He spent much of his life with a vision, saw the world with an unparalleled sense of courage and an undying spirit of curiosity. A lens, some film and an artist's touch were the tools he used to capture the essence of reality and transform it into something magical. Nothing could stop the late LIFE Magazine photographer George Silk from getting the picture he most desired, whether it be the threat of being killed in a war, climbing the masts of 12-meter sailboats or waiting patiently for three-and-a-half weeks to shoot the perfect nature picture. An array of the photographs he took throughout his life is currently on view at the Emerson Gallery in an exhibit also featuring the photographic work of his daughter, Georgiana Silk K'72, in the first retrospective of the father and daughter together in this country.
Titled "George Silk and Georgiana Silk K'72: Father and Daughter Photographers," the exhibit will be at the Emerson Gallery through September 11. Though he passed away last year, the enthusiasm, talent and vigor that embodied George Silk's life was expressed by his daughter during a gallery tour and reception on June 4 during Reunion Weekend.
Georgiana Silk, a graduate of Kirkland College's charter class, said her father grew up in New Zealand, left school at age 14 and became an Australian war correspondent during WWII. When Australian publications did not print many of his pictures, including some that he risked his life for, he began to work as a LIFE Magazine staff photographer. When explaining one photograph of a dead American soldier that her father took during WWII, Georgiana said the soldier had been shot right in front of her father who then quickly snapped the photograph. "He tried to give the viewer the same view he had," she said.
While the subject matter of George Silk's work varied from war to nature to sports, and he even went so far as to innovatively take the camera away from his eye and place it on a ski and surfboard to grasp a different angle, exhibit curator David Nathans '72 said that Georgiana more often worked with portraiture and captured human sensibility. While George Silk had experimented with racehorse finishing cameras to elongate his subjects in several pictures, his daughter primarily photographs what she describes as "life moments."
Throughout the collection of Georgiana Silk's photography currently on display at the Emerson Gallery, children are pictured laughing, yawning and smiling; there is also a photograph of a pregnant stomach, a picture of a newborn baby's feet and a series of portraits Silk took for the covers of corporate magazines, such as Fortune.
Before Georgiana had ever begun at Kirkland College, she decided that she wanted to photographically document that first class of women, and did so with a compilation commonly called " the Kirkland Greenbook." During her senior year, she went to editors of LIFE and asked for an assignment to photograph the first graduation of Kirkland College, and the magazine accepted her proposal, requiring only that she work with her father on this project; the two compiled a six-page photoessay, which appeared in the July 9, 1972, issue.
She says that she first developed an interest in photography at age 5 when her father gave her a Kodak Brownie, and though her interest first stemmed from her admiration of her father, he did not teach her anything about photography along the way.
"My father and I are intuitive, he always thought we should teach ourselves everything," she said. "He did always tell me never to leave my camera strap hanging over the edge of the counter. One day while I was at Kirkland College, the strap broke and the camera fell to the floor—I let out a bloodcurdling scream, and that was one moment that I have been unable to forget."
While George Silk stopped going to school at age 14 and taught himself about photography, his daughter completed four years at Kirkland College and then went on to study at Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles. When asked about what she likes best about being a photographer, Georgiana said, "I just like making good pictures." Noting how her father preferred to remain anonymous, blending into the background while taking a picture, she said she does a different kind of shooting that is more one-on-one studio photography, where she is "more in the subject's face."
-- by Katherine Trainor
