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Portrait and Face. Karsh, Winston Churchill 1942. “A portrait is an artistic representation of a person, in which the face and its expression is predominant. The intent is to display the likeness, personality and mood of the person”. Karsh, Winston Churchill 1942.
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Karsh, Winston Churchill 1942 “A portrait is an artistic representation of a person, in which the face and its expression is predominant. The intent is to display the likeness, personality and mood of the person”
Karsh, Winston Churchill 1942 Winston Churchill was the British Prime Minister during World War II. He was a powerful individual whose strength and stubbornness helped get Britain through the war and eventually defeat the Germans. This photograph was taken just after Churchill had given an important speech about the war to the Canadian parliament.
Karsh, Winston Churchill 1942 But the determined expression on Churchill’s face may not be only to do with the war effort. The photographer Karsh tells the story that Churchill was grumpy because he had not been informed of the photo shoot. He was smoking one of his big cigars, which did not suit the photogrpher’s idea for the portrait. Karsh grabbed the cigar away, snapping the photo at the same moment. Churchill’s expression may be partly one of anger at what the photographer had done.
Types of the Portrait Studio portraitHollywood GlamourEnvironmental PortraitCelebrity PortraitFashion PortraitSelf-PortraitTypological portraitThe distance of the portrait
In earlier times, there was a big trade in taking photographs of ordinary individuals.Poses and lighting tended to be standardised to achieve a good likeness with a dignified expression. Studio portrait from the early 20th century
Hollywood Glamour photography, a style that developed in the 1920s, was the highest form of the studio portrait.Lighting, pose, costume and makeup, plus the skills of the actor and photographer, all came together to make exotic, intense portrayals of the stars’ personas.
The Environmental Portrait A portrait executed in the subject's own environment, such as in their home or workplace, and typically illuminating the subject's life and surroundings.
Arnold Newman, Alexander Calder Arnold Newman was an American portrait photographer who specialized in the environmental portrait. He photographed people in their professional environments. In this portrait the sculptor Alexander Calder is shown in his studio with mobiles, the hanging metal sculptors which he invented. Notice how the oval shapes echo the shape and tone of Calder’s face, almost as though they are thought bubbles or ideas from his mind.
Arnold Newman, Piet Mondrian, 1942 Newman photographed the painter Piet Mondrian in his studio, leaning on an easel, in front of paper swatches used to plan his paintings.
Arnold Newman, Piet Mondrian, 1942 Piet Mondrian, Composition with red blue and yellow, 1930 Mondrian was an important abstract painter whose work featured rectangular shapes which are echoes in Newman’s portrait.
Arnold Newman, portrait of Alfred Krupp, 1962 Arnold Newman photographed the German industrialist Alfred Krupp, who had been pro-Nazi during World War II and had used Jews as slaves in his factories. Krupp knew that Arnold Newman was himself Jewish and objected to being photographed by him. Newman persuaded him, then carefully set up his lighting to make Krupp look like the devil.
The Celebrity portrait A genre where a constructed public persona is the subject of the photograph, not the personal individuality of the sitter.
Annie LiebovitzArnold Schwarzennegger, 1997 Annie Liebovitz The most famous portrait photographer of celebrities is Annie Liebovitz who has worked for Rolling Stone magazine and Vanity Fair. She is one of the most famous and successful photographers in the world. Liebovitz is known for making elaborate portraits on location, with props, costumes and using camera assistants, plus costume, hair and makeup artists. In the 1980s, she was charging more than $40,000 per day.
Annie Liebovitz, Sylvester Stallone, 1993 Liebovitz sometimes used humour in her portraits, working around the stereotypes the celebrities represented. The action hero Sylvester Stallone is famous for his muscular body but not for his intellect …
August Rodin, The Thinker, 1902 Annie Liebovitz, Sylvester Stallone, 1993
The Fashion portrait A hybrid of the fashion photograph and the true ‘identity’portrait. The model is presented as in a portrait, but is not‘present’as an individual.
Robert Mapplethorpewas a New York photographer famous in the 1980s for his stylish portraits and still-lifes. He died in 1989 from AIDS.Mapplethorpe was gay and often expressed gay identity in his photographs. One of these was a double self-portrait showing both his masculine and feminine sides. Robert Mapplethorpe, self-portrait, 1980
Rafael Goldchain Self Portrait as Pola Baumfeld (born Poland, died Poland early 1940s Rafael Goldchain explores the history of his extended family, Jews who originated in Poland, and spread across the world during the 19th and 20th century. Some of them perished under the Nazi Holocaust.
Rafael Goldchain Self Portrait as Pola Baumfeld (born Poland, died Poland early 1940s Rafael Goldchain explores the history of his extended family, Jews who originated in Poland, and spread across the world during the 19th and 20th century. Some of them perished under the Nazi Holocaust. He locates old family portraits, sometimes of relatives he has never met or heard of. Then, he dresses up to look like the person in the photo, copying the pose, expression and costume.
Rafael Goldchain Self Portrait as Pola Baumfeld (born Poland, died Poland early 1940s Rafael Goldchain Self Portrait as Naftuli Goldszajn (born Poland early 1800s, died Poland late 1800s)
Gillian Wearing, Self Portrait, 2000 Gillian Wearing is an English artist who likes to make self portraits using her family. She gets old family portraits and has them made into masks. She puts the masks on her own face and poses for her portrait. This one is from an old portrait of her sister.
Typology of the FaceSome photographers are interested in the differences between faces rather than in the individual person. Their photographs are usually presented in grids or in series.They are about sociology - the social group - rather than the psychology of the person portrayed.
Simon Obarzanek photographed teenagers of a particular age, about 15 years old, showing the morphology of their facse as they mature toward adulthood. He has also captured a certain vulnerability and innocence.
The distance of the portrait How close or how far away must the subject be for it to be a portrait? How much recognition must there be?
Steve Pyke, portrait of the philosopher Mary Warnock, 1990 You might argue that the typical portrait takes places at the distance of conversation. The person you see is close enough to talk to.
Steve Pyke, portrait of the philosopher Iris Murdoch Bringing the camera in close creates intimacy with the subject, a one-to-one encounter. But getting this close can invade the subject’s personal space, that imaginary bubble of privacy everyone has around them and which no one should enter unless invited.
Bill Brandt, Brassai’s Eye, 1950s Is this a portrait? Bill Brandt did a series of close-ups of artist’s eyes which are almost abstract. But they have a lot of character and seem to identify something about the person – Brassai himself was a photographer.
Harry Callahan, portrait of Bob Fine, 1952 Is this a portrait? Harry Callahan was an American photographer known for his dramatic compositions. He made this “portrait” of Bob Fine for Life magazine. Fine was a photographer and architect who worked on some of Chicago's landmark buildings. He is seen in a shaft of light between to wheat silos. Does it portray anything about Fine?
