After a tasty brunch with the On the Go couple at The Bell on Polk Street, we went to SFMOMA to catch the Avedon show. Once there we realized that the museum is chock full of great photo shows. The quotes below are from the SFMOMA website.
—Richard Avedon 1946-2004, an impressive retrospective of the photographers best work, including a 31 feet long portrait of members of Warhol's Factory and a wall-sized grid of The Family, political photos for Rolling Stone Magazine taken during the Carter Administration.
movie stars, Richard Avedon revolutionized the genre of portraiture. He
rejected conventional stiff-and-staid poses and instead captured both
motion and emotion in the faces of his subjects, often encapsulating
their intrigue in a single charged moment."
— Looking In: Robert Frank's "The Americans," featuring 83 photographs from Robert Frank's seminal book photos made in 1955 and 1956 when European born Frank
traveled around the United States. The exhibition celebrates the 50th anniversary of the publication of this book, considered one of the most important post World War 11 photographic works.
of American life to reveal a profound sense of alienation, angst, and
loneliness. With these prophetic photographs, Frank redefined the icons
of America, noting that cars, jukeboxes, gas stations, diners, and even
the road itself were telling symbols of contemporary life. Frank's
style — seemingly loose, casual compositions, with often rough,
blurred, out-of-focus foregrounds and tilted horizons — was just as
controversial and influential as his subject matter."
—Georgia O'Keefe and Ansel Adams: Natural Affinities. A compare and contrast exhibition featuring paintings and photos by the two artists who used New Mexico as an important subject of their work.
1929 while in Taos, New Mexico, and despite a 15-year age gap and
differing personalities, they developed a lifelong friendship through
their shared admiration of the natural world. O'Keeffe and Adams
corresponded over the years, visited one another, and sometimes
traveled together to sites that became subjects of their artwork."