On the Avenues: Marvin E. Newman

Stephen Daiter Gallery is pleased to present On the Avenues: Marvin E. Newman.

Marvin E. Newman is one of the great and underappreciated post-war photographers.  He, along with Aaron Siskind and Edward Wallowitch, was one of three photographers known to be a member of the Photo League, and attend Chicago’s Institute of Design (ID). By the Mid 20^th century, these institutions were the most important places to receive a good photographic education: the Photo League for social documentary work and the ID for photography emphasizing form, design and experimentation.

On the Avenues celebrates Newman’s career with over forty vintage black and white and color pieces.Starting with his early days at the ID, the show features experimental images of inverted sidewalk shadows and minimal man-hole covers as well as documentary work from his time in Chicago and upon his return to New York. On view additionally will be two more poetic series from his travels in 1960 of Paris prostitutes and of a small Alaskan village.

2019 is a noteworthy for Newman, as it marks the twentieth year since his first exhibition at the Stephen Daiter Gallery; seventy years since he arrived at the Institute of Design, Chicago; and is also the one-hundred-year anniversary of the founding of the Bauhaus school in Germany, the predecessor to the ID.

Born in 1927, Marvin E. Newman began studying photography at Brooklyn College with Walter Rosenblum and Berenice Abbott. Later, he joined the Photo League, taking classed with John Ebstel.  In 1949 Newman began his studies at the Institute of Design in Chicago and under the tutelage of Harry Callahan and Aaron Siskind and in 1952 became the first recipient of a Master’s Degree in Photography at the school .  In 1956 he had a one-man show at Roy DeCarava’s  A Photographer’s Gallery. Marvin went on to have an outstanding career as an editorial and sports photographer.  Newman’s work has been widely exhibited at museums and galleries across the country and is in many permanent collections including The Museum Of Modern Art, New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, The Art Institute of Chicago, The National Gallery of Art, Eastman House Museum, Rochester. International Center of Photography, New York and The Whitney Museum.

He was the national president of the American Society of Magazine Photographers and authored or co-authored nine photographic books.  Significant among his many awards are the Art Directors’ Club Gold Medal for Editorial Photography from the New York Art Directors Club, the Lucie Award for his sports photography in 2009 and having his photograph of Texas Christian Locker Room during Cotton Bowl, 1957 named Sports Photo of the 20th Century by Sports Illustrated magazine .

The first major career spanning book, Marvin E. Newman was published in 2017 by Taschen.