10 things to know about Garry Winogrand: ‘The central photographer of his generation’

Born on January 14, 1928, in the Bronx, New York, Garry Winogrand was the son of Jewish immigrants who had fled the pogroms of Eastern Europe in search of a better life in America. His father, Abraham, worked as a leather worker, while his mother, Bertha, earned a living by sewing. Growing up in the Bronx, Winogrand was immersed in a vibrant and diverse urban environment that exposed him to a rich tapestry of cultures, experiences, and stories. This melting pot of humanity would later become the central focus of his photographic work.

Winogrand's early life was shaped by the economic struggles of his family during the Great Depression. Despite their financial difficulties, his parents valued education and encouraged him to pursue his interests. He attended James Monroe High School, where he developed an early fascination with art. This initial exposure to the arts, combined with the dynamic street life of New York City, profoundly influenced his artistic sensibilities.

After graduating from high school, Winogrand enlisted in the Air Force in 1946, serving for a brief period before being honorably discharged. His time in the military was short, but it provided him with an opportunity to see the world beyond New York. Upon his return, he moved back in with his parents and began to explore his burgeoning interest in photography. The bustling streets of the Bronx, with their constant motion and diverse characters, provided the perfect canvas for his early experiments with the camera.

Winogrand's artistic journey began not with photography, but with painting. In the late 1940s, he enrolled at Columbia University, where he initially studied painting. His coursework included studying the works of the great masters, learning the techniques of composition, color theory, and the delicate interplay of light and shadow. These foundational skills would later inform his photographic work, even though he eventually shifted away from painting.

However, Winogrand soon realized that painting's slow and meticulous process did not suit his restless and energetic nature. He found the act of painting too deliberative and time-consuming, contrasting sharply with his desire for immediacy and spontaneity. His temperament craved a more dynamic and immediate form of artistic expression. It was during this period of artistic exploration that he discovered photography.

At Columbia, Winogrand took a photography class with Alexey Brodovitch, the legendary art director of Harper's Bazaar. Brodovitch's innovative approach to design and photography had a profound impact on Winogrand. He encouraged his students to break free from traditional conventions and explore new ways of seeing the world. This exposure to avant-garde ideas and techniques inspired Winogrand to pick up a camera and experiment with the medium.

As his friend and fellow photographer Tod Papageorge noted, “Garry found painting a slow, deliberate process that demanded lots of patience. He preferred to work in a way that could convulsively seize what it described... Photography answered his agitated sense of self.”

Few artists have been quite so synonymous with a major institution as Winogrand was with New York’s Museum of Modern Art. He showed at MoMA at pretty much every stage of his career, starting in 1955 with The Family of Man. Curated by Edward Steichen, this group exhibition is now regarded as one of the most successful photography shows of all time. It was Steichen who purchased the first Winogrand works for MoMA’s collection: three prints for a total of $30. Ultimately, Winogrand’s work was featured in ten MoMA exhibitions during his lifetime.

In 1988, four years after his death, Winogrand was the subject of a posthumous MoMA retrospective called Garry Winogrand: Figments from the Real World. In the 1990s, the collector Barbara Schwartz made the museum a gift of 200 of the photographer’s prints, which would form the content of the 1998 exhibition Garry Winogrand: Selections from a Major Acquisition.

Winogrand’s early work was mostly commercial — for magazines and advertising agencies. While his work had been shown at MoMA in 1955, his real breakthrough did not come until the museum’s 1963 group show, Five Unrelated Photographers, in which 45 of his shots appeared.

That exhibition was curated by John Szarkowski, recently appointed MoMA’s Director of Photography, a position he’d hold for three decades. Winogrand's greatest champion, Szarkowski affected the course of his career like no other.

Szarkowski’s ambition was to transform the very way we looked at photography: to wrest it from the pages of magazines and create a natural home for it in the museum. To do this, he rejected heavily styled, artfully composed photos for something more inclusive, encouraging photographers to roam, forage and discover, firm in the belief that a great photo could arise by chance. In such a pursuit, the two men were kindred spirits, Szarkowski going so far as to label Winogrand ‘the central photographer of his generation’.

Among Winogrand’s heroes were Walker Evans and Robert Frank, both of whom had a significant influence on his work. Walker Evans was renowned for his documentary photography during the Great Depression, capturing the plight of American farmers and workers with a stark, unflinching eye. Winogrand admired Evans's ability to tell powerful stories through his images. Similarly, Robert Frank's seminal book, The Americans, published in 1958, resonated deeply with Winogrand. Frank, a Swiss photographer, traveled across the United States, capturing the country's complexities and contradictions with an outsider’s perspective. His work rejected the polished, idealized imagery prevalent in magazines like Life, instead presenting a raw and unvarnished view of American life. Winogrand drew inspiration from both photographers, incorporating their documentary style and unfiltered approach into his own work.

Winogrand’s approach to photography was swift and no-nonsense. For him, it was the act of taking pictures that gave most satisfaction, and he often delegated the editing and developing of his photographs to others.

Though Winogrand himself disliked the phrase ‘snapshot aesthetic’, these two words perhaps best describe his contribution to photography. Winogrand brandished his unobtrusive Leica M4 like a revolver, catching people going about their everyday business. Above all, Winogrand was never one for straightforward narrative.

In 1967, Winogrand appeared in another landmark MoMA exhibition, New Documents, alongside fast-rising stars Diane Arbus and Lee Friedlander. The show heralded a new dawn, with all three photographers exhibiting seemingly casual images of randomly encountered subjects. The work was, however, far from random, and belied a keen sensibility and the power to alter our perception.

Winogrand’s photographic style was characterized by its departure from classical composition techniques. He often deployed a wide-angle lens to include as many details as possible in a single image, creating complex and layered scenes. His photographs often lacked a central focus, inviting viewers to explore the entire frame and discover multiple points of interest. For example, in his famous photograph World’s Fair New York, eight people occupy a park bench, each engaged in different activities such as yawning, gossiping, and reading a newspaper. Winogrand also had a penchant for tilting his viewfinder, resulting in images with skewed horizons and unconventional perspectives. This approach gave his work a sense of spontaneity and urgency, capturing the essence of the bustling city life he so loved. His compositions were often chaotic, reflecting the vibrancy and unpredictability of urban environments.

‘I like to think of Winogrand as a visual novelist, and his work a sprawling human comedy,’ says Geoff Dyer, author of The Street Philosophy of Garry Winogrand (a book of 100 essays on 100 photos by Winogrand, published in 2018). ‘His photos have so much detail and so much going on, your eyes can never rest.’ This unique style set Winogrand apart from his contemporaries and established him as a pioneer of modern street photography.

Winogrand did arguably his best work from the turn of the 1960s to the early ’70s, capturing the upheavals, convulsions and chaos of America in that period. Airports, rodeos and political demonstrations were a few of his favoured backdrops.

He traveled extensively across the country, capturing scenes at airports, rodeos, political demonstrations, and everyday street life. His photographs from this era reflect the tumultuous nature of the times, depicting protests, civil rights marches, and moments of personal and public conflict. Winogrand's work provides a visual record of the era's key events and movements, offering a unique perspective on American history. His ability to capture the raw, unfiltered emotions of his subjects made his photographs powerful tools for understanding the complexities of the period. From the anti-Vietnam War protests to the rise of the feminist movement, Winogrand's lens was there to record the struggles and triumphs of a changing nation. His work transcends mere documentation, providing a deep, empathetic understanding of the human condition during a time of profound transformation.

‘We all know Winogrand as the ultimate street photographer,’ Dyer says. ‘But let’s forget for a second his art-historical importance and think more about his historical importance — in the incredible resource his photos represent for anyone interested in American history of the late 20th century. Whether it was race relations, the role of women, political battles… it’s all there in his photos.’

In 1980, Winogrand said, ‘Sometimes I feel... the world is a place I bought a ticket to. It’s a big show for me, as if it wouldn’t happen if I wasn’t there with a camera.’

Winogrand never lost his curiosity and inquisitiveness about the world around him. He continued to explore new places and capture the essence of American life well into his later years. His relentless pursuit of new subjects and his ability to see the extraordinary in the ordinary kept his work fresh and relevant. In 1980, he famously remarked, "Sometimes I feel... the world is a place I bought a ticket to. It’s a big show for me, as if it wouldn’t happen if I wasn’t there with a camera." This sense of wonder and engagement with his surroundings fueled his work, leading him to embark on numerous cross-country trips funded by three separate Guggenheim Fellowships. These journeys allowed him to document the evolving landscape of America and its people, producing a vast body of work that remains significant to this day. Winogrand's later photographs continued to capture the vitality and diversity of American life, showcasing his undiminished passion for his craft. His ability to find beauty and meaning in everyday scenes made him one of the most important photographers of his generation. His legacy lives on through his photographs, which continue to inspire and captivate audiences around the world.

Late in life, Winogrand took teaching jobs in Chicago, Houston and Los Angeles, yet New York was the city that inspired — and defined — him most. According to Jeffrey Fraenkel, the gallerist and manager of Winogrand’s estate, ‘New York was Garry’s meat and potatoes. Manhattan was the only place with a consistent level of energy remotely comparable to his own; the city’s visual freneticism allowed him to scatter several small but remarkable dramas through a single frame. These he kept dazzlingly in balance, much as a circus magician keeps seven plates simultaneously spinning atop their poles.’

In Winogrand, New York found its photographer laureate, one who in its leading modern art museum found a permanent home. On his death at the age of 56, Winogrand left behind 2,500 rolls of unprocessed film.