| Siskind | Yavno || The Photographers' Prints and Archives |Introduction: The intertwining paths of the lives of Aaron Siskind (1903-1991) and Max Yavno (1911-1985) made exhibiting their work together a natural decision. Both grew up on the same New York City block. Although their immigrant parents knew one another, Siskind was eight years older than Yavno and so the two missed becoming friends at an early age. Each, however, received his first camera in 1930. Siskind's was a wedding gift, and Yavno purchased his for himself.During this time, fine art photography was not being taught in schools and colleges, so both artists initially learned on their own. Siskind taught himself to make exposures and print photographs by practicing over and over again. Yavno learned to print photographs by following a Kodak instructional manual.
Aside from photography, Siskind earned a Bachelor of Social Science degree from the College of the City of New York in 1926. He then taught English in the New York City Public School System. In 1932, Yavno earned the same degree from the same college as Siskind. He, however, went on to attend the graduate School of Business Administration at Columbia University and then became a social worker at the New York City Home Relief Bureau.
In 1939, Siskind and Yavno were still in New York City. Both were members of the Photo League, a group of politically conscious and socially committed photographers who promoteddocumentary photography and who often used the streets and people of New York as their subjects. Siskind and Yavno became friends and roommates, sharing a passionate interest in photography.
Like many artists, Siskind and Yavno enjoyed travel. Whenever their finances allowed, they explored and photographed foreign countries. Eventually, this shared interest brought each of them to Mexico independently. Drawn by the exotic landscape and culture of the country, the two produced bodies of work during their visits that are the focus of this guide..
Today, both are considered master American photographers. Siskind, known for both his documentary and his black-and-white abstractions, is a key figure in the development of modern photography. Yavno is widely admired as a fine art and commercial photographer, recognized for the quality of his prints and for his depictions of urban realism.
In 1943, Siskind began moving away from the documentary mode in favor of abstraction. Parts of isolated letters and textured bits of weathered walls became his subjects. His purpose was not to document letters on walls, however, but to offer these fragments as new visual forms to experience and interpret. What the forms suggest and how they relate to one another within the frame of the photograph are issues to contemplate when viewing Siskind's abstractions.
Siskind's new photographs were similar to the stark, powerful, gestural paintings of Franz Kline, a contemporary painter who belonged to an influential group of artists in New York called the abstract expressionists. This group abandoned representational art and sought to express ideas and content through abstract forms. They created a new visual language that dominated American painting throughout the 1950s. Siskind shared work and ideas with its rising stars which also included Adolph Gottlieb, Willem de Kooning, Mark Rothko, Robert Motherwell and Jackson Pollock. These painters were among the first to admire and encourage the abstract direction Siskind's work had taken. This support was particularly important since no other photographers were making photographs like these at the time.
Yavno, meanwhile, remained in the documentary style while consistently pursuing perfect exposures and crystal clear compositions.He became known for documentary images of people living their lives in cluttered, busy streets. Using his unique mode of creating photographs, Yavno chose settings with intriguing graphic shapes, light, shadow, and texture. He then set up his camera in this space and waited for people and activities to play out a scenario in front of his lens. In images made during these sessions, his subjects did not seem to notice that he was there; they continued with their own activities and Yavno recorded them.
The Photographs in This GuideAll of the photographs in this guide are gelatin silver prints. The term "gelatin silver" is a technical name for the most common type of "black-and-white photograph." It refers to a print made on photographic paper coated with a light-sensitive emulsion containing silver.
Both Siskind and Yavno preferred using larger format cameras which yielded negatives in either a 2 1/4 x 2 1/4" size or a 4 x 5" size, much larger than the negatives produced by the 35mm cameras in common use today. The larger negatives provided crisper definition in the finished print. These and many other conscious choices made by each photographer allowed them to carefully control the results of their final prints.
http://www.creative photography.org This page last updated June 29, 1999. oncenter@ccp.library.arizona.edu
| Contents | Activities | Interpreting Aaron Siskind's Photographs | Interpreting Max Yavno's Photographs |
Note: documentary photography records events, people, places and other subjects. Often the photographer wants to capture a particular time and place, record evidence of human behavior or create a historical document. Return
Note: abstract expressionism emphasizes formal elements such as shape, color, and/or line rather than recognizable subject matter, and expresses emotions and individual feelings. Abstract expressionists such as Franz Kline and Jackson Pollock were part of a group of artists, many refugees, who developed their style in response to the chaos leading up to and following World War II. Return
Center for Creative Photography • The University of Arizona • Tucson, Arizona 85721-0103 • Phone: 520-621-7968