Best known for snapping Marilyn Monroe over the grate as her dress flew up while promoting A Seven Year Itch, Garry Winogrand is considered one of the most important street photographers of the 20th century. As with most of his peers after WWII, Winogrand started his career as a commercial photographer, working for magazines that were increasingly turning to big, glossy images to tell their stories of American life. Even in his commercial work, Winogrand’s photos stood out for their portrayal of both the excitement and anxiety that permeated the post-war consciousness. For his kinetic street portraits he photographed women of all ages, working men, protesters, children, dogs, cars, rodeos, pet monkeys (of which there were many at the time), and any other slice of American life that crossed his path from Manhattan to Beverly Hills. It is estimated that during his lifetime – which was short, he died suddenly of cancer at the age of 56 – nearly two million people walked in front of his lens. He also shot greats such as Muhammad Ali, Norman Mailer, and John F. Kennedy, but with a democratic spirit that positions them as part of his wider street photography project.
"Winogrand seems to declare that life cannot be known unless it is scrutinised, fragment by physical fragment"
Born the son of immigrant garment workers in the Bronx, Winogrand’s friends spoke of his “plebeian energy.” It was not until the late 50s, when he encountered Robert Frank’s seminal book of photographs, The Americans, that he began to see what he was doing as an art form. Yet, unlike his contemporaries such as Frank and Diane Arbus, Winogrand’s work has never been extensively catalogued – he was notoriously bad at keeping his archives organised – and this book of over 400 black-and-white photographs, along with the touring exhibition that accompanies it, represents the most ambitious project of its kind to present the full extent of Winogrand’s work. In his introductory essay, photographer and essayist Leo Rubinfien writes of Winogrand’s ability to capture meaning and significance in even the smallest of inanimate objects: “neither Frank nor William Klein nor André Kertész nor Cartier-Bresson presses as hard, asking, 'What is this hat on your head, this bag in your hand? And what is the meaning of that shiny shoe?' Winogrand seems to declare that life cannot be known unless it is scrutinised, fragment by physical fragment.”
Garry Winogrand is available now from Yale University Press. The Exhibition, Garry Winogrand, is currently touring the US, and will be coming to Paris in 2014 and Madrid in 2015.
Text by Ananda Pellerin
Ananda Pellerin is a London-based writer and regular contributor to Anothermag.com.
