Cervin Robinson
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Cervin Robinson (May 18, 1928 – December 27, 2022) was an American photographer and author best known for architectural photography and historical writings that span his career, active from 1957 to his death.


Early life

Robinson was born in
Boston Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...
, Massachusetts, the younger child of Frank Robinson and Mary Burchill Robinson. Robinson received an A.B. in English Literature from Harvard University in 1950 and soon after was drafted into the U. S. Army where he gained an abiding interest in
map projection In cartography, a map projection is any of a broad set of Transformation (function) , transformations employed to represent the curved two-dimensional Surface (mathematics), surface of a globe on a Plane (mathematics), plane. In a map projection, ...
s and perspective. Impressed early in his life with physics and photography, he continued to photograph in earnest while stationed with the Army in Germany. Upon return to the U.S., he became the assistant for
Walker Evans Walker Evans (November 3, 1903 – April 10, 1975) was an American photographer and photojournalist best known for his work for the Resettlement Administration and the Farm Security Administration (FSA) documenting the effects of the Great ...
(1953–1957), and traveled through much of the American heartland. Robinson died on December 27, 2022, at the age of 94.


Career

In 1958, Robinson began contract work for the
Historic American Buildings Survey The asterisk ( ), from Late Latin , from Ancient Greek , , "little star", is a Typography, typographical symbol. It is so called because it resembles a conventional image of a star (heraldry), heraldic star. Computer scientists and Mathematici ...
(HABS) photographing in the northeast sector from Maine to Pennsylvania and into the Middle West. At the same time, he acted as American representative for the London-based
Architectural Review ''The Architectural Review'' is a monthly international architectural magazine. It has been published in London since 1896. Its articles cover the built environment – which includes landscape, building design, interior design and urbanism â ...
for which he photographed major new American buildings. Thus his career in
architectural photography Architectural photography is the subgenre of the photography discipline where the primary emphasis is made to capturing photographs of buildings and similar architectural structures that are both aesthetically pleasing and accurate in terms of re ...
was launched in New York with the 1958 commission to photograph the
Seagram Building The Seagram Building is a skyscraper at 375 Park Avenue, between 52nd Street (Manhattan), 52nd and 53rd Street (Manhattan), 53rd Streets, in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. Designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe along with P ...
(Architects: Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Philip Johnson). Ever since then, Robinson has worked as a freelance photographer for architects and architectural magazines as well as Adjunct Professor of Architectural Photography in summer programs at Columbia University. More significantly, between the years 1987–2009, Robinson was an editor of photoessays for the journal, ''Places'', and contributed many of his own works. He has also exhibited in galleries and major art museums.


Approach to photography

Robert Campbell of the Boston Globe discussing the 2008 ''By Way of Broadway'' exhibit at MIT, wrote: 'Robinson loves to find and record places where something new is collaged over something old ... A huge red Checks Cashed Open 24 Hours billboard splashes across what once, clearly, was an elegant movie theater in the Art Deco style. An auto body shop, with a phony castle-like façade, shoves itself rudely in front of a decayed object that appears once to have been a grand
memorial arch Memorial gates and arches are architectural monuments in the form of gates and arches or other entrances, constructed as a memorial, often dedicated to a particular war though some are dedicated to individuals. The function, and very often the arc ...
. As we perceive such scenes, we visually peel back the present to reveal the past. Robinson is, among other things, a photographer of time itself.'


Grants and awards

Among several honors and acknowledgments, Cervin Robinson received a Guggenheim Fellowship, 1971 and two fellowship residencies at the MacDowell Colony, Peterborough, NH 1996 and 1998.


Exhibitions

* Photographing Places: The Photographers of Places Journal, 1987–2009, MIT Museum, Kurtz Gallery for Photography, Cambridge, MA, January 22 – August 16, 2015 * Cervin Robinson, The Century Association, New York, NY, February 25 – March 22, 2013 * By Way of Broadway, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, 2008, and subsequently shown by the Municipal Society Gallery, New York, NY, 2009. * Cervin Robinson, Cleveland, Ohio, The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH, 1989 * Cervin Robinson, Photographs, 1958–1983, The Farish Gallery, School of Architecture, Rice University, Houston, TX, March–April 1983 and The Wellesley College Museum, Jewett Arts Center, Wellesley, MA, November 1983 – Jan 1984. * Landmarks that Aren't, Municipal Art Society Gallery, New York, NY, 1982 * Skyscraper Style: Art Deco New York, Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY, 1975 * The Architecture of Frank Furness, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA,1973


Works and publications

''Chronological order by date of publication'' * * * * * * * * * *


References


External links


Cervin Robinson
at Prints & Photographs Online Catalog (PPOC) at
Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is a research library in Washington, D.C., serving as the library and research service for the United States Congress and the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It also administers Copyright law o ...
{{DEFAULTSORT:Robinson, Cervin 1928 births 2022 deaths American photographers Harvard University alumni Columbia University faculty People from Boston