The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of December 20, 2025

Close-Up Eyes, from the series "Portrait of Minor White,"

1976

Abe Frajndlich

(American, b.1946)
America
gelatin silver print
Image: 31.5 x 40.4 cm (12 3/8 x 15 7/8 in.); Paper: 35.5 x 43 cm (14 x 16 15/16 in.); Matted: 50.8 x 61 cm (20 x 24 in.)
Gift of Abe Frajndlich 1986.156
© 1976 Abe Frajndlich
Location: Not on view

Description

Former Clevelander Abe Frajndlich has enjoyed a long career photographing people, making highly personalized portraits. During the first half of 1976, he collaborated with friend and mentor Minor White—one of the 20th century’s most influential photographers and teachers—to create a body of haunting portraits of an aged, dying White, emaciated and mystical. In this revealing detail, Frajndlich concentrated on his subject’s piercing eyes, using them symbolically to refer to a complex, compelling personality, rooted in deeply felt artistic, philosophical, and spiritual convictions.
  • Abe Frajndlich (the artist)
    December 15, 1986
    The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
  • Cleveland Museum of Art, Tom E Hinson. Catalogue of Photography. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1996. Reproduced: P. 162
  • Portraiture: American Photography 1960 to the Present. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (June 1-September 13, 2009).
    The Cleveland Museum of Art (06/01/2009 - 09/13/2009); "Portraiture: American Photography 1960 to the Present"
    Year in Review for 1986. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 4-March 15, 1987).
    CMA, February 4 - March 15, 1987: "Year in Review 1986," CMA Bulletin, 74 (February 1987), p. 64, no. 72.
  • {{cite web|title=Close-Up Eyes, from the series "Portrait of Minor White," |url=false|author=Abe Frajndlich|year=1976|access-date=20 December 2025|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1986.156