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I have asked in the past for recommendations on who the great photographers are, but this time I'd like to know who have proven through time to be the greatest photographers. In North America we think of Ansel Adams, Edward Weston, etc. as being the greatest - but I have no idea for example who over time has proven to be the top fine art photographer in Germany, or Holland or all manner of other countries. We are remarkably insular here in North America. I wonder if that is true of most parts of the world. Is Edward Weston as well known elsewhere - and if so, why don't we know of greats from other parts of the world.
You'd think we'd want to know the work of the top photographers of the world from the 90+% that don't live in North America.
I'm aware of the position of Charlie Waite, Joe Cornish, David Ward, and of course Fay Godwin in Britain, but who are the the ones mentioned in the history books in your country?
If you can point us to online examples of their images, even better.
Thanks
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13 comments:
From Japan you've got Araki and Moriyama banging the drum up front. Never really understood the beauty of Araki's 'nude studies' but his earlier street work is mighty fine. Moriyama-san is also a little hit and miss for me. They are both prodigious in their output which probably confounds matters a little in the quality control area. Suffice to say neither of these would be my Japanese representative. In that role I propose Kimura Ihei.
I'll try and dig out some work on line of his but my initial searches are not too successful. I do have some book recommends if you're interested though...
From Australia:
Peter Dombrovskis
Images at the National Library of Australia.
Passed away in 1996 while photographing in the Western Arthur Range in southwest Tasmania. Not a bad way to go.
I'm not sure how he holds up to the history of Polish photographers, but the work of Andrzej Dragan is pretty unique and compelling.
http://www.andrzejdragan.com/
I'm not French, and obviously can't speak for the culture or his eminence, but I seem to remember a good bit of Atget's work shown in Paris.
Great - keep the suggestions coming. Thanks folks.
Hungary - well you might be familiar with the greatest Hungarian photographers simply because they become famous mostly in the US.
They are:
Robert Capa (born as Endre Friedmann),
André Kertész (born as Endre Kertész),
Brassai (born as Gyula Halász),
Martin Munkácsy,
László Moholy-Nagy,
Don't overlook Josef Sudek, of Prague, and one of my favorites. Manuel Alvarez-Bravo, of Mexico is another. Albert Renger-Patsch and August Sander, of Germany, are also rightfully ranked among the greats.
What about HCB.
2 British greats - David Bailey (whose name has almost entered the vernacular - "who do you think you are...?"), and Snowdon.
In the UK, Don McCullin has to be one of the 20th century's most important photographers. His photo of a shell-shocked US soldier in Vietnam has become iconic.
Maybe Michael Kenna will become recognised by a wider audience some time. He deserves to be!
The problem in the UK is that we're obsessed by fashion or celebrity photographers (e.g. Bailey, Lichfield) and generally don't give a hoot about fine art photogs. This is why people like MK end up emigrating to the USA where their skills are more appreciated. Very sad.
Alan
Sebastião Salgado from Brazil.
Prague: Karel Plicka
Wonderful work preserving times and places long gone. I treasure the old large format books I have been able to pick up.
The italian Tina Modotti.
My take on UK photographers would be a little different to the previous comments:
Not to mention the father of photography, William Fox Talbot would be a sin, http://www.masters-of-photography.com/T/talbot/talbot.html
Another early photographer Roger Fenton http://images.google.co.uk/images?svnum=10&hl=en&safe=off&rls=GGLG%2CGGLG%3A2005-49%2CGGLG%3Aen&q=Roger+Fenton
Bill Brandt was important as he brought additional perspectives and vision to photography. Ansel Adams recognized that Brandt’s constrasty style was so very different to his own, but that it had real relevance.
http://www.billbrandt.com/
Bert Hardy for his documentary work during the war for Picture Post http://images.google.co.uk/images?hl=en&safe=off&rls=GGLG,GGLG:2005-49,GGLG:en&q=Bert%20Hardy&btnG=Search&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wi
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