Fine Art Photography
History, Styles, Famous Twentieth Century Photographers: Contemporary Photographic Fine Art.

Storm in Yosemite Valley (1935)
Photograph by Ansel Adams.
See also: Video Art.

Photographic Art

The fine art of photography is a twentieth century medium enabling the artist to capture or create images on photographic film as an alternative to the traditional 2-D media of canvas, paper or board. New computer software graphics packages like Photoshop have freed the artist-photographer from the dark room, and have carved out new opportunities for editing, image manipulation and the creative use of light-sensitive photographic paper. With the advent of digital cameras, and the emergence of the specialist gallery of photography, the medium is well placed to expand further as an independent genre in its own right, or as part of mixed-media compositions in the area of Assemblage, Collage, Installation or even Performance art.

The Pond (Moonlight) (1904)
Photograph by Edward Steichen.

Origins

Photography evolved from the camera obscura, an instrument that projected an image through a small hole, allowing the artist to make an accurate tracing of an object or scene. The invention of light-sensitive emulsions in 1839 enabled cameras to take black and white photographs. Many painters began using the new medium as an addition/ alternative to models or plein-air painting, and photography became accepted as a minor art form. Victorian exponents included Julia Margaret Cameron, Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, and Oscar Rejlander.

Photograph of Robert Mapplethorpe
(1988) By Don Herron.
(Part of his Tub Shot Series)

VISUAL ARTS CATEGORIES
Definitions, forms, styles, genres,
periods, see: Types of Art.

HISTORY OF VISUAL ARTS
For a list of important dates about
movements, styles, famous artists,
up to Post-Modernism, please see:
History of Art Timeline.

PUBLICATIONS
For a list of top publishers of
books about fine art photography
see: Best Art Books Publishers.

COURSES IN PHOTOGRAPHY
For details of colleges who
offer educational courses in
fine art photography, see:
Best Art Schools.

During the twentieth century, after the disappointment of Pictorialism, it gained higher status due to the efforts of photo-journalists as well as the landscape photography of Albert Bierstadt, Thomas Moran, Edward Weston and Ansel Adams. At the same time, experimental artists like Man Ray (1890-1976) took fine art photography to a new level of creativity, encouraged by museum and gallery curators like Hugh Edwards, Edward Steichen, Alfred Stieglitz and John Szarkowski. Other leading fine art photographers who have moved beyond the traditional genres of nudes, portraits, and landscapes, include the German Andreas Gursky (b.1955), Nan Goldin (b.1953), Robert Mapplethorpe (1946-1989), as well as the montage art photographers Anyes Galleani and John Goto (b.1949).

LATEST PHOTO ART
For the latest news
about lens-based works,
see: Art News Headlines.

Galleries and Fine Art Photography

Since the mid-1970s, an increasing number of galleries are beginning to show only photography. Typically, displays include limited edition fine art prints, documentary and journalist photography. Photographic prints have gradually grown in size, moved from monochrome to colour, and are often printed on blocked canvas without frame or glass, while artist-photographers like Gregory Crewdson and Cindy Sherman exemplify the new trend of staging and lighting of works to maximize their impact. While the opportunities for viewing photography in galleries are growing, it remains a niche market when compared to traditional fine art painting and sculpture, although there is a noticeable upturn in the market among art collectors for limited-edition books by individual fine art photographers.

Note: one of the leading museums devoted to photographic art, is the Getty Museum Los Angeles, founded by J Paul Getty (1892-1976).

Artist Photographers

Memorable contributors to photographic fine art include the following. American Ansel Adams, a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, recipient of three Guggenheim fellowships and the Presidential Medal of Freedom, whose black-and-white photographs of the West became the foremost record of the scenery of US National Parks before the advent of tourism. His masterpiece photographic prints include: Storm in Yosemite Valley (1935), Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico (1941), and The Tetons and the Snake River (1942), one of the images on the Voyager Golden Record of human civilization aboard the Voyager spacecraft. Ansel Adams archive resides at the University of Arizona Center for Creative Photography, in Tucson.

Leading Photographic Artists

Man Ray (born Emmanuel Radnitzky) was an American-born Paris-based modernist artist who was an early exponent of both Dada and Surrealism, and showed at the first Surrealist exhibition at the Galerie Pierre in Paris in 1925, along with Jean Arp, Max Ernst, André Masson, Joan Miró, and Pablo Picasso. Noted mainly for his avant-garde photography, he also practised as a renowned fashion and portrait photographer, whose subjects included many of the great artists of the day like James Joyce, Gertrude Stein, Jean Cocteau and Antonin Artaud. He developed the photographic method of solarization and invented a technique using photograms which he dubbed rayographs (as in his print, Rayograph, 1923, Private Collection). In its review of 20th century visual arts, ARTnews magazine listed Man Ray among the 25 most influential artists, citing his pioneering camera-work and dark room experimentation, together with his exploration of film, painting, sculpture, collage, assemblage, performance and conceptual art.

The American art photographer Robert Mapplethorpe - one of the first postmodernist artists - was noted for his large-scale, monochrome portraits of celebrities - including Andy Warhol, Deborah Harry, Richard Gere, Peter Gabriel, Grace Jones, and Patti Smith - statuesque male and female nudes, and delicate flower still life compositions, although he was best known for his controversial Portfolio X series of photographs, which brought him instant notoriety due to its explicit content.

John Goto, Professor of Fine Art at the University of Derby in England, is a British artist specializing in montage colour photography, who is noted in particular for the "High Summer" pictures in his Ukadia series of photos. His photo digital art has been shown widely in Europe, as well as at solo exhibitions at the Tate Gallery, the National Portrait Gallery, and the Photographers' Gallery in London.

Other leading fine art photographers include Andreas Gursky, noted for his works Schipol (1994, Metropolitan Museum of Art New York), Singapore Stock Exchange (1997, Guggenheim Museum, New York), and Parliament (1998, Tate Museum London), and the taboo-breaking American camera artist Nan Goldin, whose works include Nan One Month after being Battered (1984, Tate Museum London), and Siobhan in my Bathtub (1992, Winterthur Fotomuseum, Switzerland).

Other Leading Photographers

• Eugène Atget (1857-1927) the French photographer renowned for works documenting the architecture and street scenes of Paris.

• Henri Cartier-Bresson (1908–2004) another great French photographer, considered by many to be the greatest "street-photographer" of the 20th century.

• William Eggleston (b.1939) an important pioneer in helping to raise the artistic status of colour photgraphy.

• Walker Evans (1903–1975) an American noted for his photographic work for the Farm Security Administration.

• Robert Frank (b.1924) author of the influential book "The Americans" giving an outsider's view of American society. Highly innovative in compositing and manipulating photographs.

• Irving Penn (b.1917) noted for his portraiture and fashion work.

• Cindy Sherman (b.1954) best known for her conceptual portraits.

• Garry Winogrand (1928–1984) known for his mid 20th century street photos of America.

• See also the Irish photographer Victor Sloan, MBE RUA FRPS (b.1945).

• For information about lens-based artworks, see: Art Encyclopedia.