MoCP - Darkroom 2023

Charles Swedlund (United States, b. 1935), Untitled (Near Ottawa, IL), 1962 

Charles Swedlund studied photography at the Institute of Design in the late 1950s, where he was taught by Aaron Siskind and worked alongside classmates such as Joseph Jachna, Kenneth Josephson, Ray Metzker, and Joseph Sterling. Swedlund is perhaps best known for his experimental nude photographs using multiple exposures made around 1960. Later in the decade, he began to photograph figures within natural landscapes, alone or in groups, so that their surrounding environment contributes to the picture's formal and metaphorical effects. In each case, Swedlund produced the layered images in the camera, rather than in the darkroom by sandwiching negatives or other deliberate printing techniques. "This distinction is important to me," he noted in 1973, "I like and foster the associations produced by accidents or vaguely controlled situations rather than the ones consciously constructed." 

Charles Swedlund’s work is held in the collections of numerous institutions, including the Art Institute of Chicago; the Center for Creative Photography, AZ; and the J. Paul Getty Museum, CA, among others. 

http://stephendaitergallery.com/artists/charles-swedlund/