Newman 2…The Next Generation
New Photographs from the Don Newman Collection
Opening Night: Friday, December 13, 6 – 8 pm (2013)
Exhibition on view December 10 – January 11
Crosstown Arts Gallery
422 N. Cleveland
Organized by Memphis Heritage
Memphis Heritage is excited to present a new selection of photographs from the Don Newman archive.
Best known for his stunningly elegant streetscapes of downtown Memphis, this show displays a more varied selection of Newman’s images. Photographing both on assignment and out of personal necessity, Don Newman applied the same clear-eyed description to all of his work. This concise edit on display at Crosstown Arts includes images ranging from a tableaux of diligent pressmen, to iconic depictions of both the Harlem House and the Sears building, to a man sensationally defying gravity in a jetpack.
Working primarily with an 8″x10″ view camera Newman’s photographs possess a methodical stillness that is indicative of working with a cumbersome tripod mounted camera. The big negatives that are a result of this camera also enable Newman’s photographs to be enlarged to a monumental scale, while retaining a high degree of detail.
Newman’s dispassionate eye is the unifying form that binds these photographs together and imparts them their mysterious objectivity.
Don Newman’s work is the result of being deeply curious about photography and Memphis. These photographs are an amazing gift that let us view an uncanny and often beautiful world that has largely vanished, but remains present in these vividly described pictures.