The Masterful Arnold Newman

BY: Jes Zurell

“Everything is about sex, except sex – sex is about power.” – Oscar Wilde

Photography and voyeurism work together like two hands belonging to the same being, aroused by what he or she sees. Even the most mundane subject matter – stray erect strands of twine in a tweed jacket, a strand of pearls lined up like gleaming clitorides, the naked stare of a bundled-up stranger – leans on seduction as much as it courts truth.

Arnold Newman understood this through his experience as a portrait photographer in the late 1930s. By the mid-1940s, he conceived a commanding style of portraiture that attracted national attention. An exhibition of 45 works by Newman is on view at Howard Greenberg Gallery through June 30, 2018, in celebration of the artist’s 100th birthday.

“Arnold Newman conceived a new vocabulary for photographic portraiture,” writes Gregory Heisler, Professor of Photography, Syracuse University, in the introduction to the book Arnold Newman: One Hundred. “It is difficult today to truly appreciate the magnitude of his breakthrough. Before Arnold’s arrival, the photographic portrait was generally a box with somebody in the center. Arnold used what was around him to create visually complex, spatially intriguing portraits that had a psychological dimension. He didn’t just show the environment, he actively employed it for its narrative power.”

The cut of Marcel Duchamp’s cheekbone is a bulb inviting lips to press around its head. A simple shirt strains shorten the distance between the viewer and David Hockney’s bare chest. The rosebud curves of Gwen and Jacob Lawrence’s lips part like the warmest space between two lovers who dare you to be their third. Newman’s photographs are a power play of truth or dare between him and his subjects – as he seeks the former, each subject counters with the latter.

Except in the end, everyone wins.