Woody Allen, Leonard Bernstein, Jean Cocteau, David Hockney, John F. Kennedy, Piet Mondrian, Marilyn Monroe, Georgia O’Keeffe (ikke mindst), Eugene O’Neill, Pablo Picasso, Igor Stravinsky og Andy Warhol er alle personligheder, der er portrætteret af mesterfotografen Arnold Newman. Mesterfotograf fordi han – om nogen – er selve inkarnationen af The Environmental Portrait, en stil hvor miljøskildringen er et centralt element i billedet: kunstneren i sit atelier, politikeren på sit kontor eller foran regeringsbygningen, videnskabsmanden i laboratoriet. ”Mennesker eksisterer i rum,” siger Arnold Newman og sammenfører på en og samme tid to store traditioner i amerikansk fotografi, studieportrættet og dokumentargenren. Arnold Newman er født den 3. marts 1918 i New York og begyndte at fotografere som 20-årig i Philadelphia. 1930’ernes depression var en vanskelig periode i USA, men han fik alligevel hurtig personlig succes og skabte sit atelier på Manhattan, New York i 1940’erne. Newman er gennem årene blevet en af verdens mest velanskrevne fotografer og har skildret samtlige amerikanske præsidenter siden Harry S. Truman. Hans mest berømte portræt er billedet af komponisten og dirigenten Igor Stravinsky, taget i New York i 1946. Stravinsky sidder nederst i venstre hjørne og fylder meget lidt i forhold til flyglets store, svungne låg. I en nærmest musikalsk komposition placerer Newman komponisten som en ”detalje” i det store musikalske rum. Selvom billedet i dag nærmest har status af et ikon, var det i samtiden ungt og anderledes tænkt og så provokerende, at det ellers så moderne modeblad Harper’s Bazaar afviste det. Til gengæld fik han så mange andre billeder publiceret og blev en af LIFE Magazines store legendariske skikkelser, hvor han for alvor kunne skabe portrætter on locations. ____english____ Among the great personalities portrayed by the master photographer Arnold Newman are Woody Allen, Leonard Bernstein, Jean Cocteau, David Hockney, John F. Kennedy, Piet Mondrian, Marilyn Monroe, Georgia O’Keeffe (not least), Eugene O’Neill, Pablo Picasso, Igor Stravinsky and Andy Warhol. Arnold Newman is a pioneer and supreme master of the Environmental Portrait, a form of portraiture in which the setting is a key element: the artist in his studio; the politician in his office or in front of a government building; the scientist in his laboratory. ”People exist in space”, says Arnold Newman, who brings together two major traditions in American photography: the studio portrait and the documentary photo. Born in New York on 3rd March, 1918, Newman began photographing in Philadelphia at the age of twenty. Despite the fact that the 1930s depression was a difficult time in the U. S., he quickly became successful and in the 1940s established his own studio in New York’s Manhattan. Over the years, Newman has become one of the world’s most respected photographers. He has portrayed all American presidents since Harry S. Truman. His most famous portrait, shot in New York in 1946, is of the composer and conductor Igor Stravinsky. Stravinsky is seated at the lower left corner of the picture, taking up very little space in comparison to the large, curved lid of a grand piano. In this almost musical composition, Newman has placed the composer as a ”detail” of its large, musical space. Today it has practically attained the status of an icon, but at the time it was a fresh and differently conceived image, so provocative, in fact, that the otherwise very modern magazine Harper’s Bazaar rejected it. Newman, in turn, had numerous other pictures published and became one of the great, legendary figures working for LIFE Magazine, where he was given ample opportunity to create on-location portraits.