Wynn Bullock American, 1902-1975
Born Percy Wingfield Bullock in Chicago, Wynn Bullock's first career was as a concert singer. He developed an interest in photography while studying voice and music in Europe in the late 1920s, but did not pursue it seriously until 1938 when he entered the Los Angeles Art Center School to study with Edward Kaminski. After graduating in 1940, Bullock studied briefly with semanticist Alfred Korzybski, then began work as a commercial photographer. His work was featured in one-artist exhibitions at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (1941), the M. H. de Young Memorial Museum, San Francisco (1956), George Eastman House, Rochester (1957, 1966), and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (1976).
Bullock taught photography at San Francisco State College (1945-58), Monterey Peninsula College (1959-60), and the Institute of Design, Illinois Institute of Technology (1967); he also held several patents for various photographic processes. He viewed photography as a way to explore the natural world and his relationship to it. In his studies of nature (trees, landscapes, seascapes) and the nude he sought to delve below surface appearances. Over the years Bullock formulated his ideas into a philosophical system expressed through his photographs and lectures. M.M.