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Ernst Haas: Pure Seeing -
Saginaw Art Museum Exhibits the 'Father of
Modern Photography'
by Kiley Mallard Photographs in the 1960s, once said, "The color in color photography has often seemed an irrelevant decorative screen between the viewer and the fact of the picture. Ernst Haas has resolved this conflict by making the color sensation itself the subject matter of his world. No photographer has worked more successfully to express the sheer physical joy of seeing." Indeed, Haas is widely recognized as the father of creative color photography.
On March 11, the Saginaw Art Museum
opened Ernst Haas: Pure Seeing, a collection of over 40 Haas
photographs on loan from the International Photography Hall of Fame in
Oklahoma City. "This exhibit is by exclusive arrangement with the IPHF," says
Sheila Redman, Executive Director and Chief Curator of the Saginaw Art
Museum. "The IPHF sent it straight to us and, when we're finished, it goes
right back to them." Because this is not a traveling exhibit, the museum hopes
to attract people from all over the state.
"Haas is not as recognized by the public as say
Ansel Adams, but is very respected in the art and photography worlds,"
Redman says. "At the time he was working, people didn't think color
photography could be artistic, and he basically proved them wrong."
Ernst Haas was born in Vienna, Austria in
1921. In his early twenties, he studied medicine, then painting and finally
began a curriculum in photography at the Graphischen
Lehr-und Versuchsanstalt from 1943-1944. He officially took up photography as a profession in 1945, working for the American Red Cross and the occupation forces in Austria. At the age of 26, he made a name for himself with his first essay, Homecoming Prisoners of War.
Tiring of his war-torn homeland, Haas moved to
Paris, France in 1948 and promptly received two offers of employment. The
first came from Magnum, a photographer's cooperative formed by Robert Capa,
Henri Cartier-Bresson, George Rodger and David Seymour. The second
offer came from LIFE magazine. Haas, preferring to be freelance, chose
Magnum with whom he stayed until 1962.
Around 1950, when Haas moved to New York City,
he began experimenting with
Kodak color film and soon became one of its earliest exponents. He also started playing around with the idea that in a photograph less importance should be placed on what was really there, and more on what the photographer could draw from it.
For instance, Haas' photos of the New Mexico
desert, some of which are featured in the Saginaw Art Museum exhibit, at first
glance seem simply photos of a barren landscape. Upon a closer inspection,
however, the details of the desert start to fade away and soon all the viewer
can see is a series of lines, vertical, diagonal, mesmerizing. Slowly, in
this way, Haas moved away from his early work. He had mastered the formal
structures and style of
photojournalism, but abandoned them for this more expressive style of his own invention.
Capturing movement became another of Haas'
obsessions. "To express dynamic motion through a static moment became for me
limited and unsatisfactory," he explained.
"The basic idea was to liberate myself from this old concept and arrive at an image in which the spectator could feel the beauty of a fourth dimension, which lies much more between moments than within a moment." Haas first showed this 'liberation' in his essay on bullfighting, many photos of which are on display at the museum.
"His motion photographs look almost like
abstract paintings," Redman says. "Of
course, that 'abstract expressionism' was the predominant movement of the time, in the late 1950s and 1960s."
Haas also liked to transform everyday objects
into sacred symbols. Holy Underwear, for instance, which is on display in
Pure Seeing, is a pair of underpants discarded on the side of the road that
have miraculously taken the shape of a cross. On the photograph Haas said,
"This underwear was caught somewhere in the rain, somebody must have lost his
pants somewhere, very profane, and then time came and nature came and climate
came, and in a certain light, you see it and it becomes a symbol for which
people always have a religious feeling."
Throughout his career, Haas published "picture
stories" in many major periodicals, including LIFE, Esquire, Look, Holiday
and Paris-Match. Perhaps most famous was his first essay for LIFE, an
unheard-of 24-page spread titled Magic Images of a City. The city, of
course, was New York, and essays on Vienna and Paris soon followed.
Late in his life, Haas began to dwell on what
would be the end result of his work.
He wanted to be remembered not for a few single photos, but for a 'total vision'. Thus, in the 1970s, he published several books of photographs, beginning with The Creation in 1971, which told the Biblical creation story through pictures.
In 1975, he published In America, a
collection of his work in the United States. This was soon followed in 1977
by In Germany, a retrospective of his early years in Vienna. Finally,
in 1979, Haas published
Himalayan Pilgrimage, which documented his late life exploration of the East.
Haas lived to see his work displayed in over 30
solo exhibitions in the United States, Europe, Japan and South America. In
fact, in 1962, he was the first color photographer to have a solo exhibition
at the Modern Museum of Art.
The Haas exhibit at the Saginaw Art Museum is
located in the new Sargent Exhibition Wing. The space has an industrial
feel. It is stark, white from floor to ceiling.
"The blankness of the space instantly attracts the viewers eye to the photographs," Redman says. "Works presented there must be really powerful in order to fill the space. Otherwise, it looks empty. That alone says something for the quality of Haas' work."
Ernst Haas: Pure Seeing will be at the
Saginaw Art Museum through May 30th.
The museum is open Tuesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. through 5 p.m. Admission is $5.00 for non-members. Members and children under 16 are free. For more information call (989) 754-2491.
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