Photographers in the 1950s

Robert Frank

Robert Frank was born on the 9^th November 1924 in Zürich, Switzerland, he is one of American photography’s most influential figures. He is also an important figure in American photography and film. His most notable piece of work is a book entitled The Americans, published in 1958; this book earned him comparisons to a modern-day Alexis de Tocqueville. Frank’s book, The Americans, inspired countless photographers across all photographic styles, but he especially appealed to documentary and street photographers.

 

Vivian Maier

Vivian Maier was born on the 1^st February 1926 in New York City and died on the 21^st April 2009 in Chicago, Illinois. She was 83 years old. She spent most of her childhood in France and when she moved back to the US, she spent forty years working as a nanny in Chicago. During her time as a nanny, Maier took over 100,000 photos, mostly of people and Chicago’s cityscapes, although she did also travel and photograph things worldwide. Despite taking all of these photos, most of them were undeveloped and all remained unknown until John Maloof, a Chicago historian and collector discovered them in 2007. After Vivian Maier died, her photos started to receive critical acclaim, they have been exhibited in the U.S., Britain, Germany, Norway, Belgium, France, and multiple other countries. Vivian Maier’s photographs are predominantly street scenes in Chicago and New York during the 1950s and the 1960s. “An article in The Independent said “the well-to-do shoppers of Chicago stroll and gossip in all their department-store finery before Maier, but the most arresting subjects are those people on the margins of successful, rich America in the 1950s and 1960s: the kids, the black maids, the bums flaked out on shop stoops.””

 

Eve Arnold

Eve Arnold was born on the 21^st April 1912 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S. and died on the 4^th January 2012 in London at the age of 99. She was a widely known photographer, who photographed many of the iconic figures who helped to shape the late twentieth century. Although she snapped these photos of famous people, she was also equally happy to photograph the lives of the poor and dispossessed “migrant workers, civil-rights protestors of apartheid in South Africa, disabled Vietnam war veterans and Mongolian herdsmen.” Arnold began her photography career in 1946 when she worked at a photo-finishing plant in New York City, she then moved on to study photography in 1948 at the New School for Social Research, also in New York.  Eve began to be associated with Magnum Photos in 1951 and became a full time member in 1957.  Magnum Photos being one of the biggest international photographic associations.

 

Dennis Stock

Dennis Stock was born on July 24th 1928 and he died on the 11th January 2010 at the age of 81. The man was a photography marvel, in his earlier years, he photographed many a famous celebrity, onen of his most photographed was actor, James Dean. He took over 100 photos of Dean in 1955 (the same year that the actor tragically died). Stock also took photos of Marilyn Monroe, Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Audrey Hepburn and other such famous names of the 1950s.  Stock also set up a film production company in 1968 called Visual Objectives Inc., and made several documentaries under the company.

 

Henry Clarke

Born in Los Angeles, in 1918, Clarke was one of the 1950s most prominent fashion photographers.  His first step into the fashion world was working as a window dresser for I. Magnin, a luxury fashion and specialty goods.   In 1946, Clarke moved to New York and took a temporary job as a background and accessorising assistant at the Vogue studios there.   During his time at Vogue, he had the opportunity of observe the different styles of famous photographers such as Cecil Beaton, Irving Penn and Horst P. Horst.

Clarke became fascinated with photography and subsequently enrolled on a course for it at the New School for Social Research.  He was able to learn how to combine the fantasy of fashion with the energy of photo-reportage, he also taught himself how to use the twin-lenses Rolleiflex camera, ultimately realising that the future of photography depended on using much smaller and more adaptable cameras.

By the middle of the 1950s, Henry Clarke was working exclusively for Vogue magazine (but not before taking time away from Vogue to become a freelance photographer).  The photographs he captured often caught the elegance and sophistication of the modern woman: that being young, lively, carefree and seductive.  He worked with the most beautiful models of the time such as Suzy Parker, Ann Sainte Marie and Bettina.  Clarke also took celebrity portraits of many famous women like Coco Chanel, Sophia Loren, Anna Magnani, and Maria Callas.  He also photographed many other famous women of the time, such as the Duchess of Windsor, the Empress of Thailand and Robin Duke.

 

 

Links used to find information

Robert Frank’s “The Americans”: Timeless Lessons Street Photographers Can Learn

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Frank

http://www.vivianmaier.com/gallery/street-3/#slide-1

http://www.vivianmaier.com/gallery/street-3/#slide-5

http://www.vivianmaier.com/gallery/self-portraits/

http://www.vivianmaier.com/gallery/self-portraits/#slide-13

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vivian_Maier  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_Stock

http://www.magnumphotos.com/C.aspx?VP3=CMS3&VF=MAGO31_9_VForm&ERID=24KL53ZKDJ

http://www.blog.jewelryaccessories.com/fashion-photographers/375-henry-clarke.html

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-henry-clarke-1347153.html

Theatre in 1950s America

– During the 1950s musical productions became an important part of the American theater scene.

– Multiple Rodgers and Hammerstein productions were popular on Broadway in the 1950s, such as Carousel, Oklahoma!, South Pacific, The King and I, Flower Drum Song, and The Sound of Music.

– Lerner and Lowe also created two exceedingly popular Broadway musicals; Paint Your Wagon and My Fair Lady.

– Other popular 1950s musicals were: Guys and Dolls, Wonderful Town, Kismet, The Pajama Game, Fanny, Peter Pan, Silk Stockings, Damn Yankees, Bells Are Ringing, Candide, The Most Happy Fella, The Music Man, and West Side Story.

– Musicals weren’t the only stage productions in the 50s, however, dramas were also extremely popular on stage.

– Popular drama productions included: The Rose Tattoo by Tennessee Williams, The Crucible by Arthur Miller, Picnic by William Inge, The Teahouse of the August Moon adapted from the novel by Vern Sneider by John Patrick, The Desperate Hours by Joseph Hayes, The Diary of Anne Frank adapted from the book by Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett, Bus Stop by William Inge, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof by Tennessee Williams, The Chalk Garden by Enid Bagnold, Long Day’s Journey Into Night by Eugene O’Neill, Separate Tables by Sir Terence Rattigan, A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry, No Exit by Jean-Paul Sartre, The Cocktail Party by T. S. Eliot, Witness for the Prosecution by Agatha Christie, The Waltz of the Toreadors by Jean Anouilh, Look Back in Anger by John Osborne and Sunrise at Campobello by Dore Schary.

– There was a growth in different parts of theater, such as children’s theater, community theater, college and university theater.

– The Living Theater, one of America’s most well known theaters, was founded in the 1950s.

– 1950s American theater became more experimental than it had been in previous years, it would include topics such as nudity, there would be references to drug use, and it would also sometimes be in reverse chronological order.

– Theater would draw inspiration from all different forms of culture outside of America.

 

Links used

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_in_the_1950s#Theater_and_musicals

http://prezi.com/5ia6nomfsdsi/american-theatre-in-the-1950s/

Photography Magazine- Vivian Maier Page

Photography Magazine- Eve Arnold Page

Photography Magazine- Dennis Stock Page

Photography Magazine- Front Cover

Television, Film and Radio in 1950s America

– Television and other forms of technology became incredibly popular throughout the country.

– TV shows such as Leave it to Beaver and The Honeymooners showed what a family in the 1950’s was like, and shows like I Love Lucy became popular with the masses.

– The television gave the country something to do, it changed the model of the home, living rooms now revolved around the television set.

– Television required snacks to watch and TV dinners and TV trays.

– Domestic Comedies stretched the values and morals of the time period while Walt Disney’s television programs, Disneyland,  gave a utopian idea of what the United States was to be.  It reflected the adjusting of the United States public.

– The 1950s have been dubbed by many a critic as the ‘Golden Age of Television’.

– Television sets were generally very expensive, so it was usually a wealthy audience who watched TV.

– Television programmers knew that their audience were mostly rich people and they also knew that serious shows on Broadway were attracting their audience, so they began to stage Broadway plays in the television studios for the viewers to enjoy.

– As households with TVs multiplied and spread to other sections of society, more varied programming came in. Situation comedies and variety shows were formats that were borrowed from radio.

– Former vaudeville stars such as Milton Berle, Sid Caesar and Jackie Gleason found stardom after years of toiling on the stages. Ernie Kovacs was one of the first comedians to really understand and exploit the technology of television and became a master of the sight gag.

– Movie revenues dropped by a third between 1950 and 1960 – from $1.4 billion to $951 million.

– To try to win back audiences from TV, the movie industry promoted the colour, better sound, big screens and emotional power of the theatre experience, they even promoted the invention of new formats like “Cinerama,” “Cinemascope” and – though briefly – 3-D and “Aroma-Rama.”

– The Ten Commandments, The Robe, and Ben-Hur were all top money making films of the 50s.

– Among other top grossing movies of the 50s, many were Disney picture, such as Cinderella, Peter Pan, Lady and the Tramp and Sleeping Beauty.

– “Other films took on the issues facing Americans in the 50s and 60s.

• The threat of Communism, in films like The Manchurian Candidate and I Was a Communist for the FBI. The witch hunts of Sen. Joseph McCarthy produced a blacklist of former Communists in Hollywood and at least one great film from the period – On the Waterfront that dealt subtly with the pressure to conform politically.
• Civil rights, with films like Broken Arrow, The Defiant Ones, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, and In the Heat of the Night.
• Changes in sexual attitudes, in films like From Here to Eternity, Lady Chatterley’s Lover, Peyton Place, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, The Seven Year Itch, Lolita, Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, and The Graduate.
• Drugs, in The Man with the Golden Arm, Midnight Cowboy and Easy Rider.
• Crime and violence, in films like Cool Hand Luck, In Cold Blood, Bullitt, Bonnie and Clyde and all the increasingly violent Westerns.
• Youthful rebellion, in films like Blackboard Jungle, Rebel Without a Cause, East of Eden, Giant, A Hard-Day’s Night, Blow-Up and Alice’s Restaurant.
• The Vietnam War was still too controversial in the 60s to really be dealt with in films. About the only Vietnam film to be produced in the 60s was John Wayne’s jingoistic The Green Berets. Later, the war produced such outstanding films as Platoon, The Deer Hunter, Apocalypse Now, Full Metal Jacket, Coming Home and even Forrest Gump.“

– In the 50s, nobody was sure exactly what to make of radioactivity, there were newspaper stories about how radiation might cause mutations, which were followed quickly by ridiculous films such as Attack of the 50 Foot Woman (in which radiation from an alien creates a 50-foot woman), Them (where nuclear tests produce giant killer ants), Godzilla (where nuclear tests produce a 164-foot dinosaur) and It Came From Beneath the Sea (where an atomic radiation creates a giant octopus).

– Though there were serious films based upon radiation as well.

– In 1959, On the Beach (directed by Stanley Kramer) was one of the first films to show what would conceivably happen after an all-out nuclear war.

• “Gregory Peck plays the commander of a U.S. submarine that has survived the war, and he’s looking for the last place on earth that hasn’t been destroyed by the radioactive fallout cloud – Australia. The cast includes Ava Gardner, Anthony Perkins and Nebraska-native Fred Astaire in his first dramatic movie role. All of the characters wait for the inevitable – the moment when the radioactive cloud reaches Australia and all life ceases.”

– During the 1950s, car manufacturers began offering car radios as standard accessories, and radio received a boost as Americans listened to their car radios as they drove to and from work.

– Due to television’s increased popularity coupled with dramatically loosened restrictions on playing recorded music on air,  the network model of radio dramatically declined.

– Top 40 stations appeared in the place of the network model, they operated locally and gave rise to DJs, who became local celebrities in their own right. Top 40 became the outlet for the relatively new style of music known as rock and roll.

– Because television took many of the concepts that radio had, such as comedies, dramas and soap operas, radio stations began to specialise in presenting recorded music, news, talk shows, weather, public-service programming and shows that were designed for specific audiences.

Links used to gather information

http://elcoushistory.tripod.com/society1950.html

http://www.livinghistoryfarm.org/farminginthe50s/life_17.html

http://www.livinghistoryfarm.org/farminginthe50s/life_18.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_in_the_United_States

http://admin.bhbl.neric.org/~mmosall/ushistory/textbook/Chapter%2027%20Postwar%20America/ch%2027%20sect%203%20Pop%20Culture.pdf

Henry Clarke Moodboard

Robert Frank Moodboard

Vivian Maier Moodboard