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Art

Pictures that say 1,000 words

Photographer Bud Lee was trained for art but chose utility, becoming a globetrotting photojournalist. Still, somewhere along the line, his work rises above great craft.

By LENNIE BENNETT
Published May 19, 2005

[Images courtesy of Tampa Museum of Art]

Bud Lee, Mango, FL, undated, lightjet photographic print.

	Bud Lee, Francois Truffaut, 1970, lightjet photographic print.

TAMPA - Bud Lee calls himself a picture maker. It's a self-effacing label that says a lot about the photographs he has taken during almost four decades.

He studied at the Columbia School of Fine Arts and the National Academy of Fine Art in New York, places that could have given him the studio auteur of contemporaries such as Cindy Sherman, Robert Mapplethorpe, John Baldessari and Victor Burgin, or the ambiguous "documentaries" of Nan Goldin and Diane Arbus.

Instead, Lee has roamed the world taking portraits for publications ranging from Vogue to Mother Jones. Lee had editors to please rather than an inner muse, so most of the photographs in his retrospective at the Tampa Museum of Art, taken between 1965 and the early 1990s, are examples of fine photojournalism rather than high art. But, as James Cuno, director of the Courtauld Institute of Art in London, has written, "Always and everywhere, art attaches itself to the utilitarian."

At some point, Lee's work rises above great craft.

His technical prowess is obvious, as is his gift for creating a visual narrative for his subjects. A powerful image of a young boy shot during the 1967 riots in Newark, crumpled on a sidewalk, made the cover of Life magazine and earned Lee its Photographer of the Year Award, establishing his credentials early in his career for on-the-scene photographic reportage.

Unlike that famous shot, few here are candid or spontaneous; Lee usually poses his people, and we know that they know they are being photographed, straightforwardly, often flatteringly. What sets them apart sometimes is Lee's lack of condescension or irony, even in situations that are easy marks for both.

An elderly woman who should not be photographed in a bathing suit but is, holding a just-delivered pizza, engages us with her unselfconscious smile and natural pose, at ease with herself and the camera.

A senior couple stand like the man and woman in Grant Wood's American Gothic, smiling shyly and proudly in front of photographs of their grown sons as youngsters. In the woman's glasses, we see a dim reflection of the photographer, a reminder that the recorder is present. West Hollywood Family, taken in 1978, is the closest Lee comes to parody, clothing a couple and their young daughter in brief foil and clear plastic garments for a photograph to illustrate a story about recycling.

In his celebrity portraits, Lee was always amenable to letting famous folks look their best, never surprising them in a candid, vulnerable moment. But in some, he coaxes a fundamental characterization that is the opposite of caricature.

He shot tortured playwright Tennessee Williams from above and cropped the photo tightly, giving the playwright a trapped look. Exuberant Italian director Federico Fellini, with his leonine head and piercing eyes, is lent authenticity, even dignity, by the fake, battered dinosaur sculpture next to him. And Francois Truffaut, a French director who gave the world a unique kind of ennui in his films, shrouds himself in cigarette smoke, always a cypher, his face reflected in the nearby glass door.

Lee's sense of composition, subtle rather than dramatic, grows on you.

A black-and-white photograph of artist John Briggs and his wife, Betty, sitting on their sun porch includes Briggs' large-scale painting of Lee and his wife, Peggy, propped against a wall. At first glance, you don't notice the canvas' frame and think the painted sofa is part of the room's real furniture. It's a witty trompe l'oeil.

In another photograph, sculptor John Chamberlain stretches languidly in a hammock, limbs entwined with a woman who looks a lot like a young Elizabeth Taylor. The tilt of his head, curve of his arm and arrangement of his hand suggests Michelangelo's Adam as he was painted in the Sistine Chapel. And there, significantly, is a possible Eve. The sensuousness of the couple's pose is contrasted with the angled planes created by cropping the lines of the hammock, the hard earth underneath and the edge of a brick patio. In other hands, the photograph could look studied and contrived. With Lee, it looks like the most natural moment in the world.

Lee, who moved to Tampa in the 1970s, has been an active part of the arts community for decades, continuing to freelance until a stroke in 2003. Most of his latest works are of the local scene, with a special interest in the kitsch and rural simplicity of an older, vanishing Florida.

The 60 photographs on exhibit, all new prints made from Lee's negatives, have been purchased by the museum with Community Foundation endowment funds, a good addition to its permanent collection of photography.

The museum has two smaller exhibitions on view also. "Form & Function: Why Was This Made?" looks at form as a function and an aesthetic. An ancient Greek hydra is juxtaposed with a similarly shaped metal ice bucket from Crate and Barrel, and a Michael Graves stainless steel teapot from Target with a 19th century porcelain teapot made in Russia, inviting comparisons and connecting cultural dots.

It's the first of a series funded by a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services for educational purposes. Two sets of wall texts address adults and young children, so it's a good getaway for families.

"Fotografia!, a Selection of Latin American Photography" was organized in conjunction with Arte 2005. It has some fine examples of work by contemporary artists such as Vik Muniz, Luis Gonzales Palma, Sebastiao Salgado and Alfredo Jaar.

- Lennie Bennett can be reached at 727 893-8293 or lennie@sptimes.com

"Bud Lee, Picture Maker" is at the Tampa Museum of Art, 600 N Ashley Drive, through July 10, as is "Form and Function: How Was This Made?" Also, "Fotografia!" is at the museum through July 3. Hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday and 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday. Admission is $7 adults, $6 seniors and military, $3 students, ages 6 and younger free. (813) 274-8130.

[Last modified May 18, 2005, 10:01:06]