1943, he joined the U.S. Army and left for Europe
in December of that year. Namuth was discharged
in October 1945, returned to the United States, and
pursued photography as a hobby. However, in
1946, when the company he worked for, Tesumat,
Inc., went bankrupt he returned to photography as
aprofession.
In 1946, Namuth traveled to Guatemala and
photographed the natives of Todos Santos in col-
laboration with anthropologist Maud Oakes.
These works were exhibited the following year at
the Museum of Natural History in New York.
During this period, Namuth took a few classes
with Josef Breitenbach, an acquaintance from his
days in Paris, at the New School for Social Re-
search. Thereafter, he studied with Alexey Brodo-
vitch, his most important influence, in an informal
class taught at Richard Avedon’s studio. Brodo-
vitch, the art director ofHarper’s Bazaar, provided
Namuth with numerous opportunities in fashion
and advertising photography, and from 1949
through the mid-1950s, Namuth routinely pub-
lished photographs in this magazine. Simulta-
neously, he worked on advertising campaigns for
clients like Ford Motor Company and Shell Oil for
some of New York’s most prestigious advertising
agencies, such as Pix Corporation and Doyle, Dane
and Bernbach. Frequently, Namuth incorporated
children into his assignments, taking pride in his
avoidance of traditional poses by shooting his sub-
jects as they played once they were no longer con-
scious of the camera’s presence. This technique
became a hallmark feature of his subsequent por-
traits of artists, architects, writers, and composers.
During this period of commercial success, Na-
muth sought ways to satisfy his ambitions as a
creative artist. At an opening for Long Island
artists, Namuth introduced himself to Jackson Pol-
lock and asked if he could take pictures of him at
his studio. Pollock had previously been photo-
graphed by Martha Holmes and Rudolph Burck-
hardt but was inclined to avoid photographers.
Nevertheless, Pollock invited Namuth to his studio
in late July 1950, and over the next four months,
Namuth shot countless photographs and directed
two short films of Pollock and his work. While
neither Holmes nor Burckhardt had secured Pol-
lock’s confidence to such a degree that he was will-
ing to paint in front of them—their photographs
are staged with the artist posed as if painting—
Namuth gained Pollock’s trust and was allowed
to shoot the artist as he worked.
Due to flaws in the lens of his camera, Namuth
used prolonged exposure times, which emphasized
the artist’s movement; the scale of the canvases
is reiterated by the blurred movement of the artist
darting in and around the surface. This frozen-in-
time movement has been cited as the source of
Harold Rosenberg’s formulation of the concept of
‘‘Action’’ painting in his landmark essay, ‘‘The
American Action Painters.’’ However, this sup-
posed influence is based on flawed conclusions;
not only did Rosenberg deny this influence, but he
developed his concept of ‘‘Action’’ before he saw
Namuth’s photographs. Nonetheless, Namuth’s
photographs and films, Pollock’s canvases, and
Rosenberg’s essay were vital resources for the fol-
lowing generation of American artists who found
in the work of all three men a new approach to
art-making that encouraged such postmodern de-
velopments as conceptual art, installation art, and
performance art.
Aware that Pollock’s physical encounter with his
canvases was a quality that his camera could
merely suggest, Namuth convinced Pollock that
filming him would be even more compelling. Initi-
ally filming in black-and-white from afar, Namuth
disliked the results. He struck upon the idea of
Pollock painting on glass with the camera directly
beneath the surface. Namuth convinced the artist
of this project and, shooting in color, he finished
filming on Thanksgiving Day, 1950.
Namuth’s career as a portraitist took off after
the photographs of Pollock were published inArt
NewsandPortfolioin 1951. Gaining the trust of his
subjects, Namuth photographed countless artists in
their studios, often while they were working. One
of his most compelling portraits was of painter
Barnett Newman in 1951. The opposite of the
performance-based photographs of Pollock, this
portrait nonetheless typifies many of Namuth’s
compositional conceits. He preferred to show ar-
tistsmise-en-sce`ne, surrounded by his or her work.
In the case of Newman, the artist contemplates a
few paintings propped against a wall in his studio;
light from the windows bathes the scene with a
somber mood that parallels Newman’s interest in
the sublime.
Namuth published his portraits of artists, wri-
ters, architects, and composers in many of the most
recognized magazines of the 1950s and 1960s, such
asHarper’s Bazaar,Holiday,Cosmopolitan,Vogue,
andFortune. He published many cover portraits
forArt Newsfrom the early 1970s until 1983. In
the 1980s, Namuth also worked closely withArchi-
tectural DigestandConnaissance des Artes, pub-
lishing numerous portraits for both magazines.
One of his most significant collaborations was
with Brian O’Doherty on the bookAmerican Mas-
ters, which was published in 1973. Namuth workedNAMUTH, HANS