Tate Modern Redefines Pictorialism, Expands Global View

(MENAFN- USA Art News) A new exhibition at Tate Modern,“Light and Magic: The Birth of Art Photography,” aims to challenge conventional understandings of Pictorialism, the early 20th-century photographic movement. Senior Curator of International Art Photography, Charmaine Toh, described the show as the institution's“first ever revisionist photography exhibition,” departing from past thematic or movement-focused presentations.

Toh, who was appointed to the Tate in 2024 and wrote her PhD thesis on Singapore's Pictorialist movement, seeks to broaden the narrative beyond its traditional association with soft-focus Edwardian imagery. She noted that Pictorialism has often been viewed as“very old fashioned and a narrow kind of practice,” supposedly ending in the 1920s or 1930s and limited to Europe and North America. However, the exhibition will highlight artists globally who continued to identify as Pictorialists into the 1950s and 1960s.

The curator defines Pictorialism as“fundamentally, a desire for photography to be accepted as fine art.” Early proponents, including Alfred Stieglitz, Clarence Hudson White, and Henry Peach Robinson, manipulated visual elements in their late 19th and early 20th-century work to counter the idea of photography as purely objective. The exhibition draws parallels between French Pictorialist Robert Demachy's studies and Edgar Degas's ballet paintings, and Chinese photographer Luo Bonian's images and traditional ink drawings. Toh also explores Pictorialism's interest in dance, particularly kinetic figure studies, as a way to challenge static documentary observation.

Toh emphasized the movement's global reach and the significance of international networks.“The contribution of Pictorialism was the networks that were set up,” she stated, citing organizations such as the Linked Ring in London, the Photo-Club de Paris, Photo-Secession, and the Vienna Camera Club. These clubs provided platforms for hundreds of photographers through international exhibitions, even reaching artists like Soviet Constructivist Aleksandr Rodchenko, who submitted work via the Moscow-based All-Union Society for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries. Toh noted that these international exhibitions were a source of pride in places like Singapore, Brazil, and Australia, where local photographers judged works sent from Britain.

Ultimately, Toh aims to re-establish Pictorialism as a vital 20th-century artistic movement, not overshadowed by Modernism. She explained that Modernism often defined itself in opposition to Pictorialism, characterizing itself as“clear, sharp, about being in the city, about modernity,” while casting Pictorialism as“non-Modern.”

“Light and Magic: The Birth of Art Photography” will remain on view at Tate Modern until February 21, 2027.

Source: The Art Newspaper

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