Jerry Uelsmann

He passed away on April 4, 2022 at the age 87 In Gainesville, FL.

The collections of several major museums contain work by Jerry Uelsmann. Some of those museums are listed below with the number of works owned in 2022.

Uelsmann enjoyed sharing his experiences and seeing the photographs of young artists. His lecture at the Michener Museum in PA (2012) is one example that is available online.The students were impressed with his work ethic.  They admired his extroverted personality, wit and patience which defined his career and was well summarized by several writers.

The digital age inadvertently created a new audience for Uelsmann.  In the 1990s when Photoshop emerged with its seemingly endless image-altering possibilities, surrealism was revived.  In the 21st century, a young generation of photographers became fascinated with Uelsmann's work.

In 1981, Jerry Uelsmann was named one of the top ten most collected photographers by American Photographer magazine.

Uelsmann described his creative process as a journey of discovery in the darkroom (visual research laboratory). Going against the established practice of previsualization (Ansel Adams, Edward Weston and others), he coined a new term, post-visualization. He decided the contents of the final print after rather than before pressing the shutter button. Uelsmann constructed his dreams like a visual poet with results that often seemed emotionally more real than the factual world. By the1980s he became one of the most collected photographers in America. His work influenced generations of both analog and digital photographers. Although he admired digital photography, he remained completely dedicated to the alchemy of film photography in the black and white darkroom.

During his last four decades (1980 to 2022), Uelsmann regularly exhibited while publishing over twenty-five books about his work.

In 1978 Uelsmann was included in "Mirrors and Windows: American Photography since 1960" directed by John Szarkowski at the Museum of Modern Art, NY. The show reflected on two theories of contemporary photographers. One theory was about self-expression (mirror of oneself) and the second one involved observations outside of oneself with an emphasis on objectivity. There were a few artists who crossed over between these two theories. The exhibition and book were influential and stimulated much discussion pro and con.

In 1972, he won a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Uelsmann was inducted (1970) as a fellow by the Royal Photographic Society of Great Britain (London) and invited to deliver the fourth Bertram Cox Memorial Lecture in early 1971. His paper was entitled, “Some Humanistic Considerations of Photography”, most of which is archived online. Using specific examples, he explained his process of post-visualization (trying different combinations of negatives). Prior to his sessions in the darkroom, he would study hundreds of negatives using contact sheets (proof sheets). The final print could take hours or days to resolve, but the journey was always magical according to Uelsmann. Trial and error were essential steps.

In 1968 he returned to the Museum of Modern Art to be included in “Photography as Printmaking”, directed by Peter C. Bunnelll. The exhibition increased awareness of innovative contemporary photography as a worthy addition to realistic photography.

Beginning in 1968 and continuing for decades, he scheduled extensive workshops throughout the nation for demonstrations, lectures, and hands-on practice to small groups of students.  The first year of workshops included Rhode Island School of Design, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of Iowa, The Art Institute of Chicago, San Francisco Museum of Art, Purdue University, Ohio University, Addison Gallery of American Art, George Eastman House, The Friends of Photography (Carmel, CA), University of St. Thomas, and Wheaton College.

He had a career breakthrough in 1967 with a solo exhibition of photomontages at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. John Swarkowski was the director.

Also, in 1967 he won a Guggenheim Fellowship for “Experiments in Multiple Printing Techniques in Photography”. With the grant, he worked on various techniques of printing and experimented with subtle colors from toners such as blues and browns.

In 1962, he was one of the founders of the Society of Photographic Education (SPE) which held annual meetings where educators, students and historians could share their ideas and images about photography's relationship to themselves and the world.

Uelsmann delivered his first influential paper, “The Interrelationship of Image and Technique," at the SPE initial conference (1962 in Rochester, NY). His second paper, “Post-Visualization,” was presented in 1964 at the SPE in Chicago, IL. Some details on post-visualization and his technique of composite printing can be found below in Additional Notes and in his book Process and Perception.

As an emerging artist in the 1960s, Jerry Uelsmann received international recognition for surreal, enigmatic photographs (photomontages) made with his unique method of composite printing and his dedication to revealing the deepest emotions of the human condition. Over the next six decades, his contributions to contemporary photography were firmly established with important exhibitions, prestigious awards and numerous publications. Among his awards were a Guggenheim Fellowship, National Endowment, Royal Photographic Society Fellowship, and Lucie Award.

In 1960, Uelsmann earned two degrees from Indiana University, MS (audio-visual studies) and MFA (fine arts photography).

Uelsmann was recruited in 1960 by Van Deren Coke to teach at the University of Florida (Gainesville), one of the few universities offering photography as a concentration for fine arts majors. He taught at UF until his retirement in 1998.

The first twenty years of his career (1960-1980) involved widespread success with numerous honors in education, writings, and exhibitions.

Beginning in the mid-1960s Uelsmann preferred the title, Untitled, for most of his photographs to invite various interpretations.

In high school he worked as a photographer for the school newspaper and later attended Rochester Institute of Technology earning a BFA degree in 1957.

Uelsmann, in an interview, talked about a cultural shift away from the poetic expressiveness of the counterculture and beat generation of the 1950s and 1960s that became obvious. For example, in photography he had witnessed a decline in surrealistic photographers being shown in  major museums in the late 1970s and 1980s.  However, he remained undaunted and devoted to his philosophy of being personal and finding truth within oneself.

Jerry Norman Uelsmann (June 11, 1934 – April 4, 2022) was an American photographer.

Uelsmann, a native of Detroit, Michigan, credited his parents Norman (a grocer,1904-1962) and Florence (Crossman) Uelsmann (a homemaker, 1903–1986) for encouraging his creativity. His mother saved his artworks beginning in kindergarten and continuing into college. Uelsmann's father, whose hobby was photography, built a basement darkroom (circa 1948) to share with his two sons, Jerry and Robert.

Uelsmann took extensive art history courses and was particularly fascinated by surrealists including René Magritte, Joseph Cornell, and Man Ray, all of whom worked from dreams, fantasies, and visions. Also, he admired  the avant-garde techniques of Bauhaus photographers and the intuition of abstract expressionists. He claimed a debt to the earliest photomontage artists (1850's), Oscar Rejlander and Henry Robinson.  Vincent Van Gogh held specific influence for Uelsmann.  During a modern art history course at Indiana University, Uelsmann saw an image by Van Gogh and suddenly remembered seeing the same painting (a self-portrait) when he was twelve years old at the Detroit Institute of Arts.  He had forgotten the artist's name but never forgot how the painting made him feel.  Both Van Gogh and Uelsmann produced expressive self-portraits, although the ones by Uelsmann were often shown as anonymous figures suggesting everyman and named Untitled.