Sam Haskins

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Sam Haskins , born Samuel Joseph Haskins (born November 11, 1926 in Kroonstad , Orange Free State , † November 26, 2009 , in Bowral , Australia ) was a South African photographer. In particular, his contribution to nude photography , his photo montages and his books made him known; Cowboy Kate (1965) and Haskins Posters (1973) are probably his most important volumes.

From 2000 to 2005, Haskins worked primarily as a fashion photographer for Vogue , Harper's Bazaar , Allure and New York magazines. In 2006 he published an expanded new edition of Cowboy Kate as the 'Directors Cut' Edition and in 2009 The Haskins Press published Fashion Etcetera , Sam Haskin's first book in 24 years. It is a thematic cross section of his archive and reflects his lifelong passion for fashion, style and design. On September 19, 2009, Sam Haskins suffered a stroke in New York. It was the opening day of his exhibition and publication of his book Fashion Etcetera at the Milk Gallery . Nine weeks later he died at home in Bowral.

Childhood and youth

His father Ben was a goods controller for the local railway, the South African Railways . Sam Haskins' creativity was nurtured early on; As a child he was interested in drawing , magic tricks , building paper kites and the circus . In his youth he did a lot of sports : he was a talented hurdler and hired a circus, which offered him a job as a trapeze artist after his apprenticeship .

education

Sam Haskins attended from 1945 to 1948 the Johannesburg Technical College, the Johannesburg Technical College, where he completed a general art degree. He then took further courses on photography. Between 1949 and 1951 he studied at the London School of Printing and Graphic Arts , which was later renamed the London College of Printing and then the London College of Communication .

Marriage and family

In 1952 Sam Haskins married Alida Elzabe van Heerden, who gave birth to two sons: Ludwig (born on August 4, 1955) and Konrad (born on January 26, 1963). After getting married, Alida quit her job in the fashion industry and helped her husband with her husband's work. Alida represented him in front of the publishers early on, when Sam Haskins was still a completely unknown photographer, for the first time for Five Girls . Since then she has led the negotiations for all of Sam Haskins' other books and has thus played an important role in his career.

Career

Haskins' career began in 1953 in Johannesburg with commercial photography. There he ran what was probably the first freelance advertising studio in Africa. His commercial work covered a wide photographic spectrum - from still lifes to industrial images, as well as fashion and aerial photography. The first official harvest his creative work was a solo exhibition at a well-known Johannesburg department store named John Orr in 1960. There, presented Haskins black and white studio photographs of models from as well as pictures of dolls of the young Elisabeth Langsch, later to become the leading ceramist of Switzerland was.

In the 1960s, Haskins published four books that established his international reputation and photographic trademarks. Five Girls (1964) explored a fresh approach to photography of the naked, female body. It was here that Haskins first experimented with black and white printing, image cropping, and book design, the three characteristics that made all of his subsequent books distinctive. Cowboy Kate (1964) was probably the first black and white illustrated book of the 20th century to explore black and white photographic grain as a means of artistic expression and image composition. The book set new standards - it sold a million copies and won the French Prix ​​Nadar in 1964 . Photographers, filmmakers, fashion designers and makeup artists still feel influenced by Cowboy Kate today , more than five decades after the tape was released.

A shortage of copies of the original edition, which sold for up to $ 3,000 to collectors / enthusiasts, led Haskins to release a digitally reworked Director's Cut edition in October 2006 by Rizzoli. The new edition of Cowboy Kate , apart from image post-processing and changes in the layout, offers an additional 16 pages with new images.

November Girl (1966) contains a series of photos and image collages that serve as the starting point for many graphic and surrealist experiments in the 1970s and 80s. Vision Africa (1967) is a visual homage to the indigenous peoples, culture, landscape and wildlife of Black Africa. The images express Haskins' lifelong interest in photographing visually stimulating landscapes and document his passion for indigenous handicrafts. During the shoot for Vision Africa , Haskins broke bones on river rapids and wore out two Volvo station wagons on Africa's gravel roads. Although the book won the Silver Medal at the International Art Book Competition in Jerusalem in 1969, this meticulously precisely constructed book is probably the least known of Haskins' most important illustrated books. However, this passionate declaration of love to sub-Saharan Africa is very popular with serious collectors of African art and photography.

In 1968 Haskins moved to London , where he ran the Glebe Place photo studio on a side street off King's Road. There he worked for many international brands - Asahi Pentax , Bacardi , Cutty Sark Whiskey , Honda , BMW , Haig Whiskey , De Beers , British Airways , Unilever and Zanders - and specialized in the artistic production of photo calendars and pictures for them to manufacture, especially for the Japanese company Asahi Pentax. The first contact with the company was in 1967 when Asahi Optical presented Haskins with a 35mm camera after it became known that the images for Vision Africa had been made with products from other manufacturers. Although Haskins end of the 60s and 70s in the early years Hasselblad preferred, led his ties with the medium format - 6x7 cm camera and the lenses of Asahi to a long partnership with the camera manufacturer. From 1970 to 2000, Asahi Optical (later known as Pentax) produced 30 calendars, 15 of which Sam Haskins oversaw as art director and photographer, including the calendar for the turn of the millennium. He remained the only artist invited more than once to contribute recordings to the Asahi Optical Calendar. The close relationship with the company continues today: The Pentax Forum Gallery in Tokyo hosts Haskins' exhibitions there.

Haskins published his first color illustrated book, Haskins Posters , in 1972. The large-format book contained pages made of heavy, stiff paper printed on one side and was bound in such a way that individual pages could be removed and used as a poster ('perfect binding'). Haskins and his wife Alida themselves appeared as editors of the volume and published it successfully in self-published Haskins Press. The illustrated book won the New York One Show Gold Award . The best-known picture from Haskins' posters at the time , the picture of a girl's face overlaid by an apple with a bee circling around its stem, appeared in most of the world's major photo magazines. This image was part of a series of visual and graphic experiments on the subject of the apple, which is why photojournalists nicknamed it 'Sam the Apple Man'.

In Haskins Posters many motifs and themes were included, the more advanced the photographer in the next thirty years of his artistic handwriting. The main visual themes included the compositions of the nude, with strongly graphically determined arrangements and with a character that was shaped by the naturalness of the models. The structure of these pictures followed Haskins' interest in graphic experiments, humor and sensual eroticism. A recurring element in almost all of Haskins 'pictures is the tension in the surface of the photo, which he creates using flat, graphic elements in spatial chiaroscuro - a theme that is reminiscent of Haskins' preoccupation with painting during his art studies.

To achieve such effects, Haskins used sophisticated lighting in conjunction with double exposures. His highly creative and design approach to lighting played a key role both in his studio work and on set. He often created complex lighting designs that applied to a single photo and were not reproducible. Haskins most recently chose this approach in his work on the 75th anniversary of New York Magazine , when he was shooting in New York's Pier 57 Studios in August 2006.

The graphic elements that Haskins built into his photographs were often painted and constructed by the artist himself. Forms from surrealism, foreign illustrations, films and modern graphic design served as sources of inspiration.

The graphic experiments, first seen in Haskins posters and the corresponding exhibitions in London's Photographer's Gallery and the National Theater, culminated in the book Photo Graphics (1980). The book's title coined a new term in photography that has been widely used ever since.

Haskins' next book, Sam Haskins à Bologna (1984), resulted from the personal invitation of the mayor of Bologna to photograph the city. The publication was accompanied by an exhibition in Bologna. As a result, two similar projects were created that set a monument to visually unique places: one in Barcelona (1991) and another in Kashmir (between 1992 and 1994).

In 2000, Haskins and his wife Alida moved to Australia's Southern Highlands, where they built the third home and work house for their partnership. The move from London led to a renaissance in Haskins' fashion photography. Although he was keenly interested in fashion photography early in his career and many couturiers thanked him publicly for the influences Cowboy Kate had on them, Haskins was neither wooed nor wooed by the greats of fashion. A photo shoot for Yves Saint Laurent in Paris in 2000 led to the rediscovery of Haskins' old passion - and to a flood of orders in London, New York, Paris, Tokyo and Sydney from the major fashion houses and fashion magazines. In December 2006, one month after his 80th birthday, the first retrospective of his work (with a focus on portrait photography) opened at the National Portrait Gallery in Canberra, Australia. For the first time, Haskins' photos were shown in a national gallery. The exhibition ran until April 22, 2007.

It showed never-before-exhibited portraits by other artists, including the late Jean-Michel Folon , a graphic artist whom Sam Haskins loved in particular. Although one or the other of these personal portraits had already been published, the majority came from a closed collection that documented decades of friendship with other artists.

Most recently, Sam Haskins concentrated on the creation of a new illustrated book and an exhibition with recordings from an archive spanning five decades. At the same time, he took hand-picked orders from the fashion sector and worked there with various leading models and actresses as well as with new faces.

role models

Sam Haskins was an exception among photographers as he was also recognized as a designer. Accordingly, on several occasions, he recognized artists from both directions for their influence on his work: Irving Penn , Richard Avedon , Edward Steichen and Henri Cartier-Bresson . Designers and typographers: McKnight Kaufer , Paul Rand , Louis Dorfsman , Willy Fleckhaus , Alexei Brodowitsch , Herb Lubalin , Milton Glaser , Paul Rand and Saul Bass . Painter: René Magritte , Surrealism , Dadaism , Impressionism , Post-Impressionism , 20th Century Art from Paris , Pop Art . Filmmakers: Federico Fellini , Carol Reed (for directing The Third Man ), Sergei Eisenstein (mainly for directing on strike ).

Famous photographs by Sam Haskins

This is a selection of shots that are particularly characteristic of Sam Haskins' photography (with links to the author's website). All of these recordings were popular with magazines and book editors and have therefore been published several times.

  • Gill from Five Girls in Profile [1] 1963
  • The Cowboy Kate pistol belt, front view [2] 1965
  • The Cowboy Kate pistol belt, rear view [3] 1965
  • Masai and Pondo women (orig. Masai and Pondo ladies) [4] was designed in 2006 for a double-sided publication from images from the illustrated book Vision Africa , 1967
  • Mood swings [5] a recently published print, which contrasts the cover picture of Haskins Poster's well-known, strong faces from November Girls , 1973 & 1966
  • The apple face (orig. The Apple Face) [6] from Haskins Posters , probably the most printed picture by Sam Haskins, 1973
  • Lindy Run [7] from Haskins Posters is an image that represents the dynamism of Haskins fashion photography, 1973
  • Delia with two fish (orig. Delia with two fish) [8] from a Pentax calendar [9] , taken on the Seychelles , 1973
  • Photomontage of an urban landscape [10] from Sam Haskins à Bologna , 1984
  • Maria Carla Boscono [11] photographed in London for Vogue Japan , 2002

Slide show

Sam Haskins developed a medium format slide show that included up to 500 images, each displayed for seven seconds. Music also plays synchronously. These slide shows were shown on a traditional manual slide projector operated by Haskins using a darkroom timer. The show was shown for the first time in 1970 at an international photography conference in Brighton and has traveled with great success to more than 50 cities around the world, filling theaters, cinemas and conference rooms for photography fairs.

Since all medium-format pictures were taken with Hasselblad or Rolleiflex cameras before 1970, the slides were 6 cm × 6 cm in size. In 1970, Sam was given his first 6x7 Pentax camera in Tokyo, but it would be a few years before a sufficient number of 6x7 slides were available for the show. When his screenings became more and more international in 1975, Haskins converted all of his slides to the 6x7 format.

Teaching and reviewing activities

Sam Haskins returned to his university, the London College of Printing, in 1975 as an external reviewer for the graduate degree in photography. He held this position until 1982.

Between 1980 and 1985 he also led one-week seminars for authors, cameramen, directors and stage designers at the Norwegian Television Academy in Oslo.

In the 1970s he led one-week courses for semi-professionals and professionals in Italy, Sweden and South Africa.

Other teaching assignments were mostly limited to one-day workshops at photo fairs and for groups visiting his studio. Haskins has a relationship with Syracuse University in the USA and looked after a group of exchange students in his London studio every summer from 1975 to 1988.

bibliography

Books by Sam Haskins

Cover picture of Five Girls by Sam Haskins, 1962
Five Girls (German title, five girls )
Drafting, photography & design Sam Haskins
format 144 pages, 350 × 270 mm, in the book case, offset printing
photos Black and white photographs
Printed in United States
Library of Congress catalog number. 62-20049
Introduction of Aaron Sussman
Hardcover, 1962
Crown Publishing Inc. New York City
Bodley Head London
Hieronimi European Library Bonn
Paperback edition
Bantam Books New York City
Corgi London
Cover picture of the original issue of Cowboy Kate , 1964
Cowboy Kate
Drafting, photography & design Sam Haskins
format 160 pages, 350 × 270 mm, in the book case, gravure printing
photos Black and white photographs
Printed by Heliographia SA, Lausanne
Library of Congress catalog number. 67-112870
Introduction of Norman Hall
Texted by Desmond Skirrow
Hardcover, 1964
Crown Publishing Inc. New York City
Bodley Head London
Edition prism Paris
Hieronimi European Library Bonn
Besige Bij Amsterdam
Paperback edition
Bantam Books New York City
Corgi London
Hieronimi European Library Bonn
Signed and limited edition, 1974
Haskins Press London
Cover image from Sam Haskins' November Girl .
November girl
Drafting, photography & design Sam Haskins
format 129 pages, 350 × 270 mm, in the book case, gravure printing
photos Black and white photographs
Printed by Heliographia SA, Lausanne
Library of Congress catalog number 71-385000
Texted by Desmond Skirrow
Hardcover, 1966
Grossett & Dunlap New York City
The Bodley Head London
Edition prism Paris
Hieronimi European Library Bonn
Paperback edition
Bantam Books New York City
Corgi London
Cover picture from Sam Haskins' African Image , 1967.
African Image (German title, Vision Africa )
Drafting, photography & design Sam Haskins
format 160 pages, 350 × 270 mm, in the book case, gravure printing
photos Black and white photography
Printed by Heliographia SA, Lausanne
Library of Congress catalog number (No catalog number was assigned.)
Preface by Leo Fritz Gruber
Hardcover, 1967
Thomas Crowell New York City
Bodley Head London
Cover image from Sam Haskins' Haskins Posters , 1972.
Haskins posters
Drafting, photography & design Sam Haskins
Cover design / typography Alan Fletcher for Pentagram
format 32 pages, 480x350 mm, paperback cover (soft cover), removable pages
photos Color and black and white photographs
Printed by Lichtdruck AG, Dielsdorf
Library of Congress catalog number 73-176000
Preface by Sam Haskins
Paperback (first edition), 1972
Haskins Press London
Thomas Crowell New York City
Fitzhenry Toronto
Westside Ltd Toronto
KKK Tokyo
Hieronimi European Library Bonn
Limited, hardback edition, 1972
Cover design of Paul Colsell for Pentagram
Cover from Sam Haskins' Photo Graphics , 1980.
Photo Graphics
Drafting, photography & design Sam Haskins
format 100 pages, 310x245 mm, in the book case, offset printing
photos Black and white and color photographs
Printed by Rotovision, Geneva
Library of Congress catalog number 82-126090
Hardcover, 1980
Rotovision SA London
Rotovision SA Geneva
Colucci Edizione Milan
Nippon Geijutsu Shp. Tokyo
Cover picture by Sam Haskins à Bologna , 1984.
Sam Haskins à Bologna
Drafting, photography & design Sam Haskins
format 88 pages, 280 × 240 mm, paperback (soft cover), offset printing
photos Black and white and color photographs
Printed in Bologna
Library of Congress catalog number (No catalog number was assigned.)
Introduction of Profs. Carlo Gentile & Renzo Renzi
Hardcover, 1984
Graphis Edizione Bologna
Cover picture of the 'Director's Cut' issue of Cowboy Kate , 2006.
Cowboy Kate (Director's Cut) (1)
Drafting, photography & design Sam Haskins
format 194 pages, 350 × 270 mm, in the book case, offset printing
photos Black and white photographs
Printed in China
Library of Congress catalog number 2006923016
Preface by Philippe Garner
Introduction of Norman Hall
Texted by Desmond Skirrow
Hardcover, 2006
Rizzoli New York City

(1) Cowboy Kate and other stories - Director's Cut was digitally edited by the author and published in 2006 with 16 additional images. Unlike the original, which was printed using rotogravure printing in Switzerland, the new edition was created using offset printing.

Books with pictures by Sam Haskins

Publishing year Place of publication Book title Editor / author
1964 Tokyo Photography of the World Heibonsha Ltd
1966 Cape Town Silver Images Dr A Bensusan
1966 London British Journal of Photography Annual Arthur Dalladay
1966 + '68, '71 -'75, '77 -'82, '84 Zurich Photographis Walter Herdeg
1968 London British Journal of Photography annual edition Arthur Dalladay
1970 Geneva Art Director's Index to Photographers (1) Rotovision
1970 + '71, '73, '75, '77 Tokyo Pentax Forum Pentax
1970 Munich 4 masters of erotic photography Photokina
1970 Cologne Photokina pictures and texts Photokina
1971 London / New York Views on Nudes Bill Jay
1974 Zurich Graphis posters Walter Herdeg
1974 New York City The One Show New York Art Director's Club
1975 Freiburg in Breisgau Friburg International Trienalle Friburg Museum of Art
1976 London Graphis Glamor Calendar Art Michael Colmer
1977 London Photography 35mm camera RH Mason
1977 Tokyo Asahi Pentax Annual Pentax
1977 Cologne History of Photography in the 20th Century Peter Tausk
1977 London Masterpieces of Erotic Photography Aurum Press
1978 Freiburg Friburg International Triennial Friburg Museum of Art
1978 Brno Brno Biennale '78 8th Graphic Art
1978 Cologne Dumont Photo 1 Photo art Int.
1978 London The Visual Dictionary of Sex MacMillon
1978 London Modern publicity Van Nostrand Reinhold
1979 London The Erotic Arts Peter Webb
1980 Zurich Graphis, Photographics William B McDonald
1981 Milan Women in the Magic Mirror Bert Hartkamp
1982 London / New York City The Dictionary of Visual Language Philip Thompson & Peter Davenport
1983 Cambridge The Autograph Book
1984 Hamburg The beautiful creatures - animal photos star
1984 Hamburg The erotic moment Stern library
1985 Munich The nude photo Munich City Museum
1986 Schaffhausen Views of the body Michael Kohler
1987 London The Naked and the Nude Jorge Lewinsky
1987 to 1997 inclusive Tokyo Pentax Annual Pentax
1989 Rochester Professional Photographic Illustration LoSapio
1990 New York City Angels - An Endangered Species Malcolm Godwin
1990 North Abbot The Tree Peter Wood
1995 Munich Twen, revision of a legend Michael Koetzle
1997 Paris Love in the 20th Century F. Montreynaud
1997 Munich Willy Fleckhaus Michael Koetzle & Carsten M. Wolf
2000 New York City Cross Kelly Klein
2000 United States Emerging Bodies / Polaroid Barbara Hitchcock
2004 Charlestown Mary McFadden A life in haute couture Mary McFadden & Ruta Saliklis
2004 Paris Belles en Vogue Florence Müller

(1) The Art Director's Index is a usually paid entry; however, the publisher asked Sam Haskins for additional editorial material for this publication.

Sam Haskins - Art History and Criticism

Publishing year Place of publication Book title author publishing company
1976 Paris La Photo Chenz & Jeanloup Sieff Denoël
1980 London Photography in the 20th Century Petr Tausk Focal Press
1983 London How Famous Photographers Work Jack Schofield Watson-Guptil
1985 Prague Creative Color Photography Petr Tausk Focal Press
1986 Frankfurt am Main Modern Color Photography '36 -'86
1987 London Masters of Photography D. Mrazkova Hamlyn
1996 New York City Art Fundamentals - Theory & Practice Otto Ocvirk McGraw Hill
1997 Oxford The Story of Photography Michael Langford Focal Press
1998 Munich Nude Photography - masterpieces from the past 150 years Peter-Cornel Richter Prestel
2001 New York City Masters of the 20th Century (1) Mervyn Kurlansky Graphis
2004 Gothenburg The Open Book - A history of the photographic book from 1878 Andrew Roth Hasselblad Center
2005 Switzerland The Worlds Top Photographers - Nudes. Anthony la Sala Rotovision

(1) Masters of the 20th Century (dt. 20th century masters ) treated graphic designer and typographer; it mentions only two photographers who were included in this book as photographic illustrators: Sam Haskins and Rankin Waddell .

Honourings and prices

Texts and pictures

year city Award Got for Awarded by
1964 Paris Prix ​​Nadar Cowboy Kate and other stories Prix ​​Nadar
1969 Jerusalem Silver Medal African image International Art Book Competition
1974 New York City Gold award Haskins posters New York Art Director's Club
1980 New York City Book of the Year Photo Graphics Kodak

Solo exhibitions

year city exhibition place
1960 Johannesburg Photographic illustration Orrco Theater
1970 Tokyo Sam Haskins Pentax Gallery
1970 Tokyo Sam Haskins '70 Isetan Gallery
1972 London Haskins posters Photogephers Gallery
1973 Paris Haskins posters FNAC Gallery
1973 Tokyo Haskins posters Isetan Gallery
1974 Amsterdam Haskins posters Canon Gallery
1974 London Pentax Calendar '75 Pentax Gallery
1976 Tokyo Scandinavian Landscapes Isetan Gallery
1976 London Calendar '77 Pentax Gallery
1979 London New Work Pentax Gallery
1980 London Photo Graphics National Theater
1980 London Photo Graphics Kodak Gallery
1980 Norwich Photo Graphics Sainsbury Center
1980 Bath Photo Graphics RPS Gallery
1981 Glasgow Photo Graphics Hillhead Gallery
1981 Rotterdam Photo Graphics Pentax Gallery
1981 Zurich Photo Graphics Pentax Gallery
1981 Tokyo Photo Graphics Pentax Forum
1981 new York Photo Graphics Neikrug Gallery
1984 Bologna Sam Haskins à Bologna Accursio Gallery
1985 Tokyo The Best of Sam Haskins Pentax Forum
1986 Osaka The Best of Sam Haskins Printemps
1987 London Graphic work Saatchi & Saatchi
1987 Tokyo Calendar '88 Pentax Forum
1990 Tokyo The Image Factor Pentax Forum
1990 Osaka The Image Factor Pentax Forum
1991 Auckland The Image Factor Conference Center
1991 Sydney The Image Factor Conference Center
1991 Hong Kong The Image Factor Conference Center
1992 Tokyo Remember Barcelona Pentax Forum
1992 Osaka Remember Barcelona Pentax Gallery
1992 Glasgow Now & Then MNS Photocolor
1993 Tokyo Hearts Pentax Forum
1993 Osaka Hearts Pentax Gallery
1996 Tokyo Sam Haskins - Monochrome Pentax Forum
1996 Osaka Sam Haskins - Monochrome Pentax Gallery
1999 London Innovations & other stories Focus Gallery
2000 Berlin Image 2 Gallery Argus Photo Art
2003 new York Sam Haskins Michael Gallagher Gallery
2004 Paris Sam Haskins Marlat
2004 Amsterdam Sam Haskins Gallery Wouter van Leeuwen
2006–2007 (December 8 - April 22) Canberra Sam Haskins - Portraits & Other stories exhibition ( Memento from October 4, 2008 in the web archive archive.today ) National Portrait Gallery

Group exhibitions

year city exhibition gallery
1970 Cologne 4 Masters of Erotic Photography Photokina '70
1970 Europe 4 Masters of Erotic Photography (Traveling exhibition)
1972 London Who are you Bullfinch Fils Gallery
1973 Hamilton (Canada) Top 10 Photographers Mc Masters University
1985 Munich The nude photo city ​​Museum
1986 Germany The nude photo (Traveling exhibition)
1986 Cologne 50 yrs. Modern Color Photography Photokina
1989 Prague 150 Years of Photography Narodni Gallery
1995 Munich Twen Magazine city ​​Museum

Documentation

year city title Manufacturing company
1973 London Sam Haskins London Film School
1987 Locarno Grandii Fotografi Polyvideo SA
1990 London Sam Haskins - Pentax 67 Luke Jeans
2002 London Oral History of British Photography British Library Sound Archives

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Haskins Posters on Haskins' website.
  2. Fashion shoot , anniversary edition .
  3. Photo Graphics on Haskins' website.
  4. ^ Sam Haskins à Bologna on Haskins' website.
  5. ^ Exhibition ( memento of October 4, 2008 in the web archive archive.today ) on the NPG website.