The work of Arnold Newman

Arnold Newman was best known for his environmental portraiture of all kinds of people from everyday strangers to big industry names. His collections of black and white photography captured these individuals in their natural environment in order to display how each individual’s environment is so diverse from another.

“For five decades Arnold Newman stood behind his camera, facing individuals and egos that have shaped the realities of twentieth century life. Emperors, poets, dancers, composers, presidents,
painters and shoemakers have all collaborated with him, placing themselves in his trust to be properly portrayed.”

Here is some of his work showing how he went about his portraiture photography…

His work showed the emotions, the surroundings and the spaces in which these people are situated in everyday life.

Work Analysis

This photograph taken by Arnold Newman, is of Igor Stravinsky, an influential Russian composer. The image simply displays the basic context of Stravinsky’s everyday life as a composer, through the association of the grand piano which represents and symbolizes his musical career that has made him who he is. In a way Stravinsky has been subtly framed in this photograph by the lines and open angle of the piano, in which he is within the angle, therefore drawing the viewers eye to his and the tonal split in the wall behind. The dark tones of the piano and the composer stand out to the lighter tones of the wall behind them. This emphasizes the the parts of the photograph that could be considered most important and contextual. The image its self appears to be of an only slightly under exposed with a high contrast as the dark tones in the image stand out considerably. The expression of Stravinsky in this image captures the feelings that he would experience on a day to day basis with the constant feeling of needing to compose songs, with most days not coming up with anything new making his time monotonous, hence his tiresome expression.