Milton Halberstadt (1919–2000) had an illustrious career in fine art and commercial photography that spanned seven decades and left a body of work covering genres from abstract art to commercial photography.
Halberstadt studied at the Art Institute of Chicago and the New Bauhaus founded in 1937 by designer-painter László Moholy-Nagy and the concepts from the original Bauhaus in Germany. He served as an assistant to both László Moholy-Nagy and György Kepes.
He served as an Air Force navigator during World War II in the Air Force 456th Bomb Group. He was a navigator aboard a B-24 bomber flying over Yugoslavia in 1944 when his aircraft was hit by enemy fire. Despite severe injuries, Halberstadt guided the plane down safely and he received the Distinguished Flying Cross medal for heroism in aerial combat.
M. Halberstadt Illustration studio in San Francisco was known for fine large format studio photography and he changed how food was photographed and used in print. Halberstadt was a colleague and contemporary of Ansel Adams, Minor White, Imogen Cunningham, Dorothea Lange, Edward Weston, and other fine art photographers working in California in the area of Fine Art and Commercial Photography. He was a leader in San Francisco's golden age of advertising design. Clients included Del Monte, Dole, S&W, Paul Masson, Pan-Am Airlines, and Royal Viking Lines.
Many of his students have gone on to illustrious careers in fine art photography, including his last assistant, Alan Ross, who went on to work with Ansel Adams before becoming a leader in Art Photography in his own right.
The Milton "Hal" Halberstadt Papers and Photograph Collection resides at UC Davis special collections archives.
1919 Born
1936 Began professional photography career in Boston after high school. In his early work he documented the streets of his native Boston for the Works Progress Administration (WPA) National Research Project.
1940 Rockefeller foundation Scholarship to the School of Design, Chicago (New Bauhaus)
1943 Served as a navigator during World War II
1945-1973 M. Halberstadt Illustration Photography Studio in San Francisco
1973- Taught fine photography at University of California, Berkeley, San Francisco State University and the University of Oregon
2000 Died
CONTEMPORARY ART, Museum of Fine Art, Houston, Texas, 1948.
PIONEER PHOTOGRAPHERS Addison Gallery of American Art, Andover, Massachusetts, 1948.
SUBJEKTIVE FOTOGRAPHIE, 2nd International Exhibit of Modern Photography.
State School of Arts & Crafts, Saarbrücken, Germany, 1954.
FINE ARTS EXHIBIT IV, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1966.
AMERICAN PHOTOGRAPHY:THE SIXTIES, Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery,University of Nebraska, Lincoln, Nebraska, 1968.
AFFRISCHER FRAN CALIFORIEN GavIe Museum,Stockholm,Sweden, 1968.
ART IN EMBASSIES, A Program of the United States Dept. of State.
TEN CALIFORNIAN PHOTOGRAPHERS, 1973.
PHOTOGRAPHY + THE CITY Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., 1965.
Retrospective:PHOTOGRAPHS 1936-81, Douglas Elliott Galleries, San Francisco, 1981.
Taken by Design: Photographs From the Institute of Design, 1937–1971, Art Institute of Chicago, 2002.
A Mind at Play, Art Institute of Chicago, 2008.
Addison Gallery of American Art, Andover, Massachusetts.
George Eastman House, Rochester, New York.
Polaroid Corporation, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C..
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
The Oakland Museum of Art, Oakland, California.
Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona.
PHOTOGRAPHY - THE INCISIVE ART (Ansel Adams' series of 5 films for KQED) PROFESSIONAL PHOTOGRAPHY with Ansel Adams, Beaumont Newhall and others, 1960.
Community of Creatives.com
Milton Halberstadt Manuscript and Photograph Collections, University of California, Davis
Art Institute of Chicago
Taken By Design: Photographs from the Institute of Design, 1937-1971
The Late, Great Light Show; Chicago's Photographers and Their Abstract World, New York Times, May 8, 2002
A Mind at Play, Art Institute of Chicago
Foundation for Photographic Preservation
Ansel and Virginia Adams Collection
Crews and Men of the 456th Bomber Group
