Garry Winogrand

Garry Winogrand was born in New York City and became interested in photography while serving in the military as a weather forecaster. He studied painting at City College (1947-48) and Columbia University (1948-51), where he learned how to develop and print. In 1951 he studied photography with Alexey Brodovitch at the New School for Social Research. 

Afterward, he worked commercially for photography agencies, freelanced for magazines, and made personal work. Winogrand's photographs were exhibited widely during his lifetime, in Edward Steichen's The Family of Man at the Museum of Modern Art, Towards a Social Landscape at the George Eastman House, and New Documents at the Museum of Modern Art, which made him one of the most well-known street photographers of his time. He was often grouped with other famous street photographers such as Danny Lyon or Lee Friedlander as a documentarian of the "social landscape." 

Winogrand received three Guggenheim Fellowships, to produce "photographic studies of American life," to study "the effect of the media on events," and to photograph California. He taught photography at the School of Visual Arts and Cooper Union in New York, and the Art Institute of Chicago, among other institutions; and published seven books of photographs, including The Animals (1969), Women Are Beautiful (1975), and Public Relations (1977). Because of these contributions to the field of photography, he is regarded as a prolific New York photographer.

Winogrand’s approach to street photography examines humanity and social interaction, particularly evident in his series of photographs from Women Art Beautiful. Explore his unique perspective and mastery of photography through these selected photographs of women in the streets of New York and protesting for women's rights.

Garry Winogrand's photographs are sophisticated, candid observations of daily life that demonstrate his mastery of the 35-millimeter camera. He was fond of visual puns and tilted exposures; he photographed, he said, "to see what the world looks like in photographs." Although his approach was lighthearted, his formal acuity and absurdist appreciation for the visual world were serious innovations that reverberate in the work of many contemporary photographers.
 
Lisa Hostetler
Handy et al. Reflections in a Glass Eye: Works from the International Center of Photography Collection, New York: Bulfinch Press in association with the International Center of Photography, 1999, p. 232.
The Garry Winogrand Estate is represented by the Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco. For press and permission inquieries contact the gallery at permissions@fraenkelgallery.com.