Arnold Newman, 88, Portrait Photographer
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Photographer Arnold Newman, whose environmental portraits of artists and politicians revealed their souls through evocative settings and lighting, died yesterday at age 88.
Newman, who was in rehabilitation from a recent stroke, died of a heart attack at Mount Sinai Medical Center, according to associates at a gallery that represented him.
“Arnold had an ability to see things that transcended what everybody else looked at,” the owner of Commerce Graphics, a New York gallery that deals in his fine art prints, said Ron Kurtz.
Based mostly in New York, Newman traveled the world to photograph artists, scientists, fellow photographers, and politicians. Working as a freelancer for Life and other magazines, he photographed Pablo Picasso, Marilyn Monroe, Ronald Reagan, and Mickey Mantle.
His portraits were posed to bring out what the subjects did, revealing them in their own environments. Among his best-known works were those of Igor Stravinsky at the piano and a Nazi industrialist, Alfred Krupp, looking demonic in his factory.
“His use of the environment and its natural light is so specific for what he is trying to show us about his subject,” an associate photography professor at Ohio State University, Ardine Nelson, once said. “Newman is able to make it so clear, picking out some aspect of each subject, that you feel a connection, like you know each one of them.”
The International Center of Photography gave Newman its Infinity Award as a master of photography in 1999.
In 2000, Newman’s 13th book, “Arnold Newman Breaking Ground,” featured 240 photographs. The book was released to coincide with exhibits of his work at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., and the Minneapolis Institute of Arts.
Amid these activities, Newman found time to give 14 lectures around the country. He continued to work until very recently, according to his gallery.
In an Associated Press interview, Newman recalled that in the 1930s, when he composed his first portrait shots in Philadelphia, he charged 49 cents.
“If they did not like the portrait, you took another,” Newman said. “If they did not like the second one, you gave them their 49 cents back.”
Newman is survived by his wife of 57 years, Augusta Newman, two sons, and four grandchildren.
