The first retrospective in 25 years of work by artist Garry Winogrand (1928–1984)—the renowned photographer of New York City and of American life from the 1950s through the early 1980s—debuts at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) through June 2.
Garry Winogrand, Coney Island, New York, ca. 1952; gelatin silver print; collection The Museum of Modern Art, New York, purchase and gift of Barbara Schwartz in memory of Eugene M. Schwartz; © The Estate of Garry Winogrand, courtesy Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco; digital image © The Museum of Modern Art / Licensed by SCALA / Art Resource, NY
By Paul Duclos
Published: April, 2013
The first retrospective in 25 years of work by artist Garry Winogrand (1928–1984)—the renowned photographer of New York City and of American life from the 1950s through the early 1980s—debuts at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) through June 2.
Jointly organized by SFMOMA and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, Garry Winogrand brings together the artist’s most iconic images with newly printed photographs from his largely unexamined archive of late work, offering a rigorous overview of Winogrand’s complete working life and revealing for the first time the full sweep of his career.
More than 300 photographs in the exhibition and more than 400 in the accompanying catalogue will create a vivid portrait of the artist—a chronicler of postwar America on a par with such figures as Norman Mailer and Robert Rauschenberg—who unflinchingly captured America’s wrenching swings between optimism and upheaval in the decades following World War II.
The exhibition has been conceived and guest-curated by photographer and author Leo Rubinfien with Erin O’Toole, assistant curator of photography at SFMOMA, and Sarah Greenough, senior curator of photographs at the National Gallery of Art.
While Winogrand is widely considered one of the greatest photographers of the 20th century, his overall body of work and influence on the field remains incompletely explored. He was enormously prolific but largely postponed the editing and printing of his work. Dying suddenly at the age of 56, he left behind approximately 6,500 rolls of film (some 250,000 images) that he had never seen, as well as proof sheets from his earlier years that he had marked but never printed. Roughly half of the photographs in the exhibition have never been exhibited or published until now; over 100 have never before been printed.
Local Top Chef
Bay Crossings readers should be well acquainted with Charles Phan, the award-winning executive chef and owner of the Slanted Door in the Ferry Building and five other restaurants in the City. Chef Phan’s newest enterprise is the all-day café/restaurant South at SFJAZZ.
"I can think of no other chef/restaurateur who is a better match than Charles for the SFJAZZ Center," said SFJAZZ Founder and Executive Artistic Director Randall Kline. "Charles is a culinary genius whose creative spirit compliments the art that we will be presenting in our new home. Our aim is to be an artistic, educational, and community center. The café will be open for breakfast and lunch, as well as evenings. Exceptional food and drink—what Charles is famous for—will play an integral role in welcoming people to the center, even when there are not concerts taking place. We are delighted to have him be a part of the center."
Chef Phan is considered to be the inventor of modern Vietnamese cuisine in the United States. Born in Da Lat, Vietnam in 1962, Phan and his family—parents and five siblings—relocated to Guam just before the fall of Saigon, and two years later, in 1977, moved to San Francisco where they settled. Phan opened his first restaurant, the Slanted Door, on Valencia Street in San Francisco’s Mission District in 1995. It was an immediate popular and critical success and the restaurant played a significant role in the revitalization of this vibrant area. In 2004, the Slanted Door became one of the principal tenants of San Francisco’s historic Ferry Building and was instrumental in developing this landmark into one of the country’s premier food destinations.
That year, Phan also won the James Beard Foundation award for Best Chef of California and, in 2011, was inducted into the foundation’s Who’s Who of Food & Beverage in America. His vision has always been to showcase farm-fresh, locally sourced ingredients and prepare everything from scratch.
Garry Winogrand, John F. Kennedy International Airport, New York, 1968; gelatin silver print; collection of John and Lisa Pritzker; © The Estate of Garry Winogrand, courtesy Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco
