The Pictorial Artistry of Adolf Fassbender. - book reviews

PSA Journal, Dec, 1995 by DeWitt Bishop

Essay by Christian A. Peterson, Minneapolis Institute of Arts. Fassbender Foundation, Nutley, New Jersey, 1994. Book size, 9 by 12 inches, 110 pages, 32 plates, toned monochrome photographs. 49.50.

This book offers a biography of Adolf Fassbender; illustrated with reproductions of his pictorial images. These are generally based upon subjects of everyday life in his German homeland, and others from places in America after his immigration to the United States in 1911.

The information is useful to anyone interested, either as an avocation or a profession, in the history of pictorial images, and the techniques of enhancing the documentary record in a negative into pictorial artistry to command wide audience appeal.

When photographic salons emphasized a major role in this medium in the United States and abroad, 1920s to mid-1950s, Fassbender's photographs received wide acceptance. In 1932-33, thirty-one salons displayed eighty of his works.

Adolf Fassbender was one of the founding members of PSA in 1934. He was elected an Honorary Fellow in 1948, awarded the Society's Progress Medal in 1966; and, received many honors from overseas societies. A chronology in the book documents a significant resume that includes a seventy-year span of photography, beginning with apprenticeship in 1897. His death in 1980 is commemorated by induction into the International Photographic Hall of Fame.

The reproductions, each on a presentation page, were printed overseas. They are printed in ink tones to match the original photographs--in rich brown to wan-n sepia. A couple of them seem overly strong in orange-tan when viewed by tungsten light instead of fluorescent light. A paragraph from Fassbender's notes is appended for most of the prints.

DeWitt Bishop, Hon. FPSA

Past President 1971-75