Minor White (1908 to 1976)
Minor White was influenced by his grandfather, an amateur photographer, who gave White his first camera around the age of eight. White studied botany and poetry at the University of Minnesota. After serving in the Army during World War II, White moved to New York to learn about museum and curatorial studies. It was there that he met Alfred Stieglitz, whose work and ideas about his Equivalent series had a major influence on White’s photographic vision.
In 1946 White moved to San Francisco and worked with Ansel Adams at the California School of Fine Arts. He later went on to found “Aperture” magazine, in 1952, with Beaumont and Nancy Newhall, Barbara Morgan, and others. He founded a publication that served to articulate photography as an art form.
For White, life was a spiritual journey and every aspect of his life, especially his photography, was incorporated into this belief system. One of the most influential American photographers of his time, his work demonstrates how an artist’s personal vision is reflected in his pictures.
Information courtesy of Swann Galleries Inc., October 2003