Photographer, author Szarkowski to speak Sept. 30

UW–Madison alumnus John Szarkowski, former director of photography at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. will give a free public lecture Thursday, Sept. 30, at 7:30 p.m. in L160 of the Elvehjem Museum of Art.

Szarkowski contends the ubiquitous nature of photography has prevented museums and other important art venues from taking the medium seriously.

“The work of (photographer) Alfred Stieglitz is less fully preserved and less well-known than that of Rembrandt, done three centuries earlier,” he observed in 1976.

In spring, students will have a chance to take a course on the history of photography from Szarkowski in a semester-long interdisciplinary residency coordinated by the UW–Madison Arts Institute.

Szarkowski served as director of photography at MoMA from 1962-1991. A native of Ashland, he earned an undergraduate degree in art from the UW in 1948. The UW–Madison Departments of Art and Art History, the State Historical Society of Wisconsin and the Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research will join in offering his class.

For information about Szarkowski or future interdisciplinary residencies in the arts, contact Ken Chraca, UW–Madison Arts Institute, (608) 263-4086.