Beaumont Newhall, FPSA - photography critic and author, Photographic Society of America member - Obituary

Beaumont Newhall, FPSA, 84, died Feb. 26. Newhall, a member of the Society since 1945, received PSA's highest honor, the Progress Medal in 1965. He received this honor in recognition of his outstanding achievements as a photographic historian, author, curator, lecturer and teacher. At the time he was the Director of the George Eastman House, Rochester, N.Y., a position he held until 1971.

A native of Lynn, Mass., Newhall was educated at Harvard University, and took graduate work at the Courtauld Institute of Arts, University of London, and the Institut d'Art et d'Archilogie of the University of Paris.

According to the New York Times obituary, Newhall was a tough critic. He did not mince words in his criticism of some recent styles. He described attempts to use photography in a narrative fashion as "basically illustration, related more to the dramatic arts than to the inherent qualities of the photographic medium," and wrote that pictures that combine photographs with painting or printmaking "have little to do with photography."

Newhall is survived by Ms. Newhall and son, Theo Christopher Newhall, of Santa Fe, N.M.

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