Smith, Henry Holmes 1909-1986

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SMITH, Henry Holmes 1909-1986

PERSONAL: Born October 23, 1909 in Bloomington, IL; died March 24, 1986, in Marin County, CA; married Wanda Lee Phares, in 1947; children: Christopher, Theodore. Education: Attended State Normal College, Bloomington, 1927-29 and 1930-31; School of the Art Institute of Chicago, 1929-30; Ohio State University, Columbus, B.S., 1933.

CAREER: Independent photographer; New Bauhaus School, instructor of photography, Chicago, IL, 1937-38; Minicam Photography, associate editor, Cincinnati, OH, 1940-42; Indiana University, instructor, Bloomington, 1947-65, professor, 1965-67; College ArtJournal, associate editor, Bloomington, 1955-64; Maryland Institute College of Art, visiting professor, Baltimore, MD, 1967; Exhibitions: Works included in permanent collections at Indiana University, Bloomington, IN; Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY; International Museum of Photography and Film, Rochester, NY; George Eastman House, Rochester, NY; Library of Congress, Washington, DC; New Orleans Museum of Art, New Orleans, LA; Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg, FL; Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona, Tucson; University Art Museum, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque; Oakland Art Museum, Oakland, CA; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA; Museum of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX; Cincinnati Art Museum, Cincinnati, OH; Kalamazoo Art Institute, Kalamazoo, MI; Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, CA; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY; Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery, University of Nebraska, Lincoln; Princeton University Museum, Princeton, NJ; Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, France; Victoria and Albert Museum, London, England; Bauhaus Archive, Berlin, Germany; National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; and National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto, Japan. Solo exhibitions include Illinois Wesleyan University, Bloomington, IL, 1946; Indiana University, Bloomington, 1947; University of North Dakota, Grand Forks, 1956; State University of New York at New Paltz, 1958; Indiana Art Directors Association, Indianapolis, 1959; Akron Art Institute, Akron, OH, 1960; Merchants Bank Building, Indianapolis, IN, 1960; Institute of Design, Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, 1962; San Francisco State University, San Francisco, CA, 1964; Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, NY, 1971; Polaroid Corporation, Cambridge, MA, 1971; University of California, Berkeley, 1971; Phos/Graphos Gallery, San Francisco, CA, 1972; Center for Photographic Studies, Louisville, KY, 1972; New Orleans Museum of Art, New Orleans, LA, 1972; Henry Holmes Smith's Art: Fifty Years in Retrospect, Indiana University, Bloomington, 1973; Friends of Photography, Carmel, CA, 1974; J.B. Speed Museum (with Ralph Eugene Meatyard), Louisville, KY, 1974; Indiana National Bank, Indianapolis, 1974; Addison Gallery, Andover, MA, 1975; Fort Wayne Art Institute, Fort Wayne, IN, 1975; University of Oregon, Eugene, 1978; Indiana University, 1982; Philadelphia College of Art, Philadelphia, PA, 1983; Silver Image Gallery, Seattle, WA, 1984; Robert Klein Gallery, Boston, MA, 1984; Focus Gallery, San Francisco, CA, 1985; Works 1974-84, California State University, Fresno, 1985; and Photographs 1931-86: A Retrospective, Howard Greenberg Gallery, New York, NY. Group exhibitions include Abstract Photography, Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY, 1951; Photographer's Choice, Indiana University, Bloomington, 1959; Sense of Abstraction, Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY, 1960; Photography in the Twentieth Century, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa (toured Canada and the United States, 1967-73), 1967; Contemporary American Photographs, University of California, Los Angeles, 1975; Photographer's Choice, Witkin Gallery, New York, NY, 1976; Photography in the Fifties, Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona, Tucson, 1980; American Images 1945-80, Barbican Art Gallery, London, England, 1985; Photography and Art 1946-86, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, 1987; 50 Jahre New Bauhaus, Bauhaus-Archiv, Berlin, Germany, 1987; Extending the Boundaries of Photography, University of Arizona, Center for Creative Photography, Tucson, 1987; Modern Photography and Beyond, National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto, Japan, 1987; Photographic Legacy: The Influence of Henry Holmes Smith at Indiana University, Indiana University Fine Arts Museum, Bloomington, 1988; Decade by Decade: Twentieth Century American Photography, Center for Creative Photography, Tucson, AZ, 1989; Personal Engagements: Abstract Photography of the Sixties, The University of Rochester and the International Museum of Photography at George Eastman House, Rochester, NY, 1990; and Patterns of Influence, Center for Creative Photography. Military service: U.S. Army, Gilbert Islands and Iwo Jima, 1942-45.

MEMBER: Society for Photographic Education (board of directors; founding member, 1963, vice-chairman, 1963-67), Friends of Photography (trustee, 1975-83).

AWARDS, HONORS: Herman Frederick Lieber Distinguished Teaching Award, Indiana University, 1968; D.F.A., Maryland Institute College of Art, 1968, Indiana University, 1982, and Philadelphia College of Art, 1983.

WRITINGS:

(With Thomas B. Hess) Aaron Siskind, Photographer, edited by Nathan Lyons, George Eastman House (Rochester, NY), 1965.

Henry Holmes Smith, Center for Photographic Studies (Louisville, KY), 1973.

Henry Holmes Smith: Selected Critical Writings, edited by Terence R. Pitts, Center for Creative Photography (Tucson, AZ), 1977.

Henry Holmes Smith Papers, compiled by Charles Lamb and Mary Ellen McGoldrick, Center for Creative Photography (Tucson, AZ), 1983.

Henry Holmes Smith: Collected Writings 1935-85, edited by James L. Enyeart and Nancy Solomon, Center for Creative Photography (Tucson, AZ), 1986.

Contributor to anthology Photographers on Photography, edited by Nathan Lyons, [New York, NY], 1966.

Contributor to periodicals, including Aperture, Photography, Contemporary Photographer, Exposure, and Afterimage.

SIDELIGHTS: Photographer, critical writer, and art teacher Henry Holmes Smith began taking photographs as a teenager using a primitive box camera. As an adult, he devised a method for making abstract photographs using light and liquid without needing a traditional camera.

Inspired by the work of photographers Edward Weston, Francis Bruguière, and Edward Steichen, Smith studied photography at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and Ohio State University. László Moholy-Nagy's book on experimental photography, The New Vision, heavily influenced Smith."The photogram is a realization of spatial tension in black-white-gray," Moholy-Nagy wrote.

In 1937, Smith was experimenting with color, making color-separation negatives and dye-transfer prints, when he met Moholy-Nagy and forged a longtime professional friendship. Their concepts on imagemaking were congruent.

Also that year, Smith accepted Moholy-Nagy's invitation to teach at the prestigious New Bauhaus School in Chicago, although World War II interrupted his first teaching assignment, during which he worked alongside Moholy-Nagy and the artist Gyorgy Kepes.

In 1946, Smith's central goal was to abandon the constraints of the traditional camera while still using light to make pictures. Preparing to teach a class on the light principles of refraction and reflection at Indiana University, where he would work for about twenty years, he attempted a new process. The technique involved pouring syrup on glass, possibly throwing water on it, and printing it. Smith discovered that light would cast crisp shadows he could manipulate and print onto his photographer's paper. This experimenting lead to a major phase in his career and the creation of his celebrated "refraction prints."

Among the images Smith's artwork frequently presents are mythological figures such as the phoenix, Castor, and Pollux.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Bossen, Howard, Henry Holmes Smith: Man of Light, UMI Research Press (Ann Arbor, MI), 1982.

Decade by Decade, Twentieth-Century American Photography, Bulfinch (Boston, MA), 1988.

Gauss, Kathleen McCarthy, and Andy Grundberg, American Images 1945-1986 (exhibition catalogue), Los Angeles County Museum of Art (Los Angeles, CA), 1987.

Lyons, Nathan, Photography in the Twentieth Century, Horizon Press (New York, NY), 1967.

Henry Holmes Smith's Art: Fifty Years in Retrospect (exhibition catalogue) [Bloomington, IN], 1973.

Henry Holmes Smith: Non-Camera Photographer (exhibition catalogue), [Bloomington, IN], 1982.

Photographers' Choice (exhibition catalogue), [Bloomington, Indiana], 1959.