WILLIAM GEDNEY
Simple, Direct, Truthful, Elegant
The work of William Gedney is absolutely remarkable. He was not well known during his lifetime but recognized and admired by his circle of peers and certainly from an academic standpoint. Now his work is rightly revered. No wonder, he captured moments of mystery and introduced you to lives you would not necessarily ever meet and always, always in the most poetic way. His talented use of light and dark was startling.
He was a documentarian and street photographer who is well known for his Kentucky series. It was not until after his death at age 56 from AIDS that his work gained momentum and is now widely recognized at museums and galleries worldwide. William Gedney graduated from Pratt and worked at Conde Nast upon graduation in 1955. In 1961, he worked in photo layout for Time Magazine and squirreled away enough money after three years to travel to Eastern Kentucky. He was determined to freely do his own work. For two weeks he lived with the Cornett family in Kentucky and photographed their daily lives. Willie the head of the household had lost his job in the mine and had to support a wife and 12 children. The photographs of the children are just so alive and you can smell the dirt and sweat on their bodies and feel mystery and mischief in the air.
During the 60s and 70s William Gedney was awarded four prestigious and major art grants, which enabled him to travel to the midwest and California all the while shooting people and eerie streets at night. The night photography is sublime and you feel you are crossing that very street corner with a glance over your shoulder occasionally. Dark leafy trees almost whisper to you. He later became a teacher at Pratt and Cooper Union. A Fulbright grant enabled him to travel to India and he photographed marginal people again. His lens was attracted to the invisible ones, people on the edge of a society. William Gedney always had a sympathetic eye on humanity’s forgotten and went out to connect himself and ultimately us to these people’s lives.
“It seems to me that images were first made to conjure up the unseen (not just the absent), to make visually present the mysterious forces that ruled one’s life in order to gain control over them and if not that, at least to pay them homage.” – from William Gedney’s notebook, 1972, published in What Was True: The Photographs and Notebooks of William Gedney (2000).
The exhibit at Howard Greenberg is breathtaking and accessible through their site. A panel discussion was also held and is viewable here. It’s the perfect time to become better acquainted and inspired by William Gedney.
