ingness to commit to fine printing techniques.
While the tools and approaches were much the
same, the ends diverged sharply. As Oren writes,
‘‘As the Depression wore on it became difficult to
sustain Group f/64’s timeless, optimistic view of
American materiality against the narrative pressure
of a more stoic, social documentary view’’ (Oren
1991, 123). Van Dyke and Kanaga leaned in
Lange’s direction, the pursuit of photography as a
vehicle for truth and reform (Van Dyke eventually
became a filmmaker, producing propaganda pieces
for the Works Progress Administration reform ef-
fort). Adams, the Westons, and others of their f/64
colleagues maintained their focus on photography
as art for art’s sake.
Dissolution and Legacy of Group f/64
In the wake of the division between the activist and
the aesthetic ends of straight photography, and in
the face of increasingly dire economic conditions
for Bay Area art galleries, Group f/64 came to a
quiet end in 1936. Its legacy endures; by its collec-
tive activity Group f/64 lent prominence to the con-
cept of straight photography and helped define just
what constitutes ‘‘purity’’ in photographic practice.
Through debate and visual counterpoint with
Mortensen and Pictorialism, f/64 staked out new
territory for photographic art. These clear, sharp
images were among those that ushered in new
standards for art photography in the post-Stieglitz
era. Although there was minimal social mission
inherent in Group f/64’s practice, its commitment
to unadorned reality validated and opened the
door to artistic acceptance for the work of FSA
photographers, and documentarians before and
after. Michael Oren situates the group’s legacy in
terms that ring of spiritual purity and humility.
Group f/64 may be seen as part of an essentialist
movement whose traditionally American preoccupa-
tion with the hard edges of material details reaches
backtotheTranscendentalists,whosawinsuchdetails
evidence of God’s immanence. Anecdotal qualities,
whether of Mortensen’s or Lange’s type, would
have vitiated such pretensions (Oren 1991, 123).
The 1932 de Young exhibition was revisited in
major exhibitions in 1963, 1978, and 1992. Group
f.64 member Henry Swift facilitated the first, at the
San Francisco Museum of Art (later the San Fran-
cisco Museum of Modern Art). During his lifetime
Swift used his income as a stockbroker to purchase
prints from the other members; his widow added to
the collection and donated it to the Museum of Art
in 1962. Using the original checklist and the Swift
collection as guides, the curators of the later shows
(Jean S. Tucker at the University of Missouri-St.
Louis and Therese Thau Heyman at The Oakland
Museum, respectively) recreated the 1932 exhibi-
tion as accurately as possible, given the limitations
of a checklist that sometimes offered only a general
description of a print’s subject, rather than a stan-
dard, accepted title. These periodic reassessments
underscore Group f/64’s importance as a primer
and a touchstone for straight photography.
While some of the technical particularities of
f/64’s straight approach have been subsumed into
camera club quality critique factors (e.g., sharp
and proper focus, good highlights and shadow
detail, strong, dramatic pictures that create
immediate interest, sometimes using one strong
element of interest), and the Group’s concentra-
tion on natural forms may have evolved into the
work of countless nature photographers wielding
macro-focus lenses fitted out with ring lights for
full revelation of, as Edward Weston put it, ‘‘the
thing itself,’’ the intrinsic fascination with photo-
graphic beauty that characterized Group f/64 has
continued to inspire photographers to come to
grips with whatever photography’s tools have to
offer in terms of unique visual, aesthetic qualities.
GeorgeSlade
Seealso:Abbott, Berenice; Adams, Ansel; Atget,
Euge`ne; Blossfeldt, Karl; Cunningham, Imogen;
Farm Security Administration; History of Pho-
tography: Interwar Years; History of Photography:
Twentieth Century Pioneers; Man Ray; Modernism;
Modotti, Tina; Moholy-Nagy, La ́szlo ́; Outerbridge,
Jr., Paul; Photo-Secession; Renger-Patzsch, Albert;
Sander, August; Steichen, Edward; Sheeler, Charles;
Stieglitz, Alfred; Strand, Paul; Ulmann, Doris;
Weston, EdwardFurther Reading
Colson, James B. ‘‘Stieglitz, Strand, and Straight Photogra-
phy.’’ In Oliphant, Dave, and Thomas Zigal, eds.,Per-
spectivesonPhotography: EssaysontheWorkofDuCamp,
Dancer, Robinson, Stieglitz, Strand, and Smithers at the
Humanities Research Center, Austin, TX: Humanities
ResearchCenter,TheUniversityof TexasatAustin,1982.
Dater, Judy.Imogen Cunningham: A Portrait. Boston: New
York Graphic Society, 1979.
Hambourg, Maria Morris, and Christopher Phillips.The
New Vision: Photography Between the Wars. New
York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1989.
Heyman, Therese Thau, ed.Seeing Straight: The f/64 Revolution
in Photography. Oakland, CA: The Oakland Museum, 1992.
Heyman, Therese Thau. ‘‘A Rock or a Line of Unemployed:
Art and Document In Dorothea Lange’s Photographs.’’
In Heyman, Sandra S. Phillips, and John Szarkowski,GROUP F/64