Dorothea Lange

Dorothea Nutzhorn (Lange) was born in Hoboken, New Jersey, on 26th May, 1895. At the age of seven, Dorothea contracted polio which left her with a permanent limp. After her German born father abandoned the family, Dorothea assumed her mother’s maiden name.

Dorothea Lange studied at the New York Training School for Teachers but changed her mind and decided to become a photographer. She worked in an Arnold Genthe’s studio before studying photography under Clarence White at Columbia University. In 1918 Lange moved to San Francisco and the following year established her own portrait studio in the city

The Family Of Man

The Family of Man was a photography exhibition created by Edward Steichen first shown in 1955 at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

Held at the Museum of Modern Art, the exhibition consisted of 508 photographs from sixty-eight countries. The photographers who took part included Dorothea Lange, Robert Capra, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Jack Delano, Margaret Bourke-White, Esther Bubley, Bert Hardy, Edward Weston, Matthew Brady, Frank Scherschel, Wayne Miller, Eva Arnold, Irving Penn, Consuelo Kanaga, Alfred Eisenstaedt, Bill Brandt, Russell Lee, Carl Mydans, Ben Shahn and Marion Palfi, The professed aim of the exhibition was to mark "essential oneness of mankind throughout the world."

During the time it was open, the Family of Man became the most popular exhibition in the history of photography, and the most successful exhibition in the history of photography.

By the end of its world tour in 1961, it was estimated that The Family of Man exhibition had been seen, in person by 9 million people.

Sol LeWitt

Sol LeWitt was an American artist linked to various movements, including Conceptual art. Born: 1928 September 9th, Died: April 8th 2007.

Sol LeWitt has been the subject of hundreds of solo exhibitions in museums and galleries around the world since 1965. His prolific two and three-dimensional work ranges from wall drawings (over 1200 of which have been executed) to hundreds of works on paper extending to structures in the form of towers, pyramids, geometric forms, and progressions





Sol LeWitts work:

Joseph Kosuth

Joseph Kosuth is an American Conceptual artist. His art generally strives to explore the nature of art, focusing on ideas at the fringe of art rather than on producing art per se. Thus his art is very self-referential

One and Three Chairs, 1965, is a work by Joseph Kosuth. An example of conceptual art, the piece consists of a chair, a photograph of this chair, and an enlarged dictionary definition of the word "chair". The photograph depicts the chair as it is actually installed in the room, and thus the work changes each time it is installed in a new venue.

Damien Hirst

In 1991, Charles Saatchi had offered to fund whatever artwork Damien Hirst wanted to make, and the result was showcased in 1992 in the first Young British Artists exhibition.

Damien Hirst's work was titled The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living and was a shark in formaldehyde in a vitrine, and sold for £50,000. The shark had been caught by a commissioned fisherman in Australia and had cost £6,000

The centre-piece, a Memento Mori titled For the Love of God, was a human skull recreated in platinum and adorned with 8,601 diamonds weighing a total of 1,106.18 carats. Approximately £15,000,000 worth of diamonds were used. It was modelled on an 18th century skull, but the only surviving human part of the original is the teeth. The asking price for, For the Love of God was £50,000,000

Some of his other Conceptual artwork:

Conceptual Art

Conceptual art is art in which the concepts or ideas involved in the work take precedence over traditional aesthetic and material concerns. Therefore, the art is often not traditionally pleasing to look at, but is meant to make you think.

Many of the works, sometimes called installations, of the artist Sol LeWitt may be constructed by anyone simply by following a set of written instructions. This method was fundamental to LeWitt's definition of Conceptual art.

“In conceptual art the idea or concept is the most important aspect of the work. When an artist uses a conceptual form of art, it means that all of the planning and decisions are made beforehand and the execution is a perfunctory affair. The idea becomes a machine that makes the art.” Sol LeWitt

A modern form of contemporary art which gives priority to an idea presented by visual means that are themselves secondary to the idea. Conceptual art, while having no intrinsic financial value, can deliver a powerful message and a broad challenge to the tradition of a 'work of art' being a crafted unique object.