{{Short description|American photographer, teacher, and activist}} {{Essay-like|date=December 2019}} {{Infobox person | name = Sid Grossman | image = | alt = | caption = | birth_name = | birth_date = {{Birth date|mf=yes|1913|06|25}} | birth_place = New York City, New York, U.S.A | death_date = {{Death date and age|mf=yes|1955|12|31|1913|06|25}} | death_place = New York City, New York | nationality = | other_names = | occupation = photographer, teacher, and social activist | known_for = Founding the Photo League | spouse = Marion Hille and Miriam Grossman | education = City College of New York }}
'''Sid Grossman''' (June 25, 1913 in Manhattan – December 31, 1955 in Provincetown) was an American photographer, teacher, and social activist.
==Life== Sid Grossman was the younger son of Morris and Ethel Grossman. He attended the City College of New York and worked on a WPA street crew.<ref name="Lampell, Millard">Grossman, Sid and Lampell, Millard. Journey to the Cape</ref> In 1934, he started what would become the Photo League with co-founder Sol Libsohn.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.nga.gov/cgi-bin/tbio?person=568047|archive-url=https://archive.today/20120805135910/http://www.nga.gov/cgi-bin/tbio?person=568047|url-status=dead|archive-date=2012-08-05|title=Sid Grossman (National Gallery of Art)}}</ref> Grossman played numerous roles throughout the Photo League's existence (1936–1951) including educator, administrator, reviewer, editor of ''Photo Notes'' and founder of ''Chelsea Document (1938-1940),'' an indictment of obsolete buildings and substandard living conditions in a New York neighborhood.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.thejewishmuseum.org/onlinecollection/collection_results.php?artistlist=1&aid=6014|title=Sid Grossman Bio at The Jewish Museum|url-status=dead|archiveurl=https://archive.today/20120917102258/http://www.thejewishmuseum.org/onlinecollection/collection_results.php?artistlist=1&aid=6014|archivedate=2012-09-17}}</ref> He enlisted on March 6, 1943, and served in the Sixth Army in Panama during World War II. Grossman's 1940 photographs of labor union activity led to FBI investigations and the blacklisting of the Photo League as a communist front in 1947. In 1949, he opened a photography school in Provincetown, Massachusetts, although he continued to live and teach in NYC part of every year. Grossman was married twice: to Marion Hille and then to Miriam Grossman.
Grossman died from a heart attack in 1955.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/23/redeeming-a-life-in-photography/|title=Redeeming a Life in Photography|first=David|last=Gonzalez|date=March 23, 2012|website=Lens Blog}}</ref> His book, ''Journey to the Cape'', coauthored with Millard Lampell, was published posthumously, in 1959.
== Politics and aesthetics == Even though the actual date of his joining the Communist Party is not known, his membership in it was never in doubt.<ref>Tucker, Anne Wilkes. “A Rashomon Reading” Klein and Evans The Radical Camera p. 81</ref> In 1936, his nickname at the Photo League was “Commissar” for his dogmatic opposition to the aestheticism of some of the members.<ref>Klein, Mason. “Of Politics and Poetry: The Dilemma of the Photo League" p. 17</ref> Prior to his enlistment in the Armed Forces, he was investigated by the FBI, U.S. Army Intelligence, and the NYC Police Department for his political affiliations.<ref>Tucker, Anne Wilkes. “A Rashomon Reading” Klein and Evans The Radical Camera p. 80</ref>
However, by 1946 and his discharge from the armed forces, Grossman was ready to break from Stalinism and the Communist Party. As Mason Klein observed, “Grossman's major formal breakthrough occurred when he was in the air force, stationed in Panama...”<ref>Klein, Mason. “Of Politics and Poetry: The Dilemma of the Photo League" p. 23</ref> There he was away from the Party and the day-to-day affairs of The Photo League, and he used the opportunity “to experiment and move on.” He “began to challenge the honest and straight documentary approach that he had long espoused.”<ref name=Klein,24>Klein, Mason. “Of Politics and Poetry: The Dilemma of the Photo League" p. 24</ref> He began using a Speed Graphic 4x5 camera and changed his technique. He started to photograph at night and worked to achieve startling effects by moving his camera and manipulating his prints.<ref name="Klein,24" /> Grossman's photographic point of view and the images he created in the late 1940s bore little if any resemblance to those of the “Commissar” of the early 1930s. None of which had any bearing on the decisions of U.S. Attorney General Tom C. Clark and House Un-American Activities Committee to deem the photographer and the organization he helped to create as “subversive.” Grossman resigned from the Photo League in 1949; the Photo League disbanded on October 30, 1951.<ref>Tucker, Anne Wilkes. “A Rashomon Reading” Klein and Evans The Radical Camera p. 72</ref>
== Photography == Grossman conducted workshops at the Photo League, the Henry St. Settlement, the Harlem Art Center, and privately in NYC and Provincetown, for almost twenty years.<ref name="Lampell, Millard" /> The photographers he taught were many – including Lou Bernstein,<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.loubernsteinlegacy.com/introducing_lou.html|archive-url=https://archive.today/20140117104622/http://www.loubernsteinlegacy.com/introducing_lou.html|url-status=usurped|archive-date=January 17, 2014|title=Introducing|website=www.loubernsteinlegacy.com}}</ref> Lisette Model, Walter Rosenblum, Louis Stettner, Helen Gee, Arthur Leipzig (who is on record as calling Grossman “probably the most fantastic teacher I ever knew”)<ref name="Klein,24" /> and Leon Levinstein. Yet Grossman himself said, “I am not an instructor in any classical sense.”<ref name="Lampell, Millard" /> He insisted that his students take on the responsibility for making something of themselves. According to Jewish Museum curator Mason Klein, “Grossman increasingly insisted on the idea of being in the world in a particular manner, engaging with a certain consciousness as a photographer, and connecting to the camera in ways that made photographers question who they were.”<ref name=Klein,22>Klein, Mason. “Of Politics and Poetry: The Dilemma of the Photo League” p. 22</ref> One had to “live for photography,” in effect transforming and liberating oneself – in order to become a good photographer.
One description of Grossman's “impassioned, often aggressive workshop critiques”<ref name="Klein,24" /> has been provided by one of his students, N. Jay Jaffee, who studied with him in 1948.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://njayjaffee.com/writing/remembering-sid-grossman/|title=Remembering Sid Grossman|publisher=}}</ref> On the one hand, “He was almost contemptuous; each of us got a taste of his anger and hostility during the course.” Yet, “His genius was in expounding a philosophy of photography that was unique. I had never heard anyone speak on a subject with such depth and enthusiasm. I still recall a phrase he repeated several times: 'The world is a picture.' This simple statement was a profound insight into the method and meaning of photography.” “To Sid, photography was serious, not sacred.” Grossman's first wife, Marion Hille, remarked that he “encouraged his students 'to enjoy themselves right away, to get a feel of taking pictures without technique getting in the way.'”<ref name="Klein,22" />
Jaffee reflected that, “Perhaps, if Sid had lived long enough, he would have also mellowed. Hopefully, he would have received the honor and respect for his brilliance and his work that he so justly deserves.” Today, almost all of the important photographers and educators he influenced and who continued his legacy are also deceased. All that is left are the photographs he and they made – a considerable contribution."
== Publication ==
*''The Life and Work of Sid Grossman.'' By Keith F. Davis. New York City: Howard Greenberg Library; Göttingen: Steidl, 2017. {{ISBN|978-3958291256}}.<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.howardgreenberg.com/publications/the-life-and-work-of-sid-grossman | title=The Life and Work of Sid Grossman - Sid Grossman - Publications - Howard Greenberg Gallery }}</ref>
== Notes ==
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== References ==
* Grossman, Sid - Major Projects. Creative Camera. July/August 1983. * Grossman, Sid and Lampert, Millard, "Journey to the Cape". Grove Press, 1959 * Klein, Mason and Evans, Catherine, "The Radical Camera:New York's Photo League, 1936-1951". Yale University Press, 2011 * Tucker, Anne Wilkes., "This Was the Photo League: Compassion and the Camera from the Depression to the Cold War". Stephen Daitry Gallery, 2001
== External links == * [https://archive.today/20120917102258/http://www.thejewishmuseum.org/onlinecollection/collection_results.php?artistlist=1&aid=6014 Sid Grossman: Harlem, New York (1936); Coney Island (1947); and Mulberry Street (1948)]
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Grossman, Sid}} Category:1913 births Category:1955 deaths Category:Photographers from New York (state) Category:American street photographers