Martha Holmes

Martha Holmes
* 19??

“One thing LIFE always taught us: They’d say, ‘Film is cheap. Use it. Shoot, shoot, shoot.’”

Martha Holmes began working as a photographer in her home town of Louisville, Kentucky. In addition to assignments for LIFE, she has photographed for PEOPLE, Redbook, Coronet and Colliers magazines. She is a specialist at photographing the performing arts. Her photographs of the Actors Studio, Intar Spanish Theater, the American Place Theater and other companies have appeared in publications worldwide, and have been exhibited at the International Center of Photography, the National Portrait Gallery, and the Musée du Louvre in Paris.

Many of Holmes' photographs are well known; in particular, her photograph of the painter Jackson Pollock which is featured on a 33-cent postage stamp in the Celebrate the Century® 1940s series (with color added and Pollock's ubiquitous cigarette removed!). Martha appears in the movie Pollock as portrayed by actress Linda Emond.

Martha Holmes' photographs of Jackson Pollock were selected to illustrate LIFE magazine's August 8, 1949 article, "Jackson Pollock: Is he the greatest living painter in the United States?" Holmes followed Pollock and his wife, Lee Krasner, through their day's activities, which included a session at their studio in Springs, New York on Long Island. There, Pollock demonstrated his controversial pouring technique, allowing Holmes to observe him beginning the canvas now known as "Number 1, 1949." The two studies of Pollock applying liquid house paint and sand to this canvas were the first published images of him at work.

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