OLTRE IL MURO: ARTE e FOTOGRAFIA: MAYNARD OWEN WILLIAMS

mercoledì 4 luglio 2012

MAYNARD OWEN WILLIAMS

Maynard Owen Williams, born in Montour Falls, New York, grew up in Kalamazoo, Michigan. After receiving degrees simultaneously from Kalamazoo College and the University of Chicago, he spent a few years teaching at what later became the American University in Beirut, then worked as a Baptist Missionary teacher in Hangchow, China. He joined the National Geographic staff in 1919 after spending some years with the Kalamazoo Gazette and Christian Herald. During his career with the Society, Williams photographed and wrote about many areas of the world including Greece, the Middle East, China, Czechoslovakia, Afghanistan, Sinai, the Netherlands, and the East Indies, contributing over ninety magazine articles. He participated in the opening of King Tutakhamen's tomb in Egypt in 1923. National Geographic's MacMillan Arctic Expedition in 1925, and the French Citroen-Haardt Expedition crossing Asia by motor car in 1931- 1932. Williams spent thirty-four years with National Geographic, many of them as the chief foreign editor. He died in 1963.

Owen Maynard Williams acompanhou a expedição Citroën-Haardt pela Ásia - utilizando pôneis, camelos, iaques e carros - como fotógrafo-chefe, de 1931 a 1932. Apesar de a jornada ter terminado de maneira abrupta em 1932, com a morte de Haardt, Williams classificou a viagem de um ano e meio como "a maior aventura da minha vida".

Young women of the steppes in central Asia. - Photo by Maynard Owen Williams, 1932

A Statue of Peter the Great Resting on a Wagon

Kabul, Afghanistan, 1946 by Maynard Owen Williams

A Clown at the Gingerbread Fair at the Place De La Nation - Maynard Owen Williams

Girls in Burkas, Iran Photograph by Maynard Owen Williams

"With the exception of their veils, these girls look, dress, and act like American girls, an interesting sidelight on the New Persia."—Maynard Owen Williams - National Geographic magazine, October, 1931