Clarence john laughlin biography template

On the heels of Halloween, who better to feature than “the Father of American Surrealism,” Clarence John Laughlin? Born in 1905, Laughlin is best known for his haunting images of decaying antebellum architecture in his hometown of New Orleans. His work is the subject of an exhibition at the High Museum in Atlanta, Strange Light: The Photography of Clarence John Laughlin.

Strange Light is on view at the High Museum through November 10, 2019. Visit the High Museum’s website for more information or to purchase tickets. The exhibit captures Laughlin’s signature bodies of work made between 1935 and 1965 and includes more than 80 prints—some on display for the first time.

About the Artist

Clarence John Laughlin was an American photographer best known for his surrealist photographs of the American South. He made his first photograph in December 1930, keeping meticulous records of every exposure thereafter. During the last half of the decade, he made more than two thousand negatives of his beloved New Orleans French Quarter. For his first professional job, Laughlin worked as a Civil Service photographer with the United States Engineer’s office, where he documented construction work. After a brief stint in New York working for the Vogue magazine studios, he became Assistant Photographer at the National Archives in Washington, D.C.

In 1946 Laughlin returned to New Orleans. His architectural studies of antebellum plantation homes, published as Ghosts Along the Mississippi, brought him acclaim, and in the 1950s he

Clarence John Laughlin was one of New Orleans’s most renowned twentieth-century photographers and, at the same time, among the least understood. While some consider his work to be the epitome of romance, others see it as surrealist, fantasist, or symbolist. Some photos depict fantasy yet are seemingly straightforward documentary images. Elements of all of these leanings can be found in Laughlin’s work, which sprang primarily from his love for New Orleans and Louisiana and from his desire, as he wrote, to create “purely visual poetry.”

Born August 10, 1905, in Lake Charles, Laughlin moved to New Orleans with his family as a young child and lived there for most of his life. His father is credited with instilling in him a deep love of books and literature, and he became an ardent bibliophile. After teaching himself photography, Laughlin landed a position with the Works Progress Administration’s Historic American Building Survey during the Depression. His early career also included photographic work for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the Office of Strategic Services, and Vogue magazine. For several years he worked as a freelance architectural photographer.

In some of his best-known work, Laughlin employed multiple exposures and other techniques to depict the devastation wrought by time and neglect and “to probe the intangible psychological jungle in which every object is enmeshed.” In opposition to documentary or pictorial photography, his photographic work, he wrote, encompassed “the third world of photography,” images that concerned “inner perceptions and compulsions….intuition and symbolism.” The result was often mysterious and beautiful, startling and bizarre. “I am not primarily interested in the camera as a recording mechanism,” he wrote, “but, rather, in its possibilities as an extension of the inner eye.”

He made the majority of his 17,000 large-format negatives of Louisiana plantations, cemeteries, New Orleans buildings, still lifes, and city scenes

ABOUT LAUGHLIN PAPERS

Clarence John Laughlin Papers, Mss. 4538
Materials are arranged into four series and chiefly relate to Laughlin’s book collecting habits. Materials in these papers, especially book collecting records, often include notation by Laughlin. Notation practices include using codes and symbols, dating materials, and duplicating outgoing correspondence.
 
Series I: Book Collecting Records
This series contains materials pertaining to Laughlin’s book collecting. Items include manuscript volumes, annotated catalogs and books, notations on scraps of ephemera, clippings, and printed materials. Book collecting correspondence includes letters, printed materials, invoices and money orders. Additional correspondence pertains to LSU and the purchase of Laughlin’s book collection by LSU Libraries.
 
Series II: Research Materials
Records in this series include an eclectic mix of items on a variety of topics. Collected materials include books, correspondence, photographs, articles, printed materials, clippings, blueprints, art prints, exhibition catalogs and announcements, advertisements, ephemera, maps, flyers, brochures, and form letters.
 
Series III: Writings
This series contains miscellaneous items authored by Clarence John Laughlin including personal notes, school papers, work reports, and a narrative short story.
 
Series IV: Removal Files
This series comprises materials removed from titles of the Laughlin Book Collection. This includes correspondence, photographs, notes, printed materials, mail, clippings, ephemera, fine art prints, and publications. Most materials relate to book collecting. This includes subscription notices, book covers, correspondence, invoices, money orders, flyers, catalogs, ephemera, printed materials, and advertisements.
 
Finding aid for the collection can be found here.