Aaron Siskind (1903 - 1991)

Aaron Siskind was born in 1903 in New York City to immigrant parents. He went to City College intending to become a poet and found himself an English teacher in the New York public school system. Immersed in his twin passion of music and poetry, he did not begin to photograph until 1930 when he was given his first camera. Mostly self-taught as a photographer, his earliest works documenting life in Harlem were made while he was a member of the Photo League in the 1930s.

As Siskind became involved in deep friendships and intellectual discussions with the artists who became the Abstract Expressionists, his documentary style evolved into a more abstract and metaphorical image making. He began teaching photography in 1950 in Chicago, continuing in Providence at RISD from 1971 until 1976 when he retired, finally traveling and making making photographs for another 15 years. Siskind was drawn to shape, texture and scale: his subject matter included rock walls in Martha’s Vineyard, peeling paint and paper on surfaces, reconstructed graffiti, building facades, divers floating/falling against the sky, tar patches on the highway – all was transformed.