Charles Harbutt

Charles Harbutt has enjoyed a long and diverse career in his chosen medium. He has remained committed to his faith in photography’s expressive potential, favoring the found, rather than the constructed, moment, and carrying the torch for all the best traditions of photography as a tool of engagement with the world.

In a career spanning over forty years, Harbutt has focused on the themes of depersonalization and the search for human contact. Each image evokes a palpable sense of isolation, celebration, anticipation, or feelings of loss. He employs a fine mastery of his craft to interpret and communicate character, place, mood and social awareness. Harbutt captures those fleeting moments often left unseen by the casual observer.

Harbutt now teaches photography at Parsons The New School. He graduated in journalism and became a freelance photographer in 1959.  He joined Magnum in 1963 and was twice its president, leaving to found a new cooperative agency, Archive Pictures, in 1981.  He has concentrated on magazine and book work since.  Exhibitions include The Art Institute of Chicago; Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Bibliotheque Nationale, and Centre Pompidou, Paris; and the Whitney Museum, New York.  His work is in over twenty five museum collections.