Eighth Day Wonder - Jerry N. Uelsmann - Hardcover

by Moa Petersén (Author), Moa Petersén (Editor), Jerry N. Uelsmann (Photographer)

First biography of Jerry N. Uelsmann, pioneer of inner landscape photomontage

American photographer Jerry N. Uelsmann (1934-2022) was a seminal figure in photo history. Uelsmann catalyzed the transfer from modernist to post-modern photography with his at the time controversial photo montages and double exposures. Decades before the birth of digital image editing programs like Photoshop, Uelsmann created photo montages by combining several negatives in the darkroom. He started to create his surreal, spiritual, and thought-provoking images in the late 1950s and continued to produce them, completely analog, throughout his life.This first biography, written by Swedish photography historian Moa Petersén who was a close friend of Uelsmann's, addresses his role as disruptor of the traditional straight photography paradigm and the historical context that shaped him. Several of the included images are published here for the first time.

Author Biography

Jerry Norman Uelsmann (1934 - 2022) was an American photographer, and the forerunner of photomontage in the 20th century in America.

Born in Detroit, he first became interested in photography at the age of fourteen, encouraged by his father. Uelsmann went on to study at Rochester Institute of Technology, graduating in 1957 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree and continuing his studies at Indiana University. His first experiments with multiple imagery were produced in 1959. In the 1960s Uelsmann took inspiration from the Surrealists, combining two or more negatives in one photograph to create a sense of disorientation. Uelsmann died at the age of 87 in Gainsville.