Arts & Photography

Fine art photography, sometimes simply called art photography, refers to high-quality archival photographic prints of pictures that are created to fulfill the creative vision of an individual professional. more...

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Such prints are reproduced, usually in limited editions, in order to be sold to dealers, collectors or curators, rather than mass reproduced in advertising or magazines. Prints will sometimes, but not always, be exhibited in an art gallery.

19th Century history

Successful attempts to make self-consciously \"art\" photography can be traced to Victorian era practitioners such as Julia Margaret Cameron, Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, and Oscar Gustave Rejlander among others.

20th Century history

Pictorialism was a popular movement in the early years of the twentieth century, that strove to make the photography as a much like a painting as possible. It produced little that is now deemed of lasting value in the art world, and its styles and approaches are now seen as outmoded.

During the twentieth century, art photography became accepted by the English-speaking art world and the gallery system. In the USA, a small handful of curators spent their lives struggling to put it there; Alfred Stieglitz, Edward Steichen and John Szarkowski, and Hugh Edwards.

Since the 1970s, many galleries have accepted that the best of documentary photography and photojournalism is worthy of being shown in the gallery situation alongside art photography. From around 1975 many new galleries were opened to show only photography. These too, generally, were happy to show both fine-art and documentary pictures.

Traditionally, until the late 1970s genre styles predominated; nudes, portraits, natural landscapes (exemplified by Ansel Adams). Breakthrough 'star' artists in the 1970s and 80s, such as Sally Mann and Robert Mapplethorpe, still leant heavily on such genres, although seeing them with fresh eyes. Others investigated a snapshot aesthetic approach.

Throughout the twentieth century, there was a noticeable increase in the size of prints. Small delicate prints in thin frames are now a rarity, and hi-gloss wall-sized prints are common. There is now a tendency to dispense with a frame and glass altogether and instead to print onto blocked canvas.

Color photography is now preferred over black & white, and its validation was strongly aided by curator John Szarkowski. Historians generally point to the Szarkowski-curated William Eggleston show at MoMA in 1976 as the \"breakthrough of color\". In England, the early work of Gilbert & George is cited as validating color in art photography.

American organisations, such as the Aperture Foundation and the Museum of Modern Art, have done much to keep photography at the forefront of the fine arts.

Current trends

There is now a trend toward a careful staging and lighting of the picture, rather than hoping to \"discover\" it ready-made. Photographers such as Cindy Sherman, Floria Sigismondi, and Gregory Crewdson, among others, are noted for the quality of their staged pictures.

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