| Names: | | | Dates: | 1886, 30 November - 1981, 15 December | | Born: | US, NY | | Active: | US | | Gender: | Male |
Early American pictorialist - he later became a successful cinematographer (e.g. ‘Limelight‘, ‘Ben Hur‘, ‘The Great Dictator‘)Preparing biographies | | |
Karl Struss
American, 1886-1981
At the age of 17 Struss left his father's bonnet-wire factory "in self-defense" to pursue his interest in photography. He studied with his mentor, Clarence White from 1908 to 1912 at Columbia University. His talent was soon discovered by Alfred Stieglitz who published eight photogravures by Struss in the April 1912 issue of Camera Work, and in that same year Struss became a member of Stieglitz's Photo-Secession. Struss was one of the first photographers to use modernist compositions in his pictorialist photographs. In 1914 Struss was commissioned by the government of Bermuda to be the official photographer.
He continued to exhibit his art work and was represented by major galleries throughout the United States. He soon took over the studio space once occupied by White and set up a commercial business. Some of his images from this period appeared in Vogue and Vanity Fair. In 1916 he was a co-founder of Pictorial Photographers of America. With the onset of WWI Struss joined the armed services and did work in infrared photography. After the war, he traveled to Hollywood to fulfill a new dream of becoming a cinematographer, and realized his dream in just eight months. He worked from 1919 to 1922 for Cecil B. DeMille and then continued to flourish in films including "Ben Hur" and "Sunrise", winning an Academy Award in 1928 for the former. Struss also had some credits as director of photography on "The Fly", and "Taming of the Shrew". Although Struss' career in film seems to surpass his still photography, he is still remembered today as a talented artist whose work can be found in collections at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Modern Art and IMP/GEH in NY and many others. For more information on Struss see Karl Struss: Man with a Camera by Susan and John Harvith.
[Contributed by Lee Gallery]
| Getty Research, Los Angeles, USA has an ULAN (Union List of Artists Names Online) entry for this photographer. This is useful for checking names and they frequently provide a brief biography. | | Go to website | | The Cleveland Museum of Art, USA has a biography on this photographer. [Scroll down the page on this website as the biography may not be immediately visible.] | Show on this site | Go to website |
The following books are useful starting points to obtain brief biographies but they are not substitutes for the monographs on individual photographers. |
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