CONTENTS
The Story of The Command to Look: William Mortensen, Creative
Pictorialism and the Psychology of Control by Larry Lytle
The Command to Look by William Mortensen and George Dunham
Foreword
1. Personal Questions
2. Personal HistoryOrigin of the Formula
3. The Pictorial Imperative
4. Analysis of the IMPACT
5. Subject InterestSex, Sentiment, and Wonder
6. You and the Picture
7. Putting the Formula to Work
8. Preface to the Pictures
Fifty-five Salon Prints with Comments
Infernal Impact: The Command to Look as a Formula for Satanic
Success by Michael Moynihan
posters and postcards
art exhibit in support of title along with American Grotesque
William Mortensenwas an American artist and photographer, born in
1897 and who died in 1965. He was part of a group of photographers
in the first part of the twentieth century called the
Pictorialists, known for their romantic subject matter and
alternative photographic processes. Mortensen didn’t fit easily
into that group, however. His imagery was highly manipulated and
not particularly romanticinstead he created compositions exploring
themes of the grotesque and the erotic.
From the late 1920s until the 1940s, Mortensen was one of the
best-known and most successful photographers in the United States.
He had begun his artistic life as a painter and etcher and carried
that training over to his photographic work, which he began in the
mid 1920s. He was known for his outré subject matter that had an
unusual lookit is difficult to tell, at first glance, if his
images are etchings, drawings, or photographs. This work made him
well regarded by many but reviled by a group of photographers
called the f.64 group, also known as straight photographers.” This
group consisted, in part, of Ansel Adams, and Edward Weston.
Mortensen, together with his coauthor George Dunham, published 9
books and approximately 100 articles on his concepts and processes.
His books and articles were extremely popular. For the most part
these were published by Camera Craft, but he was also a regular
contributor to various other major magazines of the time such as
Popular Photography.
George Dunham was born in 1896 in Riverside County, California. He
went on to Harvard University to pursue graduate work in English
and Music. At Harvard, Dunham attended the influential 47
Workshop” class taught by George Pierce Baker. Dunham returned to
the seaside art colony then forming in Laguna Beach, California in
1923.
In the years that followed Dunham became an actor and director of
the Community Players of Laguna Beach. Dunham was also an
accomplished writer, who had provided articles on theater to the
local newspaper.
In 1931 after leaving the Community Players, Dunham met and became
friends with photographer and teacher William Mortensen. Mortensen
had arrived in Laguna Beach in 1931 and opened the William
Mortensen School of Photography. Dunham began posing for Mortensen
in 1932, which yielded one of Mortensen’s most well known
photographs, Human Relations 1932. Dunham also became the literary
voice of Mortensen from 1933 through the late 1950s writing all of
the books and articles attributed to that famous photographer.
Theirs was a literary collaboration, with Mortensen outlining the
ideas and thrust of the book or article and Dunham providing the
words and wit. However, Dunham’s contribution to Mortensen’s
literary success was kept a secret from all but a few in the
photography world and wasn’t revealed until the 3rd printing of How
to Pose the Model. Dunham was finally recognized as coauthor of all
of Mortensen’s literary works.
Their collaboration, but not their friendship, ended in the late
1950s with the last of the articles. Dunham died of cancer in
1976.
Larry Lytle is a commercial and fine art photographer in Los
Angeles, and lecturer in Art at California State University Channel
Islands. His writings have appeared in William Mortensen: A Revival
and Original Sources: Art and Archive at the Center for Creative
Photography (both published by the CCP), Black & White Magazine,
Laguna Life, The Laguna Beach Independent, and The Scream.
Michael Moynihan is the co-author, with Didrik Søderlind, of the
award-winning music and crime book Lords of Chaos (Feral House,
2003) and has contributed essays to various anthologies (such as
Apocalypse Culture II) and scholarly encyclopedias. As an editor
and translator has collaborated on various books and journals
dealing with the netherworlds where culture, religion, and art
meet.
There's a reason why Anton Szandor LaVey, founder of the Church of
Satan, called upon Mortensen's artistic aesthetic and
psycho-optical theories when creating LaVeyan Satanism and
iconography of the Church. But you don't have to be the Black Pope
to appreciate or make use of Mortensen's trademark techniques for
commanding the gaze. - The Alibi
Command to Look
influential, especially in renegade realms. Feral
House simultaneously published the exquisite compendium American
Grotesque
. Shawn Macomber, Fangoria
Mortensen was a giant, and it is time to acknowledge his stature.
Buy both of these new books. But be warned: if you do, you may well
find yourself haunting used bookshops and the internet to round out
your collection with everything he ever wrote. Amateur
Photographer
There's a reason why Anton Szandor LaVey, founder of the Church of
Satan, called upon Mortensen's artistic aesthetic and
psycho-optical theories when creating LaVeyan Satanism and
iconography of the Church. But you don't have to be the Black Pope
to appreciate or make use of Mortensen's trademark techniques for
commanding the gaze. - The Alibi
Command to Look … influential, especially in renegade realms. Feral
House simultaneously published the exquisite compendium American
Grotesque…. — Shawn Macomber, Fangoria
Mortensen was a giant, and it is time to acknowledge his stature.
Buy both of these new books. But be warned: if you do, you may well
find yourself haunting used bookshops and the internet to round out
your collection with everything he ever wrote. — Amateur
Photographer
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