Photography In The 1950s

295 Words2 Pages

Modernism and popular styles became indistinct from each other in the 1950s. Art was never the same after the Holocaust and atom bombs. Plurality of visual forms existed in 1950s. If we take 1950s painting as an offshoot of New York school of abstract art, then photography in the 1950s is a more eclectic phenomenon, harder to classify. This can be attributed to the commercialisation of photography by the mid-century due to the rise of print media during the 1940s. There was an upsurge in newspaper photography. Newspapers like the Rocky Mountain News in Denver specialised in hardball journalism, featured regular photographer Morey Engle with sensational pictures. The emergence of new magazine like Ebony in 1945 provided work for African American …show more content…

It was quintessential for journalistic photography to be dramatic and illustrative which largely thrived on the mercy of print media. Magazine journalist W. Eugene Smith has made an individual stamp through his photographic essay. His Nurse Midwife (1951) and A Man of Mercy (1954) helped to refine the idea of photo essay. Robert Capa was another magazine photojournalist who was popular for his combat images during World War II. Working for Life, he mixed photography of Hollywood icons like Grace Kelly, Gary Cooper and Ingrid Bergman with location photographs from Paris, Japan and

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