Richard Gordon Figurative Photography

Richard Gordon was born in Chicago in 1945. He studied Political Science at the University of Chicago and did not begin photographing until he worked at a photography studio in 1965. Early in Gordon’s career, Robert Frank critiqued his work and stated that he “loved photography too much.” Gordon frequently makes photographic references in his work and pays homage to the photographers who influenced him: Eugène Atget, Walker Evans, Robert Frank and Helen Levitt. Bookmaking has been an important element of Gordon’s photography from the beginning; he created his own press, Chimaera Press, and published Meta Photographs (Chimaera Press, 1978), One More for the Road: The Autobiography of a Friendship 1966-1996 (Flâneur Bookworks, 1996), American Surveillance: Someone to Watch Over Me (Chimaera Press, 2009), and Notes from the Field (Chimaera Press, 2012), as well as handmade and limited edition books. Richard Gordon’s photographs are represented in many institutional collections including: Art Institute of Chicago; Bibliothéque National, Paris; Centre Nationale de la Photographie, Paris; Corcoran Gallery of Art; J. P. Getty Museum (Wagstaff Collection); Library of Congress; Museum Ludwig, Cologne, Germany; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; New York Public Library; Oakland Museum of Art; San Francisco Museum of Art; Santa Barbara Museum of Art; Stanford Museum of Art; and University of Colorado, Boulder. From the David C. and Sarajean Ruttenberg Collection The Ruttenbergs are longtime art lovers who have collected abstract expressionist paintings, African art, sculpture, graphics, old watches and photographs-lots and lots of photographs. They started collecting them in the 1960s when the medium was still the stepchild of the arts. They kept collecting until they had more than 3,000 prints, 99 of which are in the Art Institute exhibit, ``The Intuitive Eye: Photographs from the Collection of David C. and Sarajean Ruttenberg.`` The show encompasses the entire history of photography with black-and-white and color prints from every genre, It includes street photography by Walker Evans and Garry Winogrand, glamour shots by Edward Steichen and Richard Avedon, nudes by Robert Mapplethorpe and Nicholas Muray...