Press Release
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Media Contact
Troy Ellen Dixon
Director, Marketing & Communications
203 413-6735 | [email protected]
A View of the World
Through the Lens of a Master Photographer
Avant-Garde Persuasion: The Photographs of Harold Haliday Costain
March 2 – May 26, 2013
Greenwich CT, February 4, 2013 – On view at the Bruce Museum from March 2 through May 26, 2013,
Avant-Garde Persuasion: The Photographs of Harold Haliday Costain is the first monographic exhibition
devoted to the artist in recent years. A local photographer who lived and worked in Scarsdale, New York
from 1923 until 1975, Costain was prolific and successful throughout his career, winning numerous
prestigious awards.
Drawn primarily from the permanent collection at the Bruce Museum
and supplemented by works from the Keith de Lellis Gallery in New
York City, the exhibition will showcase a selection of Costain’s
industrial, architectural, and still-life photographs from the 1930s and
1940s. Costain was part of a generation of artist-photographers who
launched their careers in the commercial field. Working in the company
of such noted artists as Margaret Bourke-White, Charles Sheeler,
Clarence H. White, Anton Bruehl, Paul Outerbridge, and Edward
Steichen, Costain fused distinctly American subject matter with a
modernist aesthetic.
Harold Haliday Costain
(American,1897-1994)
Self-Portrait
1935
Gelatin silver print
Image courtesy of
the Keith de Lellis Gallery
New York NY
© Estate of Harold Haliday Costain
Avant-Garde Persuasion will also highlight the unique role of the
photograph at the very moment that Costain entered the profession in
the 1920s, a time when photographic print advertising was in its golden
age. In place of paintings, drawings, and prints, the photograph was
ideally suited to the realm of advertising in its capacity to persuade vast
audiences, while enabling artists to experiment with avant-garde
techniques.
Costain similarly employed a wide range of modernist strategies
designed to promote American industries, products, and consumer
lifestyles. His photographs were often commissioned by and featured in
important periodicals such as Fortune, Life, Town & Country, House &
Garden, and Country Life, among many others. Several of these magazines will be included alongside
the photographs in the exhibition to show how the trajectory of his career was shaped by the needs and
opportunities of mass media publications.
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Press Release
Avant-Garde Persuasion is curated by Margarita Karasoulas, the Museum’s 2012-2013 Zvi Grunberg
Resident Intern, and is accompanied by a digital catalogue and film series.
[Photograph Caption: Harold Haliday Costain (American, 1897-1994); Self-Portrait; 1935; Gelatin silver
print; Image courtesy of the Keith de Lellis Gallery, New York NY; © Estate of Harold Haliday Costain]
About the Bruce Museum
Explore Art and Science at the Bruce Museum, located at One Museum Drive in Greenwich, Connecticut.
The Museum is open Tuesday through Saturday from 10 am to 5 pm and Sunday from 1 pm to 5 pm;
closed Mondays and major holidays. Admission is $7 for adults, $6 for students up to 22 years, $6 for
seniors and free for members and children under 5 years. Individual admission is free on Tuesday. Free
on-site parking is available and the Museum is accessible to individuals with disabilities. For additional
information, call the Bruce Museum at (203) 869-0376 or visit the website at www.brucemuseum.org.
# # #
Film Series for Avant-Garde Persuasion
Wednesday, April 24, 10:30-12:30. American Photography: A Century of Images: This PBS
documentary on “The Developing Image, 1900-1934” and “The Photographic Age, 1935-1959” provides a
synopsis of the history of photography in addition to describing the photograph’s relationship to
advertising and the explosion of mass media in the 1930s.
Wednesday, May 1, 2013, 10:30-12:00. Alfred Stieglitz: The Eloquent Eye: Provides an overview of
Alfred Stieglitz’s career, the Pictorialist movement, and the artist’s role in shaping the formal and aesthetic
parameters of modernist photography in the early twentieth-century.
Wednesday, May 8, 2013, 10:30-12:15. Manhatta: An early, pioneering film (1921) by photographers
Paul Strand and Charles Sheeler that documents the rapidly changing Manhattan cityscape. This film clip
will underscore Costain’s work as a cinematographer and still photographer in the fledgling motion picture
industry in the early 1920s.
America & Lewis Hine: Examines Lewis Hine’s role in the development of documentary
photography in America as well as his industrial photographs and work portraits of the 1920s and
1930s.
Edward Steichen: Masters of Photography: A filmed interview with Edward Steichen that
focuses on his career in fine art and commercial advertising photography. Steichen knew of
Costain’s work and selected one of his photographs for inclusion in the prestigious U.S. Camera
Annual (1939).
Wednesday, May 15, 2013, 10:30-12:00. Norman Rockwell: Painting America. Costain was a close
friend and colleague of Rockwell’s when they studied together at the Art Students League in New York,
and he famously photographed the artist in his New Rochelle home and studio. This film will highlight the
interrelationships and differences between both artists’ work in commercial art and advertising.
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