Adham Center News

In Memorium: Michael Hoffman

Michael Hoffman, publisher and executive director of Aperture (the leading still photography gallery and publisher) and a member of the Sony Gallery's International Advisory Board, has passed away. His death in November 2001 came a little more than two months before Aperture's 50th anniversary.

Hoffman was characterized by Aperture Chairman John Gurtfreund as "a true visionary. He made Aperture a leading force in the creation of a widespread audience for significant photography. During his tenure of more than thirty-five years, he expanded Aperture from a small quarterly magazine to one of the world's most respected publishers of photography books and exhibitions. He extended Aperture's reach around the globe and steadfastly pursued Aperture's core mission: to promote photography as a unique form of artistic expression and to illuminate social, cultural, and environmental issues through the medium."

Hoffman had always been attracted by Egypt and the Arab world, and in the late fifties he published a book of photographs devoted to modern Egypt. When AUC's senior lecturer in graphic design Prof. Shems Friedlander, a friend of Hoffman's, took on the responsibility of chairing the Sony Gallery's International Advisory Board, he invited Hoffman to join.

The result was a number of joint exhibitions, including a Stiglitz show of 19 original prints, marketed by Aperture as a portfolio and donated to the Adham Center by the photographer Dorothy Norman, who had overseen the production of the portfolio; and an exhibit of the work of legendary war correspondent Robert Capa.

This winter, the Sony Gallery will honor both Hoffman's memory and the 50th anniversary of Aperture by exhibiting the last show that Hoffman authorized as a joint event, Salgado's photographs from the Aperture publication, "An Uncertain Grace."

Abdallah Schleifer