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Judaica and Hebraica Collections
Special Events & Exhibits
Taube Center for Jewish Studies
(Click on Events)
Ira
Nowinski: The Photographer as Witness
Online exhibition
Strategizing
(Ira Nowinski Collection, from the series: Soviet
Jews in San Francisco;
Stanford University Libraries, Department of Special Collections)
In 2002 the Stanford University Libraries
acquired 15,000 negatives, 1,200 study prints, and over 600 archival
prints from three extensive series of photographs taken by Ira Nowinski,
mainly during the mid- and late 1980s:
• In Fitting Memory: The Art and Politics of Holocaust
Memorials;
• Karaite Jews in Egypt, Israel, and the San Francisco
Bay Area; and
• Soviet Jews in San Francisco
Prints from these three series - along with other photographs -
were exhibited in Green Library's Peterson Gallery (2nd floor, Bing
Wing) from August 2004 until March 2005.
Background: The independent photographer Ira Nowinski has
been active on San Francisco’s artistic and cultural scene
for over three decades. After receiving his Master of Fine Arts
degree from the San Francisco Art Institute in 1973, Nowinski quickly
rose to prominence with his work on several highly acclaimed projects.
In No Vacancy Nowinski photographed the elderly and impoverished
residents of single-occupancy hotels South of Market, shortly before
the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency tore these buildings down
to make way for the Moscone convention center and Yerba Buena Gardens.
The Café Society project took him to North Beach
in the mid-1970s, where he photographed many of the leading figures
of the Beat Generation as they were entering their middle years
.
Subsequently, Nowinski achieved considerable renown as the official
photographer of the San Francisco Opera and the Glyndebourne Opera
Festival.
Most recently, Nowinski has expanded his repertory to nature photography.
During the past two years he has visited the Galapagos Islands several
times, as part of a five-year project aimed at documenting changes
to the islands wrought by immigration from the mainland and by globalization.
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Last modified:
May 1, 2006
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