Approaches toportraiture

PORTRAITURE

A2 PHOTOGRAPHY

QUESTIONS• How have photographers attempted to reveal more about the sitter for a portrait

than merely their appearance? • Compare and Contrast how the portrait has changed throughout the history of

photography.• Compare and contrast how the development of photographic portraiture has been

influenced by Painting and vice versa.• To reveal the individual before his camera, to transfer the living quality of that

individual to his finished print...Not to make road maps but to record the essential truth of the subject; not to show how this person looks, but to show what he is. - Edward Weston - Edward Weston's definition of the role of the portrait photographer. ("The Portrait in

Photography", Reaktion Books, London 1992, Mick Gidley, p136 – 137). Discuss portraits by a number of photographers that seem to articulate Weston’s vision for portraiture and compare them with those that fall short.

• Creativity with portraits involves the invocation of a state of rapport when only a camera stands between two people...mutual vulnerability and mutual trust. - Minor White, (Mirrors, messages, manifestations by Minor White)

Portrait Photographers

• Sam Taylor Wood

• Claude Cahun• Florence

Henri• Julia Margaret

Cameron• Disderi

• Cecil Beaton• Jane Bown• Nadar• Richard

Avedon• Irving Penn• Ida Barr• Rankin

• Nicholas Nixon

• Diane Arbus• August

Sander

Portrait Artists

• Hans Holbein• Jan Van Eyck• Maggi Hambling• Thomas

Gainsborough• Diego Velasquez• Rembrandt• Vermeer• Lucien Freud

• Francis Bacon• Ferdinand

Hodler• Ingres• Francois

Boucher• Joshua

Reynolds• Frida Kahlo

• Van Gogh• John Singer

Sargent• Edgar Degas• Edouard

Vuillard• Paul Bonnard

Julia Margaret Cameron

Linked to Pre-Raphaelite aesthetic

Richard Billingham

Photographs his family unflinchingly.Provides and alternative to the sanitized and heavily edited family albums we are more used to seeing.As he wanted to use these images to make paintings from he makes strong references to the paintings of Vuillard, Bonnard and the Impressionists.

RINEKE DIJKSTRA• Awkward adolescent

subject isolated from context.

• In transition• Similar to Diane Arbus?

HELLEN VAN MEENE• Untitled 2000• Awkward pose noticed not constructed• Contrast between clothing, make-up and body stage.

Job Hunt 1976After three weeks he still couldn’t find a job.His mother said to him, ‘maybe you’re not good enough’. Tracey Moffatt

Scarred for Life series1994

Hannah Starkey

Samuel Beckett by Jane Bown, 1976

Sam Taylor WoodSelf Portrait in double-breasted suit with hare

Richard AvedonAmerican West series

Victorian Family PortraitDisderi or Nadar?

Jan Van EyckArnolfini Marriage 1434

Thomas Gainsborough Mr and Mrs Andrews 1750

Edouard Vuillard

Richard Billingham

Martin ParrBored Couples

Claude Cahun

Claude Cahun (Lucy Schwab) self portrait 1927

Sarah Lucas Self Portrait, 1999

Irving PennMarlen Dietrich 1948

Madame Yevonde 1935