time-inflected views than as conventional narrative.
Among the subjects Liebling has recorded are:
handball players; cadavers; mannequins; agricul-
tural workers; politicians in various guises; slaugh-
terhouse workers in South St. Paul; informal street
portraiture in Miami, New York’s Brighton Beach,
and Minneapolis’ Gateway District; street scenes in
Spain and London; ruined buildings in the South
Bronx; clients of social service agencies; Native
American and Shaker communities; mining and
manufacturing areas of the Midwest; and the farm-
ing landscape of Massachusetts’s Pioneer Valley
and the physical traces of Emily Dickinson in
Amherst. Regional concerns have informed Lie-
bling throughout his career; he has, purposefully
and incidentally, made telling portraits of his three
long-term homes—New York City, Minnesota, and
Massachusetts, where he moved in 1970.
Liebling’s motion picture work reflects the
importance of serial imagery. He studied film at
the New School for Social Research, concurrent
with his engagement in the Photo League. He taught
photography and film simultaneously while at the
University of Minnesota and Hampshire College,
Amherst, Massachusetts. His academic colleague
in Minnesota, Allen Downs, was a frequent colla-
borator; their films includeThe Tree is Dead(1955),
Pow-Wow(1960), andThe Old Men(1965). Group
projects at the university, echoing similar efforts in
the Photo League, included documenting the demo-
lition of the Metropolitan Building, a landmark
building razed in 1961 as part of a Minneapolis
urban renewal campaign. Filmmaker Ken Burns
has noted his influence on a generation of Hamp-
shire students.
Alan Trachtenberg, a frequent commentator on
Liebling’s work, offers a fitting summary:
Liebling’s pictures are often difficult to look at, not easy
to take. His work embraces great extremes and demands
much in return....Liebling speaks what is on his mind as
well as what is in his eyes, and speaks directly to com-
mon civic concerns. There is no mistaking that his cam-
era is an instrument of communication.
(Trachtenberg 1982, n.p.)GeorgeSladeSeealso:Bauhaus; Photo League; Portraiture; San-
der, August; Strand, Paul; Worker Photography
Biography
Born in New York City, New York, 16 April 1924. United
States Army, 1942–1945. Studied design with Ad Rein-
hardt and photography with Walter Rosenblum and Paul
Strand, Brooklyn College, 1942, 1946–1948. Studied film
production, direction, cinematography, and script writ-
ing, New School for Social Research, New York City,
1948–1949. Professor of Film and Photography, Univer-
sity of Minnesota, Minneapolis, 1949–1969; Professor of
Film and Photography, State University of New York,
New Paltz, 1957–1958; Professor of Photography and
Film Studies, Hampshire College, Amherst, Massachu-
setts, 1970–1990; Vice President, University Film Study
Center, 1975–1977; Editorial Board,Massachusetts Re-
view, 1975 to present; Yale University, Walker Evans
Visiting Professor of Photography, 1976–1977; Univer-
sity of New Mexico, 1978; Professor Emeritus, Hamp-
shire College, 1990 to present. Massachusetts Arts and
Humanities Foundation Fellowship, 1975; John Simon
Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowships, 1977,
1981; National Endowment for the Arts Photographers
Fellowship, 1979; Massachusetts Council of the Arts
Fellowship, 1984; project director for National Endow-
ment for the Arts Survey Grant, 1984; honorary Doctor
of Laws degree, Portland School of Art, Portland, Maine,- Living in Amherst, Massachusetts.
Individual Exhibitions
1950 Jerome Liebling: Photographs; Walker Art Center,
Minneapolis, Minnesota
1951 The Portland Art Museum; Portland, Oregon
1952 Jerome Liebling, 1950–1951: A Photographic Docu-
ment of the Minnesota Scene; University Gallery, Uni-
versity of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota
1957 Study Room, George Eastman House; Rochester,
New York
1958 New York State University; New Paltz, New York
The Minneapolis Institute of Arts; Minneapolis, Min-
nesota
1960 Limelight Gallery; New York, New York
1963 Jerome Liebling: Photographs; Walker Art Center,
Minneapolis, Minnesota
Museum of Modern Art; New York, New York
1972 Po-Lit-I-Cal Pho-To-Graphs: Of, Pertaining To, or Deal-
ing With the Study of Affairs, Structure...: Jerome Liebling;
Hampshire College Gallery, Amherst, Massachusetts
1978 Jerome Liebling Photographs, 1947–1977; Friends of
Photography, Carmel, California, and traveled to Uni-
versity of California Art Museum, San Diego, California
1979 40 Photographs; University of Massachusetts, Amherst,
Massachusetts
1980 Jerome Liebling: Photographs; Corcoran Gallery of
Art, Washington, D.C., and traveled to Viterbo College,
LaCrosse, Wisconsin
1982 Contemporary Color: Jerome Liebling;FoggArt
Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Jerome Liebling; Photography Gallery, Portland
School of Art, Portland, Maine
1987 Jerome Liebling: Massachusetts; Smith College
Museum of Art, Northampton, Massachusetts
1988 Jerome Liebling: A Retrospective; Howard Greenberg/
Photofind Gallery, New York, New York
Jerome Liebling Photographs; Blaffer Gallery of Art,
University of Houston, Houston, Texas
1990 Jerome Liebling Photographs; Hampshire College,
Amherst, Massachusetts
1995 Jerome Liebling; 292 Gallery, New York, New York
The People, Yes: The Photographs of Jerome Liebling;
The Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minneapolis, Minne-LIEBLING, JEROME