In a major addition to the cultural life of the mid-Hudson River Valley, 25 photographs by famed 20th century photojournalist W. Eugene Smith went on permanent display this week in the Martha Reifler Myers Gallery on the third floor of Hudson Hall at Dutchess Community College.
The collection, which includes some of Smith’s most famous images and consists almost entirely of prints actually developed by him, was donated by the photographer’s son, K. Patrick Smith, and is dedicated to the memory of his mother, Carmen Smith Wood, the artist’s first wife and a 1979 graduate of the college’s nursing program. An additional photo by an unknown photographer shows Smith at work in Africa in 1954.
“He is the individual who perfected the art of photojournalism,” said Dr. David Conklin, the college’s president, in his remarks at the opening of the permanent exhibit on Tuesday, July 7. “Considered one of the greatest photojournalists and universally admired as an artist, Smith is important because he helped record the history of his time, helped us to understand other cultures, and was not afraid to tackle important social issues.”
W. Eugene Smith was born in Wichita, Kan., in 1918, and began photographing as a teenager. By the early 1940s he had already gained a substantial reputation through his work for leading magazines like Life, Newsweek, Colliers, Harper’s Bazaar and later, The New York Times. But he truly shot to fame with his grim, powerful and visceral records of the Pacific theatre during World War II, where he became known as someone who would take any risk if it meant getting the picture.
Severely wounded just a few months before the war’s end, upon his recovery he focused on social photography that refined the photo essay format, producing such memorable series as “The Country Doctor,” “Spanish Village” and “Pittsburgh,” the last two being represented by eight photos in the DCC collection. During his later years he taught a course at the New School for Social Research in Manhattan titled “Photography Made Difficult,” with the name expressing both his belief that photography should be a demanding art with the highest standards and his own difficult personality.
He died in 1978.
What many consider to be Smith’s most memorable image, and certainly one of the most famous photographs of all time, “The Walk To Paradise Garden,” leads off the permanent display. It is an almost mystical scene of two children, the artist’s own son and daughter, who are seen from behind emerging from darkness into what looks like a forest clearing – though actually it was taken in his backyard in Tuckahoe , as he was recovering from his wounds. It served as the closing image in Edward Steichen’s landmark photography exhibit “The Family of Man” at the Museum of Modern Art in 1955.
In his own description of how this work of art was created, which adjoins the print on display at DCC, Smith puts forward a vision of photography as an agent of renewal, conflating his own personal recovery with the revival of civilization after the most catastrophic war of all time.
“The children in the photograph are my children, and on the day I made this photographic effort, I was not sure I would be capable of ever photographing again,” Smith wrote. “Urgently, something compelled that this first photograph would not be a failure. I would endeavor to refute two years of negation … it was to be a day of spiritual decision … I was determined that it would speak of a gentle moment of spirited purity in contrast to the depraved savagery I had raged against with my war photographs.”
The photographs in the collection demonstrate Smith’s great range. A sitting portrait of folk painter Grandma Moses is offset by an action portrait (in the sense of “you are what you do”) of humanitarian Dr. Albert Sweitzer helping some Africans move a rock. Anonymous Welsh miners and American migrant workers hang next to stars such as Ed Sullivan and Mary Martin, and outshine them with their greater dignity.
Whether they show harsh cityscapes without people, men and women engaged in ordinary activities such as shopping, climbing stairs and singing, or scenes of profound suffering, Smith’s works are suffused with an empathetic warmth which never undermines his interpretive and critical powers.
“When these photos were taken, television was just beginning,” K. Patrick Smith explained to the Beat at the opening. “If people wanted to find out about the world, they had to go to the great magazines that carried the work of major photographers like my father. He was an original photojournalist, whose photo essays could open up a whole world for people in a few pages.”