{"id":289280,"date":"2026-01-17T13:27:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-17T13:27:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/289280\/"},"modified":"2026-01-17T13:27:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-17T13:27:09","slug":"rodney-smith-photography-between-real-and-surreal-a-new-book-celebrates-a-master","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/289280\/","title":{"rendered":"“Rodney Smith: Photography between Real and Surreal,” a New Book, Celebrates a Master"},"content":{"rendered":"

Should you ever need to identify a work by the New York<\/a> photographer Rodney Smith, who lived from 1947 to 2016, look for these clues. First, his images of dreamlike whimsy are usually contained within a pleasing symmetry\u2014they\u2019re very Wes Anderson but in black and white. Next, his subjects resemble Charlie Chaplin<\/a> or characters out of a Frank Capra film\u2014they\u2019re often wearing hats\u2014yet they are placed in Hitchcockian situations: chased by airplanes (very North by Northwest) and inhabiting Magritte-like spaces.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

A double self-portrait by Smith, taken outside the Schoenbrunn Palace, in Vienna, 1998. <\/p>\n

All this is to say that Smith\u2014who primarily photographed with a 35-mm. Leica M4 before transitioning to a 120\/6×6 medium-format Hasselblad with an 80-mm. lens\u2014was both cinematic and architectural. Or so say the writer Susan Bright and the visual artist Anne Morin in a major new monograph, Rodney Smith: Photography Between Real and Surreal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Should you ever need to identify a work by the New York photographer Rodney Smith, who lived from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":289281,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[267],"tags":[65049,144548,365,362,363,364,144549,13100,366,18,117,144550,144551,34200,144552,19,17,54868,144553,24871,968,144554,141215,144555,144556,144557,144558,144559,144560,144561,144562,87103],"class_list":{"0":"post-289280","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-alfred-hitchcock","9":"tag-anne-morin","10":"tag-arts","11":"tag-arts-and-design","12":"tag-artsanddesign","13":"tag-artsdesign","14":"tag-bernadette-no-2","15":"tag-charlie-chaplin","16":"tag-design","17":"tag-eire","18":"tag-entertainment","19":"tag-frank-capra","20":"tag-groucho-marx","21":"tag-hasselblad","22":"tag-hitchcock","23":"tag-ie","24":"tag-ireland","25":"tag-john-singer-sargent","26":"tag-leap-of-faith","27":"tag-leica","28":"tag-new-york","29":"tag-north-by-northwest","30":"tag-rene-magritte","31":"tag-rodney-smith","32":"tag-rodney-smith-photography-between-real-and-surreal","33":"tag-singin-in-the-rain","34":"tag-susan-bright","35":"tag-the-1930s","36":"tag-the-1960","37":"tag-the-1990s","38":"tag-the-2000s","39":"tag-wes-anderson"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289280","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=289280"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289280\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/289281"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=289280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=289280"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=289280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}