Harry Lapow (February 6, 1909 – September 14, 1982)National Archives at St. Louis; St. Louis, Missouri; ''WWII Draft Registration Cards for New York City, 10/16/1940 - 03/31/1947''; Record Group: ''Records of the Selective Service System, 147'' was an American photographer and graphic designer.

Career

Born in

Newark, New Jersey Newark ( , ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of New Jersey and the seat of Essex County and the second largest city within the New York metropolitan area. Until 1957 he and seven others operated as Koodin-Lapow, with Ben Koodin directing selling, and he in charge of packaging design for R. H. Macys,

Wamsutta Mills Wamsutta Mills is a former textile manufacturing company and current brand for bedding and other household products. Founded by Thomas Bennett, Jr. on the banks of the Acushnet River in New Bedford, Massachusetts in 1846 and opened in 1848, Wam ...

Seagram The Seagram Company Ltd. (which traded as Seagram's) was a Canadian multinational conglomerate formerly headquartered in Montreal, Quebec. Originally a distiller of Canadian whisky based in Waterloo, Ontario, it was once (in the 1990s) the lar ...

, Startex and Rokeach, among others. He set up on his own as Harry Lapow Associates in 1960, seeking more freedom for his photography, and added clients including Peter Pan Foundations. After the War as the business expanded they hired young

Cooper Union The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art (Cooper Union) is a private college at Cooper Square in New York City. Peter Cooper founded the institution in 1859 after learning about the government-supported École Polytechnique in ...

graduates

Milton Glaser Milton Glaser (June 26, 1929June 26, 2020) was an American graphic designer. His most notable designs include the I Love New York logo, a 1966 poster for Bob Dylan, and the logos for DC Comics, Stony Brook University and Brooklyn Brewery. In 1954 ...

Seymour Chwast Seymour Chwast (born August 18, 1931) is an American graphic designer, illustrator, and type designer. Biography Chwast was born in the Bronx, New York City and in 1949 graduated from Abraham Lincoln High School in Brooklyn where he was intro ...

and

Edward Sorel Edward Sorel (born Edward Schwartz, 26 March 1929) is an American illustrator, caricaturist, cartoonist, graphic designer and author. His work is known for its storytelling, its left-liberal social commentary, its criticism of reactionary right-w ...

. He was one of 13 founding members of the Package Designers Council. In a 1957 newspaper article he described trends of visibility and 'buy-me' designs in packaging as overworked clichés, advocating instead for consideration by designers of 'bagability,' easy opening and dispensing of contents, portability and 'giftability.' By the mid-1960s he was corporate design director with the firm Lehn & Fink Products Corporation from 1962 and wrote articles for the journal ''Packaging Design'' on a variety of topics including the use of flocked paper, the role of research in packaging design, and expressed concerns about the 1967 US Federal Fair Packaging and Labeling Act, complaining that it would "play havoc with our designs."

Photographer

Lapow took courses with his near-contemporaries

Lisette Model Lisette Model (born Elise Amelie Felicie Stern; November 10, 1901 – March 30, 1983) was an Austrian-born American photographer primarily known for the frank humanism of her street photography. A prolific photographer in the 1940s and a member ...

and

Sid Grossman 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 ...

The New School for Social Research The New School for Social Research (NSSR) is a graduate-level educational institution that is one of the divisions of The New School in New York City, United States. The university was founded in 1919 as a home for progressive era thinkers. NSSR ...

together with his good friend,

Leon Levinstein Leon Levinstein (1910–1988) was an American street photographer best known for his work documenting everyday street life in New York City from the 1950s through the 1980s. In 1975 Levinstein was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship from the John Si ...

, using a second-hand 6x6 twin-lens reflex Ciroflex camera that he received for his forty-third birthday in 1952, Asked what he was looking for to photograph, he replied "I don't look for anything; the photograph looks for me. When I see something I have to shoot it." During the 1960s Lapow studied painting with Evsa Model, Lisette's husband, but he continued photographing, mostly at Coney Island, in spare time available from his career in package design;

Coney Island is like a piece of candy for me. I've been to a lot of beaches--Miami, Morocco, Sardinia, Atlantic City--but Coney Island is the amazing place. I don't know why, and I don't want to know why, but these people appeal to me.

Among his several portrait subjects was

Victor Perera Victor Perera was the first Governor of Northern Province and former Sri Lankan Inspector General of Police. Police career Perera joined the Sri Lanka Police Service in 1974 as an Assistant Superintendent of Police. Serving as the most senio ...

, and he traveled to photograph desert people of

North Africa North Africa, or Northern Africa is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region, and it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of Mauritania in ...

Crow A crow is a bird of the genus ''Corvus'', or more broadly a synonym for all of ''Corvus''. Crows are generally black in colour. The word "crow" is used as part of the common name of many species. The related term "raven" is not pinned scientifical ...

people in Montana, Canada's Gaspé fishermen, farmers in

Sicily (man) it, Siciliana (woman) , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = Ethnicity , demographics1_footnotes = , demographi ...

, and Sardinian shepherds, with work published in ''Industrial Design'' magazine, ''New York'' magazine, the ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'' and the ''

Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...

''.

Recognition

For over 25 years, between 1952 and 1977, Lapow took photographs of

Coney Island Coney Island is a peninsular neighborhood and entertainment area in the southwestern section of the New York City borough of Brooklyn. The neighborhood is bounded by Brighton Beach and Manhattan Beach, Brooklyn, Manhattan Beach to its east, L ...

, as both Model and Grossman did, and as other significant photographers had, including

Weegee Arthur (Usher) Fellig (June 12, 1899 – December 26, 1968), known by his pseudonym Weegee, was a photography, photographer and photojournalism, photojournalist, known for his stark black and white street photography in New York City. Weegee w ...

. One of Lapow's early photographs of an Italian wedding on the beach at Coney Island was selected by

Edward Steichen Edward Jean Steichen (March 27, 1879 – March 25, 1973) was a Luxembourgish American photographer, painter, and curator, renowned as one of the most prolific and influential figures in the history of photography. Steichen was credited with tr ...

for ''

The Family of Man ''The Family of Man'' was an ambitious exhibition of 503 photography, photographs from 68 countries curated by Edward Steichen, the director of the New York City Museum of Modern Art's (MoMA) Department of Photography. According to Steichen, ...

'' exhibition at the

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...

, that toured the world and was seen by 9 million visitors. Jerry Mason's follow-up publication ''The Family of Women'' of 1979 included Lapow's photograph of an older woman wheeling her bicycle. He traveled widely, photographing in small fishing villages in

Nova Scotia Nova Scotia ( ; ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is one of the three Maritime provinces and one of the four Atlantic provinces. Nova Scotia is Latin for "New Scotland". Most of the population are native Eng ...

, farming and fishing communities in the

Gaspé Peninsula The Gaspé Peninsula, also known as Gaspesia (; ), is a peninsula along the south shore of the Saint Lawrence River that extends from the Matapedia Valley in Quebec, Canada, into the Gulf of Saint Lawrence. It is separated from New Brunswick o ...

of Québec, a

Crow Nation The Crow, whose Exonym and endonym, autonym is Apsáalooke (), also spelled Absaroka, are Native Americans in the United States, Native Americans living primarily in southern Montana. Today, the Crow people have a federally recognized tribe, th ...

reservation in

Montana Montana () is a state in the Mountain West division of the Western United States. It is bordered by Idaho to the west, North Dakota and South Dakota to the east, Wyoming to the south, and the Canadian provinces of Alberta, British Columbi ...

, the

Magdalen Islands The Magdalen Islands (french: Îles de la Madeleine ) are a small archipelago in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence with a land area of . While part of the Province of Quebec, the islands are in fact closer to the Maritime provinces and Newfoundland th ...

Prince Edward Island Prince Edward Island (PEI; ) is one of the thirteen Provinces and territories of Canada, provinces and territories of Canada. It is the smallest province in terms of land area and population, but the most densely populated. The island has seve ...

, and later, in Morocco, Sardinia, and Italy. Helen Gee gave Lapow his first exhibition at her Limelight Gallery in

Greenwich Village Greenwich Village ( , , ) is a neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 14th Street to the north, Broadway to the east, Houston Street to the south, and the Hudson River to the west. Greenwich Village ...

in 1959. He also showed in group exhibitions at

A Photographer's Gallery A Photographer's Gallery (March 1955 – 1957), 48 West 85th Street, on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City, founded and opened by Roy DeCarava, was an early effort to gain recognition for photography as an art form. It exhibited a ...

, New York, Washington, DC,

Photokina Photokina (rendered in the promoters' branding as "photokina") is a trade fair held in Europe for the photographic and imaging industries. It is the world's largest such trade fair. The first Photokina was held in Cologne, Germany, in 1950, an ...

in Cologne, Vu Par Cultural Center in Paris, and at

Expo 67 The 1967 International and Universal Exposition, commonly known as Expo 67, was a general exhibition from April 27 to October 29, 1967. It was a category One World's Fair held in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is considered to be one of the most su ...

, Montreal, Canada. In 1970 he held a joint show at

Ashland College Ashland University is a private university in Ashland, Ohio. The university consists of a main campus and several off-campus centers throughout central and northern Ohio. Ashland was founded in 1878 as Ashland College. It is affiliated with The ...

devoted to Coney Island with poet Mark McCloskey in which the latter showed verse in black-on-gray panels interspersed by Lapow's monochrome photographs. The show followed another early that year which included the two at the State University College at Potsdam Lapow presented lectures on his work, including on at the State University College in 1975, and at

Tompkins Cortland Community College Tompkins Cortland Community College (TC3) is a public community college in Dryden, New York. It is supported by Cortland and Tompkins Counties and has extension sites that are located in Ithaca and Cortland. It is part of the State University ...

in 1978. In 1978

Dover Publications Dover Publications, also known as Dover Books, is an American book publisher founded in 1941 by Hayward and Blanche Cirker. It primarily reissues books that are out of print from their original publishers. These are often, but not always, books ...

published a book of his Coney Island work, ''Coney Island Beach People,'' one hundred and thirty-eight full-page or slightly cropped medium-format images arranged for their visual connections rather than chronologically. In his introduction, David Toor writes that;

Harry Lapow concentrates on individuals and small groups. He uses the sand, sea, sky and the shape of the individual to create negative space, abstract form, striking composition. He emphasizes the interplay and repetition of shapes created by the subjects and the background, the shadows on the sand, the reflections in the water.

John Gabree, reviewing it for ''

Newsday ''Newsday'' is an American daily newspaper that primarily serves Nassau and Suffolk counties on Long Island, although it is also sold throughout the New York metropolitan area. The slogan of the newspaper is "Newsday, Your Eye on LI", and f ...

'' remarks that;

Sometimes the human beings who inhabit Harry Lapow's Coney Island look less like people than like geological phenomena, mountains especially, or rocks strewn on the beach. Other times, in their grotesque poses, they are like sculptures. With their noses covered and sunglasses, many resemble creatures from Mars. Lapow creates beauty rather than capturing it. No lively creatures in bikinis grace his pictures...And yet there is extraordinary beauty in these photographs.

Fotofolio, the postcard company, distributed several Lapow images. Robert L. Pincus, reviewing Lapow's 1981 joint show with John Brumfield and

Lou Stoumen Louis Clyde Stoumen (July 15, 1917 – September 20, 1991), known as Lou Stoumen, was an American photographer, film director and producer. He won two Academy Awards; the first in 1957 for Best Documentary Short Subject ('' The True Story of ...

at G. Ray Hawkins Gallery in Los Angeles considered that it was;

...his photographs of the '70s that seem most confident and perceptive. A 1975 portrait of two elderly women in bathing caps strolling along the shoreline is particularly poignant; both their halting stances and facial expressions, caught unaware, are effectingly vulnerable.

Exhibitions

Solo

* 1959: solo show at Limelight Gallery, Greenwich Village, New York * 1975, 29 January–24 February ''Coney Island.'' Midtown Y Gallery, New York.

Group and joint

* 1955: ''

'', MoMA Museum Modern Art, New York * 1970, February: Andre Billeci (glass), Linda Plotkin (prints) Harry Lapow (photographs), Mark McKoskey (poetry). Fine art gallery State University College at Potsdam * 1970, 13–30 October: ''Coney Island,'' Lapow and poet Mark McCloskey.

* 1971, March: Photographs by Harry Lapow and poems by Mark MeCioskey. Fine Arts Gallery at the

State University of New York at Oneonta The State University of New York College at Oneonta, also known as SUNY Oneonta, is a public college in Oneonta, New York. It is part of the State University of New York (SUNY) system. History SUNY Oneonta was established in 1889 as the Oneon ...

* 1981, 3 May–6 June: John Brumfield. Harry Lapow,

, photography. G. Ray Hawkins Gallery, 7224 Melrose Ave. Los Angeles * 1982, 7–31 December: Recent Photographs: Michelle Dearborn and Harry Lapow. Focus Gallery, San Francisco

Posthumous

Solo

* 1984, to 4 July: ''Coney Island Beach People''. Scheinbaum & Russek Gallery of Photography, Santa Fe * 1986:''Harry Lapow's Coney Island'', Museum of Photography, Corridor Gallery,

George Eastman House The George Eastman Museum, also referred to as ''George Eastman House, International Museum of Photography and Film'', the world's oldest museum dedicated to photography and one of the world's oldest film archives, opened to the public in 1949 in ...

* 2002: ''Coney Island Beach People: photographs by Harry Lapow'', Klotz/Sirmon Gallery, 511 West 25th Street, New York

Group

* 1980; January: 12 Brooklyn photographers,

Lou Bernstein Lou Bernstein (born ''Judah Leon Bernstein''; February 28, 1911 – August 2, 2005) was an American photographer and teacher. His career began during the Great Depression and the Photo League and ended shortly before he died. Early life Bernste ...

, Mark Boritz, Wayne Clark, Laimute E. Druskis, Alan Forman, Thomas Germano, Barry Gerson, Roger Haile. Harry Lapow, Arnold Meisner,

Marilyn Nance Marilyn Nance (born November 12, 1953), also known as Soulsista, is an American multimedia artist known for work focusing on exploring human connections, African-American spirituality, and the use of technology in storytelling. Nance's photojou ...

and Neil Trager. Community Gallery of the

Brooklyn Museum The Brooklyn Museum is an art museum located in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. At , the museum is New York City's second largest and contains an art collection with around 1.5 million objects. Located near the Prospect Heights, Crown H ...

* 2007: ''Alida Fish, Harry Lapow, Robert Richfield'', Alan Klotz Gallery, USA * 2015/16: ''Forever Coney: Photographs from the Brooklyn Museum Collection'',

Brooklyn Museum of Art The Brooklyn Museum is an art museum located in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. At , the museum is New York City's second largest and contains an art collection with around 1.5 million objects. Located near the Prospect Heights, Crown H ...

, New York * 2018: ''New Acquisitions'', Alan Klotz Gallery, USA * Ongoing: ''The Family of Man, UNESCO Memory of the World, Steichen Collections'',

Clervaux Castle Clervaux Castle ( lb, Schlass Klierf, german: Schloss Clerf, french: Château de Clervaux) in the town of Clervaux in Northern Luxembourg dates back to the 12th century. Destroyed by the fire in the Second World War during the Battle of the Bulge ...

, Luxembourg

Collections

* Museum of Modern Art, New York *

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

, New York *

Museum of the City of New York A museum ( ; plural museums or, rarely, musea) is a building or institution that cares for and displays a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical, or scientific importance. Many public museums make these i ...

, New York *

, Brooklyn, New York *G. Ray Hawkins Gallery *

The Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums and education and research centers, the largest such complex in the world, created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Founded ...

, Washington, D.C. *

Houston Museum of Fine Arts The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH), is an art museum located in the Houston Museum District of Houston, Texas. With the recent completion of an eight-year campus redevelopment project, including the opening of the Nancy and Rich Kinder Build ...

, Houston, TX * Musée Des Beaux-Arts Du Canada

Publications

Legacy

Still photographing at 67 and living in

, Lapow was vocal in widely-syndicated articles in the press and on television the in mid-1970s against ageism and enforced retirement. His wife Ruth died in 1979. He was survived by his folk-singer son Gary in Berkeley, for whose album ''Bamboo in the Wind'' Harry photographed the cover, and daughter, the artist/designer Marcelle Lapow Toor, whose husband SUNY English lecturer David wrote the introduction to the 1978 Dover monograph, and who until her death in 2009 was executor for Lapow's estate and maintained his archive. In 1983, son Gary produced a special performance at

La Peña Cultural Center La Peña Cultural Center or La Peña for short, is a multicultural center in the United States. It was founded in 1975 by Latin American and Californian allies in Berkeley, California in response to the 1973 coup d'état in Chile, or '' golpe de e ...

in Berkeley, incorporating projections of Harry's Coney Island imagery, and remembered his father's encouragment to "be creative."

References

External links

Harry Lapow website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lapow, Harry 20th-century American photographers Street photographers Documentary photographers 1909 births 1982 deaths American graphic designers