1. • Dutch STILLEVEN – roughly “dead life.”
• Prior to the 17th Century, the name “still life” wasn’t used – a bowl of fruit was simply a “blow of fruit”
• Dutch STILLEVEN – roughly “dead life.”
• French NATURE MORTE – “nature dead.”
• Vanitas is a type of symbolic work of art especially associated with Northern European still life in the 16th and 17th centuries, though also common in other places and periods. The word is Latin, meaning “emptiness” and loosely translated corresponds to the meaninglessness of earthly life and the transient nature of vanity.
• From the Renaissance such motifs gradually became more indirect, and as the still-life genre became popular, found a home there. Paintings executed in the vanitas style are meant as a reminder of the transience of life, the futility of pleasure, and the certainty of death. They also provided a moral justification for many paintings of attractive objects.
Philippe de Champaigne, Still Life with Tulip, Skull, and Hourglass, oil on canvas, 11 x 14 inches, 1671

2. OBJECTS – STILL LIFES
Wikipedia says: "A still life is a work of art depicting mostly inanimate subject matter, typically commonplace objects which may be either natural (food, flowers, plants, rocks, or shells) or man-made (drinking glasses, books, vases, jewelry, coins, pipes, and so on). With origins in the Middle Ages and Ancient Greek/Roman art, still life paintings give the artist more leeway in the arrangement of design elements within a composition than do paintings of other types of subjects such as landscape or portraiture. Still life paintings, particularly before 1700, often contained religious and allegorical symbolism relating to the objects depicted." While Still Lifes have their origins in painting, artists now produce still lifes in a variety of mediums including photography.

3. • Early exposures in minutes – not seconds
• Early exposures in minutes – not seconds. Changed 1841 w/ better chemistry
• Exposure length made Still Life subjects popular – they didn’t move over long exposure time
• This early experiment a decade before news of photography became public
• Niépce was partner w/ Daguerre. Niépce died in 1833 and Deguerre continued to develop Daguerreotype a UNIQUE image on highly polished copper plate w/ silver coating.
• Competed w/ William Henry Fox Talbot’s calotype process which uses paper negatives contacted to paper positive (REPEATABLE). He made first book illustrated w/ photos: “The Pencil of Nature.”
Nicéphore Niépce, The Set Table, One of the earliest experiments in the development of photography

4. • Stereographic Daguerreotype.
• Notes w/ detail view
Thomas Richard Williams, The Sands of Time, Stereograph, daguerreotype, 3 x 6 inches, 1850

5. • Early photographers used themes of painting.
• Visual metaphors based on Latin phrase that translates “Death Makes us all equal.”
• Here the trappings of wealth and education, contrasted with death (hourglass, extinguished lamp, skull)
• Around mid-19th Century, Albumen Sliver Process allowed mass-production of small cards (cartes de visites) and studios sprang up around the world.
Thomas Richard Williams, The Sands of Time (detail), 1850

6. • Shot in studio – still life w/ natural objects and animals
• Based on earlier French paintings by Chardin
• Made from large glass-plate negatives using Carbon Process with red brown pigment which increased decorative appeal. That + large size, made it a wall object that consciously competed with painting
• Late 1880s, advances in tech (dry plate) made it possible to shoot in field. Fewer still-lifes.
• After 1880, a growing feeling that photo should emulate painting (commercial competition). Spawned Pictorialists in Britain; Photo-Secessionists in US
Adolphe Braun, Still Life of a Hunting Scene, Carbon print, 30 x 22 inches, 1867

7. • Artists returned to Still Lifes in early 20th Century
• Artists returned to Still Lifes in early 20th Century. They used soft focus, painterly darkroom techniques to make photos resemble charcoal drawings.
• Used more obscure, deeply personal symbols
• This piece like a Fine Arts etching (intaglio print)
• Shot through scrim with backlit objects
Baron Adolf de Meyer, Glass and Shadows, Photogravure, 8 x 6 inches, 1905

8. • Early color photo was primarily hand colored, hand tinted b/w images.
• Autochrome, first successful color process in 1907 by French Lumiére Brothers (appropriately Luimére translates as “light.”).
• Early filmmakers referred to in Scorsese’s “Hugo”
• One glass sheet cover with silver emulsion / one with dyed potato starch Red (orange), Green, Blue (violet)
• Starch filters various portions of light spectrum
• Unique transparent image viewed by looking through the glass sheets
• Popular till 1930s – replaced by paper-based Carbo Process (a 3 color transfer process)
Frederick Dellenbaugh, Still Life with Three Vases and Flowers, autochrome, 6 x 4 inches, 1910

9. Paul Outerbridge, Eggs in Bowl, Palladium print, 3 x 2 inches, 1922
• Artists under influence of Modernism (Armory Show 1913, brought European Modernism to US).
• Outerbridge brought Modernist ideas to advertising
• Careful compositions – he drew them, then sat them up, carefully lit them
Paul Outerbridge, Eggs in Bowl, Palladium print, 3 x 2 inches, 1922

10. Paul Strand, Bowl and Pear, Gelatin silver / platinum print, 10 x 11 inches, 1916

11. • Nautilus shells on abalone shell (knee)
Edward Weston, Shells, Gelatin silver print, 9 x 7 inches, 1927

12. Paul Outerbridge, Untitled, 1922

13. • German “New Objectivity” reacts to Expressionism by rejecting Romanticism and the “personal voice” of the artist
Albert Renger-Patzsch, Flatirons for Shoe Manufacture, Gelatin silver print, 9 x 6 inches, 1926

14. • Modotti was a Communist
Tina Modotti, Bandolier, Corn, Sickle, 1927

15. Edward Weston, Pepper, 1930

16. Edward Weston, Cabbage Leaf, 1930

17. Walter Peterhans, Still Life with Three Cups, Gelatin silver print, 6 x 8 inches, 1931

18. • Staged in studio – house in distance is fake
• Staged in studio – house in distance is fake. Similar to tromp l’oeil painting
• Mastered 3 Color Carbo Process which led to successful commercial career (where he employed Modernist ideas)
• Also continue art career making “Art for Art’s Sake”
• Photo Illustrations for House Beautiful, McCalls, Mademoiselle
Paul Outerbridge, Tools with Blueprint, Carbro print, 16 x 12 inches,1939

19. • Italian, raised in Brazil, educated in US (Cornell)
• Interested in Dada and Surrealism
• Made compositions using chicken parts from Butcher Shop’s waste barrel
• Significance of year produced -- WWII
Frederick Sommer, The Anatomy of a Chicken, Gelatin silver print, 9 x 7 inches, 1939

20. Paul Outerbridge, Egg in Spotlight, Gelatin silver print, 10 x 13 inches, 1943

21. Jan Groover, Untitled (Kitchen Still Life), Polaroid, 24 x 20 inches, 1976

22. Jan Groover, Untitled (Kitchen Still Life), 1976

23. Jan Groover, Untitled (Kitchen Still Life), 1976

24. Robert Mapplethorpe, Untitled, c. 1980

25. Robert Mapplethorpe, Untitled, c. 1980

26. Robert Mapplethorpe, Untitled, c. 1980

27. • Most significant Still Life photographer of 2nd half of 20th Century (according to Getty Institute in CA)
• Had 70 year career
• Photo Illustrations for Vogue and other magazines
• Worked in b/w and color depending on color needs of subject
• Objects included: food, skulls, bones, flowers, makeup, luxury items, trash from gutter
• Objects in this image are tools of Graphic Artist – ad is for Fuji Corporation
Irving Penn, Still Life with Triangle and Red Eraser, Cibachrome print, 23 x 18 inches, 1985

28. • Flower arrangement frozen and blown-up in front of bank of sequentially fired, high-speed cameras at slightly different vantage points
Ori Gersht, Blow Up: Untitled 15 (diptych), Digital chromogenic print, 39 x 32 inches, 2007

29. Considered to be first professional American still life painter
Considered to be first professional American still life painter. Part of famous Peale family – prominent Philadelphia art family.
Raphaelle Peale, Still Life with Steak, Oil on wood, 33 x 49 inches, 1816

30. • Inspired by Peale. She riffed on his composition and lighting.
• She couldn’t find veggies that looked like Peale’s, so she grew her own from heirloom seeds.
Sharon Core, Early American: Still Life with Steak, Chromogenic print, 17 x 23 inches, 2008