Elsa Dorfman

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Self-portrait by Elsa Dorfman

Elsa Dorfman (born April 26, 1937 in Cambridge , Massachusetts ; died May 30, 2020 there ) was an American portrait photographer . She was best known for her work with a large format instant camera from the Polaroid brand .

Life and education

Dorfman grew up in Roxbury and Newton . She was the eldest of three daughters of Arthur Dorfman and Elaine Dorfman, b. Kovitz; the parents were Jews . She studied at Tufts University , where she graduated in French literature in 1959 . She then moved to New York City and worked at Grove Press , a leading publisher of beat literature . On her return to Massachusetts, she studied elementary education at Boston College . In 1967 she met Harvey Silverglate, whom she married in 1976 and with whom she had a son.

Career

After graduating, Dorfman taught at a school in Concord for a year . Under the name Paterson Society , she organized readings for writers of the Beat Generation.

In 1963 she started working for the Educational Development Corporation . Her in-house photographer George Cope introduced her to the art of photography in June 1965. Just two months later, she sold her first painting for $ 25, a portrait of Charles Olson , which was used as the cover for his book The Human Universe .

In May 1968 she moved to the house at 19 Flagg Street in Cambridge, where her photographs were taken for the Housebook . Her main photographic work was published in 1974 under the title Elsa's Housebook - A Woman's Photojournal . In it she portrayed friends and family who came to visit, including important authors of the Beat Generation such as Lawrence Ferlinghetti , Allen Ginsberg , Peter Orlovsky , Gary Snyder, Gregory Corso and Robert Creeley , but also others such as the radical feminist Andrea Dworkin and the civil rights attorney Harvey Silverglate, who became her husband.

Portrait of Bob Dylan and Allen Ginsberg (1975)

She also photographed protagonists of the Boston rock scene such as Jonathan Richman , the front man of Modern Lovers, and Steven Tyler from Aerosmith .

In 1995 Dorfman created the book 40 Ways to Fight the Fight Against AIDS together with the artist Marc A. Sawyer . To do this, she photographed people with and without AIDS who campaigned for AIDS victims. The photographs have been exhibited in Cambridge, Provincetown and New York City.

Dorfman also appeared in the 1999 documentary No Hair Day , in which she portrayed women undergoing breast cancer treatment.

Her most famous works were created with a large format camera from the Polaroid brand for recordings in the 20 × 24 inch format, of which only six copies were built.

In 2016 Errol Morris made a documentary about Dorfman's life and work entitled The B-Side: Elsa Dorfman's Portrait Photography .

Her pictures can be found in the collections of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art , the National Portrait Gallery in Washington , the Harvard Art Museum , and the Portland Museum of Art in Maine.

Selection of works

Web links

Commons : Elsa Dorfman  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Mark Feeney: Instant karma . In: The Boston Globe , March 16, 2008. Retrieved March 15, 2014. 
  2. ↑ a b c d e f Mark Feeney: Elsa Dorfman, photographer whose distinctive portraits illuminated her subjects and herself, dies at 83 . In: The Boston Globe , May 30, 2020. Archived from the original on May 31, 2020. 
  3. ↑ Deborah Becker: Cambridge Photographer Elsa Dorfman, Famous For Her Giant Polaroids, Dies At 83 , WBUR-FM. May 30, 2020. 
  4. ↑ Sean P. Means: Cheery 'B-Side' marks end of a photographer's era . In: The Salt Lake Tribune , July 13, 2017. Retrieved May 31, 2020. 
  5. ↑ Dorfman explains her background in her Housebook http://elsa.photo.net/housebook/the-camera.html ( Memento from September 1, 2006 in the Internet Archive )
  6. ↑ a b Hena Sharma: American portrait innovator Elsa Dorfman has died at age 83 ( en )
  7. ↑ a b c Murray Whyte: Elsa Dorfman looks back at 50 years on both sides of the camera . In: The Boston Globe , February 6, 2020. Archived from the original on February 12, 2020. Retrieved on May 30, 2020. 
  8. ↑ Elsa Dorfman discusses Elsa's Housebook: A Woman's Photojournal . Harvard Book Store. October 25, 2012. Accessed May 31, 2020.
  9. ↑ Elsa Dorfman: Elsa's Housebook: A Woman's Photojournal . DR Godine, 1974, ISBN 978-0-87923-099-9 , p. 14.
  10. ↑ Elsa Dorfman's Housebook https://web.archive.org/web/20060820092334/http://elsa.photo.net/housebook/index.html ( Memento from August 20, 2006 in the Internet Archive )
  11. ^ A b c Cultural Visionary: Elsa Dorfman . Cambridge Community Foundation. Accessed May 31, 2020.
  12. ↑ Elsa Dorfman talks about 'Housebook' . In: The Boston Globe , October 27, 2012. Retrieved May 30, 2020. 
  13. ↑ Hoffmann, K. (1999). Elsa Dorfman: Portraits of Our Time. Woman's Art Journal Vol. 20, No. 2 , 1999, 28.
  14. ↑ According to her web site FAQ , Frequently Asked Questions about Elsa Dorfman's Portrait Photography on the Polaroid 20x24 Camera https://web.archive.org/web/20130403121940/http://elsadorfman.com/camera.html ( Memento from 3 April 2013 in the Internet Archive )
  15. ↑ Andrew Barker: Film Review: 'The B-Side: Elsa Dorfman's Portrait Photography'. In: Variety . September 13, 2016. Retrieved October 26, 2017 .
personal data
SURNAME Dorfman, Elsa
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American portrait photographer
DATE OF BIRTH April 26, 1937
PLACE OF BIRTH Cambridge , Massachusetts
DATE OF DEATH May 30, 2020
Place of death Cambridge , Massachusetts