Robert Mottar (October 29, 1919, in
Springfield, Illinois – November 1967, in
New York City
New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...
) was an American industrial and magazine photographer, active 1950s–1960s.
Early life
Robert Mottar was born in Springfield, Illinois on October 29, 1919, to Louise Ann Mottar (Lindrew) and University of Illinois Pharmacy graduate (1910) Samuel Mayo Mottar (b. 1889), a salesman for
Squibb in Chicago and trustee of the University of Illinois. He had a sister Bonnie Louise Mottar born August 16, 1915. His mother remarried when Robert was about 10 or 11. He lived in Los Angeles and Baltimore in the 1940s, and in
Oregeval,
Paris
Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...
and New York during the 1950s.
Career
Robert Mottar, often credited as 'Robert M. Mottar', began his career as a staff photographer for
The Baltimore Sun in the 1940s, and was invited to conduct a workshop in 1949 at the first
Missouri Photo Workshop, before graduating to freelancer for business magazines including ''
Fortune.'' He was also commissioned for stories on celebrities for mass-circulation magazines such as ''
LOOK'' and
''LIFE''. Mottar produced photographs of major building projects, technology and industry and made portraits of major players. Known for accepting dangerous and challenging architecture commissions, in 1959, he documented the building of the
28 Liberty Street, at one point assembling all of the construction workers (at a labour down-time cost of $10,000) for a multi-storey vertical panorama in which the grid structure of the steel and reinforced concrete facade of the skyscraper forms dozens of frames, each containing twenty or so cheering workers.
His near-silhouette against blank sky of a dogman standing on a girder being lifted by a crane featured in the world-touring ''
The Family of Man'', cropped to a tight vertical and mounted floor-to-ceiling to cover an entire structural column in the exhibition space at the
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street (Manhattan), 53rd Street between Fifth Avenue, Fifth and Sixth Avenues. MoMA's collection spans the late 19th century to the present, a ...
showing January 24–May 8, 1955. ''The Family of Man'' was seen by 9 million visitors worldwide and is now on show in perpetuity at
Clervaux Castle in
Luxembourg
Luxembourg, officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, is a landlocked country in Western Europe. It is bordered by Belgium to the west and north, Germany to the east, and France on the south. Its capital and most populous city, Luxembour ...
. He was represented in two additional exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art; ''MoMA; Photographs from the Museum Collection'', November 26, 1958 – January 18, 1959; and ''70 Photographers Look at New York'', November 27, 1957 – April 15, 1958.
Photography for universities
Mottar's portraits preserve the appearance of many American academics and intellectuals, and some from Europe.
In the collection of
Johns Hopkins University
The Johns Hopkins University (often abbreviated as Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private university, private research university in Baltimore, Maryland, United States. Founded in 1876 based on the European research institution model, J ...
are Mottar’s photographs of inventors and entrepreneurs, especially in the television industry, where he also photographed academics, campus views and student life, production of the ''JHU Science Review'' television program, and on one occasion, scenes of sixth-grade students using a mock-up television studio.
His portraits made at Johns Hopkins include John Allen Austin, Harold Ingle,
Arthur Oncken Lovejoy,
Leo Spitzer, Alex Quiroga, Ferdinand J. Hamburger,
James William Perry Jr.,
Ben Wolfe,
Alphonse Chapanis,
Henry Carrington Lancaster, Ernst Cloys Laurence Hall Fowler, Robert Lowell and Lowell Jacob Reed, Sheldon Keith Spalding (1957),
Lyn D. Poole (1957),
William Bennett Kouwenhoven (1950), Frank Vigor Morley (1953), William Moore Passano (1956),
Edward Russel Hawkins (1950),
Alexander Graham Christie (1950), Leo Orville Forkey (1950), George Friederic Wislicenus (1950), Francis Henry Horn (1950),
Robert Freedman (1956),
Franco Dino Rasetti (1953), Eben Francis Perkins III (1956),
Theodore McKeldin (1956), Audrey Smid (1956),
Sidney Painter (1954),
John Charles Hubbard (1952), Ronald Taylor Abercrombie (1952), Ralph Knieriem Witt (1951), Robert Fenwick (1951),
John Lehman (1951), and
Lowell Jacob Reed on his farm in New Hampshire (1953).
In 1952 Mottar made portraits of alumni emeritus professors at
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private university, private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial ...
in their academic environments that were published in ''The Princeton Alumni Weekly'' and exhibited in 1953 in the Princetoniana Room of the University Library:
Henry Norris Russell, Astronomy;
Charles Rufus Morey, Art and Archaeology; Robert Russell Wicks, Dean of the University Chapel, Arthur Maurice Greene, Dean of Engineering;
William Starr Myers, Politics;
Charles Grosvenor Osgood, Belles Lettres; Frank Jewett Mather Jr., Art and Archaeology;
Gordon Hall Gerould, Belles Lettres;
Edward Samuel Corwin, Jurisprudence;
Thomas Jefferson Wertenbaker, American History; George Wicker Elederkin, Art and Archaeology;
Gilbert Chinard, French Literature;
George Harrison Shull, Botany and Genetics.
During the 1950s, Mottar accompanied
University of Arkansas folklorist
Mary Celestia Parler undertaking the Folklore Research Project (1949–1965). The photographs feature Mary Celestia Parler and others active in collecting folklore, as well as the subjects of
Ozark folklore
Folklore is the body of expressive culture shared by a particular group of people, culture or subculture. This includes oral traditions such as Narrative, tales, myths, legends, proverbs, Poetry, poems, jokes, and other oral traditions. This also ...
studies.
Overseas commissions
Overseas Mottar worked between
Oregeval,
Paris
Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...
and
New York where he was represented by Scope Associates. There, Mottar photographed
Andre Gustave Parodi at the Swiss embassy in
Rome
Rome (Italian language, Italian and , ) is the capital city and most populated (municipality) of Italy. It is also the administrative centre of the Lazio Regions of Italy, region and of the Metropolitan City of Rome. A special named with 2, ...
,
Russell Baker in
London
London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...
(1953), Mark R. Lazarus in
Oxford
Oxford () is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and non-metropolitan district in Oxfordshire, England, of which it is the county town.
The city is home to the University of Oxford, the List of oldest universities in continuou ...
(1953), Ulrich Ernst Von Gienanth in
Eisenberg (1954), John Richard Cary in Munich (1954), Francis Torrance Wiliamson in the US embassy, Rome (1954),
Ludwig Edelstein in Oxford (1954), Tom Edward Davis and
Thomas Southcliffe Ashton at the
London School of Economics
The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), established in 1895, is a public research university in London, England, and a member institution of the University of London. The school specialises in the social sciences. Founded ...
(1953),
Thomas Watkins McElhiney in Berlin (1954), Arthur Kurtz Myers in Geneva (1953), Frank Vigor Morley in London (1953).
Mottar was a member of the
American Society of Magazine Photographers (ASMP).
Personal life
In March 1947, Mottar married Mary Carlile Boyd in
Reno, Nevada and they lived in
Westport. They had three children, Mary Mottar (1947–1955), Jill Mottar, born 1948, and Peter Mottar, born 1951. The marriage ended in divorce in 1956 with Mary winning full custody of the couple's two children.
Exhibitions
* Portraits of alumni emeritus professors of Princeton University, Princetoniana Room of the University Library, 1953
* ''The Family of Man'', Museum of Modern Art, January 24–May 8, 1955, the touring worldwide.
* ''70 Photographers Look at New York'', Museum of Modern Art, November 27, 1957 – April 15, 1958.
* ''Photographs from the Museum Collection'', Museum of Modern Art, November 26, 1958 – January 18, 1959
Collections
* Museum of Modern Art, New York.
* Princeton University Library.
[GREEN, R., & VAN DEVANTER, W. (1957). Library Notes & Queries: WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO PRINCETON. The Princeton University Library Chronicle, 18(3), 159-165. doi:10.2307/26402989]
Mary C. Parler Photographs Collection (MC896), part of the Arkansas Folklore Collection at the University of Arkansas Libraries Special Collections* Clervaux Castle, permanent display of ''The Family of Man.''
* Johns Hopkins University Sheridan Libraries.
Maryland Historical Society, Photograph Collection Inventory List, Special Collections Department.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mottar, Robert
20th-century American photographers
American photojournalists
1919 births
1967 deaths
American architectural photographers
American portrait photographers
Industrial photographers