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Exhibition

Anthony Hernandez

September 24, 2016–January 2, 2018
Floor 3, Pritzker Center for Photography

Anthony Hernandez is the first retrospective to honor the more than 45-year career of this major American photographer. Featuring approximately 160 photographs — many never shown before — the exhibition includes a remarkably varied body of work united by its formal beauty and its subtle consideration of contemporary social issues. Born and raised in Los Angeles, Anthony Hernandez developed his own individual style of street photography, one attuned to the desolate allure and sprawling expanses of his hometown. Over the course of his career, he has deftly moved from black-and-white to color photography, from 35mm to large-format cameras, and from the human figure to the landscape to abstracted detail. Highlights from the exhibition include black-and-white photographs from the early 1970s taken on the streets of downtown L.A., color pictures made on Rodeo Drive in the mid-1980s, and selections from his critically acclaimed series Landscapes for the Homeless, completed in 1991. Although Hernandez has turned his lens on other cities — including Rome, Italy, and various American locales — Los Angeles, and especially the regions inhabited by the working class, the poor, and the homeless, has been his most enduring subject.


Exhibition Preview

Artwork image, Forever #20
Light coming through glass doors
Reflection of water and green lights on the ceiling of a tunnel.
A plastic bag hangs from a tree, amongst various items strewn across the ground
Black and white image of a metal scrap yard
A woman looks into a relective store sign to fix her makeup
Two people lay in the sand

Anthony Hernandez, Forever #20, 2007, printed 2013; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Accessions Committee Fund purchase; © Anthony Hernandez

Anthony Hernandez, Discarded #50, 2014; courtesy the artist; © Anthony Hernandez

Anthony Hernandez, Forever #74, 2011; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Accessions Committee Fund purchase; © Anthony Hernandez

Anthony Hernandez, Landscapes for the Homeless #1, 1988; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Accessions Committee Fund purchase: gift of Collectors’ Forum, Susan and Robert Green, Evelyn Haas, and Pam and Dick Kramlich; © Anthony Hernandez

Anthony Hernandez, Automotive Landscapes #35, 1978; Black Dog Collection, promised gift to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; © Anthony Hernandez

Anthony Hernandez, Rodeo Drive #3, 1984, printed 2014; courtesy the artist; © Anthony Hernandez

Anthony Hernandez, Santa Monica #14, 1970; Black Dog Collection, promised gift to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; © Anthony Hernandez


Watch

Photographer and Los Angeles native Anthony Hernandez takes SFMOMA along on a shoot in the Mojave Desert. He reflects on his tendency to photograph the “places people are not looking at.”




Generous support for Anthony Hernandez is provided by Randi and Bob Fisher. Additional support is provided by The Black Dog Private Foundation.

Header image: Anthony Hernandez, Forever #20, 2007, printed 2013; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Accessions Committee Fund purchase; © Anthony Hernandez