Visual art
Todd Webb
1905–2000 · photographer
Detroit-born documentary photographer of New York, Paris and the American West, who learned his craft at the Detroit Camera Club while working for Chrysler.
- Born
Detroit, Michigan- Died
Lewiston, Maine
aged 94- Birth name
- Charles Clayton Webb
- Detroit years
- 1905–1920s, 1934–1942
- Field
- Visual art
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
Webb was born in Detroit in 1905 and grew up there and in a Quaker community in Ontario. In the 1920s he worked as a bank teller and at a brokerage firm in Detroit, and by some accounts did well as a stockbroker until the 1929 crash wiped him out. After years of wandering, including prospecting for gold, he returned to Detroit in 1934 and took a job in Chrysler's export division. He studied photography through the Detroit Camera Club, where he met Harry Callahan, and the two friends worked side by side on the streets of the city. After service as a Navy photographer in World War II he moved to New York in 1946, where he photographed the everyday life and architecture of the city with a quiet, observant eye and befriended Alfred Stieglitz and Georgia O'Keeffe. He went on to photograph postwar Paris and the American West. His work is held by the Detroit Institute of Arts, the Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum.
Highlights
- Learned photography at the Detroit Camera Club in the 1930s
- Worked in Chrysler's export division and photographed Detroit with Harry Callahan
- Known for his New York street and architecture photographs of the 1940s
- Close friend and photographer of Georgia O'Keeffe
- Work in the Detroit Institute of Arts and MoMA
02 / Their Detroit places
Their Detroit places 1
Where they lived, worked, performed and liked to hang out. Closed and demolished places stay here too, because they are part of the city's history.
Related place
Detroit Institute of Arts (Friday Night Live!)
Holds his photographs in its collection.