Gretchen Garner

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Gretchen Garner
Born(1939-12-27)December 27, 1939
Minneapolis, Minnesota, U.S.
DiedFebruary 15, 2017(2017-02-15) (aged 77)
Columbus, Ohio, U.S.
NationalityAmerican
EducationUniversity of Chicago (BA)
School of the Art Institute of Chicago (MFA)
Occupations
  • Art historian
  • curator
  • writer
  • teacher
  • photographer

Gretchen Garner (December 27, 1939 – February 15, 2017)[1] was an American art historian, curator, writer, teacher, and self-taught photographer.

Biography[edit]

Education[edit]

Garner was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota.[2] She enrolled at the University of Chicago in 1965 and received her BA degree in Art History.[3] After graduating, Garner spent a year studying photography on her own with her father’s 35mm camera. Between 1973–75, Garner studied photography at the School of Art institute in Chicago where she took her MFA.[4]

Career[edit]

While working as a photographer, photo editor, and instructor Garner raised two children in Chicago and Evanston, Illinois.[1] Garner worked as a press photographer at the Chicago Daily News. Garner taught fine arts photography and history of photography at such universities as Grand Valley State College in Allendale, Michigan; Moore College of Art and Design in Philadelphia, and the University of Connecticut, where she also served as the Chair of the Art and Art History Department.

Later life and death[edit]

During Garner's later life, she continued to write scholarly articles, exhibition catalogs and books. Her last book was Winold Reiss and the Cincinnati Union Terminal where Garner reawakens Reiss’ full-color images of the mosaic murals in the Cincinnati Union Terminal.[5] In the 1980s, Garner was inspired by the countryside around Chicago and which inspired her to take up outdoor photography. She then travel around the USA and Europe for a decade. Some of the landscapes Garner portrayed included Denmark, Sweden and France. During the 1980s she also served as the Head, Department of Art at the University of Connecticut from 1989-1992 and served as a Professor there until 1994. From there, Garner transferred to Moore College of Art and Design to become an Academic Dean until 1997. Garner was an adjunct professor as well as visiting artist for The Ohio State University between 2003–2007.[6] From 2007–2017 Garner resided back to her residence in Columbus, Ohio until she died at the age of 77.[1]

Contributions and influence[edit]

Feminist art history[edit]

Garner’s contribution to feminist art history is especially notable. Her exhibition Reclaiming Paradise: American Women Photograph the Land (1987) was widely popular, traveling to thirteen different location sites within two years. This catalog traces the lives of nineteenth-and twentieth-century women and their relationship with the landscape.[7] Garner redressed the exclusion of women from the landscape canon throughout her writing. Her catalog for this exhibition became a primary source on women and modern American photography.

Contemporary landscape photography: "The New Metaphorics"[edit]

In opposition to William Jenkins’s New Topographics gambit, Garner advocated for a “New Metaphorics.” Garner, along with photographer and critic Deborah Bright, critiqued the work of the New Topographics as having a macho undertone. Garner’s work showcased her own perspectives on documentary photography. The debate over documentary landscape photography remains an important component in contemporary landscape photography, but especially that of the 1970-80’s.[8]

Publications[edit]

  • Disappearing Witness: Change in Twentieth-Century American Photography. Johns Hopkins Press, 2003.[9][10]
  • Garner, Gretchen (2012). Gerry Sharpe: Sun And Shade, A Photographer's Story.
  • Winold Reiss and the Cincinnati Union Terminal Ohio University Press; 1 edition (August 30, 2016)[11][12]
  • Six Ideas in Photography: A Celebration of Photography's Sesquicentennial, 1989.[13]
  • Landscapes 1981-1988, 1989.[14]
  • Reclaiming Paradise: American Women Photograph the Land, 1987.[15][16]
  • An Art History of Ephemera: Gretchen Garner's Catalog, Photographs, 1976-1978. [7]

Photographic work[edit]

  • "Vanitas" 1980.[7]
  • ""Portfolio '74" 1974.[17]
  • "Landscapes," 1990.[18]
  • "Jamaica."[19]

Exhibitions[edit]

Place Work Location Time[20][better source needed]
Image House Gallery "Intimate Panoramas" Santa Fe, NM February - March 2001
Moore College of Art and Design Philadelphia September - October 1994
Weir Farm National Historic Site Wilton, CT April - May 1993
Danforth Museum of Art Framingham, MA January - February 1993
Evanston(IL) Art Center, Dart Gallery Chicago
Ithaca College Photography Gallery "Intimate Landscapes"
Atrium Gallery, University of Connecticut Storrs, CT September - October 1990
Duluth (MN) Art Institute June 1989
Grand Rapids Art Museum "Six Ideas in Photography: A Celebration of Photography's Sesquicentennial" February - March 1989
Space Gallery, West Michigan University "Kalamazoo" February 1989
Museum of Contemporary Photography "Birches" Chicago, IL September - October 1988
Memorial Union Gallery, Nevada State University Fargo, ND February 1987
Saint Paul (MN) Academy January 1987
Tweed Museum of Art, University of Minnesota "Reclaiming Paradise: American Women Photograph the Land" Duluth, MN 1987
Lincoln Gallery, Northern State College Aberdeen, SD October - November 1985
Film in the Cities, St. Paul November 1985
Krannert Art Museum, University of Illinois Champaign, IL October 1985
Ruth Volid Gallery Chicago, IL November 1984 - January 1985
Chicago Center for Contemporary Photography December 1982
Exposures Gallery Libertyville, IL February 1981
Dart Gallery Chicago, IL December, 1982
Hayden Gallery, MIT Cambridge, MA May - June 1980
Evanston (IL) Art Center March - April 1980
"Friends of Photography" Carmel, CA September - October 1979
New Mexico State University Las Cruces, NM June, 1979
Augustana College Rock Island, IL January, 1979
Lorado Taft in Illinois, traveling show for IL Arts Council Illinois 1978-1982
The Dark Room Chicago, IL April, 1976
ARC Gallery Chicago, IL December, 1975

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b c "Gretchen Garner". Egan-Ryan Funeral. March 25, 2019.
  2. ^ Author, Contemporary (March 25, 2019). "Garner,Gretchen 1939 -". Encyclopedia.com. {{cite web}}: |last= has generic name (help)
  3. ^ "Gretchen Garner". Moderna Museet i Stockholm. Archived from the original on 2019-04-01. Retrieved 2019-03-26.
  4. ^ "Garner, Gretchen 1939- | Encyclopedia.com". www.encyclopedia.com. Retrieved 2019-03-26.
  5. ^ "Winold Reiss and the Cincinnati Union Terminal: Fanfare for the Common Man". Ohio University Press • Swallow Press. Retrieved 2019-04-01.
  6. ^ "Gretchen Garner - Only a Little While". 1stdibs.com. Retrieved 2019-04-01.
  7. ^ a b c Heller, Jules, Nancy (1997). North American Women Artists of the Twentieth Century: A Biographical Dictionary. Routledge. p. 202. ISBN 9781135638825.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  8. ^ Hershberger, Andrew (2014). Photographic Theory: An Historical Anthology. New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons. pp. 219–221. ISBN 9781405198462.
  9. ^ Collins, Kathleen (2004). "Disappearing Witness: Change in Twentieth-Century American Photography (Book)". Library Journal. 129: 70 – via Ebscohost.
  10. ^ Baron, Neva Kathryn. “DISAPPEARING WITNESS: Change in Twentieth-Century American Photography by Gretchen Garner (review).” Material Culture 38, no. 1 (2006): 98-100.
  11. ^ Mehring, F (2018). "Winold Reiss and the Cincinnati Union Terminal: Fanfare for the Common Man by Gretchen Garner (review)". Ohio Valley Press. 18 (2): 102–104 – via Muse.
  12. ^ Theresa Leininger-Miller. “Winold Reiss and the Cincinnati Union Terminal: Fanfare for the Common Man by Gretchen Garner (review)." Indiana Magazine of History 113, no. 2 (2017): 168-70.
  13. ^ "Search Results [uconn.on.worldcat.org]". uconn.on.worldcat.org. Retrieved 2019-04-01.
  14. ^ "Search Results [uconn.on.worldcat.org]". uconn.on.worldcat.org. Retrieved 2019-04-01.
  15. ^ "Reclaiming Paradise: American Women Photograph the Land by Tweed Museum of Art, Gretchen Garner (review)". The Print Collector's Newsletter. 18: 108. 1987 – via JSTOR.
  16. ^ The Print Collector's Newsletter. “Reclaiming Paradise: American Women Photograph the Land by Tweed Museum of Art, Gretchen Garner (review).” The Print Collector's Newsletter 18, no. 3 (1987): 108.
  17. ^ "Gretchen Garner". Art Institute Chicago. 1939.
  18. ^ "Gretchen Garner". Mutual Art.
  19. ^ "Gretchen Garner". Mutual Art.
  20. ^ "Gretchen Garner". 1stdibs. Retrieved 2019-03-26.
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