(Thaddeus) John Szarkowski - Key works:, Interviews

Museum curator and photohistorian, born in Ashland, Wisconsin, USA. A professor of art history and photography at Albright College in Buffalo, he won a Guggenheim (1954) to do a photographic study of architect Louis Sullivan. Director at the Department of Photography at the Museum of Modern Art (1962–91), he wrote books to establish criteria for evaluating the seemingly casual snapshot photographs of renegades like Diane Arbus and Lee Friedlander, and he exhibited their work.

From 1962 to 1991 Szarkowski was the Director of Photography at New York's Museum of Modern Art.

He grew up in the small northern Wisconsin city of Ashland, and became interested in photography at age eleven. In World War II Szarkowski served in the U.S. Army, after which he graduated in 1948 in Art History from the University of Wisconsin. In 1954 Szarkowski received the first of two Guggenheim fellowships, resulting in the book The Idea of Louis Sullivan (1956).

Then, in 1962, he was personally picked by Edward Steichen to be Steichen's successor at the Museum of Modern Art.

In 1974 Szarkowski published Looking at Photographs a practical set of examples on how to write about photographs. Szarkowski has also published numerous books on individual photographers, including, with Maria Morris Hambourg, the definitive four-volume work on the photography of Atget. World Report said: "Szarkowski's thinking, whether Americans know it or not, has become our thinking about photography".

In 1991 Szarkowski retired from his post at the New York Museum of Modern Art, during which he had developed a reputation for being somewhat autocratic, and became the Museum's Photography Director Emeritus.

In retirement Szarkowski returned to making his own photographic work, mostly attempting to picture a spirit of place in the American landscape.

There is a 48-minute documentary on his life and work: John Szarkowski: A Life in Photography (Checkerboard, 1998). There is also a 60-minute film of a lecture in which he talks about his own photography: Speaking of Art: John Szarkowski on John Szarkowski (Checkerboard, 2005).

Key works:

Criticism

Looking at Photographs (1974, 1999) The Photographer's Eye (1966)

Photographic works

John Szarkowski: Photographs (2005) Mr. Bristol's Barn (1997) The Face of Minnesota (1958) The Idea of Louis Sullivan (1956)

Interviews

Andy Grundberg. "An Interview with John Szarkowski". "An interview with John Szarkowski". "Looking at Pictures" (interview with John Szarkowski). "An Interview with John Szarkowski". Exclusive Amazon.com interview with: "The leading photography curator and critic of our time, John Szarkowski".