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Joseph Schwartz
Folk Photographer

Famous collection of photographs documenting the plight of the “have-nots” of America and the potential for interracial harmony from the 1930s to the 1980s.

Much of this collection will be part of the first and permanent exhibit in the new Smithsonian Institution National Museum of African American History and Culture presently under construction in Washington, DC and scheduled to open in 2015.

This is an opportunity to acquire Joe Schwartz’s book, “Folk Photography—Poem’s I’ve Never Written” and posters depicting this famous collection representing an important slice of Americana.

Topics include:

- Integration and Diversity

- Photos of the Photo League for the 1930s and 1940s

- Everyday people and the “have-nots” of America

- Jazz Celebrities

- The Depression Era

- World War II Iwo Jima Combat

- Brooklyn's Bedford-Stuyvesant Neighborhood 

- Poverty in Brooklyn, New York City, Los Angeles, California, and elsewhere

- Getting along and interracially harmony

Exhibitions 
2012 - Present Cal Poly State University Kennedy Library - San Luis Obispo, California
2011 - Present The Jewish Museum - New York, New York 
2011 - Present Envisions Gallery - Atascadero, California
2011 - Present Olive Tree Gallery - Atascadero, California
2010 Red Tree Gallery - Atascadero, California
2008 Black & White Gallery - Atascadero, California
2007 Santa Barbara Museum of Art - Santa Barbara, California
2006 Steynberg Gallery - San Luis Obispo, California
2005 Indiana Historical Society - Indianapolis, Indiana
2005 Skirball Musem of Art - Los Angeles, California
2005 San Luis Obispo County Art Center - San Luis Obispo, California
2004 University Concourse Gallery, University of Tennesse - Knoxville, Tennesse
2004 Public Library of Charlotte, Mecklenberg County - Charlotte, North Carolina
2004 Missouri Historical Society - St Louis, Missouri
2004 Birmingham Civil Rights Institute - Birmingham, Alabama
2004 Harn Museum of Art, University of Florida - Coral Gables, Florida
2004 San Francisco Photo Show - San Francisco, California
2003 Louisiana State University Union Art Gallery - Baton Rouge, Louisiana
2002 Picker Gallery at Colgate University - Hamilton, New York
2002 Cohen Gallery - Los Angeles, California
2002 Shapiro Gallery - San Francisco, California
2001 Daiter Gallery - Chicago, Illinois
1996 Cohen Gallery - Los Angeles, California
1996 Karpeleles Museum - Santa Barbara, California
1995 Pepperdine University - Malabu, California
1994 One Man Show - Titled “Poems I’ve Never Written” - Wadsworth Atheneum - Celebrating Black History Month. Hartford, CT
1994 One Man Show - Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, CA
1994 Amistad Museum - Mystic Seaport, Connecticut
1993 11th Annual Artists Salute to Black History Month - Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza - L.A., CA
1990 “Photo League-Exhibit” Boston College Art Gallery -Group showing in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts
1990 “Photo League” Group show at Guild Hall Museum, East Hampton, N.Y.
1989 Annual Art Benefit Dinner & Auction - Painters and Photographers. Museum of African American Art
1989 “Joe Schwartz. Peoples' Photographer” celebrating Black History Month in Atascadero, Calif. (Library)
1988 “Time of Your Life” - Los Angeles Convention Center
1987 “The Photo League. 1936-1951” Gallery Association of New York State -2 year tour thru New York State
1986 “The Peoples' Photographer” - Museum of African American Art - L.A.
1983 Permanent Exhibit - “Westside Independent Services For The Elderly” Santa Monica, California
1980 The Galarie - Combo - Painter and Photographer -“Folk Art”, Venice, Ca.
1980 Leigh Yeakey Woodsen Museum of Art - “Photographic Crossroads: The Photo League” group show
1980 “Folk Photographer. Joe Schwartz” Clark Humanities Museum -Scripps College, Claremont, California
1979 University of Iowa Museum of Art - “Photo League” group show
1978 “Photographic Crossroads: The Photo League” - Group show National Gallery of Canada
1978 Museum of Fine Arts, Houston - “Photographic Crossroads: The Photo League” , Group show in Houston. Texas
1977 “Artistic Reflections on Black History” sponsored by Los Angeles High School Art Dept.. Los Angeles, Calif.
1976 “I Remember” presented by Black Studies Center Claremont College, Clark Humanities Museum, Claremont, Calif.
1976 “I Remember” - One Man Show. The Gallery. Los Angeles, Calif.
1972 “For Sale” benefit for Southern Conference Educational Fund.
1971 “Group Arts Show” Westwood Art Association, Calif.
1970 “Photography - As Eye See It”, Westside Jewish Community Center, L.A.
1970s "One Man Show, Joe Schwartz” Fullerton College. Anaheim. Calif.
1967 “The Canvas And The Camera” 2 painters - 2 photographers, Downey Museum of Art - Downey, Calif.
1965 “1 -2 -3 -For The Show” Painter, Sculptor and Photographer -Los Angeles Museum of Art - Barnsdall Park.
1964 Veterans Hospital - Brentwood, California “Retro”.
1963 Synanon House "Love Story of a Photographer", Santa Monica, Calif.
1960s Santa Monica High School, "I Remember” - Retrospective
1950s Douglas Aircraft - National Group Exhibit. Awarded lst place by Lionel Barrymore, judge
1950s "Photo Retrospective, Joe Schwartz" lst Unitarian Church, Los Angeles, Calif. Dr. Steve Fritchman, minister
1950s Los Angeles Photo League - Helped organize Group Showing and Critique by Weegee
1948 Kingsboro Housing Project - "Community League of Kingsboro Activities", Brooklyn, N.Y.
1948 1 day exhibit "Fight for Playgrounds" Harlem school basketball court
1939-40 Photo League group showing and critique.
Biography
Born July 6, 1913 in the Williamsburgh section of Brooklyn, New York, Joe grew up in the poverty of the Brooklyn slums. His parents, Rose Mandel and Samuel Schwartz, were immigrants from Poland and Romania. From 1929-1933 he attended Alexander Hamilton High School, where he concentrated on commercial art, and began experimenting with an inexpensive camera. Soon after he became an activist, engaged in street politics, and became interested in proving the high value of the "have-nots". He knew that his life's work would be in photography, depicting the condition of the poor and downtrodden. After a short stint at the Pratt Institute where he learned the fundamentals of art composition, he attained a job at Haloid Paper Co. where he learned lithography.
In 1936 friend Dave Robbins led him to join the Photo League. He and the legendary Photo League (Sid Grossman was President and Eugene Smith, Dorthea Lange, and Margaret Bourke-White were among the members) shared a commitment to portraying the lives of America's working people in their urban environment, and these commitments often extended to the realistic portrayal of African-Americans as well. Joe wanted to illustrate the truth through his photography. He let his camera speak for him to show the social and economic injustice of the times. 
In 1939 Joe married modern dancer, Anne Paley. 
In 1943 he joined the Marine Corps on the staff of Leatherneck Magazine, where he served in the 5th Division as a combat photographer on Iwo Jima from D-day until the end of the campaign. During his enlistment, his wartime photos were used in Bell Telephone's advertisements, the Iwo Jima edition of 5th Division "Spearhead" magazine, and in the weekly publication of "International Events", before being honorably discharged from San Leandro Hospital. 
In 1946, Joe he moved his family into the Kingsboro housing Project; a well- integrated block of apartments in Brooklyn, where he was soon after elected president of the tenets union, where he continued his political activism. 
In 1953 Joe graduated from Fred Archer's School of Photography under the G.I. Bill. Through the 1960's and 1970's he worked for Western Litho Co., Clement's, Pacific Press, Synanon House (photographic section) and started his own business entitled "Magic Color." Through the 1970's and 1980's Joe's work was featured in publications such as Photographic Quarterly, KPFK FOLIO, Independent Publishing Fund of the Americas, Claremont, California Newspaper "Courier", Catalogue "The Photo League", Aperture Magazine and book "Jacob Lawrence, Paintings and Sculpture". In 1990 Joe began working on his book, Folk Photography - Poem's I've Never Written (contains 150 photos) and in 2000 he set up a digital in home studio and published the long-awaited book.
Today, at 98, Joe resides in Atascadero, California and has been recognized worldwide for his astonishing ability to capture interracial harmony. His work is currently being displayed at The Jewish Museum in New York City as a part of The Radical Camera: New York's Photo League 1936-1951. This exhibit runs through March 25, 2012 and then will be displayed at the Columbus Museum of Art (April 19 - September 9, 2012), the Contemporary Jewish Museum (San Francisco, October 11 2012 - January 21, 2013) and finally the Norton Museum of Art (West Palm Beach, February 9 - April 21, 2013). A collection of Joe's work will also reside in National Museum of African American History and Culture, the Smithsonian's 19th museum, which will open on the National Mall in Washington, DC in 2015. Joe was interviewed by the Smithsonian as a part of the Archives of the American Art's Oral History Interviews of American Photographers Project which started in 1958 to document the history of visual arts in the United States.
Joe was recently honored for his lifetime commitment to humanism and folk photography on February 6, 2012 in San Luis Obispo, California at California Polytechnic State University's colloquium; Celebrating Diversity. The colloquium focused on the virtues of living and learning in a diverse society. 
Joe Schwartz is an artist who seeks to capture the humanity within us so that we might see and appreciate the humanity in ourselves and in others. Joe asks, "Why can't we all get along?" His answer is, "We can."
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