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Exhibition

Garry Winogrand

March 9, 2013–January 25, 2015

Widely acknowledged as one of the most important photographers of the 20th century, Garry Winogrand (1928-1984) captured moments of everyday American life in the postwar era, producing an expansive picture of a nation rich with possibility yet threatening to spin out of control. He did much of his best-known work in New York in the 1960s, becoming a major voice of that tumultuous decade. But he also roamed widely around the United States, from California and Texas to Miami and Chicago. He photographed the rich and powerful and everyday strangers on the street; antiwar protesters and politicians; airports and zoos. In many of these pictures, humor and visual energy are the flip sides of an anxious instability. As photographer and guest curator Leo Rubinfien says, “The hope and buoyancy of middle-class life in postwar America is half of the emotional heart of Winogrand’s work. The other half is a sense of undoing.”

When he died suddenly at age 56, Winogrand left behind thousands of rolls of exposed but undeveloped film and unedited contact sheets — some 250,000 frames in total. Nearly 100 of these pictures have been printed for the first time for this long-awaited retrospective of his work. By presenting such archival discoveries alongside celebrated pictures, Garry Winogrand reframes a career that was, like the artist’s America, both epic and unresolved. This exhibition has been jointly organized by SFMOMA and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, and will travel to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, Jeu de Paume in Paris, and Fundación MAPFRE in Madrid.

Garry Winogrand is organized by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the National Gallery of Art, Washington. The international tour of this exhibition is sponsored by the Terra Foundation for American Art.

Leadership support is provided by Randi and Bob Fisher. Major support is provided by the Henry Luce Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and The Bernard Osher Foundation.

Generous support is provided by Linda and Jon Gruber, Nion T. McEvoy, and an anonymous donor. Additional support is provided by The Black Dog Private Foundation, the George Frederick Jewett Foundation, The Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation, Christopher and Michele Meany, Kate and Wes Mitchell, Andy and Mary Pilara, and Susan Steinhauser, Daniel Greenberg, and the Greenberg Foundation.

Terra Foundation for American Art Henry Luce Foundation Bernard Osher Foundation