Jerry Uelsmann: photo synthesis

Abstract

When Uelsmann began his career in the late 1950s, fine-art photography was dominated by the documentary tradition of Walker Evans and the purist aesthetic of Edward Weston, Ansel Adams, and the West Coast School. Today, the photomontage - the composite image generated in the darkroom by multiple printing technqiues that employ several negatives - has become an accepted art form, and Uelsmann is the modern master of it. This collection of the best of his images created over the past 35 years documents his seminal contribution to 20th century art. Uelsmann's technique of merging disparate images produces seamless, surreal compositions as emotionally and psychologically allusive as they are technically flawless. Jerry N. Uelsmann, a recipient of NEA and Guggenheim fellowships, has had more than 100 major exhibitions of his work over the past 30 years at museums and galleries worldwide, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the George Eastman House. His photographs are in the permanent collections of these and many other national and international museums, among them the Fogg Art Museum at Harvard University, the Metropolitan Museum, the Royal Photographic Society (London), the Victoria and Albert Museum (London), the National Museum of Modern Art (Kyoto), the Bibliotheque National (Paris), and the National Galleries of Scotland, Australia, and Canada.