biography
| sex:
| male
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| lived:
| (1908–93)
|
| biography:
| Photohistorian, born in Lynn, Massachusetts, USA. A Harvard-trained art historian, he was librarian at the Museum of Modern Art (1935–42), where he wrote the catalogue for the exhibition, Photography 1893–1937 before becoming its first curator of photography (1940). An officer for US Air Force photographic intelligence in Egypt, North Africa, and Italy (1942–5), he began his teaching career at Black Mountain College (1946–8). In 1947 he received a Guggenheim grant which he used to write his classic text, History of Photography, first published in 1949. Curator of the International Museum of Photography of the George Eastman House, Rochester, NY, during its formative years (1948–58), he became its director (1958–71). He also served as editor of Art in America (1957–65). The pre-eminent teacher of photohistorians, he was a professor of art at the State University of New York in Buffalo (1968–71) and taught at the University of New Mexico from 1971. In 1984 he received a MacArthur Foundation grant. |
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