The women of the '70s

By EVE TAHMINCIOGLU, Times Correspondent

When Garry Winogrand first showed his photo series of women in 1975, there were few accolades.

The 1970s marked the apex of the nation's feminist movement. Gloria Steinem helped found Ms. magazine; Roe vs. Wade gave women legal access to abortion; Congress passed the Equal Rights Amendment (although it failed to win approval from state legislatures); women of all ages were questioning feminine archetypes.

In the midst of this feminist fervor, Winogrand arrived with a series of photos titled "Women Are Beautiful." The collection glorified, it appeared, the outer beauty of women.

Winogrand, whose series is now on display at the Tampa Museum of Art, fell prey to a phenomenon that happens often in the art world. His work was judged on the basis of what was deemed "politically correct" at the time.

" "Women Are Beautiful' showed up in the middle of the women's movement," said Thomas Southall, curator of photography at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta. "His work was interpreted as male chauvinist and a lecherous look at women."

Today, the work of Winogrand, who died in 1984, can be judged in a more balanced light.

The exhibition includes 35 black-and-white photographs of women from all walks of life, playing, working and partying in and around New York City in the 1960s and the early 1970s. The photos seem to be taken without the subjects' knowledge because the women pay little attention to the photographer.

All the women are, in their own way, beautiful. Although only a few would pass for model types, they give off an air of beauty, confidence and self-awareness that is almost infectious. The subjects are dressed in the rather risque garb of the time: bared midriffs, halter tops, many braless.

Given today's glorification of photographers like Annie Leibovitz for her studies of showgirls and prostitutes, Winogrand seems tame.

The subjects are engaged in the ordinary. There's a waitress resting against a counter on an unscheduled break. Two women, possibly on a shopping spree, lean against a storefront window, chatting about something serious, with one clutching her handbag tightly. There's a woman, not Twiggy-sized but with real hips, hanging out on a beach in a bikini. And a photo of two women, dressed in matching white tops and flowered short skirts, strolling through a park as an endless bench of men look on.

Winogrand somehow finds the provocative in the mundane. Indeed, that was his claim to fame. He is credited by many as pioneering "street" photography, following subjects around in urban settings, snapping photo after photo of unstaged shots. He used a wide-angle 35-millimeter camera and often tilted the frame to gain a different perspective on the scene.

His interest was not to tell stories or make statements, says Southall, the High Museum curator. "He photographed to see how things looked when photographed," Southall said. However, he said, Winogrand was engaged in the battle over form and content. Many of the scenes he captured have the illusion of narrative. For example, a woman sits alone on a cold, dirty bus, her ankles tightly crossed as she gazes into the distance with a sense of longing.

Winogrand, who was born in New York City, first started taking pictures when he was in the Air Force and then became a photojournalist and an advertising photographer. His work appeared in an eclectic mix of magazines, from Sports Illustrated to Fortune.

Winogrand's photos were shown at the Museum of Modern Art in New York on several occasions, and he was also a Guggenheim fellow. Despite his successes, he had to support himself during the 1970s by teaching.

Elaine Gustafson, the Tampa museum's curator of contemporary art, said Winogrand took millions of negatives of urban dwellers, many of which were never developed during his lifetime.

Some of the pieces in the exhibit lack a context that could enhance their emotional impact. The photographs are of anonymous people, and Winogrand offered viewers nothing in the way of explaining the shots or the motivation behind them. Everything is left to the imagination, but you might find yourself wanting some frame of reference. What was the woman, sitting on a bench at a New York museum, writing? Was it a love letter? Was she doodling while she waited for a friend to emerge from the bathroom?

Gustafson said Winogrand did not title any of the photos in the collection, which includes 85 photos on paper in all, 80 of which the Tampa museum has as part of its permanent collection. The other 45 photos could not be displayed due to space constraints.

The remaining five "Women Are Beautiful" photographs are still with John and Leslie Osterweil, the art collectors who gave the bulk of the series to the museum.

Leslie Osterweil, a board member of the Hillsborough Arts Council, said she bought the series for its artistic beauty.

Of the photos she and her husband kept, Leslie Osterweil said, there was one that people may have interpreted as an objectification of women. It is of a woman who is bare-breasted in the middle of a crowd. "Everyone is staring at her and she seems to be exploiting herself," she said.

"I like it," she added. "It's displayed in our home."

At a glance:

WHEN: through July 2
WHERE: Tampa Museum of Art, 600 N Ashley Drive
COST: $5 adults, $4 seniors, $3 students and children over 6
CALL: (813) 274-8130

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