Styles & Movements

Photography in the 70's

It was in the seventies that photography began to seriously proliferate as a collectible art. Major museums such as the Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan were increasingly holding large photography exhibitions, and galleries specializing in photography proliferated. In addition, photography gradually became a medium that fine artists who did not consider themselves primarily as photographers began to use, simply as another medium through which to express their ideas (Cindy Sherman, Al Souza, Les Levine, and Edward Ruscha are examples here). Even the practice of the photorealist painters, whose works were based entirely on photographs, are an interesting phenomena in this regard.

In the meantime, photographers who did call themselves photographers began to start photography departments at colleges--until the seventies, there were very, very few. These photographers--such as Leland Rice, John Pfahl, Arthur Taussig, and others--encouraged a new and larger generation of fine art photographers to enter the field.

Art Dealer Joshua Paillet explains the new interest in photography this way: “Before you had a generation that was heavy into painting and drawing, but along come the seventies and suddenly you had a quantum leap with a new generation that was visually literate and whose awareness was sparked by Life magazine and television.”