Genevieve Naylor

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Genevieve Naylor was born in Springfield Massachusetts on February 12 1915. She studied at Miss Hall's School, the Arts Students League, and the New School for Social Research.

In 1934 Naylor met Berenice Abbott and began studying photography with Abbott at the New School for Social Research. From 1935 to 1937 Naylor became an apprentice to Abbott helping her put together the classic "Changing New York." She also took a job at the Photo League as photographic cataloguer.

Naylors professional career began in 1937 with the Associated Press. As one of the first woman photojournalist hired by the AP. In addition to the AP, her photographs began to appear in TIME, FORTUNE, and LIFE Magazine. She was also selected by the WPA to chronicle the Harlem Arts Center as part of the Harlem Document Project.

Working for the WPA, Naylor documented displaced families camping out in front of the Lincoln Memorial, cattle farmers in New Hampshire, Vermont and Pennsylvania homesteaders, and the people of Maine and New Hampshire.

In 1940, the United States State Department under a program titled the Office on inter-American Affairs (OIAA), sent Naylor and her husband, Misha Reznikoff to Brazil. Naylors assignment under the OIAA was to promote American goodwill. Recording a virtual "day in the life" photomontage of all aspects of Brazilian society for the American public, Naylor and Reznikoff traveled up and down the eastern coast and interior sections of Brazil. These photographs were exhibited at New York's Museum of Modern Art upon Naylor return to the United States in 1 943. This one woman MoMA show - a rarity for that day - went on tour across the United States in 1944.

Alexey Brodovitch Harper's Bazaar influential art director, saw Naylor exhibition at MOMA and immediately hired her as a fashion and reportage photographer for the magazine.

Though Naylor career at Harper's Bazaar dealt mostly with fashion, she was given a variety of other photographic assignments. Subject matter ranged from personality, food, travel, and human interest. She worked closely with such legendary editors as Carmel Snow, Diana Vreeland, and Nicholas De Gunzburg.

Concurrent with her job at Harper's Bazaar, Naylor began to free lance with all the Cond Nast and Hearst publications. This association was to last through the late 1970s. Magazines Naylor worked for included Harper's Bazaar, McCall's Redbook, Vogue, Town and Country, Mademoiselle, Holiday, Bride's, Life, Fortune, PM, Women's Home Companion, The Ladies Home journal, Good Housekeeping, House Beautiful, Look, Seventeen, and Cosmopolitan. During this period, with Naylor returned to her photojournalist roots, and began a long succession of human interest stories. These stories covered a variety of topics including suburban life, polio, overcoming personal hardships, Royalty, schools, professional people, film stars, authors, musicians, government, automobiles, architecture, Americana, and the Kennedy-Nixon presidential election of 1960.

In 1953 Cosmopolitan Magazine sent Naylor to Korea to photograph MASH unit nurses in combat.

From 1954 to 1958, McCall's assigned her to be Eleanor Roosevelt's personal photographer.

Other assignments during this period included record and book jacket photography. Her advisement accounts included Coca Cola, Coty, Revlon, Celanese, and General Electric.

Throughout the I960s and 1970s Naylor worked for Good Housekeeping and House Beautiful photographing interior design and personalities.

In 1979, Naylor retired from magazine work, concentrating on abstract and experimental photographs for her personal collection.

In 1985, her fashion photography was featured in the exhibition entitled Shots of Style at the Victoria-Albert Museum in London, England. The curator of the exhibition was David Bailey.

Before her death in I989, Naylor began to exhibit her photographs at the Marje Neikrug and Staley-Wise Galleries in New York City.

In 1991 the Victoria-Albert Museum in London, England, featured Naylor fashion work in a new exhibition entitled, Appearances.

Her photographs were part of Harper's Bazaar's commemorative book, 125 Great Moments of Harper's Bazaar.

The GAP feature her photograph in their 1 994 "Khaki Jeans" campaign.

In the fall of 1994 and 1995, the Museum of São Paulo, and the Cultural Center in Rio de Janeiro mounted a one woman exhibition devoted to her 1940s Brazilian work. The exhibition simultaneously opened in March of 1996 at Columbia University and the Brazilian-American Cultural Institute in Washington, B.C. In 1998, a third exhibition of Naylor Brazilian work will be seen in the cities of Belo Horzonte and Rio under the title, "Late Modernities in Brazil." This project is funded by the Rockefeller Foundation.

In 1997, the United States Information Service began a three year tour featuring 50 large modern prints of Naylor Brazilian work. The exhibition is scheduled to be seen in twenty major Brazilian cities.

Naylor was given a one woman show at the Staley-Wise Gallery in 1995, and in the same year participated in group shows at the G.Ray Hawkins, Yancy Richardson, and Howard Greenberg Galleries and The Fashion Institute.

Her photographs were part of a three-year (I993-1996) Smithsonian Institution tour dedicated to the life of Louis Armstrong.

Naylors work was featured in three year tour based on Naomi Rosenblum's book, A History of 20th Century Woman Photographers. Duke University Press has published a monograph on Naylor Brazilian photography, and a 30 minute documentary on her Brazilian sojourn was broadcast on the History Channel in March of 1999.

Other exhibitions include Wedding Days at the G.Ray Hawkins Gallery, Los Angeles, The Fords: 50 Years of Fashion, Staley-Wise Gallery, 1997, the Art of the Theatre at the Giraffics Gallery, 1997 a one woman exhibition at the Brooks Institute in Santa Barbara, California, spring 1998, a new exhibition of her Brazilian work, "Late Modernities in Brazil" in the cities of Belo Horizonte and Rio fall, I998. Her work was part of a retrospective exhibition on designer Claire McCardell at the Museum at FIT.

Her work was part of a commemorative book taken by President Bill Clinton on his Presidential trip to Brazil in the spring of 1998. Her work is currently featured in the hard covered book devoted to Town and Country Magazine's first I00 years.

Part of the Naylor collection was bought by Corbis in 1995.

Most current exhibition: Brasil 500 Artes Visuals ( Brazils 500th Anniversary represented in the visual arts). This exhibition will travel worldwide, scheduled to open at the Guggenheim Museum in the fall of 2001.

[edit] Publications

  • Shots of Style, Great Fashion Photography David Baily, Rizzoli, 1985
  • Appearances, Martin Harrison, John Cale, 1991
  • 125 Great Moments of Harper's Bazaar, Wm. Morrow, 1993
  • A History of Woman Photographers, Naomi Rosenblum, Abbeville Press, 1995
  • High Society: 150 Years of Town and Country Magazine, Abrams, 1996
  • The Brazilian Photography of Genevieve Naylor, Duke University Press, 1998
  • Claire McCardell: Redefining Moderism, Abrams

[edit] Film documentary

  • Brazilian Images: The 1940s Brazilian Photography of Genevieve Naylor, 1997

[edit] Exhibitions

  • 1985: Shots of Style, Victoria Albert Museum, London
  • 1987: Marie Neikrug Gallery, New York
  • 1991: Appearances, Victoria Albert Museum, London
  • 1993: 20th Century Woman Photographers, Staley-Wise
  • 1994: Louis Armstrong: A Cultural Legacy, Smithsonian lnstutution
  • 1994: Faces and Places In Brazil, São Paulo Museum, Brazil
  • 1995: One Woman Exhibition, Staley-Wise Gallery,
  • 1995: Outside Fashion, Howard Greenberg Gallery
  • 1995: Kissing: G. Ray Hawkins Gallery, Los Angeles
  • 1995: Faces and Places In Brazil, Cultural Center, Rio
  • 1995: Kissing: Yancy Richardson Gallery, New York
  • 1995: Claire McCardell Fashion: Fashion Institute, New York
  • 1996: Faces and Places In Brazil, Columbia University
  • 1996: Facesand Places In Brazil-Brazilian-American Institute, Washington,D.C.
  • 1996: Faces and Places In Brazil tour, United States Information Tour
  • 1996: Wedding Days: G.Ray Hawkins Gallery, Los Angeles
  • 1996: Faces and Places In Brazil, USIS tour, Brazil
  • 1996: A History of Woman Photography, three year tour
  • 1997: The Fords: 50 Years of Fashion
  • 1997: Wedding Days: G.Ray Hawkins Gallery, Los Angeles
  • 1997: Art of the Theatre, Giraffics Gallery, East Hampton, New York
  • 1998: One Woman Exhibition, Brooks Institute of Photography Santa Barbara, California
  • 1998: Late Modernities in Brazil, Exhibition in Rio de Janeiro and Belo Horizonte
  • 1998: Claire McCardell: Redefining Moderism, Museum at FIT, New York
  • 1999: Group Show: S.E. Museum of Photography, Dayton Beach, Fl.
  • 2000: Brazil 500 Anos Artes Visuals, São Paulo, Brazil