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Photographer Lusha Nelson, the “Forgotten Modernist,” Finally Gets His Due
The protégé of Edward Steichen was one the hottest photographers of the 1930s, lensing everyone from Katharine Hepburn to Jesse Owens, but only six years into his career, he died. A new exhibit in Tulsa revives the work of this long-neglected artist.
Text Shawn Waldon
January 27, 2017
Among photography buffs, the enigmatic and multi-talented Lusha Nelson is the Forgotten Modernist. In the 1930s, he shot portraits for Vanity Fair, fashion spreads for Vogue, as well as still lifes, street scenes, and glossy ads with equal aplomb. A Latvian émigré, he had come to New York as a teenager with artistic aspirations, only to knock around doing odd jobs (including a stint as a sous-chef in the Catskills) before mirroring his mentor, Edward Steichen, and choosing the camera over the canvas. Though virtually unknown, Nelson quickly became a favorite of Steichen and Alfred Stieglitz, the reigning photography kingmakers, for his bold, sharp-edged style and authentic approach. (Nelson abhorred retouching.) Steichen, then the chief photographer of Condé Nast Publications, took Nelson under his wing, and the young artist was soon shooting striking portraits of Hollywood stars like Katharine Hepburn and Fay Wray, and elite athletes such as heavyweight boxer Joe Louis and the sprinter Jesse Owens before he embarrassed Hitler at the Berlin Olympics. Then, in 1938—just 6 years into a promising career—Nelson, aged 30, died from Hodgkin’s lymphoma, consigning his legacy to a photographic footnote.
As fortune would have it, Tulsa’s Philbrook Museum of Art has revived the long-neglected Nelson with his first retrospective, opening this month. “Lusha Nelson Photographs: Celebrity, the Forgotten Man, and 1930s America” (curated by Catherine Whitney and Sarah Lees) is drawn from more than 4,000 vintage prints—the largest cache of his work anywhere—purchased by an anonymous collector at a 1983 Brooklyn estate sale and bought by the museum in 2015. Nelson’s portraits seem fresh, modern, and formidable, an echo, as it were, of the early Vanity Fair.
vanity fair
Celebrities: Kathryn Hepburn, Jessie Owens, Fay Wray, Peter Lorre, Igor Sikorsky, Kitty Carlisle, George Burns and Gracie Allen, George Raft, Cesar Romero, New York Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia,“Front Page” creators Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur
vanity fair
The protégé of Edward Steichen was one the hottest photographers of the 1930s, lensing everyone from Katharine Hepburn to Jesse Owens, but only six years into his career, he died. A new exhibit in Tulsa revives the work of this long-neglected artist.
Text Shawn Waldon
January 27, 2017
Among photography buffs, the enigmatic and multi-talented Lusha Nelson is the Forgotten Modernist. In the 1930s, he shot portraits for Vanity Fair, fashion spreads for Vogue, as well as still lifes, street scenes, and glossy ads with equal aplomb. A Latvian émigré, he had come to New York as a teenager with artistic aspirations, only to knock around doing odd jobs (including a stint as a sous-chef in the Catskills) before mirroring his mentor, Edward Steichen, and choosing the camera over the canvas. Though virtually unknown, Nelson quickly became a favorite of Steichen and Alfred Stieglitz, the reigning photography kingmakers, for his bold, sharp-edged style and authentic approach. (Nelson abhorred retouching.) Steichen, then the chief photographer of Condé Nast Publications, took Nelson under his wing, and the young artist was soon shooting striking portraits of Hollywood stars like Katharine Hepburn and Fay Wray, and elite athletes such as heavyweight boxer Joe Louis and the sprinter Jesse Owens before he embarrassed Hitler at the Berlin Olympics. Then, in 1938—just 6 years into a promising career—Nelson, aged 30, died from Hodgkin’s lymphoma, consigning his legacy to a photographic footnote.
As fortune would have it, Tulsa’s Philbrook Museum of Art has revived the long-neglected Nelson with his first retrospective, opening this month. “Lusha Nelson Photographs: Celebrity, the Forgotten Man, and 1930s America” (curated by Catherine Whitney and Sarah Lees) is drawn from more than 4,000 vintage prints—the largest cache of his work anywhere—purchased by an anonymous collector at a 1983 Brooklyn estate sale and bought by the museum in 2015. Nelson’s portraits seem fresh, modern, and formidable, an echo, as it were, of the early Vanity Fair.
vanity fair
Celebrities: Kathryn Hepburn, Jessie Owens, Fay Wray, Peter Lorre, Igor Sikorsky, Kitty Carlisle, George Burns and Gracie Allen, George Raft, Cesar Romero, New York Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia,“Front Page” creators Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur
vanity fair
