Jerome Liebling (April 16, 1924 Manhattan, New York – July 27, 2011 Northampton, Massachusetts) was an American photographer, filmmaker, and teacher. The documentary filmmaker

Ken Burns Kenneth Lauren Burns (born July 29, 1953) is an American filmmaker known for his documentary film, documentary films and television series, many of which chronicle United States, American History of the United States, history and Culture of the ...

, who studied with him at Hampshire College, called Liebling his mentor, and used one of Liebling's photographs on the cover of his 2022 book ''Our America: A Photographic History''.https://www.nextavenue.org/ken-burns-on-our-america/ Liebling left his studies at

Brooklyn College Brooklyn College is a public university in Brooklyn, Brooklyn, New York. It is part of the City University of New York system and enrolls about 15,000 undergraduate and 2,800 graduate students on a 35-acre campus. Being New York City's first publ ...

in 1942 to serve in the armed forces in Europe and North Africa during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. After the war, he returned to Brooklyn College to study art and design under

Walter Rosenblum Walter A. Rosenblum (1919–2006) was an American photographer. He photographed the World War II D-Day landing at Normandy in 1944. He was the first Allied photographer to enter the liberated Dachau concentration camp. He received several militar ...

and

Ad Reinhardt Adolph Dietrich Friedrich Reinhardt (December 24, 1913 – August 30, 1967) was an abstract painter active in New York for more than three decades. He was a member of the American Abstract Artists (AAA) and part of the movement centere ...

.Jerome Liebling bio at The Jewish Museum
In 1947, he joined New York's famed Photo League where he studied with

Paul Strand Paul Strand (October 16, 1890 – March 31, 1976) was an American photographer and filmmaker who, along with fellow modernist photographers like Alfred Stieglitz and Edward Weston, helped establish photography as an art form in the 20th century. ...

. For two years he taught classes, showed his work in group exhibitions and served as membership secretary on the League's executive committee. In 1948, he studied motion-picture production at

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 ...

and worked as a documentary filmmaker. While a professor of film and photography at the

University of Minnesota The University of Minnesota, formally the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, (UMN Twin Cities, the U of M, or Minnesota) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Tw ...

, Liebling began a longtime collaborative relationship with filmmaker Allen Downs; together they produced several award-winning documentaries, including ''Pow Wow'', ''The Tree Is Dead'', and ''The Old Men''. Liebling received numerous awards and grants, including two

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...

s, a

National Endowment for the Arts The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal ...

Photographic Survey Grant, and a fellowship from the Massachusetts Council on the Arts. His photographs are in the permanent collections of many museums, including 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 ...

in New York, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the Fogg Museum in

Cambridge, Massachusetts Cambridge ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. As part of the Boston metropolitan area, the cities population of the 2020 U.S. census was 118,403, making it the fourth most populous city in the state, behind Boston, ...

, the

Corcoran Gallery of Art The Corcoran Gallery of Art was an art museum in Washington, D.C., United States, that is now the location of the Corcoran School of the Arts and Design, a part of the George Washington University. Overview The Corcoran School of the Arts & Design ...

in Washington, D.C.,

The Jewish Museum The Jewish Museum is an art museum and repository of cultural artifacts, housed at 1109 Fifth Avenue, in the former Felix M. Warburg House, along Museum Mile on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, New York City. The first Jewish museum in the Unit ...

in New York, and the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa. Liebling was a professor emeritus of Hampshire College. He was the younger brother of David Liebling and Stan Liebling, and he is the father of five children, including Minnesota politician Tina Liebling and film director/producer Rachel Liebling.

References

External links

Official WebsitePhotographs by Jerome Liebling 1997 Interview with Jerome Liebling 2011 Interview with Jerome Liebling
*
Political Landscape: Jerome Liebling's Minnesota Capitol Photographs, 1956 – 1969Obituary, Daily Hampshire GazetteObituary, NY Times: Lens BlogObituary, The Boston GlobePerson, Place, Thing interview
{{DEFAULTSORT:Liebling, Jerome 20th-century American photographers 1924 births 2011 deaths 21st-century American photographers Brooklyn College alumni United States Army personnel of World War II University of Minnesota faculty Hampshire College faculty Photographers from New York City People from Manhattan