After 1919, he moved from being in front of the camera to working behind it. For the next fifteen years, he worked as a cameraman in feature films for Mary Pickford, as a director of Our Gang comedies for Hal Roach, and as business manager and producer for Tyrone Power.
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Finally, he emerged as a director in his own right and is considered by many scholars to be a pioneer of the avant-garde documentary genre. His 1931 documentary, City of Contrasts, is considered a classic of avant-garde cinema of its day, praised for its "...cinematography and sophisticated montages.... [C]ontrasting light, shade, and form...." |
In 1922, he invented the concept of filming boxing matches from ringside, thus becoming the sport's pre-eminent archivist. He captured some of the greatest bouts of the era in the process. |
But even with all his film work going on, Irving documented in photographs the evolution of New York City during the early 20th century when New York metamorphosed into the metropolis we now know. It was during this period that the city acquired many of the great architectural icons by which we now recognize it: the Empire State Building, the George Washington Bridge, Rockefeller Center. Irving and his camera was there for all of it. But for Browning, the city was more than its iconic architecture, it was its people. He captured them moving about its streets, docks, waterways, shopping districts, and Hoovervilles, He captured them working in its factories, offices, and even its sideshows. |
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And his colleagues were some of the greatest photographic names of this period: Edward Steichen, Berenice Abbott, Margaret Bourke-White. In exhibitions of their work, his was frequently shown as well. And he not only worked with these masters, he also made films about them. One of these was Edward Steichen, America's Foremost Photographer, which is the onIy known footage of the master at work in a studio session. |
In 1935, Irving mostly gave up both photography and cinematography. He founded Camera Mart, a motion picture equipment rental house, with his brother, Sam. Irving died in 1961, but today his work is in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Getty Museum, the New York Public Library, the National Portrait Gallery (Australia), and the New York Historical Society, among others.
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© 2015. Ira Meistrich. All Rights Reserved.
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