Hugh Edwards: Unknown Icon

Written by Kenneth Tanaka

The history of photography, much like any other history, is anchored by its share of icons. Cartier-Bresson. Frank. Avedon. Penn. Arbus. Kertesz. Et al.

But for each one of these (sometimes over-celebrated) figures there are many other equally influential but largely unknown figures. Hugh Edwards would be exhibit A in that thesis. Although he is known within photo museum curatorial circles chances are that you’ve never heard of him.

Unlike today's art curators Hugh Edwards didn't percolate through the world of art academia. Quite the contrary, in fact. He was from Paducah, Kentucky and held only a high school diploma. But everyone who knew Hugh Edwards reported that he was among the most literate people they had ever met. Although he had deep and lifelong interests in American, English and French literature, he had many varied interests and knowledge pools, including photography, which he both appreciated and practiced.

In 1959, after 30 years at the Art Institute of Chicago, Hugh Edwards became the museum's first curator of photography. By his retirement 20 years later he had acquired nearly 3,000 objects, largely seeding the Museum's relatively new photography collection and sculpting its early form. He had also curated almost 80 exhibitions, generally preferring monographic shows at a time when thematic group shows were more the norm in photography. Perhaps most significantly, Edwards’s efforts and personal relationships provided early support for a remarkable number of future "icons." He was, for example, the first curator to give Robert Frank a solo American museum show.

Hugh Edwards never really received the commemoration he deserved. But that's now been well-remedied thanks to the dynamic young photography curator Elizabeth Siegel (here's Liz) and a team of researchers. Their months-long efforts have produced a web module that meticulously documents Edwards's fingerprints on the museum's photography collection and, of wider public interest, on the general field of photography.

Also, if you're planning to visit the Art Institute of Chicago this summer you'll want to catch a huge exhibition, also curated by Liz Siegel, titled "The Photographer's Curator: Hugh Edwards at the Art Institute of Chicago," which is running now through October 29, 2017. And, touchingly, a separate unique pop-up exhibition titled "Robert Frank: Photos" is up through August 20. This exhibit was designed and personally installed by the book publisher Gerhard Steidl, who also delivered this year's third annual Hugh Edwards Lecture at the museum.

I think most TOP readers will enjoy learning more about Hugh Edwards and browsing through this new web module. He was truly one of the most influential guys in photography ya probably never heard of, until now.

Ken

P.S. By the way, in case you're wondering about that portrait of Mr. Edwards on the website, reproduced above, it was made by Dave Heath in 1964, shortly after he left the Institute of Design for New York. Yes, that Dave Heath. Dave and Hugh met at the I.D. and Hugh gave Dave his first show some time between 1965 and '67.

©2017 by Kenneth Tanaka, all rights reserved

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(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Steve Rosenblum: "This is pretty funny. While in Chicago for a medical conference late last week I visited the AIC and spent all of my time at the 'The Photographer's Curator: Hugh Edwards at the Art Institute of Chicago' and the Robert Frank exhibits. I was so impressed by the Edwards exhibit that I started writing an article about it to post on TOP, but then thought, 'Nah! Ken Tanaka would be a much better person to write this. I should ask him to do it....' And, here it is before I could even ask him!

"I will say this: the Edwards exhibit is the finest and most comprehensive exhibition of photographic prints that I have ever seen. No question. If you have ever wanted to learn about photographic prints 'in the flesh' instead of in a book or on a computer screen, this is a once in a lifetime opportunity to do that. It is hard to convey just how incredible this exhibition is. There are (my guess) over a hundred vintage prints spread over four or more rooms—all beautifully printed, framed, and presented. Most of the giants of photography spanning the time period between the mid-1800's (Brady and Atget) through the mid-20th century are well represented. Some of the photographers that were championed by Edwards have entire walls of photographs displayed: Robert Frank (I estimate 10 photos from The Americans), Walker Evans, Lewis Hines, W. Eugene Smith, Lee Friedlander, Danny Lyons, Ansel Adams, have walls. Dozens of other photographers have prints there including Cartier-Bresson, Harry Callahan, David Vestal, Duane Michals, Jan Saudek, Julia Margaret Cameron, Edward Weston, Bruce Davidson, Ray Metzker, and many more.

"Importantly for me, there were amazing prints from a number of photographers that I did not know, and I busily scribbled down their names so that I could find more of their work. For me, this exhibit is literally a 'Greatest Hits' of photographic prints—a tour de force.

"Unfortunately, I didn't discover it until I was on my way out of town and short on time, but I plan to return and spend a day or two with these prints. My recommendation: If you are on the same continent, beg, borrow, or steal, but find a way to see this exhibit! It's truly a once in a lifetime opportunity. Truly amazing. Kudos to the AIC!"

Comments

[Dave]

Steidl has an awesome newspaper "Catalog" of the Franks show for those that can't get to the show. For 20 Euros, you get 5 copies of the catalog, with free shipping. I shared the extra copies with some photographer friends. Such a steal!

I loved the concept of the show. Photos on news print that are disposed after the show instead of being $50K objects never seen because they have to be stored archivally. I kind of stole and reworked the idea for an exhibit of some of my work.

https://steidl.de/Books/Robert-Frank-Books-and-Films-1947-2017-3135376160.html

[Mark Kinsman]

I've seen the Hugh Edwards and Robert Frank exhibits and second Ken's recommendation regarding the AIC exhibits. The depth of photographic material is excellent, worthy of a return visit to this celebration of Hugh's time as curator.
The Robert Frank exhibit is equally interesting, includes a display of some of the contact sheets Robert used for The Americans and photos from the book Partida. For fans of his work, this is a wonderful display of photographs.

[-et-]

By chance, I am on a multi-week job assignment in Chicago at the moment, and last Saturday I saw both the Hugh Edwards exhibition and the Robert Frank exhibition at the Art Institute. Well worth a visit, IMO.

I was not familiar with Hugh Edwards prior to walking through the door of the Art Institute, but the selection of images and artists in the exhibition certainly spoke strongly about his influence - and perception.

- Tom -

[Rodger Dicks]

Thank you, Mr. Tanaka, for this post. As an avid photographer and student of the medium, I was well pleased to learn about Hugh Edwards, about whom I was previously ignorant. I now think a trip to Chicago will be upcoming.