{"id":249607,"date":"2026-01-17T13:28:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-17T13:28:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/249607\/"},"modified":"2026-01-17T13:28:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-17T13:28:08","slug":"rodney-smith-photography-between-real-and-surreal-a-new-book-celebrates-a-master","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/249607\/","title":{"rendered":"“Rodney Smith: Photography between Real and Surreal,” a New Book, Celebrates a Master"},"content":{"rendered":"

Should you ever need to identify a work by the New York<\/a> photographer Rodney Smith, who lived from 1947 to 2016, look for these clues. First, his images of dreamlike whimsy are usually contained within a pleasing symmetry\u2014they\u2019re very Wes Anderson but in black and white. Next, his subjects resemble Charlie Chaplin<\/a> or characters out of a Frank Capra film\u2014they\u2019re often wearing hats\u2014yet they are placed in Hitchcockian situations: chased by airplanes (very North by Northwest) and inhabiting Magritte-like spaces.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

A double self-portrait by Smith, taken outside the Schoenbrunn Palace, in Vienna, 1998. <\/p>\n

All this is to say that Smith\u2014who primarily photographed with a 35-mm. Leica M4 before transitioning to a 120\/6×6 medium-format Hasselblad with an 80-mm. lens\u2014was both cinematic and architectural. Or so say the writer Susan Bright and the visual artist Anne Morin in a major new monograph, Rodney Smith: Photography Between Real and Surreal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Should you ever need to identify a work by the New York photographer Rodney Smith, who lived from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":249608,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[42401,125186,307,304,305,306,125187,108022,308,93,125188,125189,3236,125190,61,60,30178,125191,25463,4320,125192,121659,125193,125194,125195,125196,125197,125198,125199,125200,65443],"class_list":["post-249607","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-alfred-hitchcock","tag-anne-morin","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-artsdesign","tag-bernadette-no-2","tag-charlie-chaplin","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-frank-capra","tag-groucho-marx","tag-hasselblad","tag-hitchcock","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-john-singer-sargent","tag-leap-of-faith","tag-leica","tag-new-york","tag-north-by-northwest","tag-rene-magritte","tag-rodney-smith","tag-rodney-smith-photography-between-real-and-surreal","tag-singin-in-the-rain","tag-susan-bright","tag-the-1930s","tag-the-1960","tag-the-1990s","tag-the-2000s","tag-wes-anderson"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249607","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=249607"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249607\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/249608"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=249607"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=249607"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=249607"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}