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Cafe Deux Magots
198620th century
12 1/2 in. x 8 3/8 in. (31.75 cm x 21.27 cm)
Ralph Gibson, American, b. 1939
Object Type:
Photographs
Creation Place:
North America, United States
Medium and Support:
Gelatin silver print on paper
Credit Line:
Carleton College Art Collection, gift of Arthur D. Kowaloff, class of 1968
Accession Number:
1997.005.03
Boliou Gallery show - June through September 1998
Picking Pictures Pt. II - 2,3/2000Biography
Ralph Gibson was born on January 16, 1939 in Los Angeles California. Gibsonfs father worked at Warner Brothers studio in Hollywood as an assistant director for 35 years, and Gibson himself even worked as a movie actor for five years while he was in school, appearing in bit parts for Alfred Hitchcock and Nicolas Ray.
His interest in photography originated when he enlisted in the U.S. Navy on his seventeenth birthday and was assigned to the Naval School of Photography. Ironically, his poor performance led to his expulsion. He reinstated, repeated the courses, and graduated, later traveling to the Mediterranean on two cruises where his duties as naval photographer included portraiture, aerial, and documentary work.
Upon discharge, Gibson enrolled in the San Francisco Art Institute in commercial photography. He would later gain assistant positions with Dorethea Lange, from 1961-62, and Robert Frank, from 1967-68. After pursuing free-lance assignments in L.A., Gibson moved to New York and began working on a book. He published The Somnambulist in 1970, the acclaim of which sent him to exhibit, lecture, and travel throughout the U.S. and Europe. Gibson continued publishing and also exhibiting world-wide, but in the interim, he also formed a band in 1976 called Sex and Drugs, which played at artistsf parties in Soho for three years. Gibson has continued working and publishing and in 1988 he received the Leica Medal of Excellence Award for Fine Art Photography.
Ralph Gibson became known primarily for his black and white work, but has also published some series in color. The work is a mixture of the abstract, documentary, and surrealism and is recognized for its use of texture, light, gesture, and abstraction. His work is known for its metaphoric use of recurring objects and symbols such as hands, the female body, walls, and hats, to name a few. Gibson uses primarily close-up images along with light and shadow, an emphasis on the relationships between geometric shapes, and attention to detail in order to create a sense of timelessness and to evoke feelings of awareness and perception rather than to convey information.
Bibliography
Information from artistfs website (www.ralphgibson.com) and essay by Colleen Nugent
Books:
ACLU Agenda, The Strip, The Hawk, The Somnambulist, D+jç vu, Days at Sea, Syntax, L'Anonyme, Tropism, Les Cahiers de la Photographie #22, In Situ, Archive 24, Ralph Gibson: Early Work, Apropos de Mary Jan, Chiaroscuro, Women, Infanata, Overtones
Picking Pictures Pt. II - 2,3/2000Biography
Ralph Gibson was born on January 16, 1939 in Los Angeles California. Gibsonfs father worked at Warner Brothers studio in Hollywood as an assistant director for 35 years, and Gibson himself even worked as a movie actor for five years while he was in school, appearing in bit parts for Alfred Hitchcock and Nicolas Ray.
His interest in photography originated when he enlisted in the U.S. Navy on his seventeenth birthday and was assigned to the Naval School of Photography. Ironically, his poor performance led to his expulsion. He reinstated, repeated the courses, and graduated, later traveling to the Mediterranean on two cruises where his duties as naval photographer included portraiture, aerial, and documentary work.
Upon discharge, Gibson enrolled in the San Francisco Art Institute in commercial photography. He would later gain assistant positions with Dorethea Lange, from 1961-62, and Robert Frank, from 1967-68. After pursuing free-lance assignments in L.A., Gibson moved to New York and began working on a book. He published The Somnambulist in 1970, the acclaim of which sent him to exhibit, lecture, and travel throughout the U.S. and Europe. Gibson continued publishing and also exhibiting world-wide, but in the interim, he also formed a band in 1976 called Sex and Drugs, which played at artistsf parties in Soho for three years. Gibson has continued working and publishing and in 1988 he received the Leica Medal of Excellence Award for Fine Art Photography.
Ralph Gibson became known primarily for his black and white work, but has also published some series in color. The work is a mixture of the abstract, documentary, and surrealism and is recognized for its use of texture, light, gesture, and abstraction. His work is known for its metaphoric use of recurring objects and symbols such as hands, the female body, walls, and hats, to name a few. Gibson uses primarily close-up images along with light and shadow, an emphasis on the relationships between geometric shapes, and attention to detail in order to create a sense of timelessness and to evoke feelings of awareness and perception rather than to convey information.
Bibliography
Information from artistfs website (www.ralphgibson.com) and essay by Colleen Nugent
Books:
ACLU Agenda, The Strip, The Hawk, The Somnambulist, D+jç vu, Days at Sea, Syntax, L'Anonyme, Tropism, Les Cahiers de la Photographie #22, In Situ, Archive 24, Ralph Gibson: Early Work, Apropos de Mary Jan, Chiaroscuro, Women, Infanata, Overtones
Keywords
Click a term to view the records with the same keyword
This object has the following keywords:
20th Century,
American*,
Contemporary*,
gelatin silver prints*,
gelatin silver process*,
paper (fiber product)*,
photographic paper*,
photographs*,
portfolios (groups of works)*
- 20th Century
- American - Refers to the context of or associated specifically with the modern political entity of the United States of America.
- Contemporary - Refers to painting, sculpture, graphic arts, and architecture dating from the recent past and present. It differs from modern art in that the term 'contemporary art' does not carry the implication of a non-traditional style, but instead refers only to the time period in which the work was created. 'Modern' and 'contemporary' are inherently fluid terms. The term 'contemporary' is sometimes more narrowly used to refer to art from ca. 1960 or 1970 up to the present.
- gelatin silver prints - Refers to photographic prints having gelatin as the binder, holding silver as the final image material; always black-and-white, though they may be toned to a monochrome hue.
- gelatin silver process - Refers to any of several photographic processes that use gelatin as the binder and silver as the final image material. Most commonly used on a paper support for prints, but may employ a glass plate (in which case use "gelatin dry plate process") or film as the support.
- paper (fiber product) - Refers generally to all types of matted or felted sheets or webs of fiber formed and dried on a fine screen from a pulpy water suspension. The fibers may be animal, such as hair, silk or wool, or mineral, such as asbestos, or synthetic. However most paper is made from cellulosic plant fiber, such as from wood pulp, grass, cotton, linen, and straw.
- photographic paper - Paper used for making photographic prints that consists of a base material with a white or near-white surface that is coated with one or more emulsion layers. It is typically a high grade of paper traditionally made from 100% cotton or linen rags, because lignin and other residues in other paper would react with the photosensitive salts and destroy the image. Photographic paper is strong, uniform, and dimensionally stable when wet and dry. For increased wet-strength, the papers are sized with animal glue, starch, stearic acid, or synthetic resins, such as melamine (used since 1948). One or more fillers, such as barium sulfate, titanium dioxide, clay, starch, or polyacrylamide, are also added for opacity, color, and strength. The papers were calendered to produce a smooth, nonporous surface. Since the late 1960s, most color photographic papers have been made from cellulose fibers coated on both sides with polyethylene.
-
photographs
- Refers to still images produced from radiation-sensitive materials (sensitive to light, electron beams, or nuclear radiation), generally by means of the chemical action of light on a sensitive film, paper, glass, or metal. It does not include reproductive prints of documents and technical drawings, for which descriptors found under "
" are more appropriate. Photographs may be positive or negative, opaque or transparent. - portfolios (groups of works) - Groups of works brought together such as to exemplify the work of an artist or student. Also, groups of art works or other visual materials (often by one artist) such as photographs or prints, issued or housed together in a portfolio; they often include a loose title page or text introduction.
Additional Images
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Exhibition List
This object was included in the following exhibitions:
- Curious Objects: Learning and Teaching with the Carleton Art Collection , 9/6/2022 - 11/16/2022
Dimensions
- image Dimensions: 12 1/2 in. x 8 3/8 in. (31.75 cm x 21.27 cm)
Portfolio List
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This object is a member of the following portfolios:
