Rudy Burckhardt FROM THE PUBLISHER
"The poet John Ashbery wrote of Rudy Burckhardt in 1980: "Before there was an underground, there was Rudy Burckhardt. The genial, Swiss-born jack-of-all-trades and master of several has remained unsung for so long that he is practically a subterranean monument." Since that time Burckhardt's reputation has steadily grown - as photographer, filmmaker, and painter - beyond Manhattan's downtown community of artists in which he lived and worked. For six decades Rudy Burckhardt (1914-1999) was a discreet, but enduring, and ultimately important figure in New York's avant-garde art world." "Born in Basel, Switzerland, Burckhardt immigrated to the United States in 1935 to escape the Swiss Army and stultifying cultural and social atmosphere, to look for adventure far from home. He soon found himself sharing a loft with then companion and lifelong friend, the poet and dance critic, Edwin Denby. Willem de Kooning lived next door. (Together with Denby, Burckhardt was one of the first serious collectors of de Kooning's work.) Aaron Copland, Virgil Thompson, and Paul Bowles were good friends of his. And soon Burckhardt was embarking on a profound photographic portrait of New York City: the midday crowds in midtown Manhattan, storefronts and standpipes, Astor Place, Times Square, the Flatiron Building, the gray, water-towered regions of Chelsea, the great swath of Sixth Avenue, humble curbs, fleeting shadows, a modest studio in Brooklyn, as well as the existentialist landscapes of Astoria and Laurel Hill in Queens - with its anonymous factory buildings, empty lots, broken sidewalks, and girdered highways over cement gardens against the great veil of the Manhattan skyline. He also photographer the great painters of the New York School, from Willem de Kooning, Jackson Pollock, and Mark Rothko to Philip Guston, Larry Rivers, and Brice Marden. As well as the now classic images of New York, Burckhardt photographed London, Paris, Mediterranean cities, the segregated American South,
FROM THE CRITICS
Library Journal
Several monographs have been published on Swiss-born photographer/filmmaker Rudy Burckhardt (1914-99), but few remain in print, which makes this retrospective especially welcome. Novelist Lopate considers Burckhardt's aesthetic, his subject matter, and with special sensitivity his personal life; Lopate was a close friend, and he describes, quite wonderfully, Burckhardt's manners, voice, and movements. Lopate also succeeds in drawing insightful comparisons to the work of Burckhardt's photographer contemporaries. Two hundred black-and-white images are included, ranging from New York street scenes to tabletop still lifes to portraits and streetscapes taken in Europe, the Caribbean, and the American South. The book does a wonderful job of showing the range and quality of his still photography, though it does lack examples of his film work, which Burckhardt considered his greatest accomplishment. Recommended for all libraries. Michael Dashkin, PricewaterhouseCoopers, New York Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
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