born Dec. 4, 1903, New York, N.Y., U.S.
died Feb. 8, 1991, Providence, R.I.
U.S. photographer, teacher, and editor.
He began to photograph in 1932 while teaching English in a public school. While documenting the Great Depression, he attended as closely to pure design as to his subjects. In the 1940s he began to photograph patterns and textures of subjects such as coiled ropes, footprints in sand, and weathered pavement and billboards. Though not immediately accepted by photographers, his abstract work was admired by painters Willem de Kooning and Franz Kline , with whom he later exhibited. He was most influential as a professor of photography and as coeditor of the magazine Choice .