Seminal School Portrait Photographer Dies at 92 (great fake obit)
Evan Hulka
http://www.theonion.com/news/index.php?issue=4036&n=1
PHOENIX — Henry Anszczak, the photographer whose influential work
revolutionized modern school portraiture, died Sunday at his family
home in Eloy. He was 92.
According to longtime assistant Dave Olsen, Anszczak died of natural
causes.
"On Sunday, Mr. Anszczak passed away peacefully in his sleep,
surrounded by his family and scores of yearbooks," Olsen said. "We
will never forget his wonderful artistic achievements. He blazed the
trail for thousands of school photographers nationwide. The lion of
20th-century public-educational culture roars no more."
Anszczak's innovations became so much a part of the language of school
portraiture that their brilliance is often overlooked.
"Anszczak was the first to present his subjects as individuals, rather
than as one tiny, grainy part of the class as a whole," said Geraldine
Menzies, director of the National Academy of Classroom Arts in
Philadelphia, where many of Anszczak's works are exhibited. "He lifted
the school-portrait camera from its rigid confines and moved it
several feet closer."
Fresh out of the Army in 1946, armed with a Graflex Speed Graphic
camera and a tripod, Anszczak began his school-photography career
relatively late in life. The 34-year-old entered a stagnant field,
where the standard practice of shooting black-and-white snapshots of
entire classes from a distance had gone unquestioned for decades.
While it saved on film and developing costs, the process resulted in a
final portrait in which many subjects were out of focus, too small to
see, or obscured altogether. When Anszczak retired in 1986, he left a
field that had fully embraced his color close-ups and woodland
backdrops.
This sea change eliminated the process, considered tedious by
photographers and teachers alike, of assembling a class as a whole.
Anszczak's innovation also eliminated the problem of group photos
ruined by absenteeism and individual students' antics, such as goofy
expressions or inappropriate hand gestures.
Anszczak is credited with having invented the classroom composite, in
which many small, rectangular portraits are arranged in rows for
display.
"Anszczak single-handedly standardized the wallet-size," Menzies said.
"It was his discovery that, in addition to a 5"x7" portrait suitable
for framing, a student might like a number of smaller photos to offer
to those peers with whom he or she plans to remain best friends
forever."
Anszczak was the first school photographer to offer matte finish. He
was the first to seat subjects on a stool, to direct them in proper
placement of their hands, and to offer them the use of a black plastic
comb before the photo was taken. He pioneered use of soft-focus,
previously seen only in Hollywood glamour portraits, in senior-year
photos. And he introduced the now-famous "fence post, wagon wheel, and
bale of hay" tableau, which became an industry standard.
"Scholars debate whether it was Anszczak or his assistant who invented
the double-exposure, in which a profile of the student's face appears
over the shoulder of the forward-facing subject," Menzies said. "But
there is no question that they were the first to use the technique in
the portable studio."
Anszczak's innovations, now universally accepted, were initially
criticized. Parents thought that the individual close-ups bore an
uncomfortable similarity to police mug shots. Additionally, many
argued that the process of focusing so closely on the subject placed
students under undue stress.
Following the Vietnam war, a new batch of critics argued that
Anszczak's work had reactionary, antisocial tendencies. In a famous
essay for Mrs. Larsen's tenth-grade English class at Sherman High
School in Little Rock, AR, sophomore Wayne Kleiff derided the
photographer's individual portraits as "a physical manifestation of
the isolation produced from postwar suburbanization."
"Before Anszczak, the individual was represented as part of a whole,"
wrote Kleiff, '78. "What's missing from Anszczak's work is a sense of
community, of people mutually sharing a social and educational
experience. Is it any coincidence that he and suburbia mushroomed
together? Like the white picket fence around a single-story frame
home, the white borders in Anszczak's composite photos serve to
separate, to isolate, to detach. At their worst, they promote
narcissism and insularity."
Kleiff's composition received an A.
Anszczak's fans, however, laud the spontaneity of his work. In spite
of the controlled conditions in a school's cafeteria or gymnasium on
photo day, imperfections would occur. Anszczak resolutely refused to
do retakes.
"Look at these superb Anszczaks here," said Dorian Childsworth, a
photography historian at George Eastman House in Rochester, NY, as she
gestured at an open portfolio of portraits. "Observe the immediacy of
his work. We see closed eyes, drifting gazes, unattractively agape
mouths, tucked-in collars, and hair sticking up all funny. But
Anszczak did not weed such imperfections out. He embraced them. In so
doing, he captured the awkward hearts and souls of these individuals.
These photos show an intuitive sympathy at work—the mark of a true
artist."
"Rest in peace, Mr. Anszczak," Childsworth added. "Or, in your words,
'Say cheeseburger.'"
After an incredible 40-year career, Anszczak rejected photography in
1986 to pursue "purer artistic pursuits that more actively engage the
mind's eye." In this late period, he designed yearbook covers and
lunchroom murals.
Still, Anszczak will be remembered best for his widely emulated school
portraiture. Fittingly, school districts across the country lowered
their flags to half-staff in honor of Anszczak on the day following
his death. In addition, the International League of Hot Lunch Workers
Monday announced plans to rename fruit-cocktail cups "Henrys."