Nancy Rexroth

Nancy Rexroth (born 1946) is an American photographer noted for her pioneer work utilizing the Diana camera.[1] In 1977, she published IOWA – the first printed monograph of work completed with a plastic camera.[1] Rexroth is represented by the Weinstein Gallery in Minneapolis, Minnesota.[2]

Early life and education

Rexroth was born in Washington D.C.[1] While completing her BFA in English at American University, she developed an interest in photojournalism[1] and was influenced by the work of Emmet Gowin, Robert Frank, Garry Winogrand, and Henri Cartier-Bresson.[3] She then went on to receive her MFA in Photography at Ohio University (1969-1971). In 1969, during her graduate studies, Ohio University professor, Arnold Gassan, introduced Rexroth to the Diana camera.[4] The Diana first appeared in the early 1960s and was originally produced by The Great Wall Plastics Company, Hong Kong.[4] This toy camera used 120mm film and became known for the soft focus and impressionistic, ‘dreamlike’ images it produced as a result of its plastic lens.[5] Although some photographers saw the effects of the Diana camera as hindrances, Rexroth embraced and explored its defects.[6] As a reaction to the digital age, Diana and Holga cameras are currently gaining popularity.[4] Rexroth comments, “The plastic cameras will always be discovered by photographers who are in need of poetry in their lives.”[4]

After completing her MFA, Rexroth moved back to the Washington, D.C. area. While there she participated in a summer internship at the Smithsonian Institution researching the platinotype process.[7] As a result of this internship came Rexroth's second publication, "The Platinotype 1977," a pamphlet on modern platinum printing.[8] In 1973, she moved back to Ohio to teach at Antioch College and Wright State University and to work on a photographic series that became the book IOWA,[9] funded by a National Endowment Grant.[10]

Notable work


Rexroth's most notable work, IOWA, features a series of dream-like and poetic images.[4] Each seemingly candid and liquid composition includes a soft focus and vignette, characteristic qualities of Diana camera images.[4] In The Snapshot, author Jonathan Green writes, “The Diana images are often like something you might faintly see in the background of a photograph. Strange fuzzy leaves, masses and forms, simplified doorways. Sometimes I feel as though I could step over the edge of the frame and walk backwards into this unknown region. Then I would keep right on walking.”[11] Speaking to the appearance of Rexroth’s work, Mary Abbe of the Minneapolis Tribune Paper states, "The show's most striking image, "A Woman's Bed" Logon Ohio 1970, is also one of its simplest. "A Woman's Bed" is a shadowy picture of a dark headboard half-buried by a drift of stark, white, primordially pure bedding. The headboard's design and the way the bed edges into a corner suggests the narrow confines of the lives it sheltered […] a mysterious womb of light wrapped in darkness."[12]

The IOWA series subconsciously expresses Rexroth's childhood memories of visiting family in Iowa, Ohio.[4] Growing up in the suburbs of Arlington, Virginia, she was captivated by the exotic summer landscapes of Iowa.[3] Although the influence of her memories is present, Rexroth refers to Iowa as a hallucinatory state of mind rather than a concrete geographic location of personal sentiment.[4] She describes IOWA as "conceived of as a kind of psychic journey from one emotional mood to the next-- a maturation process. It all happens in a place which is very exotic."[9] In the introduction to the book, Mark Power describes this work as "Sunny Iowa was transformed by memory into a dark Iowa with 'a real feeling of melancholy.' It became Iowa of 'atmospheres' and the Diana became a key-- with it, Rexroth unlocks Iowa from wherever she happens to be."[9] IOWA ends with a completely blank image, to conclude the dream and awake the viewer to reality.[9]

IOWA will be republished by the University of Texas Press in 2017 with the original introduction written by Mark Power as well as new introductions written by Alec Soth and Anne Wilkes Tucker.[13]

Solo exhibitions

Collections

Publications

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Bates, Michelle (2011). Plastic Cameras: Toying with Creativity. Burlington, MA: Focal Press. pp. 16–18. ISBN 978-0240814216.
  2. ↑ Hammons, Leslie. "Nancy Rexroth". Weinstein Gallery.
  3. 1 2 Joslin, Russell (September 1999). "From the Gut". Shots: On the True Art of Photography.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Andrews, Blake (February 17, 2011). "Q&A with Nancy Rexroth". Rumblings from the Photographic Hinterlands. Retrieved March 5, 2016.
  5. ↑ Moyer, Gary C. (May 20, 2011). "A History of Toy Cameras". Light Sensitive. Retrieved March 5, 2016.
  6. 1 2 Mann, Robert (December 31, 2004). "Art in Review: Nancy Rexroth". New York Times.
  7. 1 2 3 Rexroth, Nancy (1982). Contemporary Photographers. New York, NY: St. Martin's Press. pp. 625–6. ISBN 978-1558621909.
  8. 1 2 Rexroth, Nancy (1977). The Platinotype. Formulary Press.
  9. 1 2 3 4 5 Rexroth, Nancy (1977). Iowa. Boston, MA: Violet Press.
  10. ↑ Belief, Halla (1985). Camera Culture. Oxford: Blackwell. ISBN 978-0631139898.
  11. ↑ Green, Jonathan (1974). The Snapshot. New York: Aperture. ISBN 0912334673.
  12. ↑ Abbe, Mary. "Minneapolis Tribune Paper".
  13. ↑ "Forthcoming". Photography Catalog. University of Texas Press. 2015.
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