued it with consistency for more than fifty years. Such devotion (a heavy word but one that I would not change) demands respect.
Today, Arnold Newman’s works are held in the collections of the George East Museum in Rochester, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C., among others.
