"He will probably tell you his work is about fantasy, and if you ask him about influences he might mention Cartier-Bresson, Strand and Kertesz, influences that are more philosophical than visual."
George Krause was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1937 and received his training at the Philadelphia College of Art. He received the first Prix de Rome and the first Fulbright/Hays grant ever awarded to a photographer, two Guggenheim fellowships and three grants from the National Endowment for the Arts.
While serving in the US Army between 1957 and 1959, George Krause turned his full attention to photography, spending all his free time documenting the culture of the black neighborhoods in the racially segregated communities of South Carolina. Krause subsequently moved in a less documentary direction, seeking images that were more ambiguous, more symbolically rich and open to interpretation. Bodies of work have included cemetery monuments, religious statuary, and an atypical series of nudes.Krause's photographs are in major museum collections including the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, The Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris. In 1993 he was honored as the Texas Artist of the Year.
Krause enjoyed considerable early success with this social documentary work yet has recently retired from the University of Houston where he created the photography program .
Krause enjoyed considerable early success with this social documentary work yet has recently retired from the University of Houston where he created the photography program .
He now lives in Wimberley, Texas.
Opinion
What interested me about George Krause was his Sfumato Series. The concept is derived from the Italian word sfumare, "to tone down" or "to evaporate like smoke". In painting or drawing, sfumato is the fine shading that produces soft, imperceptible transitions between colours and tones. It is used most often in connection with the works of Leonardo da Vinci and his followers, who made subtle gradations, without lines or borders, from light to dark areas; the technique was used for a highly illusionistic rendering of facial features and for atmospheric effects.
What interested me about George Krause was his Sfumato Series. The concept is derived from the Italian word sfumare, "to tone down" or "to evaporate like smoke". In painting or drawing, sfumato is the fine shading that produces soft, imperceptible transitions between colours and tones. It is used most often in connection with the works of Leonardo da Vinci and his followers, who made subtle gradations, without lines or borders, from light to dark areas; the technique was used for a highly illusionistic rendering of facial features and for atmospheric effects.
Therefore, I propose that Krause is using sfumato as a type of classical reference to great artists of the past as well as giving pause to individuals. His portraits in this series negate backgrounds forcing the viewer to focus solely on the person. The sfumato technique demands that viewers step close and inspect the use of gradation and, thus, allows them to see the attention to facial features and clothes. Standing back and away from the works allows sfumato to breath giving the viewer a sense that the person in the photograph could disappear in a puff of smoke if they are not viewed carefully.
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