Jerry Uelsmann


Jerry Norman Uelsmann was an American photographer.
As an emerging artist in the 1960s, Jerry Uelsmann received international recognition for surreal, enigmatic photographs made with his unique method of composite printing and his dedication to revealing the deepest emotions of the human condition. Over the next six decades, his contributions to contemporary photography were firmly established with important exhibitions, prestigious awards and numerous publications. Among his awards were a Guggenheim Fellowship, National Endowment, Royal Photographic Society Fellowship, and Lucie Award.
Uelsmann described his creative process as a journey of discovery in the darkroom. Going against the established practice of previsualization, he coined a new term, post-visualization. He decided the contents of the final print after rather than before pressing the shutter button. Uelsmann constructed his dreams like a visual poet with results that often seemed emotionally more real than the factual world. By the 1980s he became one of the most collected photographers in America. His work influenced generations of both analog and digital photographers. Although he admired digital photography, he remained completely dedicated to the alchemy of film photography in the black and white darkroom.

Early life and education

Uelsmann, a native of Detroit, Michigan, credited his parents Norman and Florence Uelsmann for encouraging his creativity. His mother saved his artworks beginning in kindergarten and continuing into college. Uelsmann's father, whose hobby was photography, built a basement darkroom to share with his two sons, Jerry and Robert.
In high school he worked as a photographer for the school newspaper and later attended Rochester Institute of Technology earning a BFA degree in 1957.
At RIT he was influenced by Minor White and Ralph Hattersley who taught craftsmanship along with the emotional and perceptual aspects of fine arts photography. Uelsmann appreciated White's mystical philosophy and devotion to Zen-like meditation even when not photographing. He was particularly affected by Minor White's belief that fine arts photographers should “strive to capture subjects for what they are and for what else they are”.
Ralph Hattersley had theories like those of Minor White especially concerning self-discovery about which he published a text. A portrait of Hattersley by Uelsmann was used for the cover of Hattersley's book, Discover Your Self Through Photography. Uelsmann recalled the demanding yet meaningful assignments given by Hattersley that caused him to see ordinary objects differently and personally. Visual and spiritual awareness were of paramount importance compared to the photographic equipment. As a student, Uelsmann used many camera formats but settled on a relatively simple medium format for most of his career.
After graduating from Rochester Institute of Technology, Uelsmann enrolled at Indiana University and met Professor Henry Holmes Smith. He described Smith as a “mind-bomb of inspirational ideas” and challenging questions that encouraged experimentation with concepts and images.
Uelsmann took extensive art history courses and was particularly fascinated by surrealists including René Magritte, Joseph Cornell, and Man Ray, all of whom worked from dreams, fantasies, and visions. Also, he admired the avant-garde techniques of Bauhaus photographers and the intuition of abstract expressionists. He claimed a debt to the 19th-century photomontage artists, Oscar Gustave Rejlander and Henry Peach Robinson. Vincent Van Gogh influenced Uelsmann, too. During a modern art history course at Indiana University, Uelsmann saw an image by Van Gogh and suddenly remembered seeing the same painting when he was twelve years old at the Detroit Institute of Arts. He had forgotten the artist's name but never forgot how the painting made him feel. Both Van Gogh and Uelsmann produced expressive self-portraits, although the ones by Uelsmann were often shown as anonymous figures suggesting everyman and named Untitled.
In 1960, Uelsmann earned two degrees from Indiana University, MS and MFA.

Early career

Uelsmann was recruited in 1960 by Van Deren Coke to teach at the University of Florida, one of the few universities offering photography as a concentration for fine arts majors. He taught at UF until his retirement in 1998.
The first twenty years of his career involved widespread success with numerous honors in education, writings, and exhibitions.
In 1962, he was one of the founders of the Society for Photographic Education which held annual meetings where educators, students and historians could share their ideas and images about photography's relationship to themselves and the world.
Uelsmann delivered his first influential paper, “The Interrelationship of Image and Technique," at the SPE initial conference. His second paper, “Post-Visualization,” was presented in 1964 at the SPE in Chicago, IL. Some details on post-visualization and his technique of composite printing can be found below in Additional Notes and in his book Process and Perception.
He had a career breakthrough in 1967 with a solo exhibition of photomontages at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. John Szarkowski was the director.
Also, in 1967 he won a Guggenheim Fellowship for “Experiments in Multiple Printing Techniques in Photography”. With the grant, he worked on various techniques of printing and experimented with subtle colors from toners such as blues and browns.
In 1968 he returned to the Museum of Modern Art to be included in “Photography as Printmaking”, directed by Peter C. Bunnell. The exhibition increased awareness of innovative contemporary photography as a worthy addition to realistic photography.
Beginning in 1968 and continuing for decades, he scheduled extensive workshops throughout the nation for demonstrations, lectures, and hands-on practice to small groups of students. The first year of workshops included Rhode Island School of Design, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of Iowa, The Art Institute of Chicago, San Francisco Museum of Art, Purdue University, Ohio University, Addison Gallery of American Art, George Eastman House, The Friends of Photography, University of St. Thomas, and Wheaton College.
In 1972, he won a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.
In 1978 Uelsmann was included in "Mirrors and Windows: American Photography since 1960" directed by John Szarkowski at the Museum of Modern Art, NY. The show reflected on two theories of contemporary photographers. One theory was about self-expression and the second one involved observations outside of oneself with an emphasis on objectivity. There were a few artists who crossed over between these two theories. The exhibition and book were influential and stimulated much discussion pro and con.
In 1981, Jerry Uelsmann was named one of the top ten most collected photographers by American Photographer magazine.

Bertram Cox Memorial Lecture, 1971

Uelsmann was inducted as a fellow by the Royal Photographic Society of Great Britain and invited to deliver the fourth Bertram Cox Memorial Lecture in early 1971. His paper was entitled, “Some Humanistic Considerations of Photography”, most of which is archived online. Using specific examples, he explained his process of post-visualization. Prior to his sessions in the darkroom, he would study hundreds of negatives using contact sheets. The final print could take hours or days to resolve, but the journey was always magical according to Uelsmann. Trial and error were essential steps.
He expressed gratitude for what photography revealed about himself and his fellow human beings. A persistent theme was about the never ending mysteries of life.
Beginning in the mid-1960s Uelsmann preferred the title, Untitled, for most of his photographs to invite various interpretations.
He described his persona as “an unapologetic romantic” who loves working in the darkroom.
Other parts of his lecture contained humor for which Uelsmann was noted. He joked about negative sandwiches and the random decision of using a leaf of lettuce saying he finally had a negative sandwich that was edible.
Another joke was about falling in a mud hole while on a shooting trip. When he got home, he finished the roll of film by taking photos of his muddy body while in the bathtub. Although he did not like the print, he sent it to John Szarkowski at the Museum of Modern Art with a letter written on the back. The surprise was that Szarkowski used the photo for a press release. Uelsmann, a gifted speaker, gave a memorable lecture combining humor with seriousness.

Mid- to late-career

During his last four decades, Uelsmann regularly exhibited while publishing over twenty-five books about his work.
A few of those achievements are summarized below.
  • In 1989 he had a fifty-print exhibition of recent work entitled “Jerry N. Uelsmann: Magic and Poetry in Photography” in Chicago, IL. One reviewer, Larry Thall, commented on Uelsmann's long-standing popularity and importance. The new work evoked his consistent themes and intriguing metaphors about birth, death and the journey in between. Larry Thall observed a heightened concern by Uelsmann regarding the environment. He mentioned photographs showing pristine nature with both congruent and incongruent aspects. For example, he referenced a photograph of the wilderness in Yosemite that, at first, looks normal. The central yet contradictory subject, an office desk on fire, is perfectly blended into the scene.
  • After retiring from the University of Florida in 1998, Uelsmann set new goals and kept a busy schedule. Although he had shown internationally since the 1970s, he increased his presence abroad in the 21st century.
  • In 2001–2002, Uelsmann participated in an extended interview with photographer, Robert J. Hirsch. The interview contains statements about the value of Uelsmann's personal expressive theory during a time of national disaster post September 11, 2001. The interview was published in Photo Vision Magazine which is not indexed. A website showing the interview was still available July 8, 2022.
  • During 2006-2007, he and Maggie Taylor, a noted digital photographer, produced several two-person exhibitions in the United States, Korea, China, and Italy.
  • In 2011-2012 he was featured in a retrospective exhibition, “The Mind’s Eye, 50 Years of Photography by Jerry Uelsmann”. The show premiered at the Harn Museum of Art in Gainesville, FL in 2011. It traveled to the Peabody Essex Museum of Art, Salem, MA and the James A. Michener Museum, Doylestown, PA.
  • In 2015, he gave a short speech at Carnegie Hall as an honoree receiving a Lucie Award for achievement in Fine Art.
  • In 2018, he had a solo exhibition in Baton Rouge, LA at the Louisiana State University Museum of Art. The show's title, "Confluence", referred to the flowing nature of Uelsmann's conversations with the scholar, Moa Petersén, especially in reference to love and loss. This dialogue inspired new work. In a lecture for the show's opening, Uelsmann talked about the emotional highs and lows evident in his photography as metaphors for life.
  • He recalled one of the highs being his friendship with Ansel Adams citing a letter Uelsmann had recently rediscovered. Adams, an early and steadfast supporter of Uelsmann, was his senior by 32 years. In the letter, Adams referred to Uelsmann as the “eighth wonder of the world”.
  • Adams wrote that on the eighth day of the creation, Jerry Uelsmann was invented because “things needed moving around”.
  • He recalled a whimsical photograph taken in 1969 showing Ansel Adams and one of his Group f/64 partners, Imogen Cunningham, anointing Uelsmann as an honorary West Coast photographer. A print of the scene, photographed by Ted Orland in Point Lobos, CA, is owned by Boston's Museum of Fine Arts.
  • In 2020 Uelsmann gave what may have been his last interview. It was recorded from his darkroom via Zoom video conferencing software and was hosted by Russell Brown, an associate of Adobe Corporation.