Board_Advisors_etc 3..5

on this project for 10 years, and it resulted in his
most successful exhibition,American Artists. Dur-
ing this period, Namuth directed and produced
many films of such luminaries as painters Willem
de Kooning and Josef Albers, architect Louis
Kahn, and sculptor Alexander Calder.
Namuth’s skill at disarming his often formid-
able subjects and capturing them in unstaged si-
tuations that revealed the intimacy of the act of
creation left him without an easily identifiable
‘‘signature’’ style, unlike many other well-known
portraitists. He died in New York in 1990, how-
ever, leaving a visual legacy that not only docu-
mented the American art world of the latter half
of the twentieth century, but considerably enriches
its understanding.

BRIANWinkenweder

Seealso:Fashion Photography; History of Photo-
graphy: Postwar Era; Portraiture

Biography

Born in Essen, Germany, 17 March 1915. Opened photo-
graphy studio with Georg Reisner in Puerto da Pollensa,
Majorca, 1935. Photojournalist forVuduring Spanish
Civil War, 1936. Joined French Foreign Legion, 1939.
Demobilized from French Foreign Legion, 1940.
Arrived in New York City, 1941. Began military service
in U.S. Army, 1943. Discharged from U.S. Army, 1945.
Traveled to Guatemala and photographed natives at
Todos Santos, 1946. Studied photography with Josef
Breitenbach and Alexey Brodovitch, 1949. Photo-
graphed and filmed Jackson Pollock at work, 1950. Pub-
lished photographs of Pollock inPortfolioandArt News,

1951. Began photographing forAmerican Masters, 1963.
      FilmedWillem de Kooning: The Painter, 1964. Produced
      numerous commissioned portraits for the cover ofArt
      News, 1971–1983. Portrait commissions,Architectural
      Digest, 1983. Published more than 100 portraits of artists
      inConnaissance des Arts, 1983–1990. Received special
      recognition at Recontres Internationales de la Photogra-
      phie d’Arles, 1988. Died in East Hampton, New York,
      13 October 1990.

Individual Exhibitions

1948 Guatemala: The Land the People; Museum of Natural
History, New York, New York, and traveling
1959 17 American Painters; Stable Gallery, New York, New
York
1973 American Artists; Castelli Gallery, New York, New York
1974 American Artists; Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washing-
ton, D.C.
1975 Early American Tool;CastelliGallery,NewYork,New
York, and traveling
1977 The Spanish Civil War; Castelli Graphics, New York,
New York
1977 Living Together; Benson Gallery, Bridgehampton, New
York

1978 Small Retrospective; Himmelfarb Gallery, Water Mill,

New York

1979 Todos Santos; Castelli Graphics, New York, New York,

and traveling

1979 Jackson Pollock; Museum of Modern Art, Oxford,

England, and traveling

1980 Pictures from the War in Spain, 1936–1937;Galerie

Fiolet, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

1981 Artists 1950–1981: A Personal View;PaceGallery,New

York, New York

1982 Hans Namuth; Castelli Gallery, New York, New York,

and traveling

1988 Hans Namuth; Recontres Internationales de la Photo-

graphie d’Arles, Arles, France

1990 Portraits of Artists; Parrish Art Museum, Southamp-

ton, New York

1999 Hans Namuth, Portraits; National Portrait Gallery,

Washington, D.C.

Group Exhibitions

1975 The Photographer and the Artist; Sidney Janis Gallery,

New York, New York

1977 Hommage a` Pollock et a` Kline; Galerie Zabriskie,

Paris, France

1979 Self-Portrait; Center for Creative Photography, Tuc-

son, Arizona

1982 Counterparts: Form and Emotion in Photographs;

Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, New York

1983 Portraits of Artists; San Francisco Museum of Modern

Art, San Francisco, California

Selected Works

Barricade in Toledo, 1936

Pablo Cassals, 1940

Jackson Pollock, 1950

Jackson Pollock(two short films), 1950

Barnett Newman, 1951

Saul Steinberg, 1952

Elaine de Kooning and Willem de Kooning, 1953

Frank O’Hara and Larry Rivers, 1958

Buckminster Fuller, 1959

Stephen Sondheim, 1960

John Steinbeck, 1961

Jasper Johns, 1962

John Cage, 1963

Tony Smith, 1970

Louis I. Kahn: Architect(film), 1974

Mark di Suvero, 1975

Alexander Calder: Calder’s Universe(film), 1977

Louise Bourgeois, 1978

Louise Nevelson, 1979

Romare Bearden, 1980

Andy Warhol, 1981

Leo Castelli and His Artists, 1982

Alfred Stieglitz: Photographer(film), 1982

Ellsworth Kelly, 1983

Take an Object: A Portrait, 1972–1990(film), 1990

Further Reading

Carr, Carolyn Kinder.Hans Namuth Portraits. Washington

DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1999.

NAMUTH, HANS