Floating Foundation of Photography
Encyclopedia
The Floating Foundation of Photography was a New York photography exhibition space, meeting place and teaching center. It is famous as a gathering place for a generation of influential New York photographers, including W. Eugene Smith
, Arthur Tress
, Mary Ellen Mark
, Les Krims
, Judy Dater
, Lisette Model
and Lee Witkin. It was also one of the first institutions to engage in teaching photography in socially marginalized communities such as prisons, mental institutions and drug rehabilitation programs.
The Foundation was founded by photographer Maggie Sherwood in 1970 after she bought an old houseboat, painted it purple and offered it as a gallery and photo center for many of her friends. Within a few years she added a classroom and darkrooms. The houseboat was originally moored at the 79th Street Boat Basin, but in later years it traveled up and down the Hudson River
. Photography critic A. D. Coleman
described it as "moored at the literal edge of Manahattan, marginal by definition, it served a key role as the medium of photography itself moved from the periphery to the center of cultural discourse and creative activity."
The Foundation continued to be an influential center for photography in New York until two years after Sherwood's death in 1984.
In 2009 the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art at the State University of New York at New Paltz
mounted a retrospective exhibition about the Floating Foundation, its influences and the photographers who were part of what happened there. The catalog of the exhibition, Taking a Different Tack: Maggie Sherwood and the Floating Foundation of Photography ISBN13: 978-0-615-25833-1, includes many images of the photographers who met there and the houseboat itself.
W. Eugene Smith
William Eugene Smith was an American photojournalist known for his refusal to compromise professional standards and his brutally vivid World War II photographs.- Life and work :...
, Arthur Tress
Arthur Tress
Arthur Tress is a notable American photographer born on November 24, 1940 in Brooklyn, New York. He is well known for his staged surrealism and exposition of the human body.- Education :* Abraham Lincoln High School, Coney Island, New York* B.F.A...
, Mary Ellen Mark
Mary Ellen Mark
Mary Ellen Mark is an American photographer known for her photojournalism, portraiture, and advertising photography. She has had 16 collections of her work published and has been exhibited at galleries and museums worldwide. She has received numerous accolades, including three Robert F...
, Les Krims
Les Krims
Leslie Robert Krims is a conceptualist photographer living in Buffalo, New York. He is noted for his carefully arrange fabricated photographs , various candid series, a satirical edge, dark humor, and long-standing criticism of what he describes as leftist twaddle.- Life :Les Krims was born in...
, Judy Dater
Judy Dater
Judy Dater is an American photographer and feminist. She is perhaps best known for her 1974 photograph, Imogen and Twinka, featuring an elderly Imogen Cunningham, one of America's first women photographers, encountering a nymph in the woods of Yosemite. The nymph is the model Twinka Thiebaud.Dater...
, Lisette Model
Lisette Model
Lisette Model was an Austrian-born American photographer.Lisette Model was born Elise Felic Amelie Stern in Vienna, Austria...
and Lee Witkin. It was also one of the first institutions to engage in teaching photography in socially marginalized communities such as prisons, mental institutions and drug rehabilitation programs.
The Foundation was founded by photographer Maggie Sherwood in 1970 after she bought an old houseboat, painted it purple and offered it as a gallery and photo center for many of her friends. Within a few years she added a classroom and darkrooms. The houseboat was originally moored at the 79th Street Boat Basin, but in later years it traveled up and down the Hudson River
Hudson River
The Hudson is a river that flows from north to south through eastern New York. The highest official source is at Lake Tear of the Clouds, on the slopes of Mount Marcy in the Adirondack Mountains. The river itself officially begins in Henderson Lake in Newcomb, New York...
. Photography critic A. D. Coleman
A. D. Coleman
-Career and recognition:Coleman was the first photo critic for the New York Times, authoring 120 articles during his tenure. He started writing in 1967 and has contributed to the Village Voice, New York Observer and numerous magazines, artist monographs and other publications worldwide...
described it as "moored at the literal edge of Manahattan, marginal by definition, it served a key role as the medium of photography itself moved from the periphery to the center of cultural discourse and creative activity."
The Foundation continued to be an influential center for photography in New York until two years after Sherwood's death in 1984.
In 2009 the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art at the State University of New York at New Paltz
State University of New York at New Paltz
The State University of New York at New Paltz, known as SUNY New Paltz for short, is a public university in New Paltz, New York. It was founded in 1828 as the School for teaching of classics. In 1885, the New Paltz Normal and Training School was established as a school to prepare teachers for the...
mounted a retrospective exhibition about the Floating Foundation, its influences and the photographers who were part of what happened there. The catalog of the exhibition, Taking a Different Tack: Maggie Sherwood and the Floating Foundation of Photography ISBN13: 978-0-615-25833-1, includes many images of the photographers who met there and the houseboat itself.