Jonathan Green (born September 26, 1939) is an American writer, historian of photography, curator, teacher, museum administrator, photographer, filmmaker and the founding Project Director of the Wexner Center for the Arts. A recognized authority on the history of American photography, Green's books Camera Work: A Critical Anthology (1973) and American Photography: A Critical History 1945–1980 (1984) are two notable commentaries and frequently referenced and republished accounts in the field of photography. At the same time Green's acquisitions, exhibitions and publications consistently drew from the edges of established photographic practice rather than from its traditional center. He supported acquisitions by socially activist artists like Adrian Piper and graffiti artist Furtura 2000, and hosted exhibitions on Rape, AIDS, new feminist art, and the work of photographer, choreographer and dancer Arnie Zane, the Diana camera images of Nancy Rexroth, the Polaroids and imitation biplanes of folk artist Leslie Payne, and the digital photographic work of Mexican photographer Pedro Meyer. This alternative focus help prime Green and the competition jury to choose an unconventional, deconstructive architect, Peter Eisenman, previously known primarily as a teacher and theorist, as the architect for the Wexner Center for the Arts.Henry Cobb, chair of the competition jury wrote in the Report of the Jury, "the scheme provokes speculation and almost relishes the ideas of uncertainty....the jury feels that the open-ended, accessible and dynamic quality of this building is perhaps its most precious attribute." A Center for the Visual Arts, The Ohio State University Competition, Rizzoli, 1984, p. 25 Green has held professorial and directorial positions at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Ohio State University, and University of California, Riverside.
Early life
Jonathan Green was born to Jewish parents in Troy, New York, where his father held his first rabbinical pulpit. His father, Rabbi Alan. S. Green was a prominent reform rabbi active in the reform leadership organization known for his contributions to the reform movement's liturgy, and for his popularization of rabbinical thought in such books as Sex, God, and the Sabbath, The Mystery of Jewish Marriage.Alan Singer Green, Sex, God, and the Sabbath: The Mystery of Jewish Marriage, Paperback, 1979. OCLC 6247423 Green's mother, Frances, was a social worker who while in Palestine in the mid 1930s worked with Henrietta Szold in Youth Aliya.
Education and university affiliation Green grew up in Shaker Heights, Ohio, and attended Shaker Heights public schools. He studied at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology 1958–1960; Hebrew University, Jerusalem, 1960–61; Brandeis University, Near Eastern and Judaic Studies and English Literature, BA, Phi Beta Kappa, Magna Cum Laude 1963; Harvard University, English Literature, as a Danforth Fellow, AM, 1967. He taught with photographer Minor White at MIT from 1968–1976, becoming acting director of the MIT Creative Photography Laboratory and Gallery at White's retirement; then Professor of Photography and Cinema and Founding Project Director Wexner Center for the Arts, Ohio State University, 1976–1990; followed by Professor of the History of Art and Photography, and director of the California Museum of Photography and executive director, UCR ARTSblock, University of California, Riverside, 1990–2015.Biographical Data on Jonathan Green as of 1978: Born in 1939 in Troy, New York; now living in Galena, Ohio. Background: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1958 — 1960; Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1960 — 1961; Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts, B.A., 1963; (doctoral study to 1967) Harvard University, Cambridge, M.A., 1967. National Endowment for the Arts Photographer's Fellowship, 1977; Photographer with Ezra Stoller, Mamaroneck, New York, 1967 — 1969. Instructor of Photography, MIT, 1968 — 1969; Assistant Professor, MIT, 1969— 1973; Associate Professor MIT, 1973 — 1975; Editorial Consultant, Aperture, 1972— 1973; Associate Editor, Aperture, 1974— 1976; Acting Director, Creative Photography Laboratory, MIT, Cambridge, 1974—1976; Proposal Reviewer for National Endowment for the Humanities, Division of Research Grants, 1975 — 1976; Review Panelist and Consultant, National Endowment for the Arts, 1975—1976; Consultant, Polaroid Corporation; 1976 Associate Professor of Photography, Ohio State University, Columbus, 1976— present. Selected Individual Exhibitions: 1972 Carl Siembab Gallery, Boston; 1976: Carl Siembab Gallery, Boston; Hayden Gallery, MIT, Cambridge; 1977: Antioch College, Yellow Springs, Ohio. Selected Group Exhibitions: 1967 "New Group" exhibition, Hayden Gallery, MIT, Cambridge; 1970: Paul Rudolph exhibition, Museum of Modern Art, New York; "Metropolitan Middle Class," Hayden Gallery, MIT, Cambridge; "The Innermost House," Hayden Gallery, MIT, Cambridge (traveling exhibition); 1971: "Photography '72," J.B. Speed Art Museum, Louisville; 1973: "Photo Vision '72 ," Boston Center for the Arts (traveling exhibition); "Photography Maine 1973 Maine State Museum, Augusta; 1974: "Four Contemporary Photographers," Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge; "Celebrations," Hayden Gallery, MIT, Cambridge; "Twentieth-Century Photography from the Collection," Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; 1975: "National Photography Invitational," Anderson Gallery, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond; "Photographs from the United States," Fotogratiska Museet, Stockholm; "New England Architecture," DeCordova Museum, Lincoln, Massachusetts; Opening group show, Cronin Gallery, Houston; 1977: Color Exhibition, Columbus Institute for Contemporary Art (Ohio); Color Exhibition, Enjay Gallery, Boston; 1978 "Year in Review," Cleveland Museum of Art; "Tusen och en bild" (one thousand and one), Moderna Museet, Stockholm; "130 Years of Ohio Photography," Columbus Gallery of Fine Arts, (Ohio).American Images: New Work by Twenty Contemporary Photographers, Edited by Renato Danese, p. 139
Early writings As a freshman at MIT in May 1960, Green was awarded third place in the MIT-wide Boit Essay Prize competition for a study of three poems by Dylan Thomas. In Spring 1964 his translation from the Hebrew of Fahrenheim by Shmuel Yosef Agnon was published in the Harvard-Radcliffe literary magazine Mosaic. After taking a workshop with Minor White he began to write for Aperture Quarterly, publishing commentaries on the Daybooks of Edward Weston, 1967; Harry Callahan's El Mochuelo and MOMA monographs, 1968; and Bruce Davidson's East 100th Street, 1971.
Architectural photography Boston MBTA Subway Murals 1965 In 1965 based on a series of high contrast photographs Green had made in Israel and Europe, Peter Chermayeff and Lou Bakanowsky of the architectural firm Cambridge Seven Associates commissioned Green along with photographer Len Gittleman to take photographs to be installed as large-scale silkscreen, porcelain enamel, black and white murals for Cambridge Seven Associates' newly renovated 1967 Boston MBTA stations at Copley, Arlington, and Park. These murals showed iconic buildings and landscapes surrounding each station such as the Arlington Street Church and the Boston Public Gardens. They were on view for over 20 years.
Ezra Stoller 1967–1968 In 1967 Green moved to Mamaroneck, New York, to work with architectural photographer Ezra Stoller. During his time with Stoller and then later on-his-own in Boston, Green photographed projects for a range of noteworthy architects and firms including Acorn Structures; Benjamin Thompson; Cambridge 7 Associates; Donlyn Lyndon; Edward Larrabee Barnes; Haines, Lundberg & Waehler; Hugh Stubbins; J. Timothy Anderson; Paul Rudolf; Richard Meier; and The Architects Collaborative. Green was also commissioned in the early 70s by the Philadelphia Museum of Art to document installations of their photography exhibitions, including exhibitions by Paul Strand, Minor White, and Jerry Uelsmann.Installation view of Minor White Exhibition. tinyurl.com/mr3srdxd
Green's architectural photographs were published in many books and journals including 25 Years of Record Houses, Progressive Architecture, A Field Guide to Modern American Architecture, Architectural Record, Architecture and Urbanism (Japan), Baumeister (Germany), Bay State Architect, Better Homes and Gardens, House Beautiful, New England Architect, Record Houses of the Year. Green's photographs were used as covers for issues of Progressive Architecture and Architectural Record.A few examples. All retrieved June 3, 2022. Hugh Stubbins: Rochester RIT Donlyn Lyndon, Pembroke Dorms, Brown University Richard Meier, Smith House, photographed by Ezra Stoller and Jonathan Green (ESTO) Edward Larabee Barnes, Woodland House
MIT 1968–1976 Minor White and Aperture When Green was at Harvard a classmate introduced him to Minor White who had recently been invited by MIT to start a new photography program. While working for Ezra Stoller in Mamaroneck, Green began to submit articles for White's Quarterly journal of photography, Aperture. In 1968 White learned that he could add another teacher to the Creative Photo Laboratory, which was a division of MIT's School of Architecture on the condition that the new instructor could teach architectural photography. White invited Green to apply and in fall 1968 Green was hired at MIT.In Feb 1965 Minor White is appointed visiting professor in the School of Architecture and Planning at MIT. ...One of the instructors is Jonathan Green, a photographer with a graduate academic background in the humanities who becomes White's principal associate in the program at MIT. He will also assist White with Aperture and in the organization of exhibitions. From Peter C. Bunnell, Minor White: The Eye That Shapes, p. 10. The Art Museum, Princeton University, 1989.
Camera Work White and Aperture managing editor and publisher Michael Hoffman encouraged Green to consider a larger project than the short articles he had previously submitted. Aperture had begun to publish books as well as the Quarterly, and they suggested Green prepare a careful study of Stieglitz's magazine, Camera Work, 1903–1917. Green spent many hours in the Boston Public Library reviewing original issues of Camera Work and conceived of a sumptuous book that would translate the spirt of the original format into contemporary terms. He goal was to reveal how Stieglitz's periodical "helped transformed he artistic sensibility of the nineteenth century into the artistic awareness of the present day."Jonathan Green, Camera Work: A Critical Anthology. Aperture, Millerton, NY, 1973. Plates 102, p. 376. With Biographies, Bibliography, Indices. Green and Hoffman worked with designer Stephen Korbet and typographer Herb Lubalin to achieve the final look. The publication was supported by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Florence V. Burden Foundation.