Aaron Siskind
(American, 1903–1991)
Biography
Aaron Siskind was an American photographer best known for his black-and-white, close range, and aerial photos of surfaces and objects. With the transformative properties of monochromes and their lack of scale or context, Siskind’s photos can seem both sculptural and vast or diminutive and painterly. Their ambiguity has caused spectators to “muse (sometimes in print) in front of a Siskind photograph like analysands in front of ink blots,” wrote art critic Thomas B. Hess. Born on December 4, 1903 in New York, NY, Siskind didn’t begin photographing until he received a camera as a wedding gift and soon after joined the New York Photo League. His work follows in the lineage of Bauhaus photographer László Moholy-Nagy and American photographer Harry Callahan, inspired by their formal and technical approaches to the medium. His works—which range in subject matter from volcanic lava to graffitied walls—are in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, and the Smithsonian Museum of American Art in Washington, D.C., among others. Siskind died on February 8, 1991 in Providence, RI.
Aaron Siskind Artworks
Aaron Siskind
(1,918 results)
.jpg "Untitled (from Harlem document), 1936")
.jpg "Walt Whitman. Song of the Open Road..., 1990")
Aaron Siskind
Walt Whitman. Song of the Open Road..., 1990
Sale Date: November 30, 2011
Auction Closed
-(6-works).jpg "Harlem document (study) (6 works), 1932–1940")
Aaron Siskind
Harlem document (study) (6 works), 1932–1940
Sale Date: October 7, 2011
Auction Closed
.jpg "Untitled (Rock formation), 1960–1969")
English (US)
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