Newspaper's reports on John Szarkowski 1974
The Sun (Melbourne) 16th April 1974
Pictures man to lecture
The director of the photography department at New York's Museum of Modern Art hates to be photographed.
"It's a bit like going to confession." Mr John Szarkowski (above) said yesterday after viewing a photography exhiibition at the Natonal Gallery.
But Mr Szarkowski, 49, relented and let the cameras do the work he has been involved in siince he was a youngster.
He will give a lecture tonight in the Lyle Theatre Melbourne University.
Mr Szarkowski said his ignorance of Australian photography was "almost all encompassing."
"But I have been impressed by the work I have seen in Sydney, Brisbane and Canberra and this interest of young Australians, in this expanding field," he said.
The Sydney Daily Telegraph Thursday 9th May 1974
Lecture Tour
Tonight John Szarkowski will give a public lecture on Towards a Photographic: Tradition at Theatre 5, Carslaw Building, University of Sydney.
Mr Szarkowski, who is the Director of the Department of Photography at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, is visiting Australia for the first time. Since 1962 over 65 exhibitions have been held at the museum and he has organised many travelling shows. The museum's collection of photographs now totals well over 15,000, dating back to 1840.
This tour is being jointly sponsored by the Visual Arts Board and The Australian Centre for Photography (formerly The Australian Foundation for Photography). Lectures will be held in all capital cities.
Mr David Moore said it was unfortunate Mr Szarkowski would not be able to open the Centre's new Gallery as the premises will not be ready until September. "Towards a Photographic Tradition" should prove most interesting as we in Australia rarely get the opportunity to attend lectures given by someone of Mr Szarkowski's calibre."
The Sydney Daily Telegraph Thursday 9th May 1974
Photography 'an art all can practise'
JOHN Szarkowski was described yesterday as one of the "intellectual heavyweights of the photographic world — a notion Mr Szarkowski likes to debunk in a slow mid-western drawl punctuated by drags on fat Havana cigars.
As the director of the department of photography at New York's Museum of Modern Art he says he has become more of a bureaucrat than a photographer.
But critics and colleagues all agree that he is not only a great photographer but an eminent authority on the art of photography. |
|
 |
FORGOTTEN COLLECTIONS
Mr Szarkowski has taught the history of photography to graduate students at New York University's Institute of Film and Television, won two Guggenheim fellowships and written two book on photography and photographers.
At a Sydney press conference he was asked about photography's role among the arts.
"I can remember when photography was not considered an art form." he said. "We were always slightly on the defensive — our role was an apostolic one.
"Today photography is an art form as clearly recognised as any other. It's an art which everyone practise.
"We are not all eloquent poets or leaders In language but we all use it and we all need it. Photography has come close to becoming that kind of universal technique"
He said Australia, had no Lewis Carroll, but great photography masters were turning up almost year to year.
Forgotten collections might be found in attics or cellars at any time.
Society and photography had become indivisible, he said. Each was dependent on and conditioned the other.
Mr Szarkowski said that In its relatively short history, photography had altered people's perception of the world.
Some photographs were among the most important statements of our time.
"I think there are 15 or 20 photographers in the world today who are not going to so easily drop out of the history books." he said.
"People like Cartier-Bresson, Walker Evans and David Douglas-Duncan are undeniably artists of great stature. They are men who have reshaped our symbolic vocabulary, our visual iconography.