Art Kane (Born Arthur Kanofsky in 1925) was one of the 20 century’s most influential photographers. Regarded as a bold visionary, his work encompassed travel, editorial, fashion, celebrity portraiture, and nudes with an innovative and relentless eye. Like Guy Bourdin, his contemporaries, and Helmut Newton, the artist gravitated toward strong eroticism, color and surreal humor. In childhood, Kane was the wild child: unsentimental, uncompromising and unflinching; but he grew to become a pioneer of many numerous concepts in modern photography. He was only interested in what could happen next, how to change, to evolve, to do it better, and to accept nothing less than radiance. Kane graduated from Cooper Union with honors in 1950. After his graduation, he designed page layouts at Esquire and at age 27 was named art director at Seventeen. He became the youngest art director of a major magazine in New York City. In 1956 he studied at The New School with Alexey Brodovitch, where other students included Diane Arbus, Irving Penn and Richard Avedon.
As Brodovitch’s disciple Kane learned to worship the unknown. 30 years before digital imaging and Photoshop, and armed only with a loupe and a light table, the artist invented the ‘sandwich’ image; having 2, 4, and more transparencies painstakingly aligned, reversed, layered, book-matched, inverted, and taped together at the edges. This was a unique technique and in perfecting it, he pioneered photographic storytelling by investing his images with poetry and metaphor, effectively turning photography into illustration. Kane also contributed to the leading fashion magazines of his era, including United Kingdom, the US and European editions. He also created startling ad campaigns for the beauty and fashion industry.
