Todd Webb

Webb was born in Detroit, United States, in 1905 and grew up there and in a Quaker community in Ontario. During the Depression beginning in 1929, he moved to California and worked as a prospector and earned a meager living. During these years he also worked as a fire ranger for the United States Forestry Service. Webb reportedly wrote short stories which were unpublished. After 1934, Webb returned to Detroit and worked for the automobile manufacturer Chrysler in their export division. In 1937, he visited a friend in Panama in search of gold, but had little success. But in Panama, he brought along a camera donated by his former employer, Chrysler. ==Career==

Early career Webb returned to Detroit and studied at the Detroit Camera Club. He met photographer Harry Callahan. In 1940, he completed a ten‑day workshop with Ansel Adams as his teacher. What set these photos apart was their "straightforward, descriptive clarity" even though they were often of familiar views. showed a section of Sixth Avenue from 43rd–44th streets which, in 1991, was seen as a "visual time capsule of the city" and was described as a "stunner." Webb's photos reflected the photographer's sense of discovery and captured the times, such as photos of hand-painted banners over apartment house doors saying "Welcome Home, G.I.s". The best photographs, according to New York Times art critic Charles Hagen, contained the "simple geometries of urban architecture" in a "simple elegance"; Hagen thought Webb's New York City photographs were his best. According to the New York Times, the team of professional photographers was "given amazingly free rein by its corporate sponsor" to produce a documentary about oil. Curator Edward Steichen selected it for the 1955 Museum of Modern Art exhibition The Family of Man, seen by 9 million visitors on its world tour. However, in his memoir, Webb records his disappointment with the way images were "over-enlarged to billboard size" losing "all the qualities that make photographs unique." Webb traveled to Paris, France, in 1949 and married fellow American Lucille Minqueau. While O'Keeffe was known to have a "prickly personality", Webb's photographs portray her with a kind of "quietness and calm" suggesting a relaxed friendship, and revealing new contours of O'Keeffe's character. Webb's landscape photographs as well as photos of the artist walking among the sagebrush bring O'Keeffe to life "even in pictures where she doesn't appear", according to Chicago Tribune art critic Abigail Foerstner. His photos suggest an "ageless spirit" which was "weathered and indomitable" like desert rock formations. These photos were done using matte finish paper and appear in a book entitled ''Georgia O'Keeffe: The Artist's Landscape''. In 2017, the Todd Webb Archive refurbished its website with biographical data, collection information, and a column regarding news events. In April 2017, an exhibition titled "A City Seen" opened at the Museum of the City of New York. Curated by Sean Corcoran, the exhibit was a comprehensive survey of Webb's work in New York during the 1940s. The book ''I See a City: Todd Webb's New York'' (Thames & Hudson, 2017) was published in conjunction with the exhibition. Webb's estate is managed by Betsy Evans Hunt who serves as the Executive Director of the Todd Webb Archive. ==Awards==

Webb was awarded the following: • Guggenheim Fellowship, 1955 & 1956 • National Endowment for the Arts Grant, 1978 ==Publications==

The following publications relate to Todd Webb: • Gold Strikes and Ghost Towns, Doubleday Press, 1961 • The Gold Rush Trails and The Road To Oregon, Doubleday Press, 1963 • Nineteenth Century Texas Homes, University of Texas Press, 1966 • Todd Webb/Photographs, The Amon Carter Museum • ''Georgia O'Keeffe, The Artist's Landscape'', Twelve Trees Press, 1984 • Todd Webb: Photographs of New York and Paris, Hallmark Cards, 1996 • Looking Back; Memoirs and Photographs, University of New Mexico, 1991 • Todd Webb: New York, 1946, 21st Editions, 2015 • ''I See a City: Todd Webb's New York'', Thames & Hudson, 2017 • Todd Webb in Africa, Outside the Frame, Thames & Hudson, 2021 ==Collections==

Webb's work is in the following collections: • Addison Gallery of American Art, Andover, Massachusetts • Akron Art Museum, Akron, Ohio • Allentown Art Museum, Allentown, Pennsylvania • The American Embassy, Paris, France • Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas • Biblioteque Nationale, Paris, France • Bowdoin College Museum of Art, Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Maine • Boston Athenaeum, Boston, Massachusetts • Carnegie Museum, University of Maine at Orono, Orono, Maine • Center for Creative Photography, Tucson, Arizona • Chicago Art Institute, Chicago, Illinois • Colby College Art Museum, Waterville, Maine • Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas • The David Winton Bell Gallery at Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island • Denver Art Museum, Denver, Colorado • George Eastman House, Rochester, New York • Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, Santa Fe, New Mexico • The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, California • Graham Nash Collection, Los Angeles, California • Henry Art Gallery, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington • Historic New Orleans Collection & Archives of American Art, New Orleans, Louisiana • Institute of Art, Detroit, Michigan • The International Center of Photography, New York City • Judy and Leonard Lauder Collection, New York City • Lehigh University Art Gallery, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania • Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, California • Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City • Middlebury College Museum of Art, Middlebury, Vermont • Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts • Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas • Museum of Fine Arts, Minneapolis, Minnesota • Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, Japan • Museum of Modern Art (MOMA), New York City • Museum of the City of New York, New York City • The Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University • The National Portrait Gallery, Washington, DC • The National Museum, Tokyo, Japan • The National Museum of Mexican Art, Chicago, Illinois • The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri • New Mexico Museum of Fine Arts, Santa Fe, New Mexico • New York Public Library, New York • Northwestern University, Chicago, Illinois • The Painting Gallery, Munich, Germany • Pomona College Museum of Art, Claremont, California • Portland Museum of Art, Portland, Maine • Rice University, Houston, Texas • Rochester Institute of Art, Rochester, New York • Royal Photographic Society, London, England • San Antonio Museum of Art, San Antonio, Texas • San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, California • Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Barbara, California • Smith College Art Museum, Northampton, Massachusetts • The Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC • University of New Mexico Art Museum, Albuquerque, New Mexico • Worcester Museum of Art, Worcester, Massachusetts ==References==