Arnold Newman: Masterclass

Arnold Newman: Masterclass celebrates the singular vision of one of the most influential portrait photographers of the twentieth century. Over the course of nearly seven decades, Arnold Newman (1918–2006) created iconographic images of some of the most influential innovators, celebrities, and cultural figures of his time. Martha Graham, Phillip Johnson, Marilyn Monroe, Grandma Moses, Salvador Dali, Max Ernst, and Pablo Picasso are only a few of his celebrated sitters. A bold modernist with a superb sense of compositional geometry, Newman is known for a crisp, spare style that incorporated the personal environment, the work, and the intellectual background of the subject in his photographs with great sensitivity and care. Artists delighted in sitting for Newman, knowing that he would find a way to convey their sensibility in a forceful, yet always appropriate, fashion.

Arnold Newman: Masterclass, the first major exhibition of the photographer's work since his death, features over 200 vintage black and white photographs including Newman’s most famous portraits, in addition to early street photography, architectural studies, and still lifes as well as sheets with zoom and crop marks, which have never been shown publicly.

Arnold Newman: Masterclass has been organized by the Foundation for the Exhibition of Photography, Minneapolis, and the Harry Ransom Center, Austin.