Arnold Chanin likens his series of photographs to musical compositions. He creates "visual chamber music, where each photo is a work unto itself and the entire group may be viewed as an 'opus,' like a set of quartets or sonatas, with harmony, counterpoint and variations on a theme." A selection of prints from his series "From Grauman's to the Getty," is listed among past exhibits of the Huntington Library from March 3, 2007 - June 3, 2007.
"From Grauman's to the Getty" documents Los Angeles from 1961 to 2004. Since the late 1950s, Chanin has searched for elements of the city which one might ordinarily miss, frequently returning to sites in order to capture the best light or to explore different angles. Often the images highlight contrasts between old and new, modern and traditional, permanent and transitory that he finds typical of Los Angeles.
Chanin (b. 1934) studied art at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh and at Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio. He moved to Los Angeles in 1958 where he taught jewelry design and fabrication, worked as a portrait photographer, and completed his M.F.A. In 1965 he earned an M.D. from the California College of Medicine and began a career as a physician while continuing to work on his artistic projects. His photographs are in the permanent collections of the Orange County Museum of Art and the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
"From Grauman's to the Getty" is selected from a group of photographs Arnold Chanin has recently donated to The Huntington where they join a collection of 1,640 photographs in the American art holdings. The gift also complements the many of thousands of photographs in the Library's collections that illustrate the history and development of California and the West.