Garry Winogrand

Garry Winogrand, New York World's Fair, 1964; gelatin silver print, Collection SFMOMA, gift of Dr. L.F. Peede, Jr. All images copyright The Estate of Garry Winogrand, courtesy Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco. 

A retrospective of work by artist Garry Winogrand (1928-1984), a photographer of American life from the 1950s through the early 1980s, shows at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Garry Winogrand brings together the artist's more well-known images with newly printed photographs from his unexamined archive of late work. More than half of the photographs have never been exhibited. Considered one of the most influential photographers of the 20th century, Winogrand photographed cities, people, car culture, and rodeos, among other subjects, in New York, Texas and California. 

Garry Winogrand, Los Angeles, 1964; gelatin silver print; Collection SFMOMA, gift of Jeffrey Fraenkel. 

He let ambiguity into his images, a mysteriousness, didn't provide interpretation, and left viewers to form their own conclusions. Early on, some considered his pictures formally "shapeless" and "random", but critics later acknowledged him for certain characteristics: tilted horizons and an eye for the haphazard.

My prints are not those kind of pictures that people easily put on their walls, they're not that window onto a nice landscape or something. They aren't. 

Garry Winogrand, John F. Kennedy International Airport, New York, 1968; gelatin silver print; collection of John and Lisa Pritzker. 

Winogrand began working as a photographer while studying painting at Columbia University, supplying photographs to general interest magazines.  His career was further shaped by the new culture of photography in the context of galleries and museums. He photographed the dislocation of urban life, the rise of the suburb and the skepticism of youth. He had a considerable amount of airport work, which developed over a long time frame, from 1958 to 1983. 

Garry Winogrand, Los Angeles, 1964; gelatin silver print; Garry Winogrand Archive, Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona. 

It's not how I do anything. Maybe the correct language would be how the fact of putting four edges around a collection of information or facts transforms it. A photograph is not what was photographed, it's something else. I photograph to find out what things look like, photographed.

Garry Winogrand, Los Angeles, ca. 1980-83; gelatin silver print; Garry Winogrand Archive, Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona. 

The current exhibition provides a reevaluation of Winogrand's career arc, accomplishments and contribution to 20th century photography. On view through June 2 at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 151 Third Street.