FOREWORD

Snapshots are everywhere. Some are meticulously labeled and organized in photograph albums, while others are haphazardly thrown into shoe boxes and stashed in closets. In the digital era, snapshots are stored on our smartphones and shared widely on social-media sites. Snapshots are fertile ground for moments of rediscovery, when someone holds a little picture and remembers the moment or life captured within it. This book takes the ubiquitous snapshot that is central to the lives of so many of us—including artists—and recognizes its varied roles, from a simple document of time and place to an evocative work of art in and of itself.

The Archives of American Art’s deputy director, Liza Kirwin, conceived the theme of this book in response to the increasing attention given to snapshots in art history and popular media. Major museums have organized exhibitions around the snapshot, including The Art of the American Snapshot, 1888–1978: From the Collection of Robert E. Jackson at the National Gallery of Art in 2007 and Now Is Then: Snapshots from the Maresca Collection at the Newark Museum in 2008. In 2010 the social-networking site Instagram launched, allowing users to snap photographs comparable to Polaroid snapshots, complete with filters and borders that mimic vintage prints.

The Archives’ first exploration of snapshots was the 2011 exhibition Little Pictures, Big Lives: Snapshots from the Archives of American Art, guest curated by photography specialist Merry Foresta, the former director of the Smithsonian Photography Initiative. Foresta adeptly framed these personal items within the history of photography, and in this book she explores the snapshot further, as it relates to a variety of themes.

Among the Archives’ collections of more than twenty million items are thousands of snapshots. I have found some new favorites among the scrapbooks of art critic, artist, and teacher Suzi Gablik, who recently made a generous donation of her papers to the Archives. In them we discover Gablik with Leo Castelli, Kenneth Noland, Anthony Caro, Claes Oldenburg, and many other famous art-world figures. But here they have stepped away from the studio or the gallery or the writing desk and are engaged in the familiar, quotidian activities that help to shape each of us—unself-conscious moments from vacations, Thanksgiving dinners, birthday parties at home. In this book you will find many similar images that offer intimate insight into the everyday lives of artists—from snapshots taken by artists just after the 1900 introduction of the Kodak Brownie camera to contemporary examples.

Through our own publications and by supporting the research of others, the Archives of American Art tells the backstory of art in America. These snapshots and the ever-growing number of letters, diaries, oral histories, and other personal and business documents preserved at the Archives are the building blocks of that backstory, adding dimension and depth to our understanding of this country’s rich visual culture.

— Kate Haw, director, Archives of American Art