The ghostly form of a tree rises from the ocean like an atomic blast. A meteorite hovers above a girl asleep in a meadow. A halved nut is lodged in a woman’s chest like a strange, malformed lung. Jerry Uelsmann’s surreal photographs are among the most recognizable ever made, yet their meanings remain stubbornly ambiguous. “Obviously symbolic, but not symbolically obvious,” as Uelsmann said, they provoke thought without providing easy answers.

This unique exhibition is the first to focus on the social, political and personal context of Uelsmann’s early works. Made up of vintage prints selected directly from the artist’s studio archive, Counterculture features photographs made during the 1960s and 70s. From the Cold War to the Civil Rights Movement, and from the Summer of Love and Women’s Liberation to Watergate, this was a time of profound change in the United States and Europe. Reflecting the period in which he worked and occasionally referencing current events in his pictures, Uelsmann set out to explore the collective zeitgeist, securing a place for individual thought and feeling amid the rapidly shifting currents of popular opinion.

Counterculture features many of Uelsmann’s best-known photographs, combined with spectacular, never before seen examples. Praised as one of the “fathers of Photoshop” for using multiple negatives to create seamless photomontages, he nevertheless made his photographs in a traditional darkroom, using a series of carefully arranged enlargers, masks and templates. This exhibition demonstrates Uelsmann’s extraordinary virtuosity with this demanding technique. At the same time, it reveals his boundless creativity. His “Post-Visualized” photographs are not only products of camera and lens, they are expressions of his restless imagination.

The exhibition engages with educational themes including the history and politics of 1960s and 70s America, symbolism and meaning in art, photographic technique, photomontage and darkroom practices, personal identity and interpersonal relationships.  

All works courtesy Solander Collection.

WORKS
99 photographs

DIMENSIONS
See dimensions below

SPACE REQUIREMENTS
286 linear feet (87 linear meters)

EDUCATIONAL PROGRAMMING
Curator available for lectures and panel discussions.

EXHIBITOR RESOURCES
Illustrated catalogue is planned.

INQUIRIES
email | 626.577.0044

FEE
Please inquire.

ARTIST BIOGRAPHY

Jerry Uelsmann (1934–2022) is an American photographer best known for his innovative work with the photomontage technique. In 1967, Uelsmann made his debut at The Museum of Modern Art in New York with his first solo show and went on to receive a Guggenheim Fellowship (1967) and a National Endowment for the Art Fellowship (1972) shortly thereafter. Today, the artist’s works are in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, among others. Uelsmann lived and worked in Gainesville, FL, where he taught photography for nearly four decades at the University of Florida. He was a Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society of Great Britain, founding member of The Society of Photographic Education and a former trustee of the Friends of Photography.

CURATOR BIOGRAPHY

Phillip Prodger is Executive Director of Curatorial Exhibitions and former Head of Photographs at the National Portrait Gallery, London.