Exhibition Review. "The Radical Eye: Modernist Photography from the Sir Elton John Collection" (Tate Modern, London)

(Visited on 3 December 2016 and 1 April 2017)

Despite its reputation as a ‘trailblazer’ for the arts, the Tate Modern only started collecting photographic art seriously in 2009 and its collection is naturally rather limited in scope. Sir Elton John has, on the other hand, been a serious collector of photographic prints since the early 1990s and has built up an unrivalled collection of modernist photographic art prints dating from the 1920s to the 1950s. Not only does he have an eye for the very best of modernist photo prints but he has the financial clout to obtain these works of art when they appear on the market. This is a very fine collection indeed and I really enjoyed wandering round the galleries, marvelling at what was, of its time, the very highest quality cutting edge photographic art.

The list of featured photographers reads like a “Who’s Who” of modernist photography - André Kertész, Man Ray, Robert Frank, Ansel Adams, Edward Weston, Edward Steichen, László Moholy-Nagy, Alexander Rodchenko and Dorothea Lange to name but a few. Lange’s best known work, “Migrant Mother” (Image 1), looks awesome when viewed close up, whilst Rodchenko’s classic “Shukhov Tower” (Image 2) is one of several prints that feature photographs looking up from below or down from above.

Image 1. Dorothea Lange: "Migrant Mother" (1936)

Image 2. Alexander Rodchenko: "Shukhov Tower" (1927)

Irving Penn’s 1948 portraits of celebrities (Dali, Duke Ellington, Noel Coward) posed between two angled walls are early examples of non-conformist portrait photography. Man Ray’s famous portraits of his fellow Surrealists are also here – indeed, a good proportion of the collection features portraits of one type or another.

Did the exhibition hold any specific value for my current project work? Herbert Bayer’s “Humanly Impossible (Self-Portrait)” (Image 3) provided me with some inspiration regarding the use of mirrors in composition and reminded me that even in 1932, when this work was produced, photographers were experimenting in the darkroom with image manipulation.

Image 3. Herbert Bayer: "Humanly Impossible (Self-portrait)" (1932)

Frederick Sommer’s double exposure of fellow Surrealist Max Ernst (1946) represents an early example of the deliberate double exposure, a motif that I use often in my current project work whilst, in addition to Irving Penn’s work (see above), there are many examples of creatively produced ‘non-conformist’ portraits, of which Stieglitz’s portrait of Georgia O’Keefe is a classic example. Man Ray’s portrait of Max Ernst, in which Ernst appears to be placed behind a cracked glass window, represents another motif that I have used in my recent studies, although I had already produced the image before I visited this exhibition – great minds think alike!

Overall, however, this is an exhibition to ignite the imagination and creativity of any photographer with a serious interest in modernist art. To see so many excellent quality prints produced by the great photographers of the modernist era is inspirational. One final point: Sir Elton says that he has never bought a work for profit. Nevertheless, with the massive increase in interest in photographic art in recent years his collection must represent an excellent investment. If only The Tate had had the foresight to start a photographic collection 30 years ago…..