George S. Zimbel | A Survey from 5 Decades of Photographs

Exhibition Dates: November 23 - December 21, 2002

Born in Woburn, Massachusetts in 1929, George S. Zimbel is currently working in his seventh decade as a documentary photographer. He established his passion for photography at an early age as the photographer/photo-editor of his high school yearbook. While attending Columbia College in the late 1940’s, he quickly immersed himself with the Columbia Camera Club and began to write and photograph for the Columbia Daily Spectator. After having his first photograph published in Life Magazine - for which he received $25 – George was determined to find other venues to publish his work.

Many publications were to follow: freelance work for The New York Times, Look, Redbook, Saturday Review, and Architectural Forum, amongst others. George became a member of PIX Inc., an early photo agency, where he and his contemporaries, such as Garry Winogrand, challenged and inspired one another. He began a 10-year self-directed project on American politics, a theme that weighs heavily in his work from the 1950s and 60s. George and his wife Elaine, along with their four children, were also heavily involved with protests against the Vietnam War, and in 1970 relocated to Prince Edward Island. They moved to Montreal in 1980, where George and Elaine have resided for the past 22 years.

In addition to his freelance work, George’s photographs have been shown and collected widely across North America and in Europe, by both private galleries and public institutions. A solo retrospective exhibition in Valencia, Spain, in January 2000 resulted in a major catalogue published by the Institut Valencià d’Art Modern. George’s work can be found in the permanent collections of Museum of Modern Art New York; National Gallery of Canada; International Center of Photography, New York; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Institut Valencia d'Art Modern, Spain; Musée du Quebec; and Musée d'Art Contemporain de Montreal.

A hallmark of George’s approach has always been non-intervention; his desire to capture a scene rather than “create” it. This is integral to his work, which encompasses a wide range of subject matter in many different locales. Remarkably, he is as well known for his photographs of ordinary people and everyday life – made extraordinary through his lens – as he is for his more famous subjects, from John F. Kennedy to Marilyn Monroe.