WILLIAM MORTENSEN AT 125 - A MULTI-VENUE CELEBRATION OF THE 125TH BIRTHDAY OF AMERICA'S GREATEST VISIONARY PHOTOGRAPHIC ARTIST.

A TRIBUTE TO WILLIAM MORTENSEN ON THE OCCASION OF HIS 125TH BIRTHDAY JANUARY 27 2022

click on images to enlarge

PARTICIPATING VENUES:

● The Buckland Museum of Witchcraft and Magick in Cleveland has mounted an exhibition of original works curated by museum director Steven Intermill. This is the second exhibition of Mortensen's works the museum has undertaken.

January 29 through April 15 2022.

 

● The Gallery of Everything in London is presenting the series "A Pictorial Compendium of Witchcraft and Demonology"and other master works in the exhibition "DARK MATTERS The Art of William Mortensen". The Museum of Everything has custodianship of one of the most in depth collections of the works of William Mortensen.

January 27 to February 27 2022

● The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston is highlighting their recent acquisition of the William Mortensen handmade book "The King of Kings" which was commissioned by director Cecil B. DeMille.

The King of Kings, January 19, 2022 By Malcolm Daniel, the Gus and Lyndall Wortham Curator of Photography.

● The Laguna Art Museum included William Mortensen in the museum's current exhibition "Sky Space Time Change" through April 25th 2022.

Heritage Museum of Orange County, 2 simultaneous exhibitions of works from the collection of Stephen Romano Gallery.

January 29 - March 10 2022

William Mortensen (January 27, 1897 – August 12, 1965) was an American photographic artist, who first gained acclaim for his Hollywood portraits in the 1920s in the Pictorialist style and later for viscerally manipulated photography, often touching on themes of the occult.

"Thoughts and emotions cannot be photographed, despite the protestations of some mystically minded portraitists. Physical fact is ultimately the sole pictorial material." -William Mortensen

William Mortensen was born in 1897 in Park City, Utah. His family moved to Salt Lake City when he was 11 years old. He was interested in painting and was trained by his high school teacher, and possibly took lessons before that. He was inducted into the army in 1916 and discharged in 1918. Upon his release from the army, Mortensen spent 1919 and at least part of 1920 in New York City, attending the Arts Students League while there. He traveled to Greece in 1920 and returned the same year. Traveling back to Utah, he took a job teaching art at his alma mater in Salt Lake City. By the end of the school year he left his job at East Side High School, and in 1921 traveled by train escorting a young Fay Wray to Hollywood.

"Nature is an unpleasing, stupid, lumpy, blowsy wench." - William Mortensen

Mortensen evidently knew someone in Los Angeles who put him in contact with film director King Vidor. He worked in the burgeoning film industry alternately painting scenery, making masks, and engaging in various film art-related services. Simultaneously he began work at Western Costume Company photographing silent film stars in costume.

In 1924 he married Courtney Crawford, a librarian, and moved into her home on Hollywood Boulevard, where he maintained a studio from 1925-1931. Also, during this time, he began to enter and show in photographic salons both here and abroad. His work was published in various journals and newspapers, including Photograms of the Year, American Annual of Photography, Vanity Fair, and the Los Angeles Times.

"Emotion may be expressed, or the utter lack of it may be expressed, but the only important fact is that of expression." - William Mortensen

Mortensen moved to Laguna Beach in 1931 and opened a studio on the Pacific Coast Highway. His school, the Mortensen School of Photography, officially opened in 1931 and always occupied the same address as his studio. Over the years, the school enrolled thousands of students from all over the world.

In 1933 Mortensen married Myrdith Monaghan and met George Dunham who became a friend and model. More importantly, 1933 is also the year when he began his long writing collaboration with Dunham, which didn't end until 1960 with an incomplete manuscript titled Composition. The 32-year collaboration yielded 9 books in multiple editions and printings, 4 pamphlets, and over 100 articles in magazines and newspapers. Both Myrdith and Dunham proved to be his most significant models, helping him to produce his most important body of work. The school remained open until a short time after his death from leukemia in 1965.

"If tone is granted to be subjected to control, why not line also, which has equal emotional significance? And if line, why not shapes and forms? And if shapes and forms, why not allow elision or emphasis of detail? And if all these things are allowed, what becomes of the record of actuality ?... Sunk without a trace!" - William Mortensen

For further information contact Stephen Romano at romanostephen@gmail.com

resources:

William Mortensen "Ho Ho Off To Sabbath" 1928 in the exhibtion "The Language of Birds" curated by Pam Grossman 2016

Stephen Romano Gallery preparing to present "William Mortensen and the Make Believe Lady" at Greenwood Cemetery's Nightfall event 2019