Aaron Siskind
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"It is true that many people have photographed material similar to Siskind's walls (a testament to his influence), but Siskind's photographs have never been surpassed for sheer presence, power and continuous experiential possibilities"
       -Carl Chiarenza

An influential photographer and teacher, Aaron Siskind made his first earnest attempts at photography in 1931 and 1932. Inspired by documentary photographs on display at New York City's Film and Photo League (the forerunner of the Photo League), he joined the group and became active in the production of such projects as "Harlem Documentary" and "Portrait of a Tenement."


Click to Enter GalleryAlmost from the beginning, a dissonance existed between the documentary and social-political goals of the League and Siskind's emerging preoccupation with formal and esthetic concerns. Siskind later recalled, "for some reason or other there was in me the desire to see the world clean and fresh and alive, as primitive things are clean and fresh and alive. The so-called documentary picture left me wanting something."

In the early l940s, he left the league and worked in an increasingly abstract, personal and contemplative mode, photographing organic objects -- rocks, for example -- as flat shapes on the surface of the picture plane rather than objects possessing three dimensions.


"For the first time in my life, subject matter, as such, had ceased to be of primary importance," Siskind said. "Instead, I found myself involved in the relationships of these objects, so much so that these pictures turned out to be deeply moving and personal experiences."

He photographed walls, portions of signs, graffiti and peeling posters; his primary interest was in the flat, graphic messages they contained. Initially his most sympathetic audience consisted of abstract expressionist painters, such as Willem de Kooning and Franz Kline, who understood the problems of space, line, and planarity that he was addressing. In time, his subject matter was explored by other photographers.

In l948, Siskind met Harry Callahan who brought him to Chicago's Institute of Design (New Bauhaus) to teach. Siskind became head of the department of photography at the Institute, and in 1963, was one of the founding members of the Society for Photographic Education. From l97l to l976, he served on the faculty at The Rhode Island School of Design.
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