Marc Pachter
Director
National Portrait Gallery

At its core, portraiture has always been about remembrance. In describing the origins of this artistic genre, the Roman author Pliny relates a tale about a potter's daughter who outlines the shadow of her departing lover on a wall as a means of remembering him. Fearing the loss of one who means so much, she turns to portraiture in an effort to save his image for all time.

When editors at the American Art News-the forerunner of today's ARTnews-introduced into their pages photographic portraits of prominent artists for the first time, a similar desire may have guided their thinking. Certainly from a business perspective, the inclusion of photographs gave the young magazine a forward-thinking identity and a competitive advantage over other journals. Indeed, few publications at this time had taken advantage of photography as an illustrative medium. Although marketing played an important role in the decision to incorporate photography into the magazine, the editors' intimate connection to the contemporary art world undoubtedly proved vital in their decision. Given the close relationship that developed between the magazine and many of the artists who were featured in it, it should not be surprising that the editors embraced photography as a means to celebrate and to remember the lives of working artists. Because of its supposed transparency and its ability to mark one's presence at a particular moment, photography was ideally suited to represent these individuals.

"Portrait of the Art World: A Century of ARTnews Photographs" is, therefore, both a celebration of the one-hundredth anniversary of America's oldest art journal and a remembrance of the many relationships that have been forged between the magazine and the artistic community during that time. The exhibition features photographic portraits of one hundred individuals who shaped the twentieth-century art world. In retrospect, the broad diversity of artists who appeared in the magazine is striking. Although critics have favored certain artistic traditions at different times during the past hundred years, this roster makes clear that no single orthodoxy ruled the day at ARTnews. At the height of the Abstract Expressionist movement, for example, readers were as likely to encounter feature articles on a realist painter such as Edward Hopper or the Russian Surrealist Pavel Tchelitchew as to read about such stars as Jackson Pollock or Willem de Kooning. The breadth of its artistic scope remains a hallmark of the magazine to this day.

It is clear, too, that the editors at ARTnews welcomed the opportunity to present the work of young artists whose reputations were not already well established. In securing portraits of these individuals, they often recruited little-known photographers. And although the list of photographers whose images were published in ARTnews now reads like a who's who of twentieth-century photography, many achieved recognition for the first time in its pages. Photographers such as Zaida Ben-Yusuf, Jessie Tarbox Beals, and Cindy Sherman were all under thirty-five when ARTnews first published their work. This commitment to the present and the future has been a defining characteristic of the magazine and is an important reason for its unparalleled longevity.

The National Portrait Gallery is proud to join with ARTnews in celebrating its centenary. By looking back, we hope not simply to extol the achievements of the magazine and the artists whose lives were chronicled in it, but also to understand the important place of art in the twentieth century.

Images:
Fig. 1
Brochure cover: Self-portrait the Folded Legs, Los Angeles Sept. 1982 by David Hockney, 1982. Photographic collage, Collection of the artist © David Hockney

Fig. 2
Daniel Chester French (1850–1931)
Zaida Ben–Yusuf, gelatin silver print, 1925, ARTnews collection

Fig. 3
Salvador Dali (1904-1989)
Phillippe Halsman, gelatin silver print, 1944, Halsman Archive,
© Halsman Estate

Fig. 4
Betty Parsons (1900-1982)
Lisl Steiner, color photograph, 1979, Lisl Steiner,
© Lisl Steiner