Franz Kline's Legacy Inspires Cowboy Photography

In the current, May 2011, edition of Popular Photography magazine, in an article about the breakthrough photographic video, The Way of the West, photographer Jim Krantz described his approach to his award-winning photographic style."These ideas don't come from photography. They come from sculpture and painting," he said.Krantz cites the work of American painter Franz Kline as an important influence.Franz Kline, who was born in Wilkes-Barre and grew up in Lehighton, is considered a giant among abstract impressionists, and a local celebrity among his Lehighton High School alumni.Although his early works depicted Lehighton and Palmerton in an interpretive but realistic manner, his later, more important works of largely heavy black lines on a white canvass have been difficult to interpret, perhaps until now.Kline affectionados describe his work as action painting, full of energy and power-just what Krantz wanted to animate his western scenes.Asked how Franz Kline influenced his work, Krantz replied, "I love Kline's powerful dynamism of gesture and shape. I feel the energy of the brush strokes and love to recall that feeling when I shoot."He said that Kline's works were part of his "visual dictionary."As an example, Krantz used Kline's "West Brand" as an inspiration for his own photograph of a cowboy on a bucking bronco. Kline's painting has a bent "T-shaped" figure to the left of a large block-both atop a rounded mass.In Krantz's western photograph, the brim of the cowboy parallels the cap of the bent "T-shaped" figure, the body of the cowboy with his hand extended for balance is related to the large black block, and the saddle on the horse's back picks up from the rounded mass.Krantz explained that the image was not a lucky accident. "I have the idea in my head before I take the photograph."The Popular Photography article, Photos in Motion, discusses Krantz's technique for image-making through the marriage of still and video photography.Popular Photography author Laurance Chen writes, "In his award-winning promotional video 'The Way of the West,' commercial photographer Jim Krantz of Chicago, IL, infuses the mythic American cowboy with a modern sensibility, overlaying this scene with an experiment in painting."Like Kline's use of black on white, Krantz chose to photograph horses splashing through puddles at first light of dawn, with the sun backlighting to highlight the spray from the water and put the horses into silhouette. To maximize the contrast, he asked that the horses all be of a dark color.Krantz added an additional abstraction using a technique he developed by painting on glass with light-sensitive emulsions. He calls this an "organic-abstraction feel" on top of the action shot.In 2010, at Alice Tully Hall in Lincoln Center, Krantz received the 2010 Lucie Award as the International Photographer of the Year. He was selected from 20,000 entrants from 103 nations for his synthesis of live-action footage, photography and animation onThe Way of the West, an ambitious project shot over four days in the Colorado wilderness. The Lucies recognize men and women whose life's work in photography merits the highest acclaim by their peers.At age 18, his grandfather, abstract impressionist David Bialac, gave Krantz his first camera, and on an urge, answered an ad to take a workshop with Ansel Adams in California."Ansel was one of the most important teachers of my life, a man who introduced me to the grandeur of the American landscape," Krantz said.He studied with Adams for three years.Krantz continued his studies with Paul Caponigro, Geoge Tice, Lucien Clergue, Albert Watson, Eva Rubenstein, Edna Bullock, and Antonin Kratochvil.Carbon County's most famous artist, Franz Kline was born in 1910 and had he not passed away just shy of his 52nd birthday in 1960, would have celebrated the 100th anniversary of his birth in 2010.For information on Jim Krantz, see:

www.jimkrantz.com. The Way of the West is linked to the home page.