Rudy Burckhardt [Hardcover]

Phillip Lopate (Author), Vincent Katz (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1, 2004

Rudolph (Rudy) Burckhardt (1914-1999) was born in Basel, Switzerland, and immigrated to the United States in 1935, hoping to forge a career in photography. By the 1940s, he had begun to create a series of now-classic photographs of New York, which uniquely capture the energy and chaotic beauty of the city. Burckhardt soon became well-known in New York art circles, and began to photograph the great New York artists of the time, creating legendary portraits of icons like de Kooning and Pollock. Gradually, he became an important cultural force in his own right, not only as a photographer, but also as a maker of underground films, and, later in life, as a painter. This book is the first comprehensive monograph on Burckhardt's photographs. It includes not only his New York street scenes and his artists' portraits, but also his views of European cities, studies of children and the female nude, and views of the natural world. The range and brilliance of Burckhardt's work have only begun to become known outside the inner circle of his creative associates. This book will help redress that lack of recognition - it is a feast for the eyes of anyone who loves good photography.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This handsome and long-awaited 10 1/4" x 12 1/4" monograph is, surprisingly, the first to be devoted to the work of Swiss-born photographer, filmmaker and painter Rudy Burckhardt (1914-1999). While his name may not be known to many outside of that loose agglomeration of downtown artists, poets, dancers and filmmakers usually referred to as the New York School, many of Burckhardt’s photographs—particularly his stunning shots of New York buildings in the 1940s—have become iconic images, appearing on posters and postcards worldwide. The 300 or so photographs presented here, including New York street scenes, European cities, artists in their studios (DeKooning, Guston, Pollock and Rothko among them), still lifes and nudes, are linked by Burckhardt’s eye for the subtle, his writerly sense of indirection and a gentle mischief. Burckhardt immigrated to the U.S. in 1935 in search of adventure, quickly forming a lifelong friendship with the writer and art critic Edwin Denby, who introduced him to his many friends in the worlds of music and theater, including Paul Bowles, Virgil Thomson and Orson Welles. As Lopate points out in a warm and insightful essay, Burckhardt’s own artistic strategy was to "hide in plain sight" by quietly attaching himself to New York’s most progressive artistic circles. Indeed, it was probably the relative insularity of the then avant-garde that, combined with Burckhardt’s own lack of interest in self-promotion, has resulted in his being so unknown outside of a tiny, if luminous, circle: writing in 1980, the poet John Ashbery described Burckhardt as a "subterranean monument." Happily, this book should go a long way towards bringing his work above ground.
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About the Author

Phillip Lopate is a highly regarded novelist, poet, and essayist. He has published several collections of his essays, and his work has also appeared in journals such as the Paris Review. A professor of English at Hofstra University, he has been honored with Guggenheim and National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships. Vincent Katz, the son artist Alex Katz (a friend of Burckhardt's), was, from childhood, a part of the photographer's circle, and knows his work intimately. Katz, a poet and art critic, contributed an essay on Burckhardt's life and work to the photographer's 1998 retrospective in Valencia, Spain, and curated several exhibitions of Burckhardt's work.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Harry N. Abrams; First Edition edition (April 1, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0810943476
• ISBN-13: 978-0810943476
• Product Dimensions: 12 x 10.4 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,309,418 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Shooting the avant-garde, October 2, 2011

By 

Robin Benson - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Rudy Burckhardt (Hardcover)

I recently reviewed a wonderful book: New York, N. Why?. of sixty-seven Burckhardt photos, admittedly not a lot but what made the book special for me was the reproduction. It was a carefully prepared facsimile of a photo scrapbook that Burckhardt made in the late thirties of his New York street scene photos.

On the strength of that book I wanted to know more about this Swiss born photographer and Phillip Lopate's book does nicely. Burckhardt is another of those émigré photographers who came to America to avoid the thirties turmoil in Europe. The most famous is probably Robert Frank though Alexander Alland, John Gutman, Otto Hagel, Hansel Mieth, Lisette Model and Marion Palfi each achieved professional success partly due their European perspective of seeing things.

There are two essays in the book, over forty-four pages, the longest by Lopate is excellent and goes into just the right amount of biographic detail to keep the reader interested and fortunately avoids those elitist meanderings that seem quite common in art books these days (and certainly in photobooks from my experience). Though Burckhardt isn't a photographer that you'll find in the Index of a history of American photography book his work here shows off his creativety. I especially like the New York street scene photos taken in 1938 to 1940, it's much more controlled and considered than the New York School photographers output that came after the Second World War.

The 278 duotone (175 screen) photos in the book are presented chronologically up to 1999, the year he died, aged eighty-five. As well as plenty of New York images there are photos from trips to Trinidad and Alabama (both during military service) Italy, Spain and Morocco. The back pages include artists at work, sidewalk and building shots and finally a nature selection taken in the Maine countryside.

Overall I thought this was a first-class monograph of a photographer (artist and filmmaker as well) perhaps not too well known but the photos here reveal a person bursting with creative ideas.

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1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating book; good condition, March 24, 2008

By 

J. Sullivan (Massachusetts) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Rudy Burckhardt (Hardcover)

This book was a gift for a photography buff and they were thrilled since this was one they did not have.
It is a fascinating book with excellent images, and even though it was gently used, it arrived in good condition and on time.