John Szarkowski

John Szarkowski is one of the most influential and acclaimed 20th century writers and theoreticians of photography. As the longtime photography curator at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) from 1962 to 1991, Szarkowski shaped the contemporary understanding of photography in American culture. During his tenure at MoMA, Szarkowski organized more than 40 exhibitions that analyzed the medium’s artistic potential and created the critically acclaimed volume of photography, “The Photography of Invention.” His three-volume work, “The Natural Image,” is considered one of the great works of photohistory.

John Szarkowski was born in 1925 in Ashland Wisconsin. He was an avid watcher of the world, and early on developed an eye and appreciation for the nuances of artistic composition. In the 1940s, he studied at the University of Wisconsin to receive a Bachelor of Arts in English and Comparative Literature and later received an Master of Arts in the humanities. At this time, he also wrote poetry and fiction.

In the 1950s, Szarkowski devoted most of his efforts to photography. He was given the opportunity to curate his first solo show at the University of Nebraska’s Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery. The show was titled, “Architecture of Doubt.” This show began to illustrate Szarkowski’s approach to presenting photography and placing the medium within a larger cultural context.

In 1955, Szarkowski moved to New York City to work for the Department of Photography at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). During his tenure at MoMA, Szarkowski organized and curated numerous exhibitions, from “Mirrors and Windows: Photography on the Art of the 1960s” to “Edward Steichen’s The Family of Man” to “Christian Marclay: Cinematic Nature.” These exhibitions presented and identified new photographic approaches and enabled the public to understand photography’s potential as an art form.

In 1962, he was appointed curator of photography at MoMA, a position he held until 1991. During his curatorship, Szarkowski wrote, edited and published three groundbreaking books: “The Photographer’s Eye” (1966), “Looking at Photographs: 100 Pictures from the Collection of the Museum of Modern Art” (1973) and “The Photographers” (1977).

In his books and exhibitions, Szarkowski focused on the potential beauty and importance of photography as distinct from painting and cinema, claiming that all important photographs had "visual equivalents of effects previously obtained, or planned to be obtained, only by other means." His approach was to emphasize the medium’s unique technical and aesthetic qualities. Throughout his works, Szarkowski illustrated many different styles of photography, often that weren’t considered to be “realist” or “artistic,” but were of equal value and merit. He believed that any photograph could be art, as long as it had technical proficiency, structure, and an “expressiveness” that conveyed a certain meaning or feeling.

In the early 1990s, Szarkowski retired from MoMA and returned to Ashland, Wisconsin to write, lecture, and teach throughout the area. He died in 2007, but his influence is still felt among practitioners, theorists and curators of photography today. His vast oeuvre has encouraged and inspired generations of photographers and other media-makers. His masterful writings, exhibitions and curations leave a lasting legacy on the artistic potential of photography.