Max Waldman collection of performing arts photographs

Max Waldman (1919-1981) was an American photographer of the performing arts, with a focus on theatre and dance in New York City in the middle twentieth century. Waldman described his process as “reconstructing the shapes” of a performance, photographing actors and dancers in his small studio rather than on-stage. As a result, Waldman’s photographs blend criticism, memory, and interpretation in a way that contrasts more documentary approaches to photographing the performing arts.

Max Waldman was born in 1919 in Brooklyn, New York to parents who immigrated from Austria. Following the death of his father at age eight, Waldman, along with his four siblings, were placed into foster homes. Waldman first learned and began work in photography in the late 1930s in the Civilian Conservation Corps, the New Deal program established to work on the improvement and maintenance of public lands in the United States. Afterward, Waldman attended the Buffalo State Teachers College and the Albright Art school, later enrolling in the Art Students League of New York where he studied sculpture. After initial career success in commercial photography, Waldman began forging connections to actors and playwrights involved in the avant-garde of New York theatre, leading to the publication of his first book of photographs in 1965, Zero by Mostel. The work features drawings and paintings by Mostel, extensive interviews with the actor, and 150 portraits of Mostel photographed by Waldman. The latter portraits in the work, of Mostel reprising two of his most notable performances, as Leopold Bloom in Ulysses in Nighttown and as Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof showcase what would become signature elements of Waldman’s style: low exposure, bold use of pose and form, and dramatic chiaroscuro.

From the mid-1960s onward, Waldman photographed a wide swath of theatre and dance, primarily in his small studio on East 17th Street in Manhattan. Instead of photographing the performers of a work on-stage in the midst of a production, Waldman brought the performers into his studio after the fact, providing his own guidance and direction for the photographs. The studio featured bare white walls and photographs were initially lit by the studio’s skylight and later by strobe lights. As a result, Waldman’s photographs center the performers themselves with generally little scenery and props.

Beyond style, Waldman’s choice of productions to photograph is of note, covering a number of novel and influential approaches to their respective forms. Within theatre, notable productions photographed by Waldman include: Peter Brook’s Marat/Sade in 1965, Michael Kahn’s Merchant of Venice starring Morris Karnovsky in 1967, Richard Schechner’s Dionysus in 69, and experimental theatre company The Living Theatre in 1969. The choreographers and dancers photographed by Waldman equally capture a number of prominent productions including works choreographed by Alvin Ailey, Martha Graham, Merce Cunningham, George Balanchine, Jerome Robbins and Natalia Makarova, and works performed by Judith Jamison, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Marcia Haydée, Suzanne Farrel and Murray Louis.

In Waldman’s lifetime, he oversaw the publication of one collection of his theatre photography, Waldman on Theatre in 1971 which brought increased attention to his work. This volume was followed by the publication of Waldman on Dance in 1977. Waldman’s work has been widely exhibited including a 1967 exhibition featuring Waldman’s photos of Marat/Sade in 1967 at the Museum of Modern Art. Waldman died in 1981 at the age of 61.