How would you like to be in a room with David Hockney, Isamu Noguchi, Picasso, Georga O’Keefe, Marcel Duchamp, Martha Graham, Willem de Kooning Diana Vreeland and other renowned figures in the art world? The Fahey/Klein Gallery is showing Arnold Newman, Portraits, and exhibition of works by one of the most influential portrait photographers of the 20th century. Generally acknowledged as the pioneer of the environmental portrait, Newman spent time exploring the essence of his subjects, finding the best environment to express who they were, and integrating them with their work into compositions that referenced the work. He structured his own visual language, setting up photographs with geometric grace and inventing visual elements where none existed, thus adding complexity and depth to his portraits.
Born in New York City , Arnold Newman began his career in photography in 1938 working at chain portrait studios in Philadelphia , Baltimore , and West Palm Beach , and immediately began working in abstract and documentary photography on his own. In June of 1941, Beaumont Newhall of the Museum of Modern Art , New York , and Alfred Stieglitz “discovered” him, and he was given an exhibition at the A.D. Gallery in September. In 1945 his Philadelphia Museum of Art one-man show, Artists Look Like This, attracted nationwide attention and his environmental approach to portraiture began its influence on key publications around the world with exhibitions and purchases by major museums quickly following.