Photographs by Henry Holmes Smith are currently on display at Gitterman Gallery in New York through October 5, 2016.
Henry Holmes Smith was an innovative photographer and an influential writer and teacher. He was instrumental in establishing the photography program for László Moholy-Nagy at the New Bauhaus in 1937 and went on to teach for 30 years at Indiana University where founded the first MFA program in photography. Because of his all-consuming dedication to teaching, Smith would go for long stretches of time without producing work; his greatest periods of artistic output were from 1946-52 and after 1970. Throughout his career Smith remained transfixed by color and its expressive potential. Dye-transfer printing, a 3-color separation process, was integral to Smith’s artistic expression as it allowed him to layer images and color in a free and intuitive manner.
