History of Photography

ISSN: 0308-7298 (Print) 2150-7295 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/thph20

Beaumont Newhall's ‘Photography 1839–1937’

Making History

Allison Bertrand

To cite this article: Allison Bertrand (1997) Beaumont Newhall's ‘Photography 1839–1937’ Making
History, History of Photography, 21:2, 137-146, DOI: 10.1080/03087298.1997.10443731

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/03087298.1997.10443731

Published online: 19 Jan 2015.

Submit your article to this journal

Article views: 148

Citing articles: 5 View citing articles

Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at

https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=thph20
 Beaumont Newhall's 'Photography 1839-1937'
Making History

Allison Bertrand

On 17 March 1937, the exhibition 'Photography 1839-
1937' opened at the Museum of Modem Art. Warmly
received, it travelled the United States.! However, few of
the critics who reviewed it or the viewers who e~oyed it
imagined that it and the catalogue it spawned would define
the history of the medium for the rest of the century.
Beaumont Newhall, the MOMA librarian who was tapped
as the show's curator (figure 1), was immediately defined as
a major figure in the historiography of photography and his
career as such was launched. His conception of how one
evaluated the medium and his selection of early twentieth-
century as well as historic 'masters' of photography estab-
lished a canon for the English-speaking world that every
subsequent historian has had to either assimilate or challenge.
Newhall defined photographic art as a technologically
determined product of the camera and, at the same time,
the unique creation of an autonomous author. Within these
diverse parameters, both fine art collectors seeking the rare
and unique and practising photographers interested in the
advancement of technique and process found satisfaction.
This inherendy contradictory combination resulted from the
diverse sources that defined Newhall's understanding of
photography and, more broadly, his understanding of the
fine arts. To help explain the origins of the exhibition and
the reasons that it took the particular form it did, one must
return to the formation of its curator and the state of
photographic history in the early 1930s.
Beaumont Newhall dates his earliest memories of photo-
graphy to 1913 when, as a five-year-old, he watched his
mother, who had a large 'portrait camera', make 'pictures
appear on the glass plate'.2 However, two incidents in the
summer of 1926, just before he entered Harvard, attracted

Figure 1. Nancy Newhall, Beaumont Newhall, Yosemite (Ansel's Backyard), gelatin silver
print, 1940. Courtesy of The Scheinbaurn and Russek Gallery of Photography, Santa
Fe,NM.

HISTORY OF PHOTOGRAPHY, VOLUME 21, NUMBER 2, SUMMER 1997 0308-7298/97 $12.00 © 1997 Taylor & Francis Ltd 137
Allison Bertrand

client, an arts institution. 7 Development of this type of

financial support depended on the education of potential
donors through the careful study and prolonged looking
advocated by Sachs. Extensive museum-sponsored educa-
tional programming, including exhibitions, monographs and
bibliographies, provided this instruction. Newhall designed
his exhibition, 'Photography 1839-1937', and its catalogue
to 'sell' the audience of the Museum of Modern Art on
viewing with appreciation, collecting and donating the sorts
of photographs it showcased. 8
It was with Sachs's encouragement that Newhall wrote
one of his earliest articles on photography - an educational
effort directed at art historians and scholars. After receiving
his Masters in Art History in 1931 and working briefly at
the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Metropolitan
Museum of Art, Newhall had returned to Harvard in 1933
9
Figure 2. Photographer unknown, Paul]. Sachs, gelatin silver print, to work on his PhD. In 1934, Sachs gave him the opportun-
c.1948. Harvard University Archives, Cambridge, MA. ity to speak before the College Art Association in New
York. The selection of the topic was left up to him,
him to the artistic qualities of the medium. A chance viewing Newhall's choice, the relationship between painting and
of a German film, Variety, and the discovery of the photo- photography in the nineteenth century, astounded Sachs.
graphs of architect Erich Mendelsohn in a book, Amerika: Nevertheless, he consented, and Newhall gave his talk at the
Bilderbuch eines Architekten, published in 1926, inspired him Metropolitan Museum in March of that year. lO
to begin photographing as an amateur. 3 When these interests The talk was published in Pamassus, the College Art
prompted him to investigate the possibility of studying Association's monthly journal, as an article, 'Photography
motion pictures at Harvard, he found no courses were and the Artist' .11 This essay contains technical and historical
offered in cinema or photography. He enrolled in art history information about the discovery of the medium as well as a
instead. His art history courses rested on the idea that works discussion of the relationship between photography and
of art possessed the attributes of authorship, autonomy and painting in the nineteenth century. In its first paragraph, a
uniqueness. He remembered these undergraduate lectures as curious sentence appears: 'Practically, artists were disap-
'more archaeological than aesthetic. There was very little pointed to fInd little help in visual study from the camera' .12
discussion of the visual aspect of the art of the past'. 4 This Of course, today, we know that photographs were used as
changed, suddenly, when as a graduate student in 1931, he 'sketches' by some of the most important painters in the
studied with Paul Joseph Sachs, professor of art history and nineteenth century. The presence of this statement, in an
assistant director of the Fogg Museum (figure 2). article in a journal like Pamassus, suggests just how little
A self-professed connoisseur, Sachs encouraged his stu- attention the history of photography had received from art
dents to evaluate unfamiliar objects by subjecting them to historians and how little Newhall himself knew about the
visual analysis. Such analyses produced observations about subject of photography's impact on painting in 1934.
medium and method of execution. These exercises equipped However, Newhall knew a great deal about photography
Newhall to analyse photographic images by connecting in general and its technological history by the time he was
process and materials with stylistic attributes. In addition, a Harvard graduate student. Largely through independent
Sachs's seminar provided Newhall with practice in articulat- study, he had discovered avant-garde European film and
ing this connection. 5 The goal of the investigation was, of photography as an undergraduate by attending many foreign
course, to recognize the attributes of the exceptional. For fIlms and reading recent books on European photography in
Sachs, these attributes were tied to authorship.6 Sachs also the Harvard Library.13 What attracted him to modernist
provided practical training that prepared Newhall for the cinema, he later recalled, was its radical new formal language:
curatorial tasks he was to undertake at the Museum of 'Variety told its story with images created through the use
Modern Art. of extreme camera angles .. . . There was also multiple
The entire format of the 1937 exhibition, its catalogue exposure .... The fum was, to my eyes, a triumph - not of
included, descended directly from Sachs's vision of museums Jannings's acting, not of Dupont's direction, but of Freund's
as entrepreneurial enterprises, marketing exhibitions which imaginative camerawork' .14 He made similar statements
amassed public and private support for the institutions which about the photographs by architect Erich Mendelsohn that
mounted them. As with other directors and curators who he knew from reproductions: 'To me these were extraordin-
graduated from his museum seminar, Sachs trained Newhall ary photographs because of the camera angle as well as the
to provide services to the Museum of Modern Art somewhat choice of subject' .15
similar to those provided to clients of Goldman Sachs, the Newhall's awareness of 1920s modernist styles in photo-
investment banking firm run by Sachs's father. Students graphy and cinema was supplemented by a rather fragmentary
learned to raise capital, in the form of cash or donated acquaintance with earlier photography. While an under-
objects, from 'investors', an appreciative audience, for their graduate, he read and absorbed the theories of Alfred Stieglitz

138

as propounded in Camera Work. 16 In 1931 Newhall saw
Berenice Abbott's collection of American Civil War photo-
graphs reproduced in Camille Recht's Die Alte Photographie,
an early anthology of pictures presented as antiquarian
windows on the past. 17 Later in life, he remembered seeing
original prints by Atget and Nadar in the Julien Levy Gallery
in New York. 18 Newhall also researched the history of the
medium in the library of the Royal Photographic Society
while studying in London in the summer of 1934. There he
saw work by Cameron as well as Frederick Scott Archer,
Talbot and other Victorians. 19 All the while, he was develop-
ing and articulating the defInition of superior photography
he was to showcase in his exhibition in 1937. Between 1932
and 1935, Newhall wrote three reviews of books on photo-
graphy and an exhibition notice for a 'Salon' devoted to
contemporary photography. Many ideas which appear in the
1937 catalogue as well as many photographers included in
the exhibition can be found in these four short articles
and/or, in the case of the book reviews, the publications
which were their subject. In addition they document the
discovery by Newhall of photographers both historic and
contemporary.
In 1932 Newhall expressed enthusiasm for 'straight'
photography in the review he wrote of Helmut Bossert and
Heinrich Guttmann's Aus der Frahzeit der Photographie,
1840-70.20 He praised the 'astounding modernity of feeling'
of the reproductions:
Perhaps this is explained by the fact that the word 'pictorial'
had not entered the vocabulary of the photographer, lack of
technical perfection preventing him from vying with the
painter. 'Pure' photography was the only type possible. Today,
those working with the camera are, for the most part, realizing
that this is their only legitimate aesthetic ... .21
Newhall's use of the terms 'pictorial' and 'pure' reveals his
awareness of the theories of Peter Henry Emerson and the
rejection by Alfred Stieglitz of pictorialism. In addition,
Newhall connects early daguerreotypes and calotypes with
the contemporary photography he most admires, implying
that images from both early and late periods share 'modernist'
qualities. The article also alludes to a central distinction
Newhall draws in 1937: attempts to 'vye with the painter'
lead to failed paintings rather than successful photographs.
As in his Museum of Modem Art catalogue, he disparages
photographs he dislikes by dissociating them completely
from the medium. These ideas come from the pages of
Camera Work and its editor, Stieglitz. 22 Of course, as a
Bilderbuch, a 'picture book', Aus der Frahzeit also exposed
Newhall to a number of photographers, good and bad, from
the early decades of the medium.
Aus der Frahzeit contains the work of several nineteenth-
century photographers featured in the 1937 exhibition,
including Cameron, Nadar, Talbot, Hill and Adamson,
Charles-Victor Hugo, O. G. Rejlander and Henry Peach
Robinson. 23 In addition, it labels two photographs, The Two
Ways of Life by o. G. Rejlander and Fading Away by Henry
Peach Robinson, not as 'Kunst', but as examples of the
'Kitsch' of later nineteenth-century photography.24 These
two images appear in Newhall's 1937 catalogue used m
much the same way - as foils to works he praises. 25
Beaumont Newhall's 'Photography 1839-1937'
In 1933 Newhall underscored many of the points he
made in his Bossert and Guttman review when discussing
the relationship of photography to modem art. For his
'Introduction' to the 'Catalogue of the 2nd International
Salon of Photography' at the Pennsylvania Museum of Art,
Newhall wrote: 'Much of the progress of modem art revolves
around the position and advancement of photography'. 26
Couched in the language of the industrial revolution, the
'progress' of modem art is tied to the 'advancement' of the
medium. This statement proposes overtly what Newhall's
review of Aus der Frahzeit only implies: that both nineteenth-
century and twentieth-century photography are 'modem'.
In addition, its language looks forward to the methodology
Newhall employs in the exhibition and catalogue of 1937,
where he constructs a lineage or 'progression' of artistic
photographers from the daguerreotype of 1839 to the most
advanced scientifIc innovations of 1937.
Newhall discovered a particular contemporary photo-
grapher who fulfilled the medium's potential while writing
a series of reviews in 1935. 27 Ansel Adams had written an
introduction to a British annual, Modem Photography 1934-5,
which Newhall reviewed for the American Magazine of Art.
Instead of focusing on Adams's text, which surveyed the
history of photography, Newhall was impressed by the four
Adams images reproduced, including Old Fence, which he
dubbed 'superb'. Later in 1935, in a review of Adams's
book, Making a Photograph: An Introduction to Photography,
Newhall applauded Adams's 'mastery ofphotography'.28 He
attributed the success of Adams's images to the abilities of
their author, who used the camera as a tool. However,
Newhall did not give Adams unadulterated praise, either as
a photographer or as a critic:
The text is illustrated with photographs both of technical and
aesthetic pretensions ... . Why it should be one of the tenets
of 'straight' photography that as many planes as possible should
be in exact focus has long been a puzzle to the reviewer. The
marvelous power of a lens to record a single band in focus
while discarding the rest is 'straight,' conditioned as it is by
the law of optics .... The author's work shows the utmost
detail, clarifying nature. Other fine camera work catches
fleeting movement. The two are different approaches; both
are valid.
This model of two opposing 'valid' techniques foreshadows
methodology Newhall would employ in the 1937 cata-
logue. 29 There 'Detail: The Daguerreotype' and 'Mass: The
Calotype' are both part of the 'Basic Laws' of photography. 30
In his 1935 review he introduces a framework characterized
by a set of bi-polar norms in which to classify images from
all historical periods. Inherent even in this expanded notion
of 'straight' photography is the principle that the nature of
the image is constrained by the limits of the production
process.
Newhall also had an important model for the reconcili-
ation of this edict and its technologically determined implica-
tions with the traditional art historical idea of authorship.
Throughout his life Newhall praised Heinrich Schwarz's
David Octavius Hill: Master of Photography (published in
German in 1931 and translated into English the same year),
which Newhall included in the bibliography of the 1937
139
Allison Bertrand
catalogue and may have seen at the time of its publication. 31
Schwarz did not describe Hill's photography solely as a
product of the technical 'progress' of the medium. Schwarz
stressed, as would Newhall later, the importance of artistic
intent. However, Newhall got far more than this from
Schwarz. For example, the first chapter of Schwarz's book
is a 'history', starting with 1839 and ending with the
twentieth century, that implies that truly expressive photo-
graphy depends 'on no other graphic expression', as Newhall
later wrote. Schwarz asserted: '[W]hen ... photography
becomes untrue to itself, then and only then may the
reproach be justly made that photography bears no relation
to art'. 32 The connection of photographic modernism with
science, submerged in the language and technical data of
Newhall's text, is explicit in Schwarz. 33 Schwarz describes
photography as a 'new, independent medium of artistic
creation subject to its own peculiar laws;' this idea re-emerges
as Newhall's famous 'optical and chemicallaws'.34 Perhaps,
most importantly for Newhall, the connection with artistic
excellence and 'straight' production practices is stressed:
Only in the choice of subject and composition and in his
knowledge of the sculptural effect oflight, only in his prevision
of the fmal result and his elimination of the unforeseen
eventuality, and not therefore, in the mechanical process itself
but in the preparation for that process, must the artistic
performance of the photographer be completed and fulfilled. 35
When Newhall joined the Museum of Modem Art as a
librarian in 1935, he therefore had knowledge of both
contemporary 'straight' photography and its historical ante-
cedents as well as a model of its synthesis with traditional
art historical tenets. His new job derived directly from his
art historical connections, particularly his association with
Paul Sachs and another Sachs student, Alfred Barr. The
Figure 3. Beaumont Newhall, Photograph of European loans for the exhibition, 'Cubism and
Abstract Art,' that were declared not art but 'garden ornaments' by U. S. Customs inspectors, gelatin
silver print, 1936. Courtesy of The Scheinbaum and Russek Gallery of Photography, Santa
Fe,NM.
140
young student Newhall had met Barr in 1929, when Barr
was teaching at Wellesley College,36 and Barr had become
the new Museum of Modem Art's first director at its
founding in 1929. But it was undoubtedly Sachs's recom-
mendation, rather than Barr's first-hand contact with
Newhall, that resulted in his being hired. In 1936 Sachs was
on the Board of Trustees of the Museum, a position he may
well have held in 1935. 37 As Sachs's student, Newhall's
application presumably enjoyed an advantage, and he was
hired despite the presence of another candidate.38
The Museum of Modem Art was uniquely suited both
to refine Newhall's ideas and to provide a forum for his
philosophy and opinions. It was arguably the most prominent
museum in the United States inclined to mount a historical
photography exhibition of such scope and size. Museum
Director Alfred H. Barr was also committed to the exhibition
of photography. Barr had included photography in the
innovative course in modem art he first taught at Wellesley
in 1927. 39 Later that year, while in Russia, he had written
an article entitled 'The Documentary versus the Abstract
Film' for a Moscow joumal.4Q The prospectus, 'A New Art
Museum' which Barr drafted in 1929, upon accepting the
job as director of the museum from Abby Aldrich
Rockefeller, included a Department ofPhotography.41 Both
Newhall and Barr envisioned this exhibition as the necessary
first step in building a photography collection and a
Department of Photography at MOMA.
When Barr offered Newhall the opportunity to 'put
together a photography exhibition' in 1936 and agreed to
an 'overview', both men shared Paul Sachs's vision of the
'blockbuster' exhibition. 42 The Museum of Modem Art's
1937 photography show was one of four prominent exhibi-
tions held between 1936 and 1938. 43 Barr's exhibition of

Figure 4. Beaumont Newhall, Installation photograph of Herbert
Matter's entrance installation for 'Photography 1839-1937', gelatin
silver print, 1937. Courtesy of The Scheinbaum and Russek Gallery
of Photography, Santa Fe, NM.
1936, 'Cubism and Abstract Art', contained not just painting
and sculpture, but examples of photography, architecture,
industrial art, theatre, fIlms, posters and typography. As
museum librarian, Newhall was intimately involved with the
show and had compiled a bibliography of 444 books for the
catalogue. However, his involvement also extended to help-
ing install the exhibition and shooting photographic records
of works included (figure 3).44
Barr was also familiar with the way photography was
exhibited in Europe during the 1920s and 1930s. 45 Newhall's
work on 'Cubism and Abstract Art' exposed him, through
Figure 5. Photographer unknown, Installation photograph of the 'Film und Foto' exhibition, Room 1, Stuttgart,
gelatin silver print, 1929. From Ute Eskildesen and J. Ch. Horak, eds, Film und Foto der zwanziger Jahre,
Stuttgart 1979.
Beaumont Newhall's 'Photography 1839-1937'
Barr, to the important German photography shows of the
preceding fifteen years. The first two illustrations in the
catalogue for 'Cubism and Abstract Art' are two posters
advertising 'Pressa', the German press exhibition of 1928. 46
Furthermore, all the photographers illustrated in the cata-
logue for 'Cubism and Abstract Art' had participated in 'Film
und Foto', an important exhibition held in Stuttgart in 1929.
They were later represented in Newhall's own exhibition. 47
There is ample evidence that the scope and contents of
'Film und Foto' influenced Newhall's 1937 exhibition. 48
'Film und Foto' contained, among other things, scientific
work such as astronomical photography and X-rays, advert-
ising images and images from the mass media. All of these
were present in Newhall's exhibition. Many of these images
featured the unconventional camera angles and subject matter
of the German photographs he admired in 1926. The
functions of these industrial and scientific photographs
required an unrnanipulated approach, and thus their
style met Newhall's aesthetic requirement for purely
'photographic' production practices.
Finally, the design and installation of the exhibition
'Photography 1839-1937' itself referred to the German
exhibitions (figures 4 and 5). Photographic enlargements, a
feature of the installations and promotional material of many
European shows including 'Film und Foto', figured in
Newhall's exhibition. 49 Swiss photographer and graphic
designer, Herbert Matter, who was hired to install the show,
placed a large blow-up of a photographer next to the
entrance to the exhibition. 50 Matter may well have seen
'Film und Foto', which came to Zurich in 1929,51 but this
style of installation was a commonplace in American
commercial trade magazines of the early 1930s.
WOHIN GEHT DIE
FOTOGRAFISCHE
141
Allison Bertrand
In addition, Barr's catalogue for 'Cubism and Abstract
Art' is directly related to Newhall's text in at least two ways.
Perhaps its most important contribution was to provide a
model for Newhall's 'legacy' of fine art photography. The
'flow chart' that appeared on the jacket of Cubism and
Abstract Art linked the painting and sculpture in the exhibition
back to Post-Impressionism. 52 It constructed a 'biography'
for the objects in the exhibition by representing them as the
evolutionary progeny of the nineteenth-century avant-garde.
This type of methodology was a common tool in art
historical narratives dating back to Giorgio Vasari's Lives of
the most excellent Painters, Sculptors and Architects, first published
in 1550. Such 'progressions' occur in the writings of Stieglitz
and Schwarz, but the exhaustive thoroughness of Barr's
diagram was surely an immediate paradigm for the type of
'chain of tradition' Newhall constructed in his own essay.53
In addition, Barr's essay relied essentially on formalist ana-
lyses, a technique that Newhall adapted for photographs but
that had been rarely used in early photographic histories.
The way that the photographic exhibition was organized
also ultimately determined its contents and the catalogue
essay. Newhall agreed to do the 1937 exhibition in the
spring of 1936, and the process of acquiring materials was
hit or miss. 54 He relied on his personal knowledge and
research: 'I knew, by reproductions, the work of Edward
Weston and Ansel Adams. They responded promptly to my
invitations [to send images for the exhibition],.55 But he also
solicited referrals from those photographers he admired. 'As
Steichen prophecied, some of the finest work I have ever
seen has been done by Paul Strand .. .'.56 A frequently
repeated anecdote is probably representative of the selection
process. Adams also 'drew to my attention the photographs
of the Southwest by a 19th century photographer known to
me only by his Civil War photographs: Timothy H.
O'Sullivan'. 57 By just such happenstance occurrences
photographers were included or omitted.
This pattern was repeated in Europe, where Newhall
combined a honeymoon with work on the exhibition in the
fall of 1936. 58 Beaumont Newhall and Nancy Wynne Parker
were married on 1 July 1936. Nancy Parker was a painter
and writer from Swampscott, Massachusetts, a town next to
Lynn, the village where Newhall grew up and lived while
attending Harvard. 59 However, before they could leave for
Europe, Newhall suffered an attack of appendicitis and had
to have surgery. He used his recuperation time to read 'the
two frnest histories of photography then available': Geschichte
der Photographie, reissued in an expanded two-volume edition
in 1932 by Josef Maria Eder and translated into English by
Newhall's friend Edward Epstean in 1936, and Histoire de la
decouverte de la photographie, written in 1925 by Georges
Potonniee. 60 These two books provided the basic technical
information on pre-photography and nineteenth-century
processes included by Newhall. 61 Recently published, La
Photographie en France au Dix-Neuvieme Sihle: Essai de
Sodologie et d'Esthetique by Gisele Freund was 'of great
importance to me, for it goes into the social and aesthetic
forces that shaped photography as a medium'. 62 An exhibi-
tion catalogue, Exposition intemationale de la photographie
contemporaine: section retrospective (1839-1900), held at the
142
Musee des Arts Decoratifs in Paris from 10 January to
1 March 1936, was also a useful source of historic inlages
for Newhall's project.
When the young couple arrived in France, Newhall
met many of the fourteen French collectors who lent to the
Paris exhibition. He later recalled that he 'could not have
assembled such a fine exhibition at the Museum of Modern
Art without their [the French collectors'] enthusiastic help'.63
He also acquired the work of'contemporary French photo-
graphers such as Brassal and Nora Dumas. 64 After about two
weeks in France he and Nancy left for London via Holland. 65
In England Newhall borrowed inlages from Moholy-Nagy,
Paul Martin and other individual photographers as well as
from the Royal Photographic Society.66 The Newhalls did
not travel elsewhere in Europe. In later accounts Newhall
maintained that they avoided Germany because of the
political situation. 67 However, he had the name of a German
contact. 68 As late as 5 August, he was still planning to go to
Berlin. 69 While concern over the political situation may well
have been a factor, he was short of time and enjoying Paris.
No doubt, most Americans preferred France and
England to Germany in the fall of 1936, but Beaumont and
Nancy could have easily travelled to Berlin and probably
would have had they had a more leisurely schedule. In
particular, this omission excluded from the exhibition
important European photographers. 70 This is surprising in
light of Newhall's interest in German modernist photo-
graphy.71 In 1967 Newhall asserted, rather defensively, that
he was unaware in 1937 of two major German figures,
Albert Renger-Patzsch and August Sander.72 Had he travelled
to Germany, he might well have learned about these and
other important contemporary German figures. In 1937, the
press of time, rather than the turmoil of German politics, is
the most likely explanation for this deficit. 73 When the
Newhalls returned to New York in November, Beaumont
began to write the catalogue introduction. He Was on a very
tight schedule.
Newhall was married in early July, had his surgery,
recovered in Massachusetts, spent six weeks in Paris and
London, returned to New York and began writing on
Thanksgiving Day of the same year, all the while finishing
work on an exhibition which contained over 800 catalogued
items. 74 The catalogue was completed and available at the
exhibition opening. In his informative article, 'Histories of
Photography 1839-1939', Martin Gasser characterizes this
preparatory period as 'some thorough research in the history
of photography'?5 Gasser's use of the word 'thorough',
however qualified, is generous. Newhall's research was nei-
ther as systematic nor nearly as thorough as one would
expect for an 'overview'. Since the catalogue was illustrated,
almost exclusively, with the contents of the exhibition, the
selection of images also affected the contents of the essay.76
All of his experiences of the decade from 1926 to 1936
converged in Newhall's exhibition and catalogue. Newhall
defined creative photography as the' product of both artistic
intent and technological progress. In the catalogue essay he
purported to examine the medium 'in terms of the optical
and chemical laws which govern its production'.77 The
nature of these 'laws' had to be narrow enough to eliminate

those operators Newhall considered 'painterly' while broad
enough to include those photographers he admired.
However, at the same time such laws had to accommodate
individual vision. 'If the design ... conveys the conception
of the photographer ... it will be successful'. 78 Passages from
the catalogue essay demonstrate the conflict between these
two components, the primacy of authorship and the deter-
minacy of the manufacturing process. Not all artists, even
those whose work Newhall praised most, obeyed his
'optical and chemical laws'. They sometimes produced
work using processes or themes Newhall disparaged as
non-photographic.
Two examples of this phenomenon are Julia Margaret
Cameron and Alfred Stieglitz, both of whom he greatly
admired. While praising them as inspired creators, the
application of his 'Basic Laws' forced him to disparage the
working methods of one and split the body of work of the
other. One of his favorite photographers, Cameron, strays
when she manipulates the process in the wrong way.79
According to Newhall, she used 'badly made lenses' going
so far as to have them 'specially built to give poor definition'
and 'put a piece of glass between the paper and the negative'
when printing in order to 'decrease even more the precision
of detail so inherent in the wet plate process. Thus by
artificial means Mrs. Cameron gave her photographs that
breadth and simplicity which was a technical characteristic
of early calotypes. The brilliant success of her portraits
cannot be due to this technique .. .'.80
Her portraits do not exhibit those particular character-
istics pronounced by Newhall as 'inherent in the wet plate
process'; thus, they are created using 'artificial' means. 8! He
goes on to add: 'When she used "soft focus" lenses on
models, in attempts to rival the Pre-Raphaelite painters, her
work lacks distinction,.82 An extraordinary example of the
devices Newhall employed to 'fit' even the work of a revered
'master' into his definition of fine art photography is the
treatment, in the text, of Stieglitz. Newhall deals with the
problems posed by Stieglitz's early pictorial work by eliminat-
ing it from serious consideration. In this case, Newhall
distances him from some of his most celebrated images:
'Stieglitz considers his mature work that which he did after
1917; this is noticeably different from his earlier work and
has a precision of detail which gives a special value to this
photographer's always remarkable vision'.83 This remarkable
statement excludes from Stieglitz's mature oeuvre such 'mod-
ernist masterpieces' as The Steerage of 1907 and The Terminal
of 1892, both reproduced in the 1937 text.
Newhall articulates his axioms in a pseudo-scientific
language which suggests objective detachment. However,
his 'scientific approach' notwithstanding, he does not apply
his aesthetic in an impartial manner. He is vehement in his
dismissal of nineteenth-century photographs he dislikes, such
as the much maligned o. G. Rejlander's Two Paths if Life,
which he called 'appallingly pictorial' in 1935.84 It is the
content and style, related to Victorian painting, which bother
him, but he criticizes the process, combination printing,
when censuring this image by Rejlander as well as other
combination prints by Henry Peach Robinson. 'By clever
manipulation, the result appeared to be a single photograph.'
Beaumont Newhall's 'Photography 1839-1937'
Newhall disassociates these images from the medium when
he notes that they only 'appeared to be a single photograph'.
This is true of other darkroom manipulation as well, which
Newhall says 'confused the two media [painting and photo-
graphy]'.85 On the other hand, an artist whose role in the
European avant-garde had already gained him recognition
by Alfred H. Barr was admitted to employ a similar technique
with 'photographic' expertise. According to Newhall, 'A
chemical control, capable of great possibilities, has been
popularized by Man Ray'. 86 Man Ray uses 'separate positive
and negative transparencies' to make an image that is 'very
slightly out of register ... A print from the combination
creates the effect of sculptural relief'. 87 In Man Ray's print,
consolidated from two others, the process is part of the
subject; in nineteenth-century combination prints, the pro-
cess is hidden from the viewer. Doubtless, it is this twentieth-
century approach that makes Man Ray's technique 'capable
of great possibilities'. Newhall applies his 'standards generic
to photography' in one way to a modernist, Man Ray, and
another to Victorians, Rejlander and Robinson. Perhaps
he acted in deference to the Museum of Modern Art's
assessment of Man Ray as avant-garde innovator. 88
The impact of 'Photography 1839-1937' did not end
when the exhibition closed. The catalogue, after some
revisions, became a book in 1938, a book that is still
important in the field. 89 During the next forty-five years
Newhall revised the 1938 revision three more times. 90 While
the book got bigger, its view of photography remained the
same. Newhall never understood the incompatibility of the
absolute hegemony of authorship with the 'straight' idea of
technological determinism. He continued to struggle with it
for the rest of his life. In an interview in 1989, he said,
'There's a drive that determines individual styles that we
cannot duplicate,.91 This beliefin the primacy of authorship,
articulated in 1926 when he discovered Karl Freund's camera
work in Variety, no doubt reinforced at Harvard and at the
Museum of Modern Art, produced and sustained the canon
his books promoted. The artists he praised are still valued
by museums and collectors, still sought after at auction. It is
a tribute to his vision that his book is still in print and in
use as a textbook and resource.
In fact, as he learned shortly after the 1937 exhibition,
the idea that images possess uniquely photographic attributes,
'generic to photography' and unrelated to any other product
of the European pictorial tradition, is problematic. 92 Some
of the most famous practitioners of 'straight' photography
engaged, on some occasions, in 'painterly' manipulation of
camera, negatives or printing processes. In 'Photography
1839-1937' Newhall unknowingly praised as 'straight' mas-
terpieces photographs produced by practices he denigrated.
However, this in no way undermined his devotion to the
'straight' look. As he asserted in 1993: 'the result looks like
a straight photograph, and that's the point' .93 It is the point
of his 1937 essay as well. In stamping his stylistic preferences
'laws', Newhall attempted to transcend vacillations of opinion
and predilection. It remains for new, postmodern 'histories',
still being written, to define exceptional examples of the
medium, perhaps by finding commonalities shared by diverse
styles. Newhall's 1937 essay codified the modernist tradition
143
Allison Bertrand
of 'straight' photography - the style Abigail Solomon-
Godeau labels 'the tradition that matters' to those who work
within its confines. 94 His catalogue introduction provided
the products of this tradition with a 'past that matters' and
the rest, as they say, is history.
Notes
1. The critical response to the exhibition was generally very favourable.
For two examples, see 'A Century of the Camera's Eye', Art News 35
(20 March 1937), 8-10 and 'Les livres d'art ancien et moderne', Cahiers
d'Art 12:1-3 (1937), 104. Beaumont Newhall discusses other reviews
in Focus: Memoirs of a life in photography, Boston: Litde, Brown and
Company 1993, 51-3.
2. Milton Esterow, 'Beaumont Newhall: Photographic Memories', Art
News 88:4 (April 1989), 168.
3. Amerika: Bilderbuch eines Architekten, Berlin: Rudolf Mosse Buchverlag
1926. In a letter to Alfred H. Barr dated 12 April 1946, Newhall
wrote: 'My interest in photography began in 1926 when, inspired by
the film Variety and a book of photographs of America by architect
Eric Mendelssohn [sic], I began to photograph as an amateur' (Alfred
H. Barr file, Beaumont Newhall Papers, Getty Center for the History
of Art and the Humanities, Los Angeles). See also Focus, 21-22, and
Newhall, 'The Challenge of Photography to This Art Historian', in
Peter Walch and Thomas F. Barrow, eds., Perspectives On Photography:
Essays in Honor of Beaumont Newhall, Albuquerque: University of New
Mexico Press 1986, 2. For information about the film, Variety, see
Georges Sadoul, 'Varietes', in Jean-Loup Passek, ed., 20 Ans de cinema
allemand 1913-1933, Paris: Centre national d'art et de culture Georges
Pompidou 1978, 67-8.
4. Newhall, 'Challenge', 2.
5. In Focus Newhall remembers feeling quite confident he could perform
the duties associated with the curatorship of the exhibition because,
among other things, he had developed a 'sense of stylistic analysis'
(p. 45). Surely this came from Sachs.
6. Sachs was Bernard Berenson's most avid supporter at Harvard (Ernest
Samuels with the collaboration of Jayne Newcomer Samuels, Bernard
Berenson: The Making of a Legend, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press 1987, 171).
7. In addition to the prestige and satisfaction derived from supporting
cultural institutions, such investors received a very tangible financial
reward. Contributions were tax-deductible. For the wealthy, this benefit
was significant. In 1930 the top tax bracket was 25 percent. It climbed
to 79 percent in 1937 (US Department of Commerce Bureau of the
Census, Historical Statistics of the United States: Colonial Times to 1970,
White Plains, New York: Kraus International Publications 1989, 1905,
table VII). For additional discussion of Sachs's influence on presidents,
directors and trustees of university art history departments, museums
and foundations too numerous to mention here, see Agnes Mongan,
'Paul Joseph Sachs (1879-1965)" The Art Journal 25:1 (Fall 1965), 52.
8. Newhall acknowledged this new group of museum supporters in 1940,
when the Department of Photography was formed: 'the Department
of Photography will function as focal center where the esthetic problems
of photography can be evaluated, where the artist who has chosen the
camera as his medium can find guidance by example and encouragement
and where the vast amateur public can study both the classics and the
most recent and significant developments of photography' ('Program
of the Department', The Bulletin of the Museum of Modern Art 8:2,
December-January, 1940-1941,5).
9. Newhall, 'Challenge', 2.
10. Newhall later reminisced that Sachs 'was so taken aback that I had
chosen a subject so unconventional and unexpected that he had to sit
down' (Newhall, Focus, 33).
11. Pamassus 6 (October 1934), 24.
12. Ibid.
13. Focus, 21.
14. The photographer was Karl Freund. Focus, 21.
15. Focus, 22.
16. 'Challenge', 3.
17. Camille Recht, Die Alte Photographie, Paris: Jonquieres 1931. Also
published as La Vieille Photographie depuis Daguerre jusqu'a 1870, Paris:
Helleu 1935. Newhall wrote: 'This collection contained much material
new to me, particularly the photographs from the American Civil War
from the collection of Berenice Abbott' (,Challenge', 4). Die Alte
Photographie appeared on the bibliography in the 1937 catalogue
(Photography 1839-1937, 92).
144
18. He recalled: 'I learned a great deal about the early days of photography
from the extraordinary exhibitions held by Julien Levy in his New
York art gallery' ('Challenge', 4).
19. In Focus Newhall writes: 'I began serious research into the history of
photography in its library' [the RPS] (p. 34). For an excellent study of
the astounding number of Victorian photographers of all types, many of
whom would have been known to those whom Newhall consulted in
London, see Michael Bartram, The Pre-Raphaelite Camera: Aspects of
Victorian Photography, London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson 1985. At least
some of these photographers should have been included in an 'overview'.
20. Helmuth Bossert and Heinrich Guttmann, Aus der Friihzeit der
Photographie, 1840-1870, Frankfurt: Societ~ts-Verlag 1930.
21. Newhall, Review of Aus der Friihzeit der Photographie, 1840-1870 by
Helmuth Bossert and Heinrich Guttmann, The American Magazine of
Art 25:2 (August 1932), 130-1. In Focus Newhall refers to this as 'my
first writing on the history of photography' (p. 33).
22. These ideas were widely associated with the magazine and its editor.
For a discussion of the presence of the 'straight' philosophy in Camera
Work, see Jonathan Green, 'Introduction' in Camera Work: A Critical
Anthology, Millerton, New York: Aperture, Inc. 1973, 17-25. There is
ample evidence that Newhall knew Stieglitz's work both as editor and
photographer long before 1937. According to a 1979 interview, he
met Stieglitz in 1931 while on a trip to New York with Sachs (Hill,
296). In Focus he tells a similar story, but dates it to 1935 (p. 46). In
the 1937 essay, the following sentence appears: 'The critical essays
published in them [Camera Notes and Camera Work] are of great interest;
the phrase "pure photography" appears with great frequency' (1839-
1937,64). Two 1937 references by Newhall confirm broad familiarity
with Camera Work. In the bibliography of the 1937 catalogue specific
issues are cited as sources for the images of Stieglitz and Steichen
(p.95). On a bibliography dated 6 December 1937, he cites other
specific issues (' "Painting and Photography" A Lecture by Beaumont
Newhall', The Museum of Modem Art Archives, New York: Early
Museum History, Administrative Records, Series I.22t). Apparendy
Newhall asked Stieglitz to be honorary chairman of the advisory
committee of the 1937 exhibition and Stieglitz refused (Focus, 47). In
the Acknowledgements section of the 1937 catalogue this line appears:
'At the request of the photographer, the later work of Alfred Stieglitz
has not been included' (p. 8).
23. There are images by eleven photographers from Aus der Friihzeit
illustrated in Newhall's book including seven plates by Hill and
Adamson. No wonder Newhall later asserted Aus dey Friihzeit was based
on Heinrich Schwarz's book, David O. Hill: Master of Photography,
trans. Helene E. Fraenkel, New York: Viking Press 1931 ('Challenge'
4), even though Schwarz's book was published a year later. Martin
Gasser discusses the relationship between Aus der Friihzeit and Schwarz's
book in 'A Master Piece: Heinrich Schwarz's Book on David Octavius
Hill', Image 36 (Spring/Summer 1993), 42-3. Gasser also discusses Aus
der Friihzeit in 'Histories of Photography 1839-1937', History of
Photography 16:1 (Spring 1992), 56-7.
24. Gasser, 'Master Piece', 43. In Aus der Friihzeit the Rejlander photograph
is plate 193 and the Robinson photograph is plate 194.
25. In Newhall, the Rejlander is plate 36 and the Robinson is plate 37.
26. 'Photographic Exhibitions: May 6-June 26', The Pennsylvania Museum
Bulletin 28:155 (April 1933), 75. This unsigned article appears on the
Beaumont Newhall Bibliography, Rochester, New York: George Eastman
House 1971, n.p., and on a list of articles and books by Beaumont
Newhall in the Beaumont Newhall Papers, Getty Center for the Study
of Art and the Humanities, Los Angeles, California. In both places it
is called an 'introduction' to the catalogue. Perhaps it was reprinted in
the museum publication.
27. Review of Modem Photography, 1934-35 edited by C. G. Holme,
American Magazine of Art 28:1 (January 1935), 58ff. The following
appears in Newhall's notes for a historiography course he taught at the
University of New Mexico: 'Ansel Adams I fIrst learned of from the
British publication Modem Photography 1934-5 ... .' (Historiography
file, Beaumont Newhall Papers, The Getty Center for the Study of
Arts and the Humanities, Los Angeles).
28. Review of Making a Photograph: An Introduction to Photography by Ansel
Adams, American Magazine of Art 28 (August 1935), 508.
29. Christopher Phillips speculates that Newhall's use of this bi-polar
methodology in 1937 is related to the .influence of Barr's catalogue,
Cubism and Abstract Art ('The Judgment Seat of Photography' in
Richard Bolton, ed., The Contest of Meaning: Critical Histories of
Photography, Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press 1990, 19). In that book
Barr opposed 'near-abstractions' and 'pure-abstractions' (Barr, 12).
However, Barr's catalogue was not written until the spring of 1936
(Margaret Scolari Barr, 'Our Campaigns', The New Criterion: Special

Issue Alfred Barr at MONtA 5, Summer 1987, 44). This review was
written in January 1935; Newhall did not join the museum until
November of that year. It is far more likely that both Barr and Newhall
got this technique of stylistic analysis from their art history classes
and/or Sachs's seminars. Newhall described comparisons of works using
two slides, projected side by side, when he was an undergraduate
('Challenge', 2; Focus, 24). Heinrich Wolffiin's Principles <if Art History
is on a bibliography for decorative arts given by Sachs to his students,
including Newhall, in 1930 (paul Sachs Lecture Notes and Related
Manuscripts, 1930-1931, The Getty Center for the History of Art and
the Humanities, Los Angeles, 24). The chapters in Principles <if Art
History are all tided by oppositions: Linear and Painterly, Plane and
Recession, Closed and Open Form, etc. (trans. M. D. Hottinger, 1932;
reprint, New York: Dover Publications 1950, xi-xii).
30. Newhall, 1839-1937, 42-3.
31. Newhall, 1839-1937,95. Newhall wrote: 'he was the only art historian
of this period to consider the spiritual aspect of photography above the
technical ... it freed me from the need of rewriting the technological
history of photography' ('Challenge', 4).
32. Schwarz, 10. See Newhall, 1839-1937,75. Schwarz and Newhall were
both affected by the theories of the German innovators of the 1920s
and 1930s. See Gasser, 'Master Piece', 41-4.
33. 'Photography demonstrated most concretely the essential identity of
the artistic and scientific strivings of the time' (Schwarz, 6).
34. Schwarz, 9-10.
35. Schwarz, 11.
36. Newhall, Focus, 39. Barr ftrst studied with Sachs in the fall of 1924
when he enrolled in Harvard Graduate School to pursue a PhD (Rona
Roob, 'Alfred H. Barr, Jr.: a chronicle of the years 1902-1929', The
New Criterion: Spedal Issue Alfred Barr at MONtA 5, Summer 1987, 6-7).
37. Alfred H. Barr, Jr., Cubism and Abstract Art, 1936; reprint, Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press 1986, 8.
38. Focus, 39.
39. Roob, 12.
40. Roob, 15.
41. Roob, 19. It was Sachs who ftrst approached Barr about the job
(Roob, 18).
42. Newhall described this conversation with Barr many times. See
'Challenge', 5; Focus, 43-44; Esterow, 170.
43. The photography exhibition was preceded by 'Cubism and Abstract
Art' and 'Fantastic Art, Dada, and Surrealism' (1936) and followed by
'Bauhaus: 1919-1928' (1938). Christopher Phillips discusses these
exhibitions and their link with Sachs's seminars (p. 17).
44. As Museum librarian, Newhall compiled a bibliography of 444 books
for 'Cubism and Abstract Art'. However, his involvement went beyond
this. In the Acknowledgements in the catalogue Barr wrote: 'The
Director wishes to thank especially ... Mr. Beaumont Newhall,
Librarian, for .. . [his] self-sacrificing work in preparing the catalogue
and installing the Exhibition' (p. 9). For later reminiscences about his
work on 'Cubism and Abstract Art' see Donald Karshan, 'An Interview
with Beaumont Newhall', Daytona Beach Community College Photo
Sodety Newsletter, Spring/Summer 1988, 28-9; and Newhall, Focus, 43.
45. Newhall described Barr, in 1936, as 'very much influenced by what
was happening in Germany ... photography was being considered
along with architecture, sculpture, and so forth' (Hill, 294). In a
manuscript dated 5/6179, 'Recollections of Alfred H. Barr, Jr.', Newhall
recalled: 'Alfred had traveled widely in Europe in 1927, and was most
impressed by what he saw in Germany and Russia' (Alfred H. Barr
File, Beaumont Newhall Papers, The Getry Center For the History of
Art and the Humanities, Los Angeles, California). In the winter of
1927 and the spring of 1928 Barr travelled in Europe. His itinerary
included at least two extended visits to Germany. He met Moholy-
Nagy and spent four days at the Bauhaus in November 1927. He was
back in Germany in the spring of 1928 and could even have seen
'Pressa' which opened in Cologne that year. He probably saw some
German contemporary photography during these trips or on the almost
annual visits to Europe he made after he became director of MOMA
in 1929 (Roob, 15-16). For information on Barr's European travels
from 1930-44, see M. S. Barr, 23-74.
46. Figures 1 and 2 (p. 10).
47. They were Francis Bruguiere, Moholy-Nagy and Man Ray (A. H.
Barr, 170-1). For a reconstruction of some of the photographers in
'Film und Foto', see Ute Eskildsen, Film und Foto, Stuttgart 1979,
67-165 passim, and Karl Steinorth, 'L'Exposition Intemationale Du
Werkbund "Film und Foto" a Stuttgart en 1929', Camera (Lucerne):
Camera-Oeil58:10 (October 1979), 32-41.
48. In particular, the inclusion of photographs from many non-aesthetic
sources linked Newhall's 1937 exhibition to 'Film und Foto' and other
Beaumont Newhall's 'Photography 1839-1937'
German exhibitions of the 1920s and early 1930s such as 'Deutsche
Photographische Ausstellung' which opened in Frankfurt in 1926 and
'Pressa' mounted in Cologne. While documentation of speciftc images
from 'Film und Foto' is incomplete, Edward Weston, Edward Steichen
and Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, who suggested images for the Stuttgart
exhibition, participated in Newhall's 1937 show as well (Newhall, 'Photo
Eye of the 1920's: The Deutsche Werkbund Exhibition of 1929', New
Mexico Studies in the Fine Arts 2 1977, 6). Both Moholy-Nagy and
Steichen were on the list of Honorary Advisors to the 1937 exhibition
(Newhall, 1839-1937, 5). Newhall was familiar with Weston's work
and invited him to send images for the exhibition. He could well have
suggested material of the type he gathered for the German show. See
Newhall, 'This was 1937', Popular Photography (May 1967), 74. In
addition, two books in the bibliography Newhall did for 'Cubism and
Abstract Art' contained information on the contents of 'Film und Foto'
(p. 239). These books were Franz Roh and Jan Tschichold, eds, Joto-
auge/oeil et photo/photo-eye, Stuttgart: Wedekind 1929; and Laszlo
Moholy-Nagy, Malerd, Fotogrcifie, Film, Munich: A. Langen 1925.
Seventy-six illustrations of works in the exhibition were published in
Joto-auge (Newhall, 'Photo Eye', 5). Both works appear on the biblio-
graphy of the 1938 revision of the 1937 catalogue (Newhall, Short
Critical History, 220) as well as on the bibliography, dated 6 December
1937, compiled to accompany a lecture ('Painting and Photography: A
lecture by Beaumont Newhall'). Newhall was curator of an exhibition
dedicated to these shows, 'Photo Eye of the Twenties', in 1970 (Photo
Eye <if the Twenties: An exhibition prepared in collaboration with the Museum
oj Modem Art, Rochester, New York: The George Eastman House
1972). For an account of these and other German exhibitions and their
impact on the history of photography see Ute Eskildsen, 'Exhibits', in
Avant-Garde Photography in Germany 1919-1939, San Francisco: The
San Francisco Museum of Modem Art 1980, 35-46.
49. For example, the poster for 'Film und Foto' is a large image of a
photographer with a camera shot from below as is the image at the
entrance to the MOMA exhibition. For photographs of the installations
for 'Film und Foto' as well as some of the other German exhibitions,
see Eskildsen, Film und Foto, 191. For a description of Matter's
installation, see Focus, 51-2.
50. For a biography of Matter, see Dennis Ichiyama, 'Herbert Matter' in
Colin Naylor, ed., Contemporary Designers, Chicago: St James Press
1990,378-9.
51. It was at the Kunstgewerbemuseum in Zurich from 28 August until
22 September 1929 (Eskildsen, Film und Foto, 194).
52. This chart appears on the flyleaf of the 1986 reprint.
53. Newhall discussed this in a letter to Barr, dated 13 June 1936: 'On
questioning, he [paul Strand] named the four photographers who could
stand having all their work shown in logical development, Hill, Atget,
Stieglitz and himself ... .' (Beaumont Newhall: Colleagues and Friends,
Santa Fe, New Mexico: Museum of Fine Arts of New Mexico 1993,
n.p.). This was an idea enthusiastically endorsed by Paul]. Sachs. Sachs
quotes critic Walter Pach: 'Our problem in appreciating the greatness
of modem art lies in following the unbroken line [the tradition] that
leads from the older classics to those of the present day' (Modem Prints
& Drawings: A guide to a better understanding <if modem draughtsmanship,
New York: Knopf 1954,3).
54. The opportunistic nature of Newhall's hunt is evident in this letrer
written to Barr dated 24 August 1936: 'I had bad luck in Washington .. .
but a copy of Talbot's Pendl oj Nature ... is a welcome exhibit ... I
have been promised a selection of Hawes and Southworth, the leading
Boston daguerreotypists' (Colleagues and Friends, n.p.).
55. Newhall, '1937',74.
56. Beaumont Newhall in a letter to Alfred H. Barr, 13 June 1936
(Colleagues and Friends, n.p.).
57. Newhall, '1937', 144.
58. Van Deren Coke, 'Beaumont Newhall', Introduction to One Hundred
Years oj Photographic History: Essays in honor <if Beaumont Newhall,
Albuquerque, University of New Mexico Press 1975, viii.
59. Newhall, Focus, 34. Nancy Newhall's role in the 1937 exhibition has
not been documented. In a 1988 interview, Newhall credited her,
vaguely, with making the catalogue essay more readable. He described
her contribution as making the essay 'intelligible as well as scholarly'
(Karshan, 30). A thorough discussion of her impact on this and other
of Beaumont's projects as well as an evaluation of her own body of
work awaits attention. Among other things, she wrote a number of
books in collaboration with Ansel Adams. She died tragically in a river
rafting accident in 1974 (Karshan, 30). In 1979 Newhall remembered:
'There was not one thing that either of us did that did not involve the
other' (Hill, 311).
60. Newhall, 'Challenge', 5, and Focus, 47-8. Josef Maria Eder, Geschichte
der Photographie, 4th edn, Halle: Knapp 1932; Georges Potonniee, The
145
Allison Bertrand
History of the Discovery of Photography, trans. Edward Epstean, New
York: Tennant and Ward 1935. Martin Gasser discusses these books in
'Histories', 51, 53.
61. Newhall did not acknowledge any extant 'history' as a source of the
art history of the medium. He wrote in 1936: 'Photography is best
studied in the various annual albums of reproductions, such as those
published by Arts et metiers graphiques (paris) and The Studio (London);
the only available histories are entirely technical' ('The Library with a
reading list on modem art', The Bulletin of The Museum of Modern Art
6:3, May 1936, 7-8).
62. LA Photographie en France au Dix-Neuvieme Siecle; Essai de Sodologie et
d'Esthetique, Paris: Monnier 1936. Newhall's quotation comes from
'Challenge', 4. The Freund book was also in the 1937 bibliography
(Photography 1839-1937, 92).
63. Newhall later wrote that the French catalogue 'helped me gready in
the exhibition and in writing the catalogue introduction' ('Challenge',
5). On 9 October 1936, he wrote to Barr from Paris: 'I have met all
kinds of people and have succeeded in getting the loans of some very
remarkable photographs for the exhibition'. He continued in a letter
dated 15 October: 'There is no doubt now (unless a revolution blows
the private collections to bits) that we shall have a marvelous historical
section .. .' (Colleagues and Friends, n.p.).
64. Coke, ix.
65. Newhall, Focus, 49.
66. Newhall, Focus, 49. Apparently Newhall visited some of the photo-
graphers personally and selected material for the show. In a letter dated
10 April 1937 from Paul Martin to Newhall, the photographer
congratulates him on the exhibition catalogue and adds: 'Mrs. Mattin
wishes to be kindly remembered to you both and regrets the time you
were with us was so short' (paul Martin file, Beaumont Newhall
Papers, Getty Center for the History of Art and the Humanities, Los
Angeles). See Newhall, 1839-1937, 109.
67. For example, in his autobiography: 'I bypassed Germany completely,
since none of us would go to that country as long as Hider was in
power' (Focus, 49).
68. Barr sent Newhall a postcard while Newhall was still in hospital. Dated
22 August 1936, it gives the name of a contact in Berlin (Museum of
Modem Art, Registrar exhibition file 60).
69. Letter from Newhall to Barr dated 5 August 1936: 'My program is:
frrst London, then from there as a headquarters. [sic] I shall negotiate
with Paris and Berlin' (Colleagues and Friends, n.p.). In fact, of course,
the Newhalls started in Paris.
70. Only 15 photographers from the exhibition checklist are German. By
contrast there were 84 American and 87 French.
71. His attraction to the style of photography of the German avant-garde
notwithstanding, he discusses only two Europeans prominendy associ-
ated with German innovative movements, Moholy-Nagy (who was
not German) and Christian Schad, in the essay. In the contemporary
section of the exhibition only 10 German photographers appear, four
of whom were living, not in Germany, but abroad. They are Ilse Bing,
Erwin Blumenfeld, Gertrude Fuld (all living in Paris by 1937), Fritz
Henle (living in the United States), Walter Hege, Ema Lendvai-
Dircksen, Christian Schad, Paul Wolff, Elsbeth Heddenhausen and
Ernst Konig. Perhaps his experience in the war affected his inclusion
of German material in later revisions of his book. His treatment of
Germany is unchanged when Newhall's essay turns into a full-fledged
book in 1949. The index of this revision contains references to only
thirteen German names, many of which are linked to technological
'progress' rather than images. Only in the 1982 revision is there wide
discussion of some of the important German photographers of the late
nineteenth and frrst half of the twentieth centuries. Even then, out of
a total of 515 names, only 43, less than ten percent, are German. See
Newhall, The History of Photography .from 1839 to the present, completely
revised and enlarged edition, New York: The Museum of Modem Art
1982, Chapters 11,12,13. Newhall included few German images in the
early historic sections of any version of his History of Photography. While
his knowledge may have been limited by issues of time and politics in
1937, this was certainly not the case later.
72. In May 1967 he wrote: 'had I known of the work of Albert Renger-
Patzsch and August Sander, I would certainly have had representative
collections in the exhibition' (Newhall, '1937', 145). A rejection of
the policies of National Socialism would not have excluded Sander.
While Renger-Patzsch's work was seen as an affirmation of the 'super-
race' mentality, Sander was persecuted by the Nazis. Reaction to
Hider's policies would have been a reason to include him. Van Deren
Coke discusses the importance of both Sander and Renger-Patzsch as
well as their relation to German nationalism in 'Introduction', Avant-
Garde Photography in Germany 1919-1939, 17-19,21-2.
146
73. There were many other omissions, of course. Twenty-seven British
photographers appear on the exhibition checklist and only 17 are
discussed in the catalogue essay. This in contrast with 84 Americans
and 87 French men and women on the checklist and 52 Americans
and 27 French men and women whose names appear in the essay. This
is largely a result of Newhall's preferences for 'straight' photography.
He regarded most Victorian photography as 'painterly'. Nor did he like
contemporary British photography. He wrote to Barr on October 15,
1936: 'modem photography in England is a sad affair' (Museum of
Modem Art, Registrar exhibition file 60).
74. Karshan, 30.
75. Gasser, 57.
76. If the exhibition was dominated by French and American men, the
catalogue was dominated by American men. The essay discusses the
work of 52 Americans and 27 Frenchmen. In the contemporary part
of the exhibition, 24 Americans and only two French are discussed.
When the catalogue was reprinted in 1938, the exhibition checklist
was replaced with a biographical index of photographers mentioned in
the text (Newhall, Photography, Short Critical History, New York: The
Museum of Modem Art 1938, 191-216). The Second World War
intervened and Newhall did not revise or enlarge his book for eleven
years. Thus, the names of those photographers mentioned in the text
of the 1937 catalogue introduction, for many people, were the 'history'
of photography until 1949.
77. Newhall, 1839-1937,41.
78. Newhall, 1839-1937,44.
79. Esterow, 173.
80. Newhall, 1839-1937, 56.
81. As he acknowledged in 1993, 'I treated soft-focus work as an aberration
that should be eliminated [in the 1937 exhibition], (Newhall, Focus, 46).
82. Photography 1839-1937, 56.
83. Newhall, 1839-1937, 71. He retreated from this position in his 1938
revision. This book, Photography, A Short Critical History, is not identical
to the 1937 catalogue. A section, ~ed Stieglitz' was substituted for
the 'Photo-Secession' section of the 1937 essay (Short, Critical History,
63-5). In this seven-paragraph substitution, Newhall detailed the history
of Stieglitz's career in even more laudatory terms than in 1937. Camera
Notes, Camera Work and the Photo-Secession all received more space
and, unlike the 1937 essay, Stieglitz's early and late career were both
linked to his campaign for 'pure' photography. As Christopher Phillips
points out in his article, the rewritten section of the book removes any
critical reference to practices of the Photo-Secession and also any
reference to the origin of some of their visual conventions in European
paintings. The most likely explanation for this revision is that Stieglitz,
who would not be connected to the original exhibition, agreed to let
Newhall dedicate the 1938 book to him and publish a recent image,
Grape Leaves and House, LAke George, New York, as the frontispiece.
Newhall discussed Stieglitz's attitude to the 1937 exhibition and how
it changed in 1938 many times (Focus, 46-7, 53-5 and 113-14; Weiley,
92; 'This Was 1937', 74).
84. Newhall, 'Modern Photography', 58.
85. Newhall, 1839-1937,61.
86. Newhall, 1839-1937,70.
87. Newhall, 1839-1937,71.
88. Alfred H. Barr describes Man Ray as a 'pioneer in abstract photography'
(Cubism and Abstrad Art, 170).
89. In 1984 John Szarkowski, at the time director of the Museum of
Modem Art's photography department, asserted: 'The greatest impor-
tance of the 1937 exhibition was that it led to the book' (Susan Weiley,
'A Conversation with Beaumont Newhall', Art News 33:8 [October
1984], 94).
90. The 1937 catalogue was revised four times. In addition to the frrst,
Photography: A Short Critical History, 1938 and the last, The History of
Photography.from 1839 to the present, completely revised and enlarged edition,
1982, they are The History of Photography .from 1839 to the Present Day,
New York: The Museum of Modem Art 1949 and The History of
Photography .from 1839 to the present, revised and enlarged edition, New
York: The Museum of Modem Art 1964.
91. Esterow, 173.
92. For a discussion of this phenomenon as it applies to members of £64,
see Michel Oren, 'On the "Impurity" of Group fi64 Photography',
History of Photography 15:2 (Summer 1991), 120. Newhall discussed
manipulation by a number of 'straight masters' in Focus, 242-4, and
Hill, 388-9. Was he aware of this in 1937? Probably not. He did not
meet many of his 'heroes' until after the success of the MOMA
exhibition. In 1992, he recounts he frrst discovered Weston dodged
while visiting the West Coast photographer in Carmel in 1940. See
'Foreword', in Therese Thau Heyman, ed., Seeing Straight: The J 64
Revolution in Photography, Oakland, CA: The Oakland Museum 1992, ix.
93. Focus, 243.
94. 'Photography Mter Art Photography', in Art After Modernism: Rethinking
Representation, New York: David R. Godine, Publisher, Inc. 1984, 80.