oto
Nevvrnan's
artistic portraits highlight
s Baker exhibit.
note [requesting the shoot], and he
heart attack, which brought the session indoors.
wrote back that he'd be happy to
Rouault also was not well when Newman went to
receive me.
take his photo in 1957.
"He shuffled into the room and sank into a chair,"
"Mondrian was a wonderful,
mold Newman easily
gentle man living in a tiny apart-
Newman recalls. "He was too ill to move around so
remembers photograph-
ment. He did everything I asked,
I photographed him on one side, then on another
ing five celebrities shown
and everything seemed to work
, and finally all around. I concentrated on the dark
in the exhibit "People
background in his living room, where he only had a
together. There was a color show
and Places: The Baker Gift of 20th
card tacked on the wall for decora- self-portrait on the wall. I told him I had the same
Century Photography." Never mind
lithograph in my dining room, and he was very
tion, and I moved the easel over
that two of the sessions date back to
one or two inches. He got behind
pleased. I concentrated on him being alone in the
the 1940s.
twilight of his life."
it and let his hand hang over it.
Newman — who is about to add
"He used to invite me back to
George W. Bush into his nonstop
talk to him. I had given him five
line of photographed presidents
Environmental Portraits
or six photographs, and I offered
reaching back to Harry Truman —
to give him more. These turned
Max Ernst, in 1942, and I.M. Pei, in 1967, provided
recalls lots of notable subjects in gov- Arnold Newman: Tor me, a
out
to
be
probably
the
best-paid
happier experiences. Ernst, a surrealist, was in an
ernment, the arts and industry. He
portrait isn't simply a photograph
photographs I ever did.
antique chair that had been a theater prop, and his cig-
built his career behind the camera by of a face. I guess I have an instinct
"One day, I noticed a nine-inch
arette smoke permeated the room. Pei, who was pho-
accepting magazine assignments and for people."
square drawing and admired it. He
tographed at various times by Newman, is best recalled
private requests, working with
made a more finished drawing
in the reception area of his office looking through a
-enough luminaries to fill 13 books.
from that — all lines and blocks — and gave them
small glass, a design effect reminiscent of the sparse
At the University of Michigan Museum of Art,
both to me. They turned out to be the original draw- way Pei designed buildings.
visitors will see his take on artists Piet Mondrian,
ings for his masterpiece Broadway Boogie-Woogie, and
"For me, a portrait isn't simply a photograph of a
Milton Avery, Max Ernst and Georges Rouault as
they hang in my living room with lots of other works face," explains Newman, who recently addressed U-
well as architect I.M. Pei.
M art students at a program unrelated to the exhib-
"I studied painting, and Piet Mondrian was one of that have been swapped. They're worth a fortune
today."
it. "You can go into one of these standard portrait
my idols," Newman, 83, reminisces about the
Avery also became a friend, but the picture, taken in
studios and see two photographs. The man in each
abstractionist known for his block designs.
1960, didn't materialize the way Newman had planned. one is dressed in a dark suit with the same back-
"Even though Mondrian was world famous in 1942,
The shoot was supposed to be done along the sand
ground, lighting, pose and everything else, and you'd
he didn't have much money, and his friends had to
dunes that Avery painted, but the realist had a severe,
never know one of them owns a huge factory and
help him. He didn't have a telephone so I wrote him a
SUZANNE CHESSLER
Special to the Jewish News
A
1/11
2002
58