Robert Mottar (October 29, 1919 in
Springfield
Springfield may refer to:
* Springfield (toponym), the place name in general
Places and locations Australia
* Springfield, New South Wales (Central Coast)
* Springfield, New South Wales (Snowy Monaro Regional Council)
* Springfield, Queenslan ...
, Illinois – November 1967, in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
) was an American industrial and magazine photographer, active 1950s–1960s.
Early life
Robert Mottar was born in Springfield, Illinois on October 29, 1919, to Louise Ann Mottar (Lindrew) and University of Illinois Pharmacy graduate (1910) Samuel Mayo Mottar (b. 1889), a salesman for
Squibb in Chicago and trustee of the University of Illinois. He had a sister Bonnie Louise Mottar born August 16, 1915. His mother remarried when Robert was about 10 or 11. He lived in Los Angeles and Baltimore in the 1940s, and in
Oregeval,
Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
and New York during the 1950s.
Career
Robert Mottar, often credited as 'Robert M. Mottar', began his career as a staff photographer for
The Baltimore Sun
''The Baltimore Sun'' is the largest general-circulation daily newspaper based in the U.S. state of Maryland and provides coverage of local and regional news, events, issues, people, and industries.
Founded in 1837, it is currently owned by Tr ...
in the 1940s, and was invited to conduct a workshop in 1949 at the first
Missouri Photo Workshop
The Missouri Photo Workshop is an annual week-long photojournalism school based in Lee Hills Hall at the Missouri School of Journalism in Columbia, Missouri. Founded in 1949 by the "Father of Photojournalism" Cliff Edom along with American eco ...
, before graduating to freelancer for business magazines including ''
Fortune
Fortune may refer to:
General
* Fortuna or Fortune, the Roman goddess of luck
* Luck
* Wealth
* Fortune, a prediction made in fortune-telling
* Fortune, in a fortune cookie
Arts and entertainment Film and television
* ''The Fortune'' (1931 film) ...
.'' He was also commissioned for stories on celebrities for mass-circulation magazines such as ''
LOOK'' and
''LIFE''. Mottar produced photographs of major building projects, technology and industry and made portraits of major players. Known for accepting dangerous and challenging architecture commissions, in 1959, he documented the building of the
28 Liberty Street, at one point assembling all of the construction workers (at a labour down-time cost of $10,000) for a multi-storey vertical panorama in which the grid structure of the steel and reinforced concrete facade of the skyscraper forms dozens of frames, each containing twenty or so cheering workers.
His near-silhouette against blank sky of a dogman standing on a girder being lifted by a crane featured in the world-touring ''
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, ...
'', cropped to a tight vertical and mounted floor-to-ceiling to cover an entire structural column in the exhibition space 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 ...
showing January 24–May 8, 1955. ''The Family of Man'' was seen by 9 million visitors worldwide and is now on show in perpetuity at
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 ...
in
Luxembourg
Luxembourg ( ; lb, Lëtzebuerg ; french: link=no, Luxembourg; german: link=no, Luxemburg), officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, ; french: link=no, Grand-Duché de Luxembourg ; german: link=no, Großherzogtum Luxemburg is a small lan ...
. He was represented in two additional exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art; ''MoMA; Photographs from the Museum Collection'', November 26, 1958 – January 18, 1959; and ''70 Photographers Look at New York'', November 27, 1957 – April 15, 1958.
Photography for universities
Mottar's portraits preserve the appearance of many American academics and intellectuals, and some from Europe.
In the collection of
Johns Hopkins University
Johns Hopkins University (Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private university, private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1876, Johns Hopkins is the oldest research university in the United States and in the western hem ...
are Mottar’s photographs of inventors and entrepreneurs, especially in the television industry, where he also photographed academics, campus views and student life, production of the ''JHU Science Review'' television program, and on one occasion, scenes of sixth-grade students using a mock-up television studio.
His portraits made at Johns Hopkins include John Allen Austin, Harold Ingle,
Arthur Oncken Lovejoy
Arthur Oncken Lovejoy (October 10, 1873 – December 30, 1962) was an American philosopher and intellectual historian, who founded the discipline known as the history of ideas with his book ''The Great Chain of Being'' (1936), on the topic ...
,
Leo Spitzer
Leo Spitzer (; 7 February 1887 – 16 September 1960) was an Austrian Romanist and Hispanist, philologist, and an influential and prolific literary critic. He was known for his emphasis on stylistics. Along with Erich Auerbach, Spitzer is widel ...
, Alex Quiroga, Ferdinand J. Hamburger,
James William Perry Jr.,
Ben Wolfe
Benjamin Jonah Wolfe is an American jazz bassist who has performed in groups with Wynton Marsalis, Harry Connick Jr., and Diana Krall. He is currently on the teaching faculty at The Juilliard School Jazz Division.
Career
Wolfe was born in Baltim ...
,
Alphonse Chapanis Alphonse Chapanis (March 17, 1917 – October 4, 2002) was an American pioneer in the field of industrial design, and is widely considered one of the fathers of ergonomics or human factors – the science of ensuring that design takes account of h ...
,
Henry Carrington Lancaster, Ernst Cloys Laurence Hall Fowler, Robert Lowell and Lowell Jacob Reed, Sheldon Keith Spalding (1957),
Lyn D. Poole (1957),
William Bennett Kouwenhoven (1950), Frank Vigor Morley (1953), William Moore Passano (1956),
Edward Russel Hawkins (1950),
Alexander Graham Christie
Alexander Graham Christie (November 19, 1880 – October 24, 1964)ASME, ''Mechanical Engineering,'' Vol. 86. 1964. p. 107. was a Canadian/American mechanical engineer and Professor at the Johns Hopkins University, who served as president of the Am ...
(1950), Leo Orville Forkey (1950), George Friederic Wislicenus (1950), Francis Henry Horn (1950),
Robert Freedman (1956),
Franco Dino Rasetti (1953), Eben Francis Perkins III (1956),
Theodore McKeldin
Theodore Roosevelt McKeldin (November 20, 1900August 10, 1974) was an American politician. He was a member of the Republican Party, served as mayor of Baltimore twice, from 1943 to 1947 and again from 1963 to 1967. McKeldin was the 53rd Govern ...
(1956), Audrey Smid (1956),
Sidney Painter
Sidney Painter (September 23, 1902 – January 12, 1960) was an American medievalist and historian. He was a fellow of the Mediaeval Academy and professor of history and chairman of the department of history at Johns Hopkins University.
Painter ...
(1954),
John Charles Hubbard (1952), Ronald Taylor Abercrombie (1952), Ralph Knieriem Witt (1951), Robert Fenwick (1951),
John Lehman
John Francis Lehman Jr. (born September 14, 1942) is an American private equity investor and writer who served as Secretary of the Navy (1981–1987) in the Ronald Reagan administration where he promoted the creation of a 600-ship Navy. From 2003 ...
(1951), and
Lowell Jacob Reed on his farm in New Hampshire (1953).
In 1952 Mottar made portraits of alumni emeritus professors at
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...
in their academic environments that were published in ''The Princeton Alumni Weekly'' and exhibited in 1953 in the Princetoniana Room of the University Library:
Henry Norris Russell
Henry Norris Russell ForMemRS HFRSE FRAS (October 25, 1877 – February 18, 1957) was an American astronomer who, along with Ejnar Hertzsprung, developed the Hertzsprung–Russell diagram (1910). In 1923, working with Frederick Saunders, he deve ...
, Astronomy;
Charles Rufus Morey
Charles Rufus Morey (20 November 1877 – 28 August 1955) was an American art historian, professor, and chairman of the Department of Art and Archaeology at Princeton University from 1924 to 1945. He had expertise in medieval art and founded the I ...
, Art and Archaeology; Robert Russell Wicks, Dean of the University Chapel, Arthur Maurice Greene, Dean of Engineering;
William Starr Myers, Politics;
Charles Grosvenor Osgood, Belles Lettres; Frank Jewett Mather Jr., Art and Archaeology;
Gordon Hall Gerould
Gordon Hall Gerould, B.A., B.Litt. (1877 – April 10, 1953) was a philologist and folklorist of the United States.
Born in Goffstown, New Hampshire, he joined the faculty of Bryn Mawr College and was a professor of English at Princeton Universit ...
, Belles Lettres;
Edward Samuel Corwin
Edward Samuel Corwin (January 19, 1878 – April 23, 1963) was an American legal scholar who served as the president of the American Political Science Association. His various political writings in the early to mid-twentieth century microcosmicall ...
, Jurisprudence;
Thomas Jefferson Wertenbaker Thomas Jefferson Wertenbaker (February 6, 1879 – April 22, 1966) was a leading American historian and Edwards Professor of American History at Princeton University. Born in Charlottesville, Virginia, he received his bachelor's and doctoral degre ...
, American History; George Wicker Elederkin, Art and Archaeology;
Gilbert Chinard
Gilbert Chinard (1881–1972) was a French-American historian, professor emeritus, who authored over 40 books.
Born on October 17, 1881 in Chatellerault, France, to Hilaire and Marie (Blanchard) Chinard, educated at the Universities of Poiti ...
, French Literature;
George Harrison Shull
George Harrison Shull (April 15, 1874 – September 28, 1954) was an eminent American plant geneticist and the younger brother of botanical illustrator and plant breeder J. Marion Shull. He was born on a farm in Clark County, Ohio, graduated fr ...
, Botany and Genetics.
During the 1950s, Mottar accompanied
University of Arkansas
The University of Arkansas (U of A, UArk, or UA) is a public land-grant research university in Fayetteville, Arkansas. It is the flagship campus of the University of Arkansas System and the largest university in the state. Founded as Arkansas ...
folklorist
Mary Celestia Parler
Mary Celestia Parler (1904 - September 15, 1981) was a folklorist and professor at the University of Arkansas. She and her husband Vance Randolph recorded folk music in Northern Arkansas from the 1930s until the 1960s. They also established the A ...
undertaking the Folklore Research Project (1949–1965). The photographs feature Mary Celestia Parler and others active in collecting folklore, as well as the subjects of
Ozark
The Ozarks, also known as the Ozark Mountains, Ozark Highlands or Ozark Plateau, is a physiographic region in the U.S. states of Missouri, Arkansas, Oklahoma and the extreme southeastern corner of Kansas. The Ozarks cover a significant portio ...
folklore
Folklore is shared by a particular group of people; it encompasses the traditions common to that culture, subculture or group. This includes oral traditions such as tales, legends, proverbs and jokes. They include material culture, ranging ...
studies.
Overseas commissions
Overseas Mottar worked between
Oregeval,
Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
and
New York
New York most commonly refers to:
* New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York
* New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States
New York may also refer to:
Film and television
* '' ...
where he was represented by Scope Associates. There, Mottar photographed
Andre Gustave Parodi at the Swiss embassy in
Rome
, established_title = Founded
, established_date = 753 BC
, founder = King Romulus (legendary)
, image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg
, map_caption ...
,
Russell Baker
Russell Wayne Baker (August 14, 1925 – January 21, 2019) was an American journalist, narrator, writer of Pulitzer Prize-winning satirical commentary and self-critical prose, and author of Pulitzer Prize-winning autobiography '' Growing Up'' (1 ...
in
London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
(1953), Mark R. Lazarus in
Oxford
Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...
(1953), Ulrich Ernst Von Gienanth in
Eisenberg (1954), John Richard Cary in Munich (1954), Francis Torrance Wiliamson in the US embassy, Rome (1954),
Ludwig Edelstein
Ludwig Edelstein (23 April 1902 – 16 August 1965) was a classical scholar and historian of medicine.
Personal life and career
Edelstein was born in Berlin, Germany, to Isidor and Mathilde Adler Edelstein. He attended the University of Berlin fro ...
in Oxford (1954), Tom Edward Davis and
Thomas Southcliffe Ashton at the
London School of Economics
, mottoeng = To understand the causes of things
, established =
, type = Public research university
, endowment = £240.8 million (2021)
, budget = £391.1 millio ...
(1953),
Thomas Watkins McElhiney in Berlin (1954), Arthur Kurtz Myers in Geneva (1953), Frank Vigor Morley in London (1953).
Mottar was a member of the
American Society of Magazine Photographers (ASMP).
Personal life
In March 1947, Mottar married Mary Carlile Boyd in
Reno
Reno ( ) is a city in the northwest section of the U.S. state of Nevada, along the Nevada-California border, about north from Lake Tahoe, known as "The Biggest Little City in the World". Known for its casino and tourism industry, Reno is the c ...
, Nevada and they lived in
Westport. They had three children, Mary Mottar (1947–1955), Jill Mottar, born 1948, and Peter Mottar, born 1951. The marriage ended in divorce in 1956 with Mary winning full custody of the couple's two children.
Exhibitions
* Portraits of alumni emeritus professors of Princeton University, Princetoniana Room of the University Library, 1953
* ''The Family of Man'', Museum of Modern Art, January 24–May 8, 1955, the touring worldwide.
* ''70 Photographers Look at New York'', Museum of Modern Art, November 27, 1957 – April 15, 1958.
* ''Photographs from the Museum Collection'', Museum of Modern Art, November 26, 1958 – January 18, 1959
Collections
* Museum of Modern Art, New York.
* Princeton University Library.
[GREEN, R., & VAN DEVANTER, W. (1957). Library Notes & Queries: WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO PRINCETON. The Princeton University Library Chronicle, 18(3), 159-165. doi:10.2307/26402989]
Mary C. Parler Photographs Collection (MC896), part of the Arkansas Folklore Collection at the University of Arkansas Libraries Special Collections* Clervaux Castle, permanent display of ''The Family of Man.''
* Johns Hopkins University Sheridan Libraries.
Maryland Historical Society, Photograph Collection Inventory List, Special Collections Department.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mottar, Robert
20th-century American photographers
American photojournalists
1919 births
1967 deaths
Architectural photographers
American portrait photographers
Industrial photographers