Henry Holmes Smith's Mother and Son

Abstract

Very little was written about Henry Smith's photography during his lifetime, and not much more has been said about it since his death in 1986. The handful of scholars who have written at any length about him have focused almost entirely on his roles as teacher and theorist, roles in which he has had a quiet yet pervasive influence in the American photographic community,¹ Although his photography has not had the same impact as his writing and teaching, it too is worthy of examination because it is both technically innovative - springing from an uncommon yet carefully reasoned conception of the photographic medium - and because it deals with psychological issues of profound and enduring significance. In addition, Smith's work is an important precedent for much contemporary photography. Although it is not generally acknowledged, or even known for that matter, his work served as a challenge to the dominant straight photographic aesthetic of the 1950s and 1960s and helped to pave the way for the current liberation of photographic practice.