Small woods where I met myself - the work and life of Jerry Uelsmann 1934-1975
The photographer Jerry Uelsmann (b. 1934) was the photographer who first departed from the strict modernist ideal of the North American photography scene and made photo montages and manipulated images accepted as part of photography art in the late 1960s. This would earn him the epithet "Godfather of Photoshop" in the 1990s. Although Jerry Uelsmann is an important figure in photo history, and is included in all photo historical works, no monograph over him has ever been written. This book is a biography of Uelsmann's life and work between the years 1934-1975. I have, as the only researcher ever, access to Uelsmann’s whole personal archive and his whole image production. The book is based on a large material consisting of letters, catalogues, media entries, and several hours of interviews with Uelsmann, his study peers, his students, his wives, and friends. Important empirical material for the study is of course also the around 2000 artistic images created by Uelsmann between 1953 and 1975, and the around 100 vernacular photographs that I have collected from various sources showing Uelsmann’s private life settings. The book is to a large extent structured around the (shifting) cultural idea contexts that Uelsmann was exposed to, and took part in, throughout the period covered.
Final report
Jerry N. Uelsmann. Eighth Day Wonder
I spent my RJ Sabbatical completing a biography of the American photographer Jerry N. Uelsmann (1934 - 2022). Strangely enough, Uelsmann has not previously been the subject of a monograph despite his great importance for the history of photography in general and the history of American photography in particular.
Uelsmann catalyzed the transition from modernist to postmodern photography with his, at the time, controversial photomontages. Instead of turning outward, towards the world outside and portraying nature, as the art photographers of the time did, or people moving around on the streets of the cities - as many of the socially engaged photographers did - Uelsmann chose to create his images in the dark room and portray an inner psychological subjective world. Uelsmann started creating his photomontages already towards the end of the 50s, i.e. decades before the birth of digital image editing programs such as Photoshop. He made his photomontages by combining many different negatives in the enlarger in the darkroom. During the 60s and 70s, when Uelsmann became one of the brightest stars in the U.S. photography sky, he was one of the most important actors in the break away from traditional, more factual photography. The paradigm shift that Uelsmann pushed forward allowed art photography to move in the direction of other art forms and not stay in the strictly technical optical where it was with photographers like Ansel Adams and the dominant current "straight photography" that had the American photography scene in an aesthetic strangle hold between the decades 1930-1960.
I also spent a month of my sabbatical time in Gainesville, Florida where Uelsmann lived and worked from 1960 until his death in 2022 (which occurred during my visit there). During the stay, I collected the last material from the University of Florida archives, interviewed some key people whose testimony I was missing, and added the last pieces of the puzzle to the story of Uelsmann.
When I first came to Gainesville in 2017, I was the first researcher to go through the Uelsmann archives. Since I had unrestricted access to the entire archive, I was able to map his life and work history between the years 1934-1974. The mapping was essentially already done when I started my sabbatical, but the combined time gave me time to process the mapping into publishable texts. The months in which I could concentrate on the writing work resulted in the book "Jerry N. Uelsmann. Eighth Day Wonder" which I published with Kehrer Verlag.
Dissemination of the results and cooperation
The book contains high-quality reproductions of a large number of Uelsmann's images, most of them never before published. I divided my text into four chapters, each of which describes a phase in Uelsmann's development as a photographer and actor on the photo scene, and thus also a phase in American photography history.
The book was published in March 2023 (Europe) and in the US in June. This is being written in August, so the spread has just started after the summer. Several American stakeholders invited me at the release in March to present the results, and in March and April I went on a small book tour to Florida, where Uelsmann lived and worked, and presented the book. Among other things, I gave presentations at the Polk Museum in Lakeland and at UF (University of Florida). The book has been reviewed in international media and I have also been interviewed in international media on a couple of occasions. I will also participate in Paris Photo in November 2023 and present and sign the book there.
The Polk museum (Fl) is planning to build a permanent exhibition of Uelsmann's pictures and the book has led to my expertise being requested in the museum work. The book has also led to public demand for a new book with a more popular science approach: Who was Uelsmann really? The new planned book will focus not only on Uelsmann's pictures but on my personal experiences of being close friends with him, as well as on photographs of artifacts from Uelsmann's home.
I spent my RJ Sabbatical completing a biography of the American photographer Jerry N. Uelsmann (1934 - 2022). Strangely enough, Uelsmann has not previously been the subject of a monograph despite his great importance for the history of photography in general and the history of American photography in particular.
Uelsmann catalyzed the transition from modernist to postmodern photography with his, at the time, controversial photomontages. Instead of turning outward, towards the world outside and portraying nature, as the art photographers of the time did, or people moving around on the streets of the cities - as many of the socially engaged photographers did - Uelsmann chose to create his images in the dark room and portray an inner psychological subjective world. Uelsmann started creating his photomontages already towards the end of the 50s, i.e. decades before the birth of digital image editing programs such as Photoshop. He made his photomontages by combining many different negatives in the enlarger in the darkroom. During the 60s and 70s, when Uelsmann became one of the brightest stars in the U.S. photography sky, he was one of the most important actors in the break away from traditional, more factual photography. The paradigm shift that Uelsmann pushed forward allowed art photography to move in the direction of other art forms and not stay in the strictly technical optical where it was with photographers like Ansel Adams and the dominant current "straight photography" that had the American photography scene in an aesthetic strangle hold between the decades 1930-1960.
I also spent a month of my sabbatical time in Gainesville, Florida where Uelsmann lived and worked from 1960 until his death in 2022 (which occurred during my visit there). During the stay, I collected the last material from the University of Florida archives, interviewed some key people whose testimony I was missing, and added the last pieces of the puzzle to the story of Uelsmann.
When I first came to Gainesville in 2017, I was the first researcher to go through the Uelsmann archives. Since I had unrestricted access to the entire archive, I was able to map his life and work history between the years 1934-1974. The mapping was essentially already done when I started my sabbatical, but the combined time gave me time to process the mapping into publishable texts. The months in which I could concentrate on the writing work resulted in the book "Jerry N. Uelsmann. Eighth Day Wonder" which I published with Kehrer Verlag.
Dissemination of the results and cooperation
The book contains high-quality reproductions of a large number of Uelsmann's images, most of them never before published. I divided my text into four chapters, each of which describes a phase in Uelsmann's development as a photographer and actor on the photo scene, and thus also a phase in American photography history.
The book was published in March 2023 (Europe) and in the US in June. This is being written in August, so the spread has just started after the summer. Several American stakeholders invited me at the release in March to present the results, and in March and April I went on a small book tour to Florida, where Uelsmann lived and worked, and presented the book. Among other things, I gave presentations at the Polk Museum in Lakeland and at UF (University of Florida). The book has been reviewed in international media and I have also been interviewed in international media on a couple of occasions. I will also participate in Paris Photo in November 2023 and present and sign the book there.
The Polk museum (Fl) is planning to build a permanent exhibition of Uelsmann's pictures and the book has led to my expertise being requested in the museum work. The book has also led to public demand for a new book with a more popular science approach: Who was Uelsmann really? The new planned book will focus not only on Uelsmann's pictures but on my personal experiences of being close friends with him, as well as on photographs of artifacts from Uelsmann's home.