Rudy Burckhardt In Zwitserland geboren Amerikaanse fotograaf, schilder en filmmaker

Rudy Burckhardt, (geboren op 6 april 1914, Basel, Zwitserland - overleden op 1 augustus 1999, Searsmont, Maine, VS), in Zwitserland geboren Amerikaanse fotograaf, schilder en filmmaker die werd beschouwd als een van de meest invloedrijke beeldend kunstenaars van de post -Tijdperk van de Tweede Wereldoorlog. Zijn belangrijkste onderwerpen waren de architectuur en de mensen van New York City.

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Welke hitfilm uit 1986 ging over de beste piloten van de Amerikaanse marine?

Burckhardt was al op jonge leeftijd gefascineerd door fotografie en bouwde op zijn 15e een gaatjescamera. In 1933 ging hij naar Londen om de studie geneeskunde te beginnen, maar al snel keerde hij terug naar huis - maar pas nadat hij talloze fotografische studies had gemaakt van het stadsbeeld van Londen. In 1935, nadat hij Parijs op dezelfde manier had gefotografeerd, verhuisde hij naar New York City, waar zijn vriendenkring kunstenaars als Willem de Kooning, Paul Bowles en Aaron Copland kwam opnemen. Burckhardt's vroege straatfotografie valt op door zijn ongewone invalshoek, die massa's mensen vanaf de knie vastlegde terwijl ze door de straten van New York City liepen. Hij fotografeerde ook de wolkenkrabbers van de stad, de advertenties, kiosken, kapperszaken en andere plaatsen en dingen die deel uitmaken van het stedelijke landschap.

While he was an active photographer, Burckhardt became interested in filmmaking and made his first film in 1936. He shot his short films (none exceeded 30 minutes) with a 16-mm camera and collaborated with his large network of friends—poet and dance critic Edwin Denby and artists Red Grooms, Jane Freilicher, Joseph Cornell, Alex Katz, Yvonne Jacquette, and Larry Rivers, among them. Many of his films, like his photographs, focused on urban life (e.g., What Mozart Saw on Mulberry Street [1956, with Cornell]; Central Park in the Dark, New York City [1985, with Charles Ives, Christopher Sweet, and Yoshiko Chuma and her School of Hard Knocks]). Burckhardt often incorporated a jazz soundtrack or poets—such as John Ashbery (Mounting Tension, 1950; Ostensibly, 1989), Kenneth Koch (In Bed, 1986), and Frank O’Hara (Automotive Story, 1954)—reading their poems aloud as narration.

Burckhardt served in the U.S. military during World War II and became a U.S. citizen in 1944. He often traveled to and worked in places such as Mexico and Trinidad, but during the fertile period after the war he became much better known for his black-and-white studies of New York than for images made elsewhere. Though his reputation stemmed primarily from his photographic work, Burckhardt also pursued painting in the 1940s and studied at the school of artist Amédée Ozenfant in 1948–49.In 1948 he had first exhibits for both his photography and his paintings.During the 1950s and’60s Burckhardt was employed as a photographer by gallerists such as Leo Castelli to document their gallery exhibitions and by ARTNews magazine, for which he photographed artists at work in their studios.

Beginning in 1956, Burckhardt spent most summers in Maine and pursued his art in New York during the remainder of the year. He began teaching filmmaking and painting in 1967 at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, a position he held through 1975. By the time he committed suicide at age 85, Burckhardt had created some 100 films and was a well-known painter and photographer.