Takers | Makers: Photographic Practice in California, 1945 – 1980

Takers | Makers: Photographic Practice in California, 1945–1980 explores the development of two schools of photography in postwar California. Amid the founding of graduate photography programs across the state, a spirited rivalry formed between photographic communities in San Francisco and Los Angeles. Split into "takers" and "makers," these two camps fiercely debated the merits of pure versus manipulated photographs. In San Francisco, photographers championed the camera's technical capabilities and preferred to shoot in natural light, develop their own film, and print with gelatin silver paper. By contrast, Los Angeles artists shared an interest in alternate print processes, manipulating photographs with techniques borrowed from printmaking and sculpture. Divided along geographic and ideological lines, this friendly competition defined the evolution of photographic practice in postwar California. In 1945, Ansel Adams founded the photography department at the California School of Fine Arts (CSFA) in San Francisco—the first of its kind in the nation. Directed by Minor White and featuring such instructors as photographers Dorothea Lange, Edward Weston and Imogen Cunningham, the CSFA program promoted a purist style characterized by sharp details, deep focus and high-contrast black-and-white prints. In the 1960s, Jack Welpott founded a separate photography department at San Francisco State College, bringing together a new generation who embraced yet challenged the aesthetic traditions of their mentors. At the same time, a divergent approach to photographic practice was developing in Los Angeles. In 1964, Robert Heinecken founded UCLA's photography department, bringing a new center for photographic education to the region. Calling himself a "photographist," Heinecken rarely operated a camera and instead appropriated images from popular culture, magazines and advertisements. He built a network of like-minded artists across the city—including Darryl Curran, Robert Fichter, Todd Walker and Jerry McMillan—who pushed far beyond the standard definition of photography. Eschewing the gelatin silver print, these artists manipulated the photographic image through techniques like cyanography, screen printing, photolithography, painting, sculpture and collage. Featuring more than 70 works from the Norton Simon Museum's collection, Takers | Makers explores a rivalry that shaped the landscape of photographic practice in California for decades.