Popeye Doyle's New York: More Photos by Wayne Sorce

 

From Peggy Roalf's piece on Wayne Sorce in Design Arts Daily: To say that the photography of Wayne Sorce (1946-2015) flies under the radar is hyperbole. This master of color photography, who worked at a time when anything not black-and-white guaranteed exclusion from the discussion of “fine art photography,” embraced urban chaos as his métier—in extraordinarily measured views of Chicago and New York. Mainly taken during the late 1970s and early 1980s, these vibrant, large-scale prints came to view last fall when Joseph Bellows mounted a show in memoriam.
Engaging with the urban scene just when street photography began to enter the canon, Sorce eschewed the foundations of that trope: instead of sharp diagonals and close views being crammed tightly into the frame, his images are based on plain geometry and a highly measured—a studied—view. Although labeled “nostalgic" by others, to me these photographs are something else. Look closely and you’ll see exactly what it means to be observant; to wait until a shadow moves just a few more feet towards the front; what it takes to be patient enough to wait until figures crowding a street corner move along, leaving a few people who become metaphorical figures in the scene.